Nature Notes

The late writer Gilbert V. Byron shares the same birth date with Henry David Thoreau of Walden Pond. In all likelihood, this coincidence influenced not only Byron's writing, but his lifestyle as well. Whereas Thoreau spent two years, two months and two days in his house by Walden Pond, Byron lived alone for nearly 45 years in the cabin he built on Old House Cove.

Byron, born in Chestertown, Maryland on July 12, 1903, lived nearly all of his 88 years on the Delmarva Peninsula where he taught school, wrote verse, articles, short stories and novels, mostly about the Chesapeake Bay area. Probably no one else has written more words, and over a longer period of time, than Byron who has come to be known as the "Chesapeake Thoreau" as well as the "Voice of the Chesapeake".

Following Gilbert Byron's death, the house was saved from destruction thanks to the efforts of Historic St. Michaels - Bay Hundred, the Talbot County Board of Education and Pickering Creek Audubon Center. After a three year journey, it was relocated at Pickering Creek where it is awaiting further preservation and restoration. The house will contain artifacts relating to Byron and will serve as a classroom for outdoor education, literacy and writing programs for the community.

The Talbot Free Library's Maryland Room has a complete set of Byron's eleven major published works and a bibliography of his writings is available on request.

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Information and photographs courtesy of Jacques Baker.

Nature Notes

Gilbert Byron: The Voice of the Chesapeake