Template:Wp-Claiborne, Maryland-History

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Prior to the 1870s, Claiborne was part of the nearby McDanieltown postal community (now McDaniel). Its name can be traced back in honor of William Claiborne, a fur trader who founded an English settlement on nearby Kent Island in 1631. Early land patents in Claiborne included "Rich Neck Manor," which was first granted 2,000 acres to Capt. William Mitchel, Esq. in 1649 Subsequent owners of Rich Neck, Philip Land, built a chapel in the 1650s. The Rich Neck Manor Chapel still stands, but is private property. Rich Neck was also home to Matthew Tilghman, the head of the Maryland delegation to the Continental Congress, and Lloyd Tilghman, Confederate general.

It was past the entrance to today's Claiborne harbor that British vessels passed during the War of 1812, landing in McDanieltown, within sight of Claiborne.

The area of town now known as "Old Claiborne," was located on Tilghman’s Creek facing the Miles River. It included a steam sawmill started by John Hansel Tunis around 1867. "Bingham's Steamboat Wharf" was also in use for steamboats on their way up the Miles River to St. Michaels. By 1877, John Tunis' son, Joseph Tunis, had added the Claiborne Oyster Company, a boatyard, a few homes, two more steamboat wharves, and expanded his father's sawmill into the Claiborne Saw and Planing Mills. At the foot of Rich Neck Road was a general store. Tunis also laid out grids for a new community of 188 lots and advertised them for between $18 and $40. A plat of it appears in an 1877 county atlas, showing eight main streets with the names: Rich Neck Road, Leeds, Ward, Progress, Monument, Tilghman, and Dom Pedro. At its center was Henry Clay Square, a large area reserved for public buildings. Joseph Tunis provided a slogan: “Young man don’t go West, but to Claiborne.” The village did not develop as Tunis had hoped and by 1893, Tunis had abandoned his plans. In later years several families from North Carolina who knew or where employed by the Tunis family in their North Carolina lumber mills relocated to "Old Claiborne", for example Ben Perry whose home in "Old Claiborne" was built in 1905.

A second community, the "new" Claiborne, was started in 1886 when Gen. Joseph B. Seth and the Baltimore & Eastern Shore Railroad Company agreed to begin ferry and railroad service between Claiborne and Bay Ridge, on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Seth along with Theophilus Tunis and Frank Turner envisioned a resort community similar to Bay Ridge and laid out plans for the "new" Claiborne, calling it "Bay City”.

Although "Bay City" never developed as expected, Claiborne’s importance was raised once the ferries began operating with Claiborne as a primary terminus on the Eastern Shore. In 1890 the Baltimore & Eastern Shore Railroad Company completed a railroad line from Claiborne to Easton so that passengers coming into Claiborne could continue through to Ocean City. Initially the plan was to use rail-transfer steamers to move rail cars between Bay Ridge and Claiborne but this was abandoned in late 1891 and a conventional passenger ferry service between Baltimore and Claiborne was substituted. This service failed to provide adequate cash flow to service the outstanding debt, and the Baltimore & Eastern Shore Railroad was liquidated in August 1894. The assets were purchased by the newly created Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway.

Service by the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway continued until 1928, although by 1924 the BC&A had already shifted most of its traffic to Love Point. In 1927 the Baltimore, Chesapeake, & Atlantic Railway filed for bankruptcy and was sold at foreclosure on March 28, 1928. One parcel was for the company's railroad and the Claiborne ferry, and was sold for $650,000.

The ferry operation by the Baltimore, Chesapeake, & Atlantic Railway was almost halted in 1915 due to a decision of the Interstate Commerce Commission against the BC&A's parent company, the Pennsylvania Railroad, dictating that the company surrender some of the steamboat lines which they operated on the Chesapeake Bay. In the end, the Pennsylvania Railroad had to sell off or end all its ferry lines operating between Baltimore and points on the Eastern Shore other than the one at Claiborne.

A second ferry company, the Eastern Shore Development Steamship Company, began service in 1912 between Claiborne and Annapolis primarily using the steam yacht "Texas", formerly owned by Edward H. R. Green, the son of Wall Street investor Henrietta Green. That business, owned by New York investors A.J. McIntosh, B.A. Sinn and J.W.R. Crawford, failed in 1916.

In 1919, another competing ferry, Claiborne-Annapolis Ferry, Inc. (later the Claiborne-Annapolis Ferry Company), began service between Claiborne and Annapolis. On Sunday evening it was not uncommon for traffic to be backed up several miles into Claiborne, waiting for the return ferry trip across the Chesapeake Bay. The increased automobile traffic to Claiborne forced the state to take the then unusual step of passing a special roads bill to improve the road between Claiborne and Easton, Maryland. In 1921, bus service was added from Claiborne to Easton, Hurlock, and Cambridge. This may have been in part because of accusations that the BC&A's passenger railroad service out of Claiborne would often intentionally leave early to strand passengers arriving on the competing boats of Claiborne-Annapolis Ferry, Inc.

In 1928 Claiborne-Annapolis Ferry, Inc. was restructured and renamed the Claiborne-Annapolis Ferry Company. In 1930 the primary eastern terminal for cross-Bay ferries from Annapolis was moved from Claiborne to a new ferry terminal at Matapeake, on Kent Island. This significantly shortened the distances involved for most people leaving Annapolis. A very limited service continued between Claiborne and Annapolis.

In 1938 the ferry route to Claiborne was changed to run between Claiborne and Romancoke on Kent Island. This ended direct cross-Bay service to Claiborne. In 1943 the western terminal was moved from Annapolis to Sandy Point. Ferry service stopped running in 1952 when the Chesapeake Bay Bridge was built.

Claude W. Somers was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.