Harrison's Crabs: A Waterman's Road-side Stand

Between the towns of East New Market and Rhodesdale, on a two-lane stretch of Route 14 that cuts through open Dorchester County farmland, there is a small seafood stand. It is not a restaurant and it is not a big market. It is a roadside place where a family sells what the water gives them, and you are expected to call ahead.

The stand is known now as Harrison's Crabs. The name is a continuation. It carries on a business that began with the man who worked the water his whole life, and it sits on the rural road where his family has sold the day's catch for a generation.

The history of the stand is the history of one man. Fred Smith Harrison II was born in Easton, the son of Levi C. and Edith A. Harrison, and he grew up in the world of the Chesapeake. He worked for Southern States and for Shiloh Dairy Farm, and he drove his own truck, but the work he was best known for was the water. He was a waterman.

That is how his obituary remembered him. Fred's Crabs was his, and it ran until the day he died. He kept at it to the end: a couple of weeks before he died, in February of 2020, he went rock fishing with his son. He liked hunting and gardening, and he liked the company of family and friends.

Fred Smith Harrison II died on February 27, 2020, at his home in Hurlock, at the age of eighty-one. He was survived by his wife of sixty-three years, Ann, and by his son Clark, who also lives in Hurlock. When the family asked for donations in lieu of flowers, they pointed to the Hurlock Volunteer Fire Department and the Unity Washington United Methodist Church — the institutions of the small town where he had worked the water and sold his catch.

When Fred died, the stand did not close. His son Clark took it on, and it is known now as Harrison's Crabs, still on the same rural road, still the same kind of place.

The way it works is the way these places work. There is no fixed menu posted and no constant set of hours you can count on. What is for sale depends on the season and on what came in that day, so the standing advice is to call ahead. In a local post, the stand was taking orders for muskrats as well as crabs — a reminder that what a waterman sells follows the water, not a menu board.

The public details of the current stand are thin, and that is worth saying plainly. It is a small, call-ahead family operation, and its availability is seasonal. What is not in doubt is the line of it: a father worked the water and sold his catch, and his son carries that on.

The stand sits in the country between a few small towns, which give it its setting. East New Market, to the west, is one of the oldest towns on the Shore. It incorporated in 1832, and in 1975 it became the first Dorchester County municipality placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Hurlock, to the north, is the small town where Fred lived and worked, the place of the cemetery and the church his family pointed mourners to. A short hop to the east finds you in Rhodesdale.

The road between them is the old Route 14 corridor, a two-lane highway through farmland that has carried the county's traffic for a long time. A seafood stand on a road like that is a particular Eastern Shore thing. The Chesapeake and its tributaries supported a waterman tradition for generations — men who fished, crabs, and oysters from small boats and sold what they brought in. Blue crab and oysters are seasonal, and the low-key way a family sells the day's catch, by phone and by the roadside, is one of the oldest forms of the local food trade.

That is what makes a place like Harrison's worth noting. It is not a landmark and it is not a destination. It is a working example of how the Shore has fed itself: a family, a boat, the water and a place to interact with local families.

For anyone who wants to try the stand, the practical notes are short. It is on East New Market Rhodesdale Road — the stretch of Route 14 that runs between East New Market and Rhodesdale in Dorchester County. The number to call is 443-521-1961.

Call before you drive. What is available changes with the season and with the day, and a stand like this is not always open when a stranger happens by. If the phone goes to voicemail, the honest answer is that the catch decides the schedule.

A small stand on a rural road is an easy thing to overlook. But it holds a whole line of life in it: a man who worked the water, a business that carried his name, and a son who keeps it going after him. The water keeps giving what it gives, the road keeps running between the two towns, and the stand keeps selling the day's catch to whoever calls.

That is enough to make it worth knowing.