Smith Island — A Working Watermen's Island That Is Genuinely Losing Ground to the Bay

What Smith Island Actually Is

Smith Island was settled by English colonists in the 1600s and takes its name from Henry Smith of Jamestown, who was granted 1,000 acres in Maryland in 1679. The 19th century's Chesapeake fisheries boom -- oysters and blue crabs in particular -- swelled the island's population and built the working-waterfront culture that still defines it: crabbing and oystering remain the island's principal trades today, and most of the soft-shell blue crabs sold in the United States are caught within roughly 50 miles of here. The island is unincorporated and governed as part of Somerset County, Maryland, and is made up of three distinct villages -- Ewell (the main village and the ferry landing, ZIP 21824), Tylerton (a smaller settlement on its own separate marsh island, population around 50 and down 41% from 1980 to 1994 alone, per historical figures), and Rhodes Point (the smallest and most eroded of the three). None of the three villages connects to the mainland by road; every trip on or off the island goes by boat.

The demographic story here is not subtle. Smith Island's population peaked at roughly 800 people in the early 1900s; the 2020 Census recorded 202 residents, and other reporting describes the population as having fallen by more than half since the 1990s. The island's own school has closed in recent years as enrollment dropped, and around a dozen island teenagers now commute by boat to attend public high school in Crisfield each school day. Younger residents leaving for college or mainland jobs -- including work at a mainland prison, according to reporting on the island -- rather than taking up the watermen's trade their families have worked for generations is a real and openly discussed part of the island's current story, alongside the land-loss problem covered below.

Smith Island's land itself has been retreating for well over a century. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that roughly 3,300 acres of the island chain have eroded away over the last 150 years, leaving only about 900 acres currently habitable, with shoreline loss running as high as 12 feet per year in some spots. A 2008 Maryland Department of Natural Resources study projected the island could erode away entirely by 2100 absent intervention, against a backdrop of state sea-level-rise projections commonly cited in coverage of the island as roughly 1 to 2 feet by 2050 and more than 4 feet by 2100. In response, the Army Corps has an authorized environmental restoration project -- segmented stone breakwaters intended to protect roughly 216 acres of wetlands and 504 acres of submerged aquatic vegetation around Back Cove, Fog Point Cove, and the Martin National Wildlife Refuge shoreline -- that began construction in December 2017. This page treats that land-loss trajectory as a defining fact of ownership here, the way Tangier Island's nearly identical story is treated a short boat ride south in Virginia, not as a side note.

Food, Culture, and What There Is to Do

Food on Smith Island centers on what the watermen actually catch. The Bayside Inn Restaurant & Carryout in Ewell serves a family-style luncheon along with an à la carte menu of crab cakes, soft crabs, hot crab dip, and other Chesapeake staples, plus hand-dipped ice cream and the island's signature Smith Island cake -- a many-thin-layered cake that the Maryland General Assembly designated the state's official dessert in 2008. Drum Point Market, a small mom-and-pop grocery, sub shop, and convenience store, also sells crab cakes and is open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. For an overview of island life itself, the Smith Island Cultural Center in Ewell charges a modest $3 admission for a short film and exhibits on the island's history and watermen culture, with a small gift shop attached.

Beyond the restaurants, Smith Island's draw is the working landscape itself: watching crabbers and oystermen work the surrounding marsh channels, walking or biking the island's short network of roads (most residents get around by golf cart rather than full-size vehicles), and staying overnight at one of a small number of island bed-and-breakfasts, such as Susan's on Smith Island. The island was also featured in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival's 2004 "Water Ways" program alongside Tangier Island, VA and Ocracoke, NC -- a recognition of a genuinely distinct maritime culture, not a marketing claim invented for this page.