DORCHESTER , AN EASTERN SHORE COUNTY

Description: Dorchester, An Eastern Shore Southern County
Date: 1942

Newspaper published in: Annapolis

Source: Hulbert Footner Collection

Dorchester:


Dorchester county is the largest of the southern counties on Maryland's Eastern Shore but much of it is tidal salt marsh land of great beauty, wild, unspoiled stretches abundant with muskrats and water fowl. Muskrat fur pelts were once a major export for the manufacture of the "Hudson Seal" coat. Sitting between the Choptank River and the Nanticoke is is a popular playground for the Chesapeake yatchsmen and the trappers, fishermen and hunters for income.

Dorchester was settled early because of it's accessibility by water and many 17th century houses are still standing. It was named a county in 1669 and sent a delegate to a General Assembly in St. Mary's by name of Richard Preston, a Quaker of Calvert county but a large property holder in Dorchester.

Entering from the north you first visit East New Market a village of many old houses of distinctive style. Then there is Cambridge, a town of narrow streets along side of the Choptank and is a maritime place, with tanned faces and yachting caps. Houses built in 1706, The Point, LaGrange, The Hill, Wallace Mansion,Jordon house, all with fine gardens of boxwood, magnolia trees and such.

Other places up and down the Choptank are Eldon, Shoal Creek,Glasco, Hambrook, Castle Haven, Spocot and others. Horns Point holds the duPont family homes.

Hoopers Island , upper. middle and lower, lays below, there is Church Creek, , Trinity Church, the old windmill, and a history deep into the Revolution. There were also villages of Honga, pronounced 'Hunger', Fishing Creek, Straits, and others where live oystermen, fishermen and seafood packing people. Then for sure there is the Blackwater Swamp.