Snow Hill is the county seat of Worcester County, the easternmost area of Maryland. Today, it has about 2100 residents. Snow Hill was founded in 1686, but its story is one of change and adaptation.
Snow Hill was founded by English immigrants who favored the slow, navigable waters of the Pocomoke River. The name is ironic given its location: The Eastern Shore receives little snow and is known for its lack of hills. It’s thought that the name came from a London suburb that settlers originated in.
The Pocomoke, Algonquin for “broken ground,” was instrumental in the town’s development. The river begins in the Chesapeake Bay along the Maryland-Virginia border. It weaves through the flat Worcester landscape up until the Delaware border. Snow Hill started as a port of trade for ships just entering the Chesapeake Bay. The port grew so rapidly that in 1694, just 8 years after settlement, it was named a Port of Royalty by the English crown.
In 1742, Worcester County was created from Somerset County, also named by English settlers. Snow Hill was selected as the county seat, a distinction it holds to this day. Throughout the 17th and 18th Centuries, the Eastern Shore’s border with Virginia was a contentious debate. Landowners were unsure where the border was. Virginian plantation owners claimed the border was much farther north near Delaware, while Maryland claimed land farther south than Virginia was willing to cede. The earliest attempt at drawing the border didn’t help; the line drawn was not straight at all, sloping northeast the whole way. In addition, the cartographers had conveniently gone around certain plantations to give them more land. Over the centuries, a few skirmishes between local landowners broke out. The border wasn’t official until the 20th Century, but the crookedly drawn border was unofficially in use for much of the 19th Century.
The 1800s were a changing time for Snow Hill. The Eastern Shore was slave country, and while Snow Hill had a free black community, the surrounding landscape was plantation land. Tobacco became the river’s main export. Maryland was a Union state in the Civil War, but Snow Hill was very divided between abolitionists and slave holders. One Union Colonel, William Birney, recruited slaves to escape on his ferry boat, nicknamed “Jesus” by slaves, and become Union soldiers. Upset plantation owners eventually agreed to let slaves join Birney as long as the plantation owners themselves did not have to enlist.
One of Snow Hill’s most prominent figures of the 19th Century was a freed slave. Jacob Armstrong started with nothing but a swampy piece of land. He figured out how to drain it and the surrounding swamps with a ditch system, eventually buying the swamps around his land for cheap. Using the money he made farming and exporting down the Pocomoke, he got started in business, eventually lending to most of the town. He was especially supportive of other free slaves in the area.
Snow Hill’s industry also changed in the 19th Century. Many southern American towns were lost when their main income left, like plantation farming, but Snow Hill adapted. Cyprus trees from the surrounding swamps were logged and floated down the Pocomoke, a practice more commonly observed in Appalachia than the Eastern Shore. Iron furnaces, such as the Nassawango Furnace still standing today, dotted the landscape, allowing for a small railroad boom in the town. Towards the turn of the century, Snow Hill became a destination port for Western Shore Marylanders looking to vacation on the Eastern Shore. While the town’s industries changed, Snow Hill adapted well.
The most famous Snow Hill figure of the 20th Century was likely William “Judy” Johnson. Judy was born in 1899 and joined the Negro Baseball League in 1917. His best days were with Hilldale, but he also won a championship with Pittsburgh in 1935. Judy was the team leader for 3 straight league pennants from 1923 to 1925, and in 1929, he was named the Negro League MVP. Judy became known as the league’s best third baseman and also its most clutch hitter. After retiring in 1937, he worked as a scout until the 70s, and in 1975, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Today, Snow Hill is a quiet, quant town. The downtown area is home to many artisan shops in old buildings from the the turn of the century, as most preexisting buildings burnt down in a fire in 1893. Many of the town’s oldest homes and estate mansions still stand today, some are open for tour. The quiet but beautiful Pocomoke, with its stands of cyprus trees and a classic drawbridge, give the town a more Southern feel than anywhere else I’ve seen in the state.
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