Come on a journey to remember and commemorate
the history and travels of Captain John
Smith!
Over four
hundred years ago, Englishman John Smith and a small crew set out
in an open boat to explore the Chesapeake Bay. Between 1607 and
1609 Smith mapped and documented nearly 3,000 miles of the Bay and
its rivers. Along the way he visited many thriving American Indians
communities and gathered information about this “fruitful and
delightsome land.” In December 2006 the U.S. Congress
designated the routes of Smith’s explorations of the
Chesapeake as a national historic trail—the first national
water trail.
Are you ready
to follow in the wake of Captain John Smith? Visit sites along the
National Historic Trail and learn about the native cultures and the
natural environment of the 17th-century Chesapeake through the
Captain John Smith Chesapeake Geotrail. The Trail provides
opportunities for you to experience the Bay through the routes and
places associated with Smith’s explorations. Caches will be
located in museums, refuges, parks, and towns in Virginia, Maryland
and Delaware along the rivers and creeks that Smith and his crew
explored four centuries
ago.
The Captain
John Smith (CJS) Geotrail launched June 4, 2011 with over 40 caches
within Maryland, Virginia and Delaware. A trackable geo coin will
be awarded to the first 400 geocachers, while supplies last, for
locating at least 15 CJS caches. To be eligible for the coin,
geocachers must download a passport from either the CJS Geotrail or Maryland Geocaching Society website.
Geocachers must find and log at least 15 finds, record the code
word from each cache on their passport and post a picture of
themselve at each cache location. After discovering the 15 required
caches, geocachers may have thier passports validated in person or
via mail at the National Park Service, Chesapeake Bay Office
located at 410 Severn Ave, Suite 314, Annapolis, MD 21403. Please
refer to the passport for complete validation instructions.
Participating in the CJS geotrail is fun and we
hope that many people join in. However, it is not a requirement for
logging your find on this cache once you find the container.
You are seeking a traditional hide. A 5x8" Lock & Lock stocked
with a variety of items. This park is only open dawn till dusk.
Please no night caching! The hike to this cache will take you north
of the Deer Creek Walking Tressle
bridge.
Located along the Susquehanna River valley with its heavy forest
cover and rocky terrain, Susquehanna State Park offers a wide
variety of outdoor recreational opportunities as well as points of
historical significance. The park is home to some of the most
popular mountain biking trails in Maryland and contains a family
friendly campground with traditional campsites and cabins. The
facility offers a boat launch, fishing, flat water canoeing, hiking
trails, historic interpretation, pet-friendly trails, picnicking,
pavilions, playground, mountain bike and equestrian riding trails,
bow hunting area and archery range.
The Susquehanna Flats, a relatively shallow area at the mouth of
the Susquehanna River, was covered in hundreds of acres of
submerged aquatic vegetation in Captain John Smith’s time.
With development and farming, excessive amounts of nitrogen,
phosphorous, and heavy sediment did significant damage to the
vegetative beds. Water quality improvements in the Susquehanna have
begun to help the underwater grasses come back, and also some of
the migratory waterfowl that used to feed on them.
The Flats is also known as the most active of the rockfish spawning
grounds. Every spring, the rockfish, or striped bass, return to
most Chesapeake rivers for spawning but the Susquehanna Flats hosts
the largest concentration of this fish on the entire Atlantic
coast.
In late July 1608, more than half of Captain John Smith’s
crew was very sick by the time they reached the Susquehanna Flats
on the second voyage of the Discovery Barge. As they crossed the
Flats, heading southeastward to enter the Sassafras River, they
spotted seven or eight birch bark canoes coming out of the river.
By the canoe type, they could tell that the Indians were likely
Massowomeck, enemies to nearly all the Chesapeake Indians they had
encountered so far. It appeared that the Massowomecks were
preparing to fight the English. With seven out of thirteen men too
sick to even man the oars, Captain Smith invented a nifty ruse to
trick the Massowomecks into believing the English forces were
greater. First, he hid the seven men under a tarpaulin but used
their hats to suspend from sticks that he placed around the
boat’s frame heads. Between each stick he positioned a
healthy crew member with two muskets to give the impression of a
full force. When the Massowomecks were close enough to be fooled by
the appearance, they rowed their canoes to shore rather than engage
with this strange foe.
The English gestured in a friendly way but the Massowomecks
resisted approaching for a long while until finally two of them,
unarmed, rowed out. Captain Smith gave them each a little metal
bell, a great novelty. That was enough to entice the rest to join
and a brisk trade ensued in which Captain Smith acquired venison,
bear meat and bear skins, and lots of weapons such as clubs, bows
and arrows. Later, these weapons would prove to be very useful.
Possession of them by the English gave Massowomeck enemies the
impression that the English had defeated them in battle. Smith
allowed others to think this, which made for favorable receptions
by the Nanticoke and Susquahannock Indians.
Thanks to MomMom
&PopPop for helping with this hide and to the Maryland
Geocaching Society for assisting with this
project!