Rediscovering America_ Exploring the Small Towns of Virginia & Maryland - Bill Burnham [119]
Snow Hill
In early August, just before harvest time, a dozen giant combines parade down Washington Street, then park along Green Street, dwarfing everything else around them. Here they await the blessings of local clergy for a good soybean and corn harvest. Nearly 500 people come to watch, bow their heads in respect to the area’s farmers, then proceed with a down-home country fair of barnyard petting zoos, bluegrass and gospel music, bake sales and hayrides.
This unusual affair is Snow Hills’ annual Blessing of the Combines (see Events, below), a symbolic gesture of support for those who earn their livelihoods from the land. That much hasn’t changed in Snow Hill in hundreds of years. Agriculture is still a valued and valuable sector of the economy, though the cash crops have evolved from tomatoes and tobacco to corn, soybeans and chickens.
Snow Hill was chartered in 1686, an agricultural settlement with an accessible trade route provided by the Pocomoke River, which flows through town. Other than paddling and nature watching on the river, the two things that bring people to Snow Hill today are the courthouse and antiques.
Around Town
Anyone who gets a speeding ticket, or needs a permit or a marriage license, has to come to Snow Hill, and they usually end up doing a little shopping, getting a hand-dipped cone at Sweet Memories or having lunch in Bailey’s Café, an eatery with old-timey atmosphere. Unlike the passing fads that tourism can bring, this is the real ebb-and-flow of small town life.
While court business draws people who have to be here, a half dozen inviting (and reasonably priced) antiques shops are what get people to stop on their way to the beaches of Ocean City or Assateague Island. They see the tantalizing items lining the sidewalks, park, get out and walk. Thus, a Snow Hill tourist is born. Slowly, ever so slowly, businesses have sprung up to meet these traveler’s other needs, namely restaurants and bed & breakfasts, should they decide to extend their visit.
Barry Laws has seen tourism grow steadily, but by no means out of control, since he opened Pocomoke River Canoe Co. in 1982, outfitting recreationists with kayaks, canoes and guide services. Located in a barn-red restored lumber warehouse perched on the edge of the Pocomoke River drawbridge, it’s probably the most visible landmark in town. His guides will take you up the freshwater river six or 12 miles and let you paddle back, or to the Nassawango Creek where Spanish moss drapes from bald cypress trees. They’ll provide instruction if needed, box lunches, or arrange inn-to-inn trips. (tel. 410-632-3971 or 800-258-0905, www.atbeach.com/amuse/md/canoe)
The river is the reason Snow Hill is mentioned in several outdoor guidebooks, and has received some press in large newspaper recently. But so far, it hasn’t drawn so many people as to change the face of this small town very much at all.
The intimacy afforded by a small community is what brought businesswoman Helen Chambers here a few years ago. A transplant from Ocean City, she likes the fact that her son’s 2002 graduating class had fewer than 100 students and that the streets close up by 10 pm. In December 2001, she and a partner opened I Remember This Antiques & Collectables on the main street, North Washington. In the process, she filled two storefronts that had been empty, one a dry cleaner that went out of business, and the other a long, narrow building that she believes had been an auto body shop most recently. But since opening, she’s had customers come in and tell her it used to be a three-lane bowling alley beginning in the 1930s. Next-door was a dance hall. With