Betterton

History

The recorded history of Betterton dates back to the 17th century. The Fishall Patent was granted in 1664, later becoming known as Fish Hall. The house located at 104 Ericsson Avenue contains foundation bricks dating back to 1698. In 1715, Edward Crew leased Fish Hall and the name was changed to Crews Landing. For the next 100 years, Crews Landing was a small fishing village and then later a port for the waterborne transport of local farm produce to urban markets. In 1851, Richard Townsend Turner (a Quaker) named the town “Betterton” after the family of his wife Elizabeth Betterton. The Turner pier, and later the Ericsson pier, provided access to the town for the shipping trade. Eventually townspeople rented out rooms to the travelers, salesmen, and shippers attracted to the beach. Mr. Turner built the Rigbie Hotel (demolished in August 1986) and Mr. Crownhart built the Belmont Hotel (destroyed by fire in 1956). These were joined by such lodging establishments as the Betterton, the Chesapeake, the Country Cousin, the Southern, and many others. Steamboat traffic from downtown Baltimore's "The Basin" (now Inner Harbor) and Philadelphia on the excursion cruises like the Old Bay Line (Baltimore Steam Packet Company, 1840-1962) and the competing Ericsson Line (and others, such as the Wilson Line later) brought the visitors and vacationers from the Middle Atlantic cities. The Ericsson Line was named after John Ericsson (1803-1889), the Swedish-American inventor of the "screw propeller" (and of Civil War revolutionary naval Ironclad warships) to more speedily and efficiently power ships. It was this invention that allowed steamboats to be built with narrow enough beam to allow them to traverse the recently opened Chesapeake and Delaware Canal then only 25 feet wide (before it…

Geography

Betterton is located at the mouth of the Sassafras River on the upper Chesapeake Bay in Kent County, Maryland, on the Eastern Shore region of the Bay and Delmarva Peninsula in the Eastern United States). The GPS coordinates are (39.367863, -76.060877). According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which is land and is water.

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Northern Cardinal

  Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  6,630
• Carolina Wren

  Thryothorus ludovicianus (Latham, 1790) · Aves
  5,862
• Turkey Vulture

  Cathartes aura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  5,575
• Red-winged Blackbird

  Agelaius phoeniceus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  4,818
• Blue Jay

  Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  4,659
• Mourning Dove

  Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  4,642
• Red-bellied Woodpecker

  Melanerpes carolinus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  4,562
• Northern Mockingbird

  Mimus polyglottos (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  4,471

Most recent

• M 2.5 — 2025-10-27
  4 km E of Riverside, Maryland
• M 2.6 — 2021-06-25
  2 km SE of Woodlawn, Maryland
• M 2.81 — 2019-09-15
  5 km ESE of East Berlin, Pennsylvania
• M 4.1 — 2017-11-30
  3 km NNE of Little Creek, Delaware
• M 2.64 — 2015-01-25
  4 km ESE of Downingtown, Pennsylvania
• M 2.78 — 2009-07-01
  3 km ESE of Pennsville, New Jersey