Choptank River Trip - Joppa Overnight Run

The Choptank River and Watts Creek form the south and west boundaries of 107 acres of hardwood, pine forest, fields, and marsh that make up the park.  The forest is bright with dogwood flowers and laurel blooms in spring, and with colored foliage in the fall.

The varied habitat privides homes to a varity of wildlife, including white-tail deer, raccoons, squirrels, and opossum, owls, ducks, and wild turkeys.

Native Americans of the Algonquin tribes hunted and fished within the boundaries to today’s park and along the shores of Watts Creek and the Choptank.  Archeological investigations revealed the existence of an Algonquin village just south of the park near the mouth of Watts Creek.

The remains of an indigenous Chesapeake Bay    watercraft identified as a pungy, were recovered from  Watts Creek and placed under a shelter for exhibition at Martinak State Park in 1964 and 1969. Pungies, which were built in Maryland and Virginia between 1840 and 1880, were a significant development in the indigenous sailing fleet, a collection of vessels uniquely adapted to commerce  on and beyond Chesapeake.  Other than the replica Lady Maryland, there are no pungies surviving today.