Chestertown: Battle of
The Big Box
Wal-Mart liked to say, "We don't
lose." Think again.
By JOHN LANG
Every year the people of historic Chestertown,
on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, celebrate the Chestertown
Tea Party of May 23, 1774, when angry colonists boarded
a British brigantine and dumped its cargo into the
Chester River. It was here at Emmanuel Church that
a group of Anglican clergymen met in 1780 to break
with the Church of England and to establish the Protestant
Episcopal Church. George Washington visited Chestertown
often, giving 50 guineas and authorizing use of his
name—the only time he ever did so—for the
founding in 1782 of Washington College.
In the Chestertown of today, preservation-minded
residents fought fiercely for more than a decade to
prevent the world's largest retailer from opening
a store bigger than their entire downtown. Fending
off Wal-Mart took on the emotions associated with
foiling the British centuries before—even though
the proposed store was to be a mile from the historic
district and just outside town limits. The marathon
battle made enemies of neighbors, damaged political
reputations, and exposed gaps between rich and poor,
old and young, black and white, newcomers and longtime
families. The arguments were about many things—jobs,
traffic, cheap goods, local businesses—but the
case against Wal-Mart was in the end about a community's
right to preserve what it saw as its essential character.
Chestertown has only 4,644 residents,
three stoplights on the main route through town, and
a total transit time of about five minutes. It would
be easy for the casual visitor to miss the colonial
homes lining the banks of the Chester River, because
the narrow bridge leading into town demands a driver's
full concentration. Older by almost a century than
the nation itself, Chestertown is still a community
of preindustrial pace. The busiest day typically is
Saturday, when people gather at the farmers'
market in the village park to buy fresh flowers and
homemade cookies and give away gossip. Among the town's
odder charms, the postal clerk sings at his counter
and the community marching band features middle-aged
majorettes.
Kent County—population just 19,000—is
the smallest county of a small state, with many times
more wild geese than people in winter. Other local
glories are thriving populations of bald eagles, ospreys,
and great blue herons, and mile-wide fields still
crowned with corn when the farmland in surrounding
counties is sprouting houses. Its fine restaurant,
the Kennedyville Inn, boasts that it's "Centrally
Located in the Middle of Nowhere." Only 15 miles
across the Chesapeake Bay from Baltimore, Kent County
is iso-lated by the luck of geography: It is a peninsula
defined by the Sassafras River on the north, the broad
Chesapeake on the west, the Chester River on the south,
and the state of Delaware on the east. Few roads lead
in.
For more of this story, subscribe
to the magazine, look for the November/December
2003 issue on newsstands, or e-mail
us to purchase a copy.
Read more excerpts from our current
issue.
|
