Editing Betterton, Maryland (section)

==History==
The recorded history of Betterton dates back to the 17th century. The Fishall Patent was granted in 1664, later becoming known as Fish Hall. The house located at 104 Ericsson Avenue contains foundation bricks dating back to 1698. In 1715, Edward Crew leased Fish Hall and the name was changed to Crews Landing.
For the next 100 years, Crews Landing was a small fishing village and then later a port for the waterborne transport of local farm produce to urban markets. In 1851, Richard Townsend Turner (a Quaker) named the town “Betterton” after the family of his wife Elizabeth Betterton. The Turner pier, and later the Ericsson pier, provided access to the town for the shipping trade. Eventually townspeople rented out rooms to the travelers, salesmen, and shippers attracted to the beach. Mr. Turner built the Rigbie Hotel (demolished in August 1986) and Mr. Crownhart built the Belmont Hotel (destroyed by fire in 1956). These were joined by such lodging establishments as the Betterton, the Chesapeake, the Country Cousin, the Southern, and many others.

Steamboat traffic from [[Downtown Baltimore|downtown Baltimore's]] "The Basin" (now [[Inner Harbor]]) and [[Philadelphia]] on the excursion cruises like the [[Old Bay Line]] ([[Baltimore Steam Packet Company]], 1840-1962) and the competing [[Ericsson Line]] (and others, such as the Wilson Line later) brought the visitors and vacationers from the [[Middle Atlantic]] cities. The Ericsson Line was named after [[John Ericsson]] (1803-1889), the Swedish-American inventor of the "[[Screw-propeller|screw propeller]]" (and of [[American Civil War|Civil War]] revolutionary naval [[Ironclad warships]]) to more speedily and efficiently power ships. It was this invention that allowed steamboats to be built with narrow enough beam to allow them to traverse the recently opened [[Chesapeake and Delaware Canal]] then only 25 feet wide (before it was later widened and improved), connecting the upper Chesapeake with the [[Delaware River]] and [[Delaware Bay|Bay]]. Betterton was an easy and natural stop for boats using the canal and the explosion in steamboat traffic along the American [[East Coast of the United States|East Coast]] brought growth and prosperity to Betterton. For some time before the turn of the 20th century, there were 11 scheduled steamboat landings daily at Betterton's piers. The boom period for Betterton is generally thought to be from 1918 to 1930, when increasing numbers of restaurants, taverns, dance halls, bowling alleys, and amusement arcades all helped create the bayside town's pleasure resort image.

It eventually declined along with neighboring competing [[Tolchester, Maryland|Tolchester]] and [[Tolchester Beach, Maryland|Tolchester Beach]] after the 1949-1952 construction of the [[Chesapeake Bay Bridge]] from [[Annapolis]] to [[Kent Island, Maryland|Kent Island]] and increasing automobile traffic over improved [[United States Numbered Highway System|U.S. Routes]] and [[List of Interstate Highways|Interstate Highways systems]] in following decades to [[North Atlantic Ocean]] beaches and growing resort towns there like [[Ocean City, Maryland]] and [[Rehoboth Beach, Delaware]]
<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.townofbetterton.com/|title=Town of Betterton – Jewel of the Chesapeake}}</ref>