Other names: McCary’s, McCarthy’s Landing, McCarthy Landing, McCarty’s Wharf, Plaindealing Landing
This landing is located on the east side of the Choptank River below Wings Landing, about a-half-mile south of Hog Creek and above Kingston landing at the end of McCarty Road. The landing served a plantation by the same name. Plaindealing was the home of J. Boon Dukes, a former state immigration commissioner who was born in the house in 1840. His father James Dukes owned about two thousand acres along the Choptank River between the branches of Watts Creek (see Duke Landing) and along both sides of the road leading to Potters Landing. He acquired Plaindealing along with six acres in 1823 from the county.
The landing was used as a steamboat landing at from at least 1895 to 1921. In 1895 R.M. Messick and Son shipped 200 cases of tomatoes to Jacksonville, Florida from McCartys Wharf. Each case, weighting 78 pounds, was taken from Bethlehem to the wharf by horse-drawn wagons. The steamer Minnie Wheeler shipped them to Baltimore where they were taken by one-horse drays from Pier 5 to Brown’s Wharf, Fells Point, and loaded on the schooner J.S. Haskins for shipment to Jacksonville. McCartys is designated on “Topographic Map of Caroline County” 1950 revised 1971. The landing is identified on the 1875 Caroline County map found in The 1877 Atlases and Other Early Maps of the Eastern Shore, Maryland. This should not be confused with Plaindealing located across from Oxford.
(Choptank River Cultural Resources Inventory, 1999-2002)