It is easy to miss tiny Claiborne, which sits 1.2 miles off Maryland Route 33 midway between St. Michael's and Tilghman on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

   But the bypassed little town was once on everyone's map, especially for ferry-goers before the Cheapeake Bay Bridge.  Ferries disgorged their beach-bound cargo of cars and people at the dock right there on Eastern Bay.  Sunday nights, return ferry traffic backed up clear to Route 33 as the weekend wrapped up.

   Today, in the first decade of the 21st century, sleepy is the word that best describes Claiborne, which 84 houses and 147 people, according to the last census.  It's the kind of place where you might find a dog lying down in the middle of the road, so little traffic passes through. "What's new in Claiborne?" resident Molly Bonds recalls someone asking in a doctor's waiting room in St. Michael's. She remembers heaering the other person reply, "Nothing, thank goodness."

 

From issue of May-June 2005