The Eastern Shore
The Eastern Shore Steamboat Company has a monopoly of the steamboat carrying trade between the Eastern Shore and Baltimore. At the foot of South street, Baltimore, we board the Tangier, one of the elegant steamers of this line. At 5 o'clock P.M. we cast our lines and steam away. When tired of the Bay scenery we seek the berth in our state-room, and awake in the morning as we are steaming up to Onancock. Our place for disembarking is higher up the peninsula -- Pitt's [Wharf]. We approach it by way of Pocomoke sound and Pocomoke river. When nearing the mouth of the river we encounter the "mud flats," a broad expanse of sound with water from nought to three feet deep, and soft mud of an unknown depth. Our steamer, drawing five or six feet in water, navigated this mud, where there were not two feet of water over it. Our speed proved most conclusively that steamboats are not adapted to travelling on the ground. We finally entered the mouth of the river and deep water and quickly ran up to Pitt's wharf. At the wharf is a freight shed, a store with dwelling above, and a stable. In the distance are one or two farm houses, but close at hand are grassy marshes by the hundred acres. This marsh seems to afford fine grazing, but we saw very few cattle.
Taking a carriage (a top buggy is here called a carriage) we drove away over a splendid road towards Temperanceville. The road cornered and curved amongst the farms, but every stretch was firm and smooth, and we reached Temperanceville apparently without ascent or descent. The western shoreman who is accustomed to trying the speed of his horse whenever he finds a stretch of smooth, level road, would drive his horse to death over there, for every mile of road is smooth enough for a race track. On the road we meet a few carts with barrels of potatoes. This evening and early to-morrow morning the road to the wharf will be crowded with carts thus loaded. July is the season here for digging and shipping the early crop of "round potatoes" (Irish potatoes are here called "round potatoes.")
Temperanceville is a cross-roads village. There are two stores, steam saw, flour and grist mills, a smith's shop, post office, etc., and about a dozen scattered dwellings. The stores seem to carry large stocks, and the village dwellings have the outward appearance of life and prosperity. Seeing some colored persons come to the store with buckets on their arms, I asked: "What have you in your buckets?" They stared at me inquiringly, and I repeated the question. "The bails, you mean;" said one of them. "
Assawoman [village] is one of the oldest settlements on this shore. It is about fifteen miles north of Accomac Courthouse, on the Seaside road; north of the courthouse, running parallel north and south, are three roads -- Seaside, Middle and Bayside roads. Going north you descend gradually to a clear stream, which you cross some fifty yards below a little mill-house perched on posts, under which a little tub-wheel flutters and whirls in a most lively manner. This stream is Assawoman creek. Just beyond this you ascend the steep hill that borders the creek and find yourself in the heart of this ancient village. There are a store and bar-room, two or three ancient houses with brick ends and wooden sides and as many modern houses of wood. Everything about the place looks as dead as a neglected graveyard. In the olden times the creek was navigable almost to the mill, and not far below was a ship-yard from which schooners and sloops for the coasting trade were launched. The stream is now filled up so that the smallest craft can hardly reach the ship-yards.
A few miles down the creek toward the sea, on the farm now owned by Capt. Green, on the borders of a beautiful bay (now a muddy flat), is the site of an ancient Indian village. There are abundant evidences that this was a large and important Indian settlement. Some of our antiquarians would do well to spend a summer digging in the mounds of the old village. From the hill on which the village stood you look eastward over the course of the creek and see the white-crested waves of the Atlantic break on the sandy beach. The intervening waters teem with fish, oysters and clams and hundreds of march hens lay their eggs and hatch their young in the bordering marshes.