Shuttled By Ship

Before the automobile, boat transportation was the only efficient way to move goods in the Chesapeake Bay area, and throughout the 19th century Centreville Landing prospered as a commercial center serving schooners that carried grain, lumber, and agricultural products to Baltimore and Norfolk and returned with manufactured goods for merchants in Centreville and the rural farming districts of Queen Anne’s County. Over time, the upper reaches of the Corsica River gradually filled with sediment from soil erosion, limiting boat traffic. Two men dominated commerce at Centreville Landing: Cloudsberry Clash, who owned extensive property including much of the waterfront and operated a wharf and warehouse, and Captain John Ozmon, who was born to a life at sea and settled there in 1858. Prominent among the half-dozen schooner captains living in the area, Ozmon built a wharf, a warehouse, a store, several residences, a large home overlooking Clash’s property on the Corsica River waterfront, a row of small houses along Corsica Creek, and more than 40 other homes, most of which still stand today as reminders of the era when schooners plied these waters.

Centreville, Maryland · United States