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(Chapter flow:)

ITS ORIGIN AND TOWN LIMITS

TOWN LIMITS

GROWTH, CHANGE OF NAME, ETC.

MERCANTILE ASPECT

MANUFACTURING

TRADES ETC.

SHIPPING INTERESTS

EASTERN SHORE STEAMBOAT CO.

SHIP BUILDING ETC.

HOTELS, LIVERY STABLES, ETC.

PHYSICIANS

LAWYERS

POST OFFICE

PRINTING OFFICES

SOCIAL ASPECT, ETC.

MORAL ASPECT

TEMPERANCE CAUSE

SCHOOLS

CHURCHES

Note:  In duplicating this material for publishing on The Pocomoke Public Eye we have made minor adjustments to correct some of the spelling, punctuation, etc. We believe the errors were not in Rev. Murray's original writing but occurred in the process of formatting the material to a digital format for viewing online.

In writing a history of New Town, I have been no little

perplexed in gathering up evidence in regard to its origin. 
There is, however, one item of historical fact which gives 
some clue to it, namely: A certain Col William Stevens, 
who was, probably, staff officer to Lord Baltimore, estab- 
lished in 1670 what has since been called, for many years, 
Stevens'Ferry. 

A scrap of Col. Stevens' history may not be out of place 
here. He had a grant from Lord Baltimore to take up all 
the lands from the mouth of the Pocomoke River to Lewis- 
town, Delaware, and settle the same, which he did, with 
a colony of Welsh, Irish and English. He was one of 
Lord Baltimore's counsellors, was Judge of Somerset Court 
for twenty-two years, and departed this life the 23d day 
of December, in 1687, in the fifty -seventh year of his age. 
The reader will remember that, originally, Somerset 
County embraced all of Worcester County too. and the 
Court House stood on the rise of ground, on Edwin 
Townsend's farm, in Somerset County, at the junction of 
Cokes Bury and Snow Hill roads, leading to Dividing 
Creek Bridge. Indeed, the farm, from our earliest recol- 
lection, until recently, has been called Court House Farm, 
but now the name is becoming obsolete. 

Steven's Ferry reached from the Somerset side of Poco- 

moke River, adjoining the Phosphate Factory of Freeman, 

Lloyd, Mason and Dryden, to the foot of the Pocomoke 

Bridge, on the Worcester side. 

This Ferry was the center of business for this whole sec- 
tion of the country. 

The country on both sides of the river was, with some 

exceptions, a dense wilderness. 

The historical fact of Stevens' Ferry being erected in 

1670 will serve as a nucleus with which to associate the 

history of New Town. 

All other evidence, which I have been able to obtain 

relative to the origin of the place is traditional. 

Tradition says : About the time or shortly after the 

erection of Stevens' Ferry a New England trader came up 

the Pocomoke River in his vessel, ladened with New 

England Rum and Cheese, and sought a landing at the 

Ferry, to sell his cargo, but the authorities drove him off, 

and he dropped his vessel down the river to the next knoll 

-on the Worcester side, which we used to call the Hill, but 

is now called the Public Square. 

Here he pitched his tent and traded with the sparse 

inhabitants, as they would come with their produce to 

trade for Rum and Cheese. 

The reader must conclude, of course, that the plank 

'lent which he put up was the only house, or substitute for 

a house, in the neighborhood ; all around him were forest 

trees, between him and the river were mud flats and 

tuckahoes. 

Tradition goes on further to say: That about the year 
16S3 or '54 the place was then called Meeting House Land- 
ing, in view of the saying that a Presbyterian House of. 
Worship was erected on the lot which was called, when I 
was a boy, the Sacher Lot, a nick name for Zachariah, as. 
the lot then belonged to one Zachariah Lambertson, but: 
now belonging to William J. S. Clarke, known of late: 
years as the Adreon Lot, at the foot of Willow St. 

"History states that about the year 1680, a petition was 
gotten up by Colonel William Stevens and others, and 
sent to the Presbytery of Laggan, Ireland, for a Minister- 
to come and settle in this part of the Colony to preach the- 
Gospel and look after the interests of the Presbyterian 
Church in these western wilds." 

" In 1682 the Rev. Francis Makemie, was sent to the- 
Colony, a man of celebrity, under whose supervision and: 
oversight, tradition says, this house was built. 

About the year 1700, the Tobacco Warehouse was built.. 

Tobacco having been made a legal tender by the House- 
of Burgesses, and a fixed price per pound established, for 
all debts, public and private, the warehouse became the 
place of deposit for the circulating medium. 

At this juncture of time, the name of the place was 
changed from Meeting House Landing to Warehouse 
Landing, or both may alternately have been used. Why 
the change was made, whether the log Church had been, 
abandoned or not, is all left to conjecture. 

I remember, well, the old Tobacco Warehouse, it stood 
about 120 years, and when it was torn down there was 
good material in it, and though I was but a child, yet I had 
many a romp and play in it, with my little associates, in 
hide-and-go-seek. It's large tobacco hogsheads, and 
and scales, and weights are still fresh in my memory. It 
stood on the hill, between the pump and the south-west 
corner of Smullen & Bro's. Store. 

From 1700 to the days of the Revolution, there is no 
evidence that I have been able to obtain, either historical 
or traditional, in regard to New Town. 

There are some few facts, however, which are within the 
writer's own knowledge, which may serve as reminiscences 
of that period, and fill up in some little degree the place 
of the lost history. I allude to some few old houses, 
which were probably coeval with the Old Tobacco Ware- 
house, one or two of which stood on the ground, now 
occupied by Smullen & Brother's Storehouse, one adjoining 
the ground now occupied by Twilly & Brother's Livery 
Stables, inhabited by an old lady by the name of Elizabeth 
Matthews. There were three or four more, only one of 
which I shall call the reader's attention to, which was a 
small red house, and stood on the south-west corner of 
Market and Second Streets. In this house a Revo- 
lutionary Soldier lived by the name of Daniel Spaulding. 

These houses served as landmarks, pointing to the 
period from 1700 to 1776, and show conclusively that they 
were once occupied by those who have long since passed 
away, and, so far as we have been able to ascertain, have 
left no tidings behind them. 

The reader is already aware that this place was called 
Warehouse Landing, and that name continued until 1780 
or thereabouts, when it was changed to New Town. There 
is no record of the fact, why, or by whom the change was 
made. I remember about forty years ago, of having an 
interview with a man by the name of Reville, who said 
that he gave to this place the name of New Town. Be 
that as it may, there are some reflections presumptive of 
the fact. He was at the time of the interview eighty or 
ninety years old, so that at the time the place was named, he 
was twenty or twenty-five years old, admitting the fact 
that he was not a conspicuous man in the community, and 
that such changes generally take place by men of distinc- 
tion, yet it will be remembered that the inhabitants of the 
place were very few, and the surrounding country sparsely 
settled, so that there is a possibility that his statement is 
true, though I leave the reader to form his own con- 
clusions, 

CONTINUES NEXT SATURDAY HERE AT THE POCOMOKE PUBLIC EYE.