September 3, 2015

Signs at the Maryland Line

When stopped at the Maryland Welcome Center near Pocomoke City to get a map, we saw these historical markers.

Boundary Line 
Maryland - Virginia 
"State Line located approximately 100 yards south of this point. In 1668 surveyors marked large oak trees to to indicate the boundary. These came to be called “Marriage Trees” as couples traveled from Virginia to wed under more lenient Maryland Laws. Boundary stones were set after 1883 survey."

A few steps away is a Civil War Trails marker.



Maryland's Eastern Shore 
Hundreds of Enslaved and Free Black Men Enlisted
"Although isolated from Maryland's largest population centers, the Eastern Shore was important to the state's role in the Civil War and exemplified the citizens' divided loyalties.

 In the years before the war, enslaved African-Americans here began escaping bondage via the Underground Railroad to the North and Canada, helped on their way by sympathetic blacks and whites and such courageous "conductors" as Harriet Tubman, an Eastern Shore native. During the war, hundreds of enslaved and free black men from the Eastern Shore enlisted in the United States Colored Troops, the black units authorized in January 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Afterward, returning black veterans established towns and emancipation celebrations that still survive today.

 Some of the Shore's white residents held fast to the Union, while others supported the Confederacy. Although combat bypassed this area, families here as elsewhere suffered the loss of their men as well as the hardships of war. Newspaper publishers suspected of disloyalty to the Union were arrested. Streams and towns on both sides of the Chesapeake Bay became smugglers' havens as enterprising watermen ran the Federal blockade to supply Confederate forces. When the conflict ended, Eastern Shore residents returned to their fields and fishing vessels, and the passions of war subsided."
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7 comments:

  1. I love these fancy historic markers.

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  2. The historical markers are interesting. The story about the marriage trees is intersting. Enjoy your Friday!

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  3. So much history in that one lovely area! I had never heard of the marriage tree ... Or about the couples traveling there because of more lenient laws...very interesting! And the Underground Railroad, while more familiar, is one thing that is wonderful to think of. Harriet Tubman was so brave and she has not gotten enough notice in our history books, ....

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  4. I'd love to explore the eastern shore. That's a part of Maryland that so often gets overlooked.

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  5. It is excellent to have historical markers, always interesting to read them.

    Hope you have a lovely weekend.

    All the best Jan

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  6. I like the story behind the "Marriage Trees." Hope you have a nice Labor Day weekend.

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