Smith Island County Dock

A Waterman's Harbor in the Chesapeake

This camera watches the County Dock at Ewell, the working heart of Smith Island. Generations of watermen have tied up here to unload crabs and oysters, and the dock remains the island's lifeline for goods, mail, and the daily ferry to Crisfield on the mainland.

Maryland's Only Offshore Island Community

Roughly twelve miles out in the Chesapeake Bay, Smith Island is a cluster of marshy islets linked by causeways. Reachable only by boat, its villages of Ewell, Rhodes Point, and Tylerton preserve traditions and a distinctive dialect that trace back to seventeenth-century settlers.

Boats, Crab Shanties & Tidal Marsh

The view frames moored workboats, weathered crab shanties, and the wide sweep of open water beyond the pilings. It is a candid window onto a maritime way of life shaped entirely by the rhythms of the bay.

Home of the Smith Island Cake

Beyond its harbor, the island is famous for the layered Smith Island Cake, Maryland's official state dessert, and for a resilient community determined to preserve its heritage against erosion and a shrinking shoreline.