The Naming of Bloody Point

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     In the Chesapeake Bay just off the southwestern tip of Kent Island, marking the entrance to Eastern Bay, sits the Bloody Point Bar Lighthouse warning of the treacherous shoals near Poplar Island and a stark reminder of the darker side of mankind. 

     Why the name Bloody Point? Folklore whispers three distinct tales from three distinct times. The first, in the early days of the Kent Island colony sometime after 1631, Bloody Point is purported to be the site of a native American massacre. The story recalls that the colonists, weary and frightened after murderous attacks, invited the natives to make peace and share a meal. Once gathered, the colonists slaughtered them and disposed of the bodies at Bloody Point. 

     The second tale says that the traders stepped up their game against pirates pilfering goods during delivery runs on the bay in the late 1600s and early 1700s.  They hunted, caught, and hung the pirates there at the tip of the Bloody Point peninsula, allowing the bodies to hang even as they turned to skeleton—a gruesome visual warning about pirating in this part of the Chesapeake. 

     The last account tells of slave ships travelling from Africa and the Caribbean on their way to Baltimore in the 1800s. The ships would stop here to discard the bodies of slaves who had died during the journey.  

     The Bloody Point Bar Lighthouse was commissioned in 1882 when lighthouses are of utmost importance during a time of booming travel on the bay with schooners, buyboats, and bugeyes harvesting the bay’s riches and steamboats carrying travelers to destinations. This is also the time of the oyster wars and the year Thomas Edison created the first commercial electrical power plant. Over 40 lighthouses were built and positioned in the bay between 1850 and 1908.