Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1910-08-04
FAVORS LOCAL ROUTE
General Seth Says This City Is
The Only Logical Connect
ion With Eastern Shore
WOULD SHORTEN THE TINE
Man Well VerSed Ia Eastern Shore FayOrs
Ferry From Cambridge Or Claiborne
Over Bay

Over Bay
No shorter route between Baltimore
\ and the lower part of the Eastern
.lShore than the one to Annapolis can
4 hssfeund is the belief of Gen. Joseph
] 81 Seth. He declares that if this
/ route, which. includes the ferry either
6Claiborne or Cambridge, had been
I Kept up for the past two decades, q
Flarge traffic profitable to Baltimore
4 would have been built up long ago.
General Seth, who is we'll informed
/ in Eastern Shore traffic conditions,
is of the opinion that the only prac-
| ticable improvement in handling the
passenger traffic between the Eastern
Shore and Baltimore is to make a
connection between Annapolis and
Cambridge or Claiborne.
General Seth, who has long studied
the Eastern Shore transportation prob
lem, points out that the upper part of
the Maryland peninsula is
already we'll serve by train and boat,
and that the problem relates chiefly
to the lower half of the Shore. He
makes the point that the only prac-
teal way of shortening the time be-
tween Eastern Shore points and Balt-
more is to bring passengers from An
napolis to Baltimore by train, as was
first contemplated when the road was
built from Claiborne to Ocean City.
General Seth does not consider q
bridge over the Chesapeake feasible.
In making a direct connection
between Baltimore and Salisbury
you will find that we must go south
and not north of the Patapsco to get
a short connection There are two
lines of electric road running from
Baltimore to Annapolis. One runs
from b. & o., Camden Station on
a 30-minute schedule and makes the
distance to Annapolis in forty-five
minutes. The Federal Government
maintains an excellent harbor both
at Annapolis and Claiborne and will
likely continue to do so. The run
from Annapolis to Claiborne fifteen
miles, can be easily made in one
hour and quarter, which would put
Claiborne within two hours of Balti-
more city and within three hours and
a half of Salisbury. This is no mat
ter of guessing, for the reason that
the road from Ocean City to Salisbury
in 1891 was run on this route.
Kent county occupies comparas
lively narrow strip of land along the
Chesapeake side of the peninsula,
with New Castle county, Delaware,
behind it, and that county, together
with the upper part of Queen Anne, is
so conveniently situated. with trans
portation to Baltimore either by rail
or boat, with short trips, that it
Baltimore from these sections if it
had to be done at the sacrifice of the
bulk of peninsula travel. The trip to
Love Point cannot we'll be shortened
in time beyond the present schedule.
The harbor regulations of Balti-
more require the steamers to consume
eighteen minutes between Light
street wharf and the Lazaretto, and
to observe this the schedule would be
2 IA hours. The speed of steamers
cannot be increased like that of rail
road trains. Mr.. Reuben Foster has
told me the steamers of his line re-
quire twice the quantity of coal to
lessen the run one hour from West
Point to Baltimore.
The question of the bridge across
the bay at Poole's Island has often
been considered, but no engineer has
considered it feasible in view of the
surrounding circumstances. This
bridge would be six or seven miles in
length, depending upon the point at
which it landed on the Western Shore
side. If below the mouth of the
Gunpowder it would be required to be
much longer than if it landed above
the Gunpowder, but in landing there
the road would have to run out to
Magnolia and cross the Gunpowder
near where the Philadelphia, Balti-
more and Washington road crosses.
But the great question to be con-
sidered is what is on the Eastern
Shore side in the way of traffic? If all
the traffic of the peninsula could be
done over this bridge it would hardly
pay an interest on its cost, whereas
with the present number of railroads
and the numerous lines of steamers,
together with sail craft and the new
ly introduced motor boats, would re-
duce this bridge travel to minimum.
do not believe that a shorter
route between Baltimore and the bulk
of the peninsula trade would ever be
found than the one to Annapolis, the
ferry to either Claiborne or Cam
bidge, and / also believe that if the
route had been continued for the last
twenty years as first began a very
handsome trade over that route would
long ago have been built up.
1t is my opinion that the B., c. &
A. railroad carries more passengers
over its line to Baltimore from points
between Easton mad the bay than all
the passenger travel over the NJ, ID.
& " through its entire length