Wikimedia Commons/Lee Canno
Smith Island’s world sits 12 miles out in the Bay
Smith Island floats in the Chesapeake Bay about 12 miles off the Maryland coast, and the only way to get there is by boat. No bridge connects it to the mainland.
No road leads in. Just water in every direction, a cluster of white clapboard homes, and a few hundred people whose families have been doing this same thing for generations. You won’t find anything that moves fast here.
The tides set the schedule, and you’ll adjust to them quickly.
Wikimedia Commons/Lee Canno
The island’s accent goes back to 17th-century England
English, Welsh, and Cornish settlers came here in the 1600s, and surnames like Evans and Tyler still run through the community today. The island takes its name from Henry Smith, a landowner from the early Jamestown era…