Goldsboro
The extensive grain fields around Goldsboro were once part of
a huge, contiguous food-foraging area utilized for millennia
by Native Americans. The four major Indian paths on the
Delmarva Peninsula all converged here. The primary attributes
of this area were the spawning fish and edible plants around
freshwater streams as well as fur-bearing animals in the
oak-hickory and oak-gum forests collectively called the Great
Choptank Forest.
One of the earliest referenced points in the Great Forest was
"Old Town." It was probably a site for trading for beaver
pelts with Native Americans, a commerce so important that Lord
Baltimore forbade permanent English settlement here until
about 1664. Thereafter, one of the earliest settler families
was the Goldsboroughs. Old Town was eventually renamed
"Goldsborough" (later Goldsboro) in honor of Dr. G. W.
Goldsborough, a large local landowner and state legislator who
was imprisoned in Fort McHenry during the Civil War for his
advocacy of Maryland secession.
Copyright © 2002 J.O.K. Walsh, All rights reserved.
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