Maritime Industry on Tenthouse Creek

Maritime Industry on Tenthouse Creek. Blessed by the Bounty of the Chesapeake Bay. For over a hundred years, maritime industries have thrived on Tenthouse Creek. With direct access to the West River and the Bay, businesses were established to harvest, process and sell oysters, fish and crabs from the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. These commercial ventures often diversified to serve a wide range of maritime and industrial needs, influencing the regional and national economy.

F. and H. Benning Company (1913)
"Dealers in Oysters, Lime, Soft Crabs and Fish"

Benning occupied two buildings on the shores of Tenthouse Creek employing countless Galesvillians, black and white, women and men, for much of the 20th century. They diversified their operations to make and sell lime, a byproduct of their successful shucking business. Shells were processed into powdered lime, which was used not only as a fertilizer on agricultural fields, but was a highly valued building material, used in cement, mortar and plaster walls. Lime was also important for whitewashing surfaces.

Woodfield Fish and Oyster Company (1917)
"Planters and Shippers" and Icemakers

When brothers Herman and William Woodfield bought Joseph Smith's oyster packing house in 1917, they did not know that more than 100 years later the Woodfield name would be known for ice as much as for their fish and oysters. Woodfield employed more than 100 people in the 1940s shucking and packing oysters in cans for distribution by steamships, trucks, and trains. Ice was the critical ingredient to make sure Bay oysters arrived fresh to faraway destinations. By the 1950s, Woodfield's bagged ice became its own commodity.

Smith Brothers, Inc. (1918)
Pile Driving and Marine Construction

J. Edward, Nelson, and Wilmer Smith's father founded one of the first oyster packing houses in Galesville. In 1923, the brothers bought a scow and founded Smith Brothers, Inc. With their small boat, instead of harvesting oysters as their father had before, they transported building materials around the West River, building piers and bulkheads. The business grew to take on government infrastructure work. Under Kenneth Smith's leadership, focus shifted to renting barges and heavy marine equipment across the Mid-Atlantic, and to building barges and tugs. The family business was sold to a private entity in 2019.

[Captions]:
George Fox (right) opened the first Maryland General Meeting of the Society of Friends in 1672 at the headwaters of Tenthouse Creek, where the Quaker Burial Grounds are today. This marked the founding of Quakerism in Maryland. Temporary tents were erected to accommodate the many Friends who came from across the Chesapeake region.

While oysters brought wealth and prosperity to Galesville in recent centuries, Native Americans have harvested oysters for thousands of years along the shores of Tenthouse Creek. Thick piles of shell have been discovered intermixed with Native American pottery, projectile points and animal bones preserved in the lime-rich soils.
Photo courtesy of Anne Arundel County OPZ/CR.

Shucked oysters, left, a F. and H. Benning Company advertising pamphlet, right.
Photo courtesy of Galesville Heritage Society.

Woodfield's seen from Tenthouse Creek, top left, a 20th century Woodfield's oyster can, top right, preparing fish for market, bottom right.
Art by Laura Dixon, photos courtesy of Galesville Historical Society

Working on the J. Edward barge driving piles.
Photos courtesy of Galesville Heritage Society