[Leica] The Bay 101 - The Oaks

[bquinn at sgi.com (Bernard Quinn)]

There are a lot of Inns and Bed and Breakfast places on the Eastern Shore of 
the Chesapeake Bay. This is one of my favorites. It is The Oaks, located in 
Royal Oak, Maryland. Usually I stay there during the warm weather, but on 
this particular evening I pulled up to it on a dark and stormy night, as the 
clich? goes. I have been going to this Inn since I was a teenager, and that 
was forty years ago. This is where I learned to sail years ago. In those 
days it was called the Pasadena and was owned by Bill and Louise Harper. It 
is located on Oak Creek, which in days gone by allowed the owners of the 
plantation to ship its products by water, which was how things were done on 
the Eastern Shore in Colonial days. 

 

It is what we call a manor house, meaning a plantation house.  It's the 
mansion s where the owner and his family lived. It was built in 1748, and 
sits on land granted by Lord Baltimore. This aspect of Maryland's history is 
troubling to me but the reality is that we were a tobacco and a slave state. 
There is a plantation on the western shore where the slave quarters still 
exist. In the interest of fairness and equal time I will post a picture of 
them in due course. The contrast is both startling and shameful. The 
Underground Railway which helped southern slaves escape to the north ran not 
all that far from here. I'll get to that in due course, too.

 

The inside of the mansion has been totally renovated. Highly recommended, by 
musing's on Maryland's past not withstanding.

 

                            www.leica-gallery.net/barney/image-91524.html

 

Thanks for looking. Comments welcomed.

 

Barney