10 Miles to Nowhere

Redpoint is a beautiful place that captures your heart before you ever know. Upon entering the neighborhood she can not hide her secret from you. Visible on the last turn of Redpoint road you are greeted with a glimpse of the Chesapeake Bay. On a warm summers day you can often see the pleasure boats going up and down the river. As you continue into the neighborhood she reveals herself, Redpoints’ greatest amenity, the water front community sits directly on the Chesapeake Bay. A mile or so of shoreline, split between a high bluff and a long sandy beach. Nestled at the point on the map that separates the calm protected waters of the Northeast river from the turbulent open waters that make up the Susquehanna flats. Redpoint would start off life as a fishery and farm lands. Stories often told of crews of men, working with teams of mules pulling in large fishing nets. Called hull seines, they would stretch out as far as you could see and be pulled onto the beach, sorted and sent to the local fish houses in Northeast, Maryland. Maybe it was the roaring 20’s and Americans just wanted to have fun or maybe something else. Redpoint would be sold and transformed into a campground by the new owners in 1926.

Starting out as a farm and fishery, they transformed it into a campground with full water access, a boat ramp and mooring area for your personal water crafts. Small runabouts were very popular and still are among the residents. There is a swimming pier and prior to Hurricane Agnes a boating pier to match. The house building would really take off after the second World War. I recall my dad telling that the oldest house in the neighborhood was built in 1927. Operating as a campground into the 1970’s Redpoint holds onto that spirit within its residency. The person who managed the campground and associated business would contract the rabies virus and the establishment would go out of business. Redpoint would change hands several times after Skip died and the residents would have to band together to protect there property rights. Both permanent and the weekend warriors, Redpoint was and still is a tight knit little community. Redpoint has grown a lot from the little community my dad would recall in his memories, when my father moved to Redpoint full time in 1969, he was and often bragged about being one of 3 full time residents. A few of the residents would venture down on the weekends during the fall and winter months. Redpoint back then was at the end of a long dirt road that often washed out or became muddy and untravellable. Cut off from the world in multiple ways, Redpoint is majestic, located less than 10 miles from from the town of Northeast, you are transported away as you travel down the road. Internet and cell phones have changed this for the modern generation, however when I was a kid, and the stories mom and dad would tell of when they were kids, Redpoint is paradise. Lost.

Redpoint makes the perfect paradise, nestled snug into its little cove its tucked back of the main channel a few hundred yards. The cove has a gentle flat bottom that gradually falls towards the channel, this mixed with the coves soft smooth sandy bottom makes it perfect for swimming. I would learn to swim in those waters, joined by countless others before me and continuing to this day. When the campground was in operation there was a general store, straight out of the 60’s. They sold everything you needed for you beach day, rented chairs and carried “pop”. There was a swimming area that was roped off, and a pier for the bathers, opposite the swimming area was the mooring area for everyone’s boats and a boat ramp to match. The boating and swimming piers headed straight out into the water and there was a boardwalk that went down the beach. During my fathers childhood there was a handful of homes built on the beach. In the 50’s and 60’s Redpoint was the place to be. Boats would bring tourist in to enjoy the beach for the day. Residents had there personal pier and a mooring area for their boats and water toys. There were a few dozen homes in my dads childhood, but the campground was in full swing. Most of the people who built homes in Redpoint would start out as campers. My own family first rented a cabin to stay for a week. 1937… They would come back after the war and stay one more time. Buying the land lots where I would be born and raised, my great grand father and his siblings would build the house over the course of a summer.