Eastport is a neighborhood of Annapolis, Maryland. Annexed to the city in 1951, it has its own particularly unique history.
The area played an important role during the American Revolutionary War as an encampment area for Lafayette's troops on their way to Yorktown, and as the site of Fort Horn which protected the city harbor from the British fleet. It played the same protective role during the War of 1812. Consisting mostly of farmland through the mid-nineteenth century, the area began to be developed after the establishment of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis. Many workers at the USNA, as well as those who worked in the maritime trades made their homes there. Today, Eastport, located just across the bridge from the City Dock area of Downtown Annapolis, is the maritime district of America's Sailing Capital.
[photo credit: Jeff Voigt Owner/Aerial Photographer]
The residents of Eastport respect their uniqueness so strongly that in 1998, when they felt their neighborhood would be hurt by the temporary closing of the Eastport bridge for repairs, there was a tongue-in-cheek "secession" from the city. The Maritime Republic of Eastport (MRE) was established. A war in the form of an annual Tug of War that raises money for charity, was declared. Relations between Annapolis and the MRE remain friendly, though, and, in 2009, Josh Cohen, a former resident of Eastport and one of the Founding Fathers of the MRE was elected mayor of the city of Annapolis.
Eastport is also home to almost a dozen quality geocaches, most along the public water accesses with great views of the Spa and Bay Creeks, the Severn River, and the Chesapeake Bay.