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Somerset County

Charlie Adams of Crisfield, Maryland
Crisfield Character of the (Memorial) Day: Charlie Adams CharactersWay Back Machine

Crisfield Character of the (Memorial) Day: Charlie Adams

Meet Charlie Adams. It was back in 1939 that he first set up shop outside of Gordon's Confectionary, selling copies of the Crisfield Times newspaper. He was five years old then. By the time "Mister Charlie" finally retired from the corner paperboy game, it was 2006, and he was 72 years old. As the years went on, he became quite a celebrity: “I’ve met a…
May 27, 2019
Delmarva Wisdom On the Culinary Generosity of Neighbors
DELMARVA WISDOM: On the Culinary Generosity of Neighbors Delmarva WisdomWay Back Machine

DELMARVA WISDOM: On the Culinary Generosity of Neighbors

The quote at hand here is a simple run of words, but it speaks volumes about the neighborliness and generosity that characterized life back in the early 1900s in a small, isolated community of watermen families living and working on the edge of Tangier Sound. "Here, take this and fix it up fer Fred," Uncle Ike said. The words are from a 1967 memoir by…
March 14, 2019
QUOTE OF THE DAY: The Heyday of Garment Factories in Crisfield, Maryland Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

QUOTE OF THE DAY: The Heyday of Garment Factories in Crisfield, Maryland

  That old saying about how the more things change, the more they stay the same popped into my head when I went looking for a little background info to go with a cool photo of an old B.V.D. underwear plant, one of several old garment factories in Crisfield, Md. We’ve all heard about modern-day clothing and shoe companies that find their way to far-flung…
July 23, 2018
George Fox Voice in the Wilderness
QUOTE OF THE DAY: A “weird, wild mystic of the 17th century” visits Somerset County Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

QUOTE OF THE DAY: A “weird, wild mystic of the 17th century” visits Somerset County

This is the way it usually works at Secrets of the Eastern Shore. I went looking for a tidbit about the time Presbyterian preacher Frances Makemie spent in Onancock, Va. I found my way to an 1885 book, The Days of Makemie: Or The Vine Planted. But I never did find what I was looking for. Instead, I got distracted by author Littleton Purnell Bowen’s…
May 3, 2018
Strawberry Field in Fairmount, Somerset County
DELMARVA CLASSIC: The Sweet Strawberry Boom of Days Gone By Way Back Machine

DELMARVA CLASSIC: The Sweet Strawberry Boom of Days Gone By

The story behind the variety of strawberries we enjoy nowadays is a global affair that stretches across several centuries and three continents. Strawberries were a modest little culinary thing in Europe as far back as ancient Rome--there is talk in writings dating to those days about how wild strawberry bushes had medicinal properties. But farmed strawberries were another matter. The first mention of strawberry bushes…
May 16, 2017
Downtown Crisfield, Maryland in 1922
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Back in the 1920s, Crisfield Was a ‘Sort of Tiny Vulgar Venice’ Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Back in the 1920s, Crisfield Was a ‘Sort of Tiny Vulgar Venice’

Back in 1922, the writer Edward Noble Vallandigham penned this ode to Crisfield for his travel guide, Delaware and the Eastern Shore: Some Aspects of a Peninsula Pleasant and Well Beloved." "Newest of all the large and active communities on the Peninsula is Crisfield, … has grown into an active little city with a busy main street that looks like that of a raw Western mining…
April 2, 2017
Marshland in Somerset County on Maryland's Eastern Shore
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Head Over Heels for Somerset County Quote of the Day

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Head Over Heels for Somerset County

    Somerset County is celebrating its 350th birthday here in 2016, and that is the sort of occasion that can make grown men get a little emotional and go a little over the top. I would doubt, however, that anyone doing any speechifying nowadays will be able to top the writer Clarence Torrence in the Department of Purple Prose. Here is how Mr. Torrence opens his…
September 15, 2016
A Proposal on Holland Island
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Rev. Joshua Thomas Proposes to the ‘Ugliest Woman in the World.’ Quote of the Day

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Rev. Joshua Thomas Proposes to the ‘Ugliest Woman in the World.’

    Ladies, is this the perfect time for a marriage proposal, or what? That question certainly popped into my head while reading up on Rev. Joshua Thomas during the work I did for my book, “Eastern Shore Road Trips: 27 One-Day Adventures on Delmarva.” Thomas was the famed “Parson of the Islands,” of course, and he traveled the Bay in a log canoe called…
July 8, 2016