Play the Chesapeake History Game

From Deep Landing on the Chester River and Kingston Landing on the Choptank to Leedstown on the Rappahannock and Walkerton on the Mattaponi, many of the sites of seventeenth-century Indian villages, eighteenth-century colonial towns, and nineteenth-century steamboat wharves lie on the outsides of curves in the Chesapeake's tidal rivers.  What is the reason for this consistent pattern?  The first reader to enter the correct answer as a comment below will win a free Chesapeake Bay Foundation T-Shirt.  Rattle your keyboards...go!

UPDATE:  Nicholas Zahn guessed correctly, and he wins the prize.  The pattern is caused by the flow of the river creating deep places along outside curves, which allows boats to get close to shore -- creating good places for landings and therefore settlements.  These deep places are also good places to fish. Clyde Nordan, thanks for those excellent links and your blog address. The Chinese paper on river bends is dense, but it's full of good information.

HERE IS THE QUESTION WE ORIGINALLY ASKED:  The photograph above shows the launch ramp and dock at the Clyde Watson Boating Area of the Patuxent River Park, in southeastern Prince George’s County, Maryland. But a quick look through the Chesapeake’s rivers on Google Earth will reveal a hundred or more sites like this one in both Maryland and Virginia. 

In his 1612 map, Captain John Smith showed the Indian village of Pecatamough here.  In colonial times, many a hogshead of tobacco got shipped to England from here, and Samuel Magruder’s Ferry carried people and goods across the Patuxent to Lower Marlboro.  In the early twentieth century, Clyde Watson’s father served as the steamboat agent for the commercial wharf whose ruins lie fifty yards upriver from here.  This public launch facility now honors Clyde, a longtime farmer, waterman, community leader, and advocate for the park who died in 1994. 

Through the centuries, sites like Magruder’s Ferry on the outsides of curves in the Chesapeake’s rivers have served human needs very well.  What is the reason for this?

ANSWER: All over the Earth, wherever rivers reach areas of gentle gradient as they flow downhill to the oceans, they seek a path of least resistance, which causes them to carve out large, looping curves called meanders.

In these curves, the current accelerates going around the outside but slows down on the inside, just like runners on a closed track. On the inside of a curve, the slowing current allows suspended sediments to settle out, forming low-lying marshes and wooded swamps.

On the outside, however, the accelerating current erodes the bank and gouges out the riverbed, creating deep water (up to 50’ on the Patuxent) next to fast (firm) land. The marshes, swamps, and deep holes provide habitat for fish, birds, mammals, and other creatures. Native Americans fished and hunted from and settled on these natural landings on Chesapeake rivers thousands of years ago. The landings have served us well ever since.

Best regards, John Page Williams

 

Comments

[Nicholas Zahn]

Got it! That was an easy one. The reason that sites like these were on the outside curves of rivers is because the major flow of the river carves out deep water close to shore, making it easier for ships and boats to get to shore. On the contrary, the inside corner of river bends have large silt and sand deposits that would make landfall difficult for deep draft boats and ships.

[Chris Smith]

The location on the outside of a rivers' curve provides clear sight lines for defense purposes.

[John HC]

The outside curve (from the land perspective) would be where the faster current would run and thus be a deeper channel.

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Speaking of settlements.....

Maryland Day is March 25. When the original settlers landed, that date was thought to be New Years Day as Britain was still using the Julian Calendar. It was the Vernal Equinox. Britain was one of the last places to change to the Julian Calendar because of its anti- Roman Catholic leanings.

[John HC]

... or is it from the river perspective....? anyway, they were looking for the deeper channel.

[Betty Humphries]

For a deeper channel

[Clyde Nordan]

The deep water/slow current makes sense, but I noticed all these rivers have similar curves, either due to an earthquake or that meteor that landed in the bay a few years ago.

[Cynthia Wood]

The strongest current on a river at the curve,is at the outside of the curve. On the inside of the curve you could go upstream easily.I am thinking that this for for defense purposes so that other tribes could not sneak up on them.

[Clyde Nordan]

Thanks for the question, John. I didn't know much about rivers except that they were wet and they flow towards the ocean. I Googled it and learned more in the past hour than I did in the past 50 years. I found this PDF most enlightening:
http://www.irtces.org/pdf-hekou/099.pdf

[Clyde Nordan]

I posted some more links in my blog. Great info there.
http://clyde-boats.blogspot.com
There is more to the Great Chesapeake Bay that I never knew ( and I've been on it for 65 years ).

[John Page Williams]

Folks--Thanks for playing. What a great set of answers!

Nicholas Zahn, you're the first one in with the right answer. If you'll e-mail your size and mailing address to me at jpwilliams@cbf.org, we'll get your CBF T-shirt out to you.

Clyde Nordan, thanks for those excellent links and your blog address. The Chinese paper on river bends is dense, but it's full of good information.

And here's my version of the Bay History Question Answer:
All over the Earth, wherever rivers reach areas of gentle gradient as they flow downhill to the oceans, they seek a path of least resistance, which causes them to carve out large, looping curves called meanders. In these curves, the current accelerates going around the outside but slows down on the inside, just like runners on a closed track. On the inside of a curve, the slowing current allows suspended sediments to settle out, forming low-lying marshes and wooded swamps. On the outside, however, the accelerating current erodes the bank and gouges out the riverbed, creating deep water (up to 50’ on the Patuxent) next to fast (firm) land. The marshes, swamps, and deep holes provide habitat for fish, birds, mammals, and other creatures. Native Americans fished and hunted from and settled on these natural landings on Chesapeake rivers thousands of years ago. The landings have served us well ever since.

Best regards, John Page

[Clyde Nordan]

That was fun and educational. Now, when is the next trivia question?

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