The Potomac has always been not only the chief glory and crowning natural beauty of Washington, but the broad highway of a wondrous stretch of water connecting the city with the sea. - Frederick Tilp, "This Was Potomac River."
A wharf bustled with activity when a boat arrived. Children raced to the dock to watch the action. Stevedores moved freight. Passengers disembarked or boarded. Farmers brought their products to the dock for loading. Locals exchanged news with travelers. -- Historical Marker, Hubs of Activity, Denton, Maryland.
There were once hundreds of them, just about any spot a country road dead ended at tidewater. They were the lifeblood of communities, a portal to the world beyond. Folks once planned their days, their seasons around them. But now the rotten pilings that descend into murky water do little service to the long-lost importance and memory of these forgotten landmarks. -- Steamboat Wharves, Abandoned Country, Ben Swenson.
The puffs of smoke first started appearing on the Potomac River around 1815. After the Civil War, the steamboats dotted the waters of the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay in greater and greater numbers, a long and prosperous run that lasted into the twentieth century.
Glymont, Cedar Point, Bundick’s Wharf, and other riverside places are long-forgotten destinations that were visited in great numbers by residents of Washington, Alexandria and elsewhere. Even the vocabulary — excursions, pleasure resorts, riverside stores, fishing villages — has long since faded away.
And it wasn’t just pleasure cruises either. As Ben Swenson points out.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, steamboats were central to Chesapeake commerce and communication, long before motor vehicles and telephone wires linked every spot on the mainland. The wharves where these stately ships made landings were bustling junctions, alive with merchants conducting business, passengers readying for travel, crewmen coaxing their mighty craft to moorings.
It’s easy to wax nostalgic about a time long past, but as one old salt said:
“Today, we consider them romantic, but, they weren’t. It was a necessity.
He went on, however, to say:
Steamboats were the lifeblood of the people around here. ... Lots of little towns that are small villages were thriving towns, because of steamboats.”
Another recalled the activity this way:
Recalling the 185-foot steamboat, Laurence Hartge of Galesville told New Bay Times, "she looked like the Titanic when she came into the West River. It was the highlight of our lives. We'd hitch a ride to Chalk Point and swim back - about a 100 yards."
The total number of places where the steamboats stopped on the shores of the Chesapeake is a staggering amount, a summit no writer has reached.
We thought we would take a look at a handful of them along the Potomac River. Frederick Tilp, the one who knew the wide waters better than anyone else, and his book, “This Was Potomac River,” is our captain.
Glymont (Indian Head, MD)
After the steamers slipped away from Washington, they began a zig zag course along the Potomac. Sometimes there was no set route, but Alexandria came first, followed by a handful of “beach” spots. One of the more popular was Glymont on the Maryland side. Originally called Lower Wharf and Pie’s Landing, it got its name from the Fruit Growers Association of DC, who desired to make it better known as a place to purchase their fruits and flowers.
With their springs of fresh water, places like Glymont attracted a lot of people who had concerns about the city water. Relaxing at these places was the best way to escape the summer heat trapped in the bowl of Washington and get away from the rat race.
Tilp tells us Glymont, also known as Pye’s Wharf, was the main steamboat landing in Charles County for over a century.
The Washington Post covered the resort’s grand opening in June 1899. Thousands of “pleasure-seekers” took the short trip from Washington on the River Queen and the Kent.
Twenty years before, a select group of Washingtonians including senators and representatives went down to Glymont for a shad-bake.
In 1877, the steamer Pilot Boy took about two dozen guests including some from the newspapers from the Seventh Street Whart to Glymont. On the way a saloon served beverages and guests had an “elegant dinner.” Other events included yacht races and rifle shooting matches.
In her book, “Historically African American Leisure Destinations Around Washington, DC,” author Patsy Mose Fletcher guides us through the forgotten history of Glymont. With Jim Crow laws in full force, African Americans could not purchase a ticket for a steamboat cruise. Instead churches, fraternal organizations, labor groups and social clubs sponsored group trips. In August 1876, the 15th Street Presbyterian Church sponsored such a trip to Glymont.
In 1896, a black-owned steamboat company leased the Glymont wharf and grounds for “colored excursions.” The owners of the Jane Moseley advertised in the Colored American.
What's There Now?
The Potomac Heights neighborhood sits where the Glymont action took place. River Edge Place leads to the water’s edge. A mansion there burned in 2014.
Aquia Creek
About forty miles south of Washington, and ten miles north of Fredericksburg lies Aquia Creek. Its quiet and detached setting belies its history as a bustling entrepot.
During the Colonial Era, stagecoach travelers had to endure a long and bumpy ride from the Virginia capital to Alexandria. Breakdowns added to the travel time. As early as 1815, steamboats shortened the time.
Around 1842, travelers had a second option for the first leg of the journey, as the Richmond Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad began service from the capital of Virginia to Aqua Landing. The railroads and steamships worked together to get people and cargo to many parts of the region.
Some enslaved humans knew Aquia as part of the slave trade. A historical marker points out a quote by Solomon Northrup, who was put on a steamer for Washington in 1841.
Tilp tells us steamers were built here in the 1870s for the excursion trade.
What's There Now?
Aquia Landing remains a quiet place but a good number of historical markers have been erected.
The blog, Mysteries and Conundrums notes:
Of all the places in the Fredericksburg region, I expect we will learn more about Aquia in the coming years more than anyplace else. Stafford County’s ABPP grant for archeological investigations and intensifying interest (and research) in the passage of escaped slaves through Aquia–these both portend a far greater understanding of the landscape in two years than we have today.
Lower Cedar Point
Glanced at by oblivious motorists driving on the rickety Highway 301 Bridge over the Potomac, Lower Cedar Point can be pinpointed by its billowing neighbor, the Morgantown Generating Station. Before the span was built, the steamboats were the only connection between southern Maryland and Virginia’s Northern Neck.
Tilp says Lower Cedar Point was first shown on a 1635 chart marked Cedar Point. According to the Chesapeake Chapter of the United States Lighthouse Society, a lightship was located here from 1825, but the Confederates burned and destroyed it in the first year of the war.
Mike Boucher of the Lighthouse Society tells us about lightships. For most of the nineteenth century, they marked the dangerous places where a lighthouse could be not built. From 1820 to 1952 (when the last lightship was built), 179 vessels were constructed with wooden hulls and sail powered ships, to iron hulls with diesel engines. The first lightship was placed in service in the Chesapeake Bay in 1820 to mark the Willoughby Split in Virginia.
Near Dahlgren, across from Lower Cedar Point, a screwpile light house replaced a second lightship (1864) in 1867. Fire burned it in 1893. The replacement lighthouse was deactivated and the cottage dismantled in 1951. A skeleton tower was built on the original lighthouse foundation, standing today about a half mile from the point.
Peter J. Dill built a wharf at Lower Cedar Point in 1870. It served as a shipping center for water freight for the next fifty years. Stevedores stayed busy moving boxes of fish, produce, fertilizer, tobacco and flour. The steamships meant bigger sales for the farmers.
The end of the Civil War brought a return to the steamer activity. An ad in the Alexandria Gazette gave notice for the steamer Mattano, that left the wharf at the foot of King every Monday and Thursday morning at 7:30, with returns on Tuesday and Friday morning. Stops included Marshall Hall, Pye’s Wharf, Sandy Point, Matthias Point, Dill’s Wharf, Colton’s Wharf, Blackistone Island and Nomini Ferry.
In the first part of the twentieth century, two steamers, the Henry Randall and the Wakefield, stopped at Dill’s Wharf. The former ran year round, ice permitting.
Ice was the enemy for the steamers and even the wharfs. Frozen floats damaged the Dill Wharf in 1905. A new and better one was built that year.
Robert Crain (Highway 301 from the Potomac to Bowie is named for him) named the wharf, Morgantown Wharf. He could have named it Crain’s Wharf and few would have objected. Crain (1866-1928) was a noted lawyer and farmer. He lived at Mount Victoria, a landmark country mansion home in Thompkinsville. His farm spread out over 10,000 acres, making him one of the largest land owners in Maryland. His obituary noted he specialized in breeding shorthorn cattle.
What's There Now?
The tip of land remains unspoiled. A scattering of homes line a couple of nearby streets in Morgantown. The historic home of Waverly, a five-bayer Federal with Flemish bond brick is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a noted landmark in a part of Charles County that remains rural.
Coan River
Known for its colonial history — figures such as George Washington and members of the Lee family — Virginia’s Northern Neck also has a rich history of boats and landings.
Colonial Beach was one of the best known destination for beach goers, while the commerce along the Coan River also put jingles in pockets.
According to Tilp, the House of Burgess established Northumberland County out of the Chickacoan Indian District. At that time, 1648, Northumberland consisted of the entire Northern Neck. In 1680, the Jamestown lawmakers selected “Coan Wharf” as the seaport town of entry.
At the start of the twentieth century, Coan was a major wharf for the shipment of oysters, produce and livestock.
Most destinations during the Steamboat Era had one wharf, sometimes two, where the boats landed. Here stood a handful — Lewisetta, Coan’s Wharf, Bundick’s Wharf, Cowart’s Wharf, and Walnut Point.
Most of the riverside places Tilp talks about had only one store. The author devotes a chapter to these public places, describing them as “placid islands of community life.” Remarkably, Coan and its environs had four of them.
This part of the Northern Neck had a hey day with steamboat activity until the 1940s. The tomato and seafood factory benefited greatly from the steamers for transport.
Author David C. Holly supplements our knowledge of this area. He tells us Coan consisted of a hotel, boarding house, and packing plant. Bundick’s Wharf had an agent’s house, a store, wharf, shed and cattlemen, Cowart’s the tomato cannery and seafood packing plant, Lewisetta a wharf, a grove of summer cottages, store and warehouse and Walnut Point a packing house.
Most of the riverside landings were fairly easy to navigate for the seasoned captains. These shallow waters required a “tricky maneuver with spring lines to turn around in the narrow channel.”
Tilp tells us about Harry Smith, an African American he knew. Smith started off as a caulker, a trade he plied for 18 years. His hard work paid off with a promotion to Captain of a car ferry operating out of Bundick’s Wharf.
What's There Now?
This part of the Northern Neck is still sparsely populated. The county seat of Heathsville, where the Coan River begins, is home to just 142. Northumberland County holds about 12,000. That figure is just 3,000 more than the 1790 figure.
Coan Baptist Church stands near Highway 360. A marker points out the congregation was first known as Wicomico Baptist Church whose congregation goes back to 1804.
The Coan River trail includes the Bundick and Coan Landing and the Forest and Rowes boat ramps. A terrific website details the history and the trail. It identifies the Bundick Old Steamboat Landing and the Coan Wharf Old Steaming Landing.
Piney Point
Note: We visited Piney Point in January. These photos are from that trip.
Piney Point was the furthest point from Washington, a distance of about 90 nautical miles that perhaps kept some away. Nevertheless, this one was popular.
Piney Point (pop. 810) has a history that goes back further than one might think. The Alexandria Gazette’s "Marine Journal had shipping news on the harbor as far back as 1819. In that crude era of navigational ads, light ships hoisted up a signal light as the boat approached.
Tilp tells us there’s an Alexandria connection to the lighthouse at Piney Point. In 1835, William Brent, collector of customs in the seaport, selected Piney Point as the site of a new lighthouse that Congress had authorized.
The next summer a fixed white light shined its beacon on top of the new 35 foot tall conical shaped lighthouse.
The tower was the first of eleven lighthouses to be built along the river, and is one of only four that remain standing today (Jones Point, Fort Washington, Point Lookout). In his book, "The Potomac River," Garrett Peck says this one is the most endearing.
The golden age of steamers along the Potomac ran from about the 1880s to the 1930s. An ad in the Alexandria Gazette in 1820 tell us Piney Point was drawing folks even before that.
Piney Point could brag its vacationers included Presidents James Monroe, Franklin Pierce and Teddy Roosevelt, as well as the lions of the Senate such Calhoun, Clay and Webster. Its east facing beach was a major plus.
Oral histories add to our knowledge of the Piney Point lighthouse. One tells us:
“You’d get up in the morning, no electricity. You had to clean the shades. We had a bell tower and had to ring it during foggy nights. For fun we would crab and fish, do stuff around the water.”
In 1878, a travel writer visited Piney Point and found it “one of the most delightful resting places within a hundred miles of Washington.” The Piney Point Hotel had the “best bathing and the prettiest beaches.”
A most unwelcome visitor stormed through the Chesapeake during the Depression. The hurricane of 1933 damaged Tolson’s Hotel and ruined the waterfront.
Although heroic rescues made the locals proud, Piney Point was never the same.
As told by an historical marker, the US Government established a torpedo testing station at Piney Point. The 111 acres were sold off in the early 1960s and redeveloped.
What’s There Now?
Almost a dozen historical markers are clustered by the lighthouse. Two of them touch on Alexandria. One notes Piney Point became the testing range for torpedoes manufactured at the Naval Torpedo Station (Torpedo Factory). One photo shows a torpedo being fitted at the torpedo factory in Alexandria. Another shows an aerial view of the building.
The Test Center and Range is now the Paul Hall Center for Maritime Training and Education. Founded in 1967 offers the most US Coast Guard approved courses of any maritime school in the nation.
Houses, some built in the 1920s, line the beach along Lighthouse Road. Piney Point Lighthouse and Museum stand as a sentinels.
Conclusion
In 1920, "The Rambler," a popular local interest columnist for the Washington Evening Star, got caught up in the romance of the steamboats.
There was a time in your life and there was in mine when a steamboat seemed a more romantic thing than now. A ride on a steamboat was an event. There were thrills and adventure in it. A steamboat trip in retrospect was a subject of thought and talk for several other days.
The writer also saw what was coming.
You only travel on it if you must, and the wide river, glittering in the sun or shining under the moon, begins to bore you before you have traveled far.
The steamers still had some life in them but as Holly writes, the industry was holding on with little more than nostalgia.
In 1934, the Baltimore steamers paid a final visit to Alexandria. Slowly, the others ended their runs. The driving of each pile for the new Chesapeake Bay Bridge was a nail in the coffin for the steamship companies. Beachgoers hopped in their cars and headed for the Atlantic beaches. A summer of 1952 report by Dorothea Pattee (The Washington Post) put the numbers on the sand at 10,000 to 12,000 with triple the figure on a holiday weekend.
As far as those steamer days, one might still feel some of the lost magic by taking a short cruise from Washington or Alexandria to Mount Vernon. Or if they so desire, one could find a block of unhurried time, make their way over to a quiet spot along the river, lay out a blanket with a spread of picnic food, look up at the blue sky, and be taken away by Tilp’s vessel, “This Was Potomac River.”
"Glymont (Indian Head, MD)
After the steamers slipped away from Washington, they began a zig-zag course along the Potomac. Sometimes there was no set route, but Alexandria came first, followed by a handful of “beach” spots. One of the more popular was Glymont on the Maryland side. Originally called Lower Wharf and Pie’s Landing, it got its name from the Fruit Growers Association of DC, who desired to make it better known as a place to purchase their fruits and flowers."
Glymont did not get its name from the Washington Fruit Growers Association. The name Glymont dates to the early 1700s. I love your site and find it very informative. I'm getting ready to launch my site called In Search of Glymont."
I have proper documentation. I hope the Maryland Historical Society and the Charles County Historical Society can correct their claims based on shoddy research.
Posted by: Bob Killen | January 31, 2021 at 05:13 PM
Thanks Bob.
Look forward to your site!
Posted by: Jaybird's Jottings | February 07, 2021 at 04:57 AM