On the Beautiful Pocomoke.

To the Editor of The American: Pocomoke [City] is one of the newer towns of the Eastern Shore, but there are few towns that exemplify the progressive hustle of the eastern section of the state more effectually that this river town of Worcester county. Snow Hill, the capital of Worcester, may take pride in a history that touches the colonial period, but Pocomoke has caught the county capital in population and passed her by with a quickness of pace that scarcely leaves the older town in the race. Pocomoke would scorn the insinuation that it consists of one long street with a few cross ribs, but that pretty much describes this as many other country towns. The main street is a pretty long one, beginning with business houses, banks, law offices, etc., and then running into a residential street and continuing the extension until the corn fields of the open country are reached. The town extends for a half mile along the river, and apparently, there is a very considerable manufacturing and lumber industry along the water.

The Pocomoke River is something unique among Maryland streams. It deserves a wider fame than has been accorded it. The enthusiasts who live along its shores will tell you the Pocomoke is beautiful. It is hardly that, except in a weird and uncanny way. Anyone, however, who would think the St. John River, in Florida, beautiful would also be charmed with the Pocomoke. The two streams, to my thinking are strikingly alike. The waters of each are turgid -- black and forbidding as a murky night. The Pocomoke, like the St. John, is a narrow winding stream, twisting constantly around bends and curves, bordered closely to the water by impenetrable cypress swamps, and with a general lost weirdness in the impress it makes upon the observer that is almost uncanny. Through some of the stretches between the Bay and Pocomoke City the steamboat moves for miles, without encountering any signs of human life along shore. Unbroken jungle and boundless marsh stretch on either side the narrow stream. "Boundless" is, of course, a bit of hyperbole; as a fact the green of the forest and a few housetops can be seen miles across the marsh lands, but as for the swamps, when they are encountered, they shut the river in completely. And this river for 50 miles of its course is so narrow that one could easily toss an apple ashore from either side of the steamboat.

There are bluffy lands along the Pocomoke, and on these the red stain of a farm barn will sometimes break as a pleasant surprise to the traveler up the river. There are a few cosy farmhouses, too, that are close along the banks, but these are the exception, and not the rule. Some of these Pocomoke river farmhouses give a sense of isolation which I have rarely encountered elsewhere. In several of them I looked for a sign of animation, but they were as wrapt in silence and mystery as graveyards. Life along the Pocomoke, I should judge, is a state of retirement from the world, except, of course, when you arrive at Pocomoke City. There the somber river has not affected the temperament of the people.

Near the mouth of the river, where it merges into Pocomoke Sound, the appearances change entirely. The black hue of the water disappears; the crab, the oyster and the clam not only reappear, but are in the sumptuous abundance that distinguishes practically all of the bottoms of the lower Bay and its tributaries. Saxis Island, near the mouth of the Pocomoke, is famous for its fishing industries. The river as far down as Saxis Island, however, is a bay armlet, and not a river proper.

The Pocomoke, whatever it may be from the point of view of the romancer or the poet, is one of about a score of such streams that pour a great traffic into the Chesapeake Bay. The river is navigable for steamboats for 2 miles above Pocomoke City. There is a prosperous stretch of country that lies a little inland from either shore of the river along the entire length, and the ships that go down to the sea -- down to the Bay -- generally go down loaded. When these bay boats get into Baltimore it takes a whole day to unload the cargo and to take on the load that is to be brought back. An outgoing cargo of one of these bay steamers is composed of a hundred different commodities, ranging all the way from mules to sewing machines. The tidewater sections of Maryland are immensely prosperous, a prosperity that means much to Baltimore.

Pocomoke City, July 28, 1906.