Where the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Begins

On November 6, 2010, Jill Bieri of Chesapeake Experience led a Walk and Talk at New Quarter Park. I took this picture of her standing beside a drawing of the Chesapeake Bay watershed that was made by some of her campers. She laid it out on the basketball court in order to explain the definition of a watershed and just how large the 64,000 square mile Chesapeake Bay watershed is. It includes all or parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Washington D.C., Virginia and West Virginia. Its Susquehanna River headwater begins at Otsego Lake, in Cooperstown, New York.

As the Walk and Talk group moved from the spot where Jill began the program to Queen's Creek, where she talked more about the Bay's ecology, I overheard one of the participants saying that he remembered reading about the Susquehanna's headwaters in The Pioneers, the first of the so-called Leatherstocking Tales by the first great American novelist, James Fenimore Cooper. I interrupted to tell him about my Driving Around the Chesapeake Bay Watershed project, and he was kind enough to find, copy, and send the reference for me.

In the Introduction to The Pioneers, Cooper says that he delineates the the central New York area with details he remembers from his youth. He published the book in 1824, so the area probably wasn't too much changed from the time he describes in his history of Otsego and the Susquehanna at the time that "it is connected with civilized man." Here are two paragraphs from the Introduction:

"Otsego, in common with most of the interior of the province of New York, was included in the county of Albany previously to the war of the separation. It then became, in a subsequent division of territory, a part of Montgomery; and finally, having obtained a sufficient population of its own, it was set apart as a county by itself shortly after the peace of 1783. It lies among those low spurs of the Alleghanies which cover the midland counties of New York, and it is a little east of a meridional line drawn through the centre of the State. As the waters of New York flow either southerly into the Atlantic or northerly into Ontario and its outlet, Otsego Lake, being the source of the Susquehanna, is of necessity among its highest lands. The face of the country, the climate as it was found by the whites, and the manners of the settlers, are described with a minuteness for which the author has no other apology than the force of his own recollections."

"In 1779 an expedition was sent against the hostile Indians, who dwelt about a hundred miles west of Otsego, on the banks of the Cayuga. The whole country was then a wilderness, and it was necessary to transport the baggage of the troops by means of the rivers--a devious but practicable route. One brigade ascended the Mohawk until it reached the point nearest to the sources of the Susquehanna, whence it cut a lane through the forest to the head of the Otsego. The boats and baggage were carried over this "portage," and the troops proceeded to the other extremity of the lake, where they disembarked and encamped. The Susquehanna, a narrow though rapid stream at its source, was much filled with "flood wood," or fallen trees; and the troops adopted a novel expedient to facilitate their passage. The Otsego is about nine miles in length, varying in breadth from half a mile to a mile and a half. The water is of great depth, limpid, and supplied from a thousand springs. At its foot the banks are rather less than thirty feet high the remainder of its margin being in mountains, intervals, and points. The outlet, or the Susquehanna, flows through a gorge in the low banks just mentioned, which may have a width of two hundred feet. This gorge was dammed and the waters of the lake collected: the Susquehanna was converted into a rill. When all was ready the troops embarked, the damn was knocked away, the Otsego poured out its torrent, and the boats went merrily down with the current."

Shelving the Book Format for Now

When I started this blog, my intent was to write a book, blog post by blog post. But more than six months have passed. In the meantime, I haven't cleaned up Chapter 4 and other thoughts and materials are going unposted. I've been driving around lots of neat places in the watershed that I want to post about!

Therefore, I've decided to go about writing on this topic in a manner befitting a blog. Instead of posting this one finished chapter by one finished chapter at a time, I'm going to use this blog as a means to randomly capture and record thoughts and information about Driving Around in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. A blog is about journaling. So let the journaling begin.

Perhaps someday I will look at this blog as my notes and come back to it to piece the posts together as a traditional book. Maybe. Someday. I'm not sure that that medium fits today's reader. Also, as an author of 5 books, I know what a struggle it is to publish and sell books. I could make as much money if everyone who visits my blog would just click on a Google ad or two, or buy one of my suggested books -- hint, hint.

And so, I'll blog this again, as I did in Chapter 1:

"I’ve wanted to do something to Save the Bay, something more than sending my annual check to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Beyond supporting them financially, I Clean the Bay. I took their VoiCeS (Volunteer Chesapeake Steward) course. I raise oysters for the Chesapeake habitat restoration program. I have changed my over-consumptive ways. I am a vegetarian. I buy Energy Star appliances. I lead kayaking tours on a Chesapeake Bay tributary.

And I am writing this blog. It’s not much, but I’ve heard those scientists say that if we could just get people to understand that the condition of the Chesapeake Bay comes from upstream, that it might help. So I decided that I’d write about the streams and the land in the tributary portions of the Chesapeake Bay. It’s the part of the Chesapeake Bay, the Chesapeake Bay watershed, that we drive around in every day. It is lots of little streams and the stream and the land beside it that we love and call home. Let’s Save the Bay one stream-scape at a time. You save yours and I’ll save mine because ... don’t we really all want the same thing? Health, happy kids, and peace on earth.

This blog is intended to get readers who live and travel all across the great big Chesapeake Bay watershed to see, really see the bit of the Bay that they can see. Perhaps then, they ... you ... will have a watershed moment when seeing, thinking, and caring. Ah, ha! The Chesapeake Bay’s health is inextricably tied to our health. Our health, and the well-being of us all."

In case you're interested in this blog as potential book, here's more information about the chapters that I have roughed out with the intent to develop.

Chapter 4: Around Cape Henry and into Hampton Roads - About the Lynnhaven River, Hampton Roads, and the Norfolk area.

Chapter 5: Let the Punishment Fit the Ducking Place - Early use of the river environment to keep order.

Chapter 6: The James River below the Fall Line - First settlements then and now.

Chapter 7: Unfamiliar to English Eyes - The Chesapeake Bay developed as a scattering of plantations. It was hard to make towns and cities stick. Highways then and now.

Chapter 8: From Williamsburg to Harrisonburg - The history of the rivers I pass when taking my son to college at James Madison University.

Chapter 9: Virginia Peninsula Rivers on the Chesapeake Bay - Hampton, Poquoson, and such.

Chapter 10: The Mobjack Bay and the York River Watershed Below the Fall Line - The watershed of my youth. Gloucester and Mathews.

Chapter 11: Driving Up the Fall Line - Our route to Washington D.C. Taking my daughter to college at George Mason University.

So, if you're a literary agent, I'd be happy to formalize this in a book proposal for you. In the meantime, this blog is just my journal about driving around in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.