Edmondson's Reserve

Edmondson's Reserve. . , The Caroline County 4-H Park, Delmarva Girl Scout Camp, and the farms bordering Detour Road are located on a former 1,050-acre tract of land that evidence indicates once served as a privately-owned Indian "reservation" called Edmondson's Reserve, patented (first deeded) in 1668 by a licensed Maryland Indian trader named John Edmondson to protect his Indian clients. Edmondson traded with the local Algonquin-speaking Indian tribes like the Choptanks who survived on hunting and gathering., Why was a private Indian reservation needed in 1668? , Because despite using the land for millennia, Native Americans had no property rights under Maryland colonial law. And after the east, or south bank of the Choptank River was thrown open to settlement by the Maryland government in 1659, the English newcomers not only patented the ground the Native Americans used for villages, they also claimed the vital lands the Native Americans used for hunting gathering., In 1668 Edmonson's Reserve was perfect Indian habitat: It abutted the fresh waters of Cokiases Creek (now Williston Pond) and contained edible freshwater plants ("Tuckahoe"), a nut-bearing oak-hickory forest, fur-bearing animals such as beaver, and freshwater-spawning fish. Other advantages included nearby lithic resources (small stone cobbles used by Indians to make arrowheads); plus it was traversed by an all-important migration and trade route called the Choptank Indian Trail that ran from the Chesapeake Bay near Cambridge to New Castle, Delaware on Delaware Bay.