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Welcome
to Maryland American
History and Genealogy Project
we are in the process of
building new State and County pages for the states where
the coordinator has moved on to other projects. Wicomico County is looking for a new Coordinator would you
be interested? If so please contact
Webmaster.
Many of the present coordinators are always willing to give help and
suggestions to newcomers, you can learn, I did and that was after 60!!
Read our
About Page and see what our requirements are,
pretty easy!
Court House at
Salisbury
Wicomico County lies southeast of Dorset, the division
line between the two being the Nanticoke River. Delaware
on the north, Worcester on the east, and Worcester and
Somerset on the south form the land boundaries of
Wicomico, and the Nanticoke River extends along its
western side, emptying into Tangier Sound. The area of
the county is 365 square miles, and its name is taken
from the river which flows through its central section
into Monie Bay.
Salisbury, the county seat (1732), is one of the most
thriving commercial towns on the Eastern Shore, and has
a population of 4,277. It is incorporated as a city, and
has numerous manufactures, mostly associated with the
extensive lumber interests of the county. Salisbury is
noted for the beauty of its situation and its
substantial business buildings and modern homes. Delmar,
partly in Wicomico and partly in Delaware, is a goodly
sized town, and Tyaskin, Nanticoke, Powellsville,
Quantico, Pittsville, Parsonburg, Wango, Fruitland and
other villages are the centers of thriving communities.
Agriculture is the occupation of many of the people, and
fruit growing is largely and successfully engaged in, as
is also trucking. The melon crop is an important one.
With its fine transportation facilities, Wicomico, like
Somerset, although, perhaps, in a greater degree, is in
competition with the truck farmers of Virginia in the
Northern markets.
Light, sandy soils, overlying stiff clays, are found in
Wicomico, and there are areas of gum swamp land and of
loams, the "black loam" along the edge of Delaware being
very fertile. Mardela Springs, a village of several
hundred inhabitants, is well-known in history as the
local location of "Barren Creek Springs," the fame of
whose medicinal waters covers over a century. In the
early days of the State, these mineral springs were a
favorite resort of persons from the middle Atlantic
coast territory. Francis Makemie established a
Presbyterian church in Wicomico (then Somerset) County
before the formation, in 1706, of the American
Presbytery in Philadelphia, and is called the founder of
the Presbyterian Church in America. The Baltimore,
Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway, and in New York,
Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad, run through Wicomico.
Online Here or Other Sites
Maryland
AHGP
Source: History of Maryland, by
L. Magruder Passano, Wm. J.C. Dulany Company, 1901.
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