(Editor’s note: When it comes to historical significance, Maryland’s Eastern Shore can stand with just about any other area of the United States. It’s carried through today in the names given to towns, rivers, streets and creeks, but more than 200 years later, their origins may not be so widely known. Drawing from “Discover Why It’s Called …,” a 1990 booklet by John Dexter Nilsson, here is one of those stories.)
A ferry hasn’t been there since 1952, but Romancoke Pier is still a popular location for sight-seers and fishermen.
Romancoke, at the southern end of Kent Island, was the name of William Claiborne’s plantation.
He used the same name in Virginia where he was known as Claiborne of Romancoke.
Dependent upon which Indian derivation you may prefer, the name means “circling waters,” or where there is low-lying ground.
The name was also given to a ferry that ran between Romancoke and Claiborne, a town across Eastern Bay in Talbot County, west of St. Michaels.
That ferry ran until 1952.
