Captain John Smith first charted the archipelago in 1608, but seasonal occupation by Native Americans goes back more than 12,000 years. Most Smith Islanders descend from 17th-century settlers, most of whom arrived in Maryland and Virginia from southwest England and Wales. Surnames indicate a smattering of Scotts and Irish soon followed.

Both Maryland and Virginia claimed Smith Island until the dispute was finally settled in the 1873. The Maryland-Virginia state line runs through the island chain, a fact that played a key role in the bloody “Oyster Wars of the Chesapeake.”

Smith Island is so closely associated with the maritime activities of crabbing and oystering, that few know that the first permanent residents were farmers. Islanders turned from land to water after the Civil War in an economic restructuring resulting from skyrocking demand for seafood and wildfowl, at a time when erosion and rising water levels made farming increasingly challenging.

The three-by-five mile island chain has three villages with a total population of about 200 year-round residents. The Cultural Center is in Ewell, which is the largest village. Ewell joins Rhodes Point by bridge, while Tylerton is on a neighboring but unconnected island. Most everything and everyone that comes to Smith Island arrives by boat.