HISTORICAL COMMENTS BY GEORGE CHEVALLIER

Sections of Salisbury

Over the years there have been sections of Salisbury that had rather distinctive names. For the most part these are all gone now and people wouldn’t know where they are if you referred to them by their former name.

The earliest distinct name was Cotton Patch. It was located out Riverside Drive and was the farthest upriver a large boat could go. The wharf was naturally named Cotton Patch Wharf, and there are houses now where they have built up the land for housing. Most of the houses that are on the riverside of Riverside Drive are built on land that was once part of the river.

Near here is a section of Salisbury that was referred to as Snuff Hill. It is near Riverside Drive and Oak Hill Avenue. The name originated because so many of the ship’s captains lived there, and most of them used snuff. This was because the use of any other form of tobacco on their long voyages subjected it to the wet conditions.

The Hunting Park section of the city used to be called Weatherhead’s Woods after the man who previously owned all the land that now comprises Hunting Park. The Larmar Corporation bought all the land and developed it in the 1940’s. George Chandler was the guiding hand behind the Larmar Corporation, and the surveyor he used was Bert Cropper from Ocean City. They started before World War II and finished it after the war.

An area that was still familiar to many in the 1950’s was Rabbit Gnaw. It is the area around the Salvation Army complex.

Another area is Hasty Town. This area was around where Expert Tire is now. There is no history of Hasty Town, only a vague reference as to its location by the late historian, Richard Cooper.

The area that is now the Oaks sub-division at the corner of North Division and Isabella streets was called Pea Hill before 1890. It was sort of a park that had a ball field and picnic area for people to enjoy on week-ends. E. E. Jackson bought the entire piece of land and built his mansion on it. He called it “The Oaks”. The 40-room mansion was sold in 1925 to an out-of-town buyer for $100,000. He tore it down and sub-divided the property.

Two areas have been referred to as the Fairgrounds. The first was the block that is encircled by Church, Truitt, and Isabella Streets and Holland Avenue. This was around 1875. The other is where Pemberton apartments are now. This was used as the county Fairgrounds beginning in 1909.

One of the larger enclaves was Georgetown. It was a predominately black section that was formerly part of the plantation of Major Levin Handy called Poplar Farm. The Poplar Hill Mansion was the manor house for the farm. It is thought that one of his slaves bought his freedom and settled in the area. No one knows how it became to be known as Georgetown. The east-west perimeters are between Poplar Hill Avenue and just to the west of the railroad. The north boundary was around Isabella Street and extended southerly to the main part of Salisbury. The southerly part of Georgetown was also referred to as Cuba.

Anything west of the river was in “California”. My grandmother was born in 1888 on the corner of Second and Pearl, and my grandparents’ first house after they got married in 1911 was on the corner of Isabella and Lake Streets – in California. Another area in California was a large area known as “the cranberry bog” because that is what it was. It was unsuitable for building and it eventually became a dump. It now sits under our new fire house on Cypress Street.

Today there are many sub-divisions that are familiar to us such as Camden and Newtown, but how many of the old names do you hear?