The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1870-11-19

iect worthy of Napier. For the rest it i
an epic of neighborhood, and not of {
race. No purer British blood exists in the
United States than on this Eastern Shore
in the lower counties, solely English ant
Scotch, without admixtures of any sort
The immigrants, for the most part, came
directly hither from the old country, and
both the family names and surnames, by
their novelty and frequency, show homo
geneous individuality.
WINK AT THE WHOLE PENINSULA.
When the clerk had conferred with Ger
tain traders and storekeepers on the land
ing, and we had put off a Methodist cler
gyman, here called Radical" Metho
odist,) who wore dead black wig and deer
green spectaclcs, and when the deck hands
tossed off about two hundred empty bar,
rels to the tune of "See Me, Caesar! Sec
Me Now ~ we babe adieu to this little
Venice, and watched, as we receded, the
nags splashing through the submerged
roads, the cat boats Swimming the gray
water, the vessel-builders chipping masts
and keel-pieces. Then, as we again drop
| ped into the bay, here forty miles wide. we
saw groves of islands growing out of the
sea, and all the oyster crafts were alert,
sailing round and round with chain drags
out at the stern, two drags to vessel, and
the water was alive with sloops and schoen-
ers, native built for the Eastern Shore OF
/ Maryland built the best privateers in the
war of 1912, and created the Baltimore
clipper ships
AS we kept up Pokomoke Sound, passing
over the flats called the g Pokomoke Mud -
| endeavored to get in my mind clear idea
Of this singular yet lovely peninsula.
Conceive fat fresh-water fish-say a
perch, with but one fluke to its caudal
fin, floating on its side between the Allan
tic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay. The
part from its gills to it's tail will represent
this peninsula, the largest on our coast
except Florida and Nova Scotia. The tail
is the eastern shore of Virginia, extending
nearly to Norfolk the gill is the Chesa-
peake and Delaware Canal, severing con-
nection with the mainland near Whining
ton. This carcass is about $50 miles long
and sixty miles wide at the belly, pierced
by few inlets and sluggish creeks on the
ocean side, but without one good port
there, and on the bay side it is deeply and
frequently indented with rivers, coves, and
bays, affording some of the best ports for
coasters in the world The body of the
peninsula is divided down the middle
between Maryland and Delaware, the former
State securing a single county, Worcester,
on the Atlantic, but this has no harbor-
Maryland possesses 3,OS4 square miles of
this peninsula, taking the whole Chesa-
peake part, and Delaware 2,12O square
miles, getting in one of her three counties,
Sussex, Oh the Atlantic, and the others
front on Delaware Bay. The whole popu-
lation of the peninsula is about $50, O00.-
There are ten good rivers from the Chesa-
peake side, and eight of the nine Maryland
counties have landings as close and numer-
GUS as the stations of railroad. A trunk
line of railroad runs down the middle or
ridge of the peninsula 100 miles, to oppo-
site the mouth of the Potomac, and six
branches diverge from it to points of the
bay and the sea. About twenty steamboats,
ply between this region and Baltimore,
Norfolk and New York. Twenty hours
journey will place anybody, no matter how
remotely resident here, in Baltimore, Phil
adelphia or New York. And, perhaps, the
most sequestered and least accessible of all
places on the peninsula was the county
town of Snow Hill, at the head of Naviga-
ton on the Pokomoke River, to which l
was bound.
This peninsula was found in possession
of Indians, whose village names are still
retained in names of water courses or
towns, viz: Matomkin, Chincoteague, Kie-
guotauk, Matchopungo, Occahannock,
Pungteque, Onancock, Chiconesse, Nan
duye. and Gangascoe. From them came
the words pone dread, hominy, potato,
pocoson, and tobacco. The religious
nature of the peninsula is very various,
and is much of Maryland history.
Church of England folks settled Kent
Island in 1929; Catholics St. Mary's in
1884 Swedish Lutherans Cecil in 1910 :;
Puritans Annapolis in 1850, and on the
Patapsco Quakers, near Annapolis, 1860 !;
Presbyterians and George Fox arrived in
1912 Churchmen Somerset in 1865; L,l-
bn pfoir If M
in I720. In 1862, the Established Church
of England became the State Church. The
Baptists and Methodists were converts
from all the above, both sizes of the bay
being traversed by their apostles between
1860 and ITO. Education was first attended
to by levying a duty on furs for free
schools, in 1864 f.; in 1896. college was
founded at Annapolis just prior to 100.
parish libraries were set up. The free
schools amounted to little. and many of
them were sold for ponrhouses, after the
Revolution. The parish clergy or private
tutors educated the men of the Revolution
Advertisements are extant of schoolmasters
to sell, being indentured servants, up to
the brink of the Revolution. The lower
parts Of this peninsula were settled, as I
have said, by Scotch and English, who
planted some of the oldest Presbyterian
and Episcopal churches in America, and at
the date of my visit there was only one
German in the town OF Snow Hill with
LOO inhabitants not one Irisi,man, and
no Jews. But as one quits the lower coun-
ties and goes northward in Delaware, he
perceives a remarkable change in physiog-
nomy, the tall, slim, intellectual Briton,
giving way to the fat, thick-set, beefy,
animal, rosy German, Swede, Huguenot,
or Hollander for as the Virginia English
came in at the south, the Saxon, Goth,
Finn, and Dutch pitched upon the North
end of the peninsula hence the State of
Delaware. The Quakers, being non com
batants, were all driven out of the lower
counties at the Revolution. and Methodism
became the vital life and virtue of the Eng
lish communities. This is the old stamp
ing ground of Francis Asbury, the pioneer
of the now nowerfu1 hodv which hoe orou-,,