Before the Fire

Genealogical records are hard to find in this Dorchester County town on the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay, thanks to a mid-nineteenth century courthouse fire. This researcher was able to find microfilm copies of a few disparate issues of the local newspaper, thus filling in some of the gaps. These precious newspapers also shed a bright beam of light on nineteenth-century Dorchester County life: its economic ups and downs, politics, Methodism, dependence on the steamboat, and cultural aspirations.