Only Preacher Around Makes Usual Rounds

The Rev. Rick Edmund delivered his Christmas message to the congregants, pushed open the heavy door of the wooden church and headed outside into the salty breeze. He shook a few hands but couldn’t linger. One down; two to go.

Smith Island, a speck in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, has three Methodist churches but one preacher. Following a long tradition of Methodist circuit ministers, Edmund travels from church to church to church, riding a boat and a golf cart to reach the remote congregations.

This week he urged the men and women, most of them over 50 with skin leathered by sun and wind, to follow Mary’s example and have faith in God even in difficult circumstances. It’s a message that resonates in winter, when the crabbing that pays the bills is suspended and islanders bide their time until the work boats shove off again in spring.

But it has even greater meaning at this moment on this island, which is really just a dozen square miles of spongy marsh criss-crossed by channels and creeks. Smith Island is dying.

“There not any children being born and the old people’s dying off,” said Lester Tyler, 72, who still works on the water, scraping for soft-shell crabs.

At its height before World War I, island population peaked at 850. By the 2000 Census, that number slipped to 364. Overfishing, disease and government regulation have dimmed the crabbing and oyster industry, while erosion and rising sea levels are eating away at the island and turning firm ground to marsh.

Most young residents leave for jobs at the prison or the hospital or schools on the mainland of Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Even older islanders are moving away. The last remaining school has 31 students.

The pews grow emptier with each year, but the churches continue to function in the island’s three villages -- Ewell, Rhodes Point and Tylerton. Since the island’s founding by English farmers in 1657, the Methodist Church has been the focal point of community life.

With no local government, no movie theaters and little retail beyond some small groceries, the churches fill the void -- even paying the electric bills for the few street lights on the island. Disputes are resolved at meetings in the church basements. Pastor Rick, as the islanders call Edmund, is the de facto mayor.

“It’s a pretty awesome responsibility,” said Edmund, who likes to drive his white golf cart with the “Smile: Jesus Loves You” bumper sticker to a point on the flat island. From there, he can see the lights of all three villages when the sun sets. “I feel blessed to be here,” he said.

Nearly everyone on the island is Methodist, having descended from three original families: Tyler, Evans and Bradshaw. Many islanders share a certain resemblance -- green or blue eyes, brown hair, small features set in round faces. They know each other’s business and lives: who fell down and hurt a leg, who’s having trouble making payments on a boat, whose daughter is moving off the island.

Although satellite dishes and the Internet have helped connect Smith Island to the rest of the world, the island is so remote -- reached by a 45-minute boat ride across the choppy Tangier Sound from the mainland -- that natives maintain a distinct dialect that mixes a Southern drawl with a British cockney accent. The word “brown” for instance, sounds like “brine.”

Every Sunday, Edmund presides over the service at Ewell, then either rides in a scow provided by the church or hitches a ride in a work boat for the next service in Tylerton, before climbing back in the boat and riding to Rhodes Point for the final service. He gives the same sermon three times.

He rubs his hands with sanitizing lotion on each leg of his circuit. “With all the handshaking, it helps to keep me from getting sick,” said Edmund, 54, who lives in the gray parsonage next to the church in Ewell, the biggest village.

During the week, he’ll drive his golf cart or 1974 Volkswagen bug to events at the Rhodes Point church and take his 14-foot scow, the Methodist, to church events in Tylerton.

The three churches have always shared a minister, said Jennings Evans, 72, a retired waterman who acts as the local historian. Merging them has never been discussed, partly because Tylerton is reachable only by boat and it would be difficult for elderly residents to clamber in and out of boats every time they go to church.

And they go to church a lot -- not just on Sunday mornings but for prayer meetings during the week and Saturday night dinners in winter cooked by the men that feature Smith Island cake, a 12-layer confection baked by the women.

But beyond logistics, each village wants its own church as physical evidence of community.

“Most people give to the church whether they go or not,” Evans said. “The smallest congregation is in Rhodes Point, connected by two miles of paved road and bridge to the largest town, Ewell.

Of the three villages, Rhodes Point is the most depressed. In the last few years, it lost its restaurant, all its stores and its post office. Empty houses decay along its only road, which runs parallel to its channel. One out of five island residents lives below the poverty line. No one holds a graduate or professional degree; just 7% graduated from college.

On the Sunday before Christmas, 12 people, mostly elderly women, were praying inside the church in Rhodes Point. The pulpit, organ and front of the church were flooded with red poinsettias donated by church members honoring loved ones who have passed away.

It would be logical to merge the Rhodes Point church with the Ewell church, because they’re so close together and connected by a paved road. But the congregants at the smaller church cling to it like a lifeboat in the bay.

“This is our community and the people who built this church, they mean a lot to us,” said Marlene Marsh, a 60-year-old widow who lives in a trailer a few doors down from the church. The church survives by throwing a homecoming celebration in the fall, where it collects thousands of dollars from people who once lived in Rhodes Point.

For those who stay on Smith Island, faith is essential, said Ronnie Corbin, 45, the ruddy-faced son and grandson of watermen who dropped out of school after eighth grade to work on the water. “Everybody has faith in God, that he’ll provide crabs and oysters that we depend on so much. That’s what’s really holding Smith Island together now. The faith.”