Washington College Magazine
Retired oceanographer William Cronin '40 is at work on a second book—a history of shipwrecks and pirate hideouts on the Chesapeake. He dressed the part of a pirate during Chestertown's Tea Party Festival in May.
To obtain a copy of The Disappearing Islands of the Chesapeake, visit your local bookstore or contact the author at wbcronin@comcast.net.
Chesapeake Islands, Vanished!
In the battle between land and water, the sea always wins. William B. Cronin '40 witnessed that firsthand during his career as a staff oceanographer with the Johns Hopkins Chesapeake Bay Institute. He captained the research vessels, Lydia Louise I and II, that plied the waters of the bay for 30 years. From the Susquehanna to James River, Cronin covered much of the Bay and visited several island ports. In addition to monitoring water quality and taking seismological soundings of the Bay's bottom, Cronin took great delight in weekend sailing, often dropping anchor to explore the islands and to visit with the islanders he encountered in his travels. They told stories of once-bustling island communities centered around farming and fishing, and recalled islands long lost to the ravages of storms, wind and tide.
Cronin had fallen for the islands' siren call—the beauty and serenity of these places whose essence is in the natural world, and the stories of the inhabitants whose lifestyle was eroding as quickly as their shorelines. After retiring in 1987, Cronin began chronicling his encounters in a series of articles published in the Chesapeake Bay Magazine. Now, at 90, he has published his first book: The Disappearing Islands of the Chesapeake. Published by Johns Hopkins University Press, the book is a culmination of his lifelong exploration of the Chesapeake Bay—a fascinating historical and geological survey of the Bay's islands supported by old nautical charts and maps along with current aerial views and data from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. The book also features photographs from the Maryland Historical Society's A. Aubrey Bodine collection.
"I'm just in love with the Bay," says the former chemistry and biology major "It's always changing, always new. But it's eating away at the islands. There used to be 500 islands noted on the early land records. Today there are only about 40."
As a scientist, Cronin understands that the geological process that formed the Chesapeake Bay is still underway; as a writer, he knows how important it is to document the past and to point out that the forces causing erosion, loss of marsh land and disappearing islands appear to be accelerating. Water levels in the Chesapeake continue to rise — from a rate of three feet every thousand years to a foot in the 20th century alone.
Take James Island as an example. As surveyed in 1650, James Island consisted of 1,350 acres. By 1994 it had eroded to three small islands, totaling about 84 acres. By 2002, all human inhabitants had deserted what little terra firma remained. Holland Island, whose shoreline moved back seven feet in one storm, once supported schools, churches, stores, houses—now all gone. He predicts Tangier Island, a watermen's community near Crisfield, faces the same fate.
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