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Rivers of America #25
Rivers of the Eastern Shore: Seventeen Rivers
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- GenresTravelNonfiction
381 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1944
About the author
Hulbert Footner
329 books4 followersFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia -
Hulbert Footner (1879 - 1944) was a Canadian writer of non-fiction and detective fiction.
biography of Hulbert Footner
http://www.geoffreymfootner.com/hulbe...
Hulbert Footner (1879 - 1944) was a Canadian writer of non-fiction and detective fiction.
biography of Hulbert Footner
http://www.geoffreymfootner.com/hulbe...
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 16, 2025
The rivers of the Eastern Shore of Maryland are rich in both history and scenic beauty. And in his 1944 book Rivers of the Eastern Shore, author Hulbert Footner emphasizes both the beauty and the history to be found by anyone willing to take the time to explore this region.
Footner, a Canadian-born author who specialized in adventure and crime stories, spent a good deal of time on the Eastern Shore; and his familiarity with the region shows, as he provides rich and evocative description of the marshes, trees, farmsteads, towns, and people to be found along Seventeen Maryland Rivers (the book’s subtitle).
Rivers of the Eastern Shore was published as part of the "Rivers of America" series. You may never have heard of "Rivers of America," but it was a very big deal in the American literary scene of an earlier time. Published from the 1930's through the 1970's by Farrar & Rinehart and its successor corporations, the "Rivers of America" series seems to have had its genesis in the following idea: As the flow of a river can be related to the flow of an individual human life, and to the steady onward flow of human history, so the story of a nation's rivers might be a good way of telling the story of that nation in its totality.
It is an intriguing idea and a novel approach to history; and the series often drew upon the talents of poets and other literary figures, as when Illinois poet Edgar Lee Masters, author of Spoon River Anthology, wrote The Sangamon (1942) as his contribution to "Rivers of America."
Today, when the "Rivers of America" series has long since flowed to its end in an unknown sea, volumes in the series are most likely to be found in used bookstores, or reprinted for regional interest by university presses, as when Frederick Gutheim's The Potomac (1949) was republished by the Johns Hopkins University Press in 1984. While the series has passed into history, the books of the series still have value for students of the regional diversity of the United States; and Footner's Rivers of the Eastern Shore provides a good example of what the books offer to any student of American regional history and culture.
After four chapters of introductory and general history, Footner guides the reader from south to north along the Eastern Shore's rivers, from the Pocomoke River in the south to the Sassafras and Bohemia rivers in the north. Footner voyages up each river, inviting the reader along for the ride as he describes historic houses and tells interesting stories of events that transpired along these rivers and their banks. Occasionally, Footner and the reader go ashore to visit some of the major towns of the Eastern Shore -- Oxford, St. Michaels, and Chestertown -- communities that remain singularly graceful and beautiful places.
His talent for description emerges in this passage from a chapter on the Little and Big Annemessex rivers:
Upon rounding Holland Point on the south shore, the river swerves abruptly to the east, and even south of east, as if making back to the Pocomoke. The wide stream narrows down and presently is crossed by a long wooden bridge, innocent of paint and silvery with age. Vincent Van Gogh would have loved to paint this scene, the silvery bridge, the winding stream…the green rushes, the gently rising fields. Off to the right there is an old farmhouse under trees to complete the composition. (p. 100)
Footner makes the reader party to this journey along seventeen Maryland rivers, so that the reader gets to experience the little misadventures that can befall any traveller making a river voyage, as in this passage relating to Footner’s time on the Choptank River:
The question of gasoline on this unfrequented river was momentarily becoming more serious. We were now reduced to a couple of inches in the bottom of the tank, and nearly twenty miles to go! It was with great relief that we saw the village of Choptank looming around a bend. Upon tying up at the basin of the Preston Yacht Club, we found that our captain had no can; however, he was fortunate enough to obtain the loan of one from a glittering yacht tied up near-by. We watched him disappearing along the village road in no little anxiety. However, he proved to be a man of resource. In due time, he hove into view weighed down by a full can. I asked no questions. (p. 203)
The history can be vivid, and often troubling – the planters who dominated the economic, social, political, and cultural life of the Eastern Shore in antebellum times were touchy, honor-obsessed, and not averse to violence. Those qualities of antebellum Eastern Shore life come through in Footner’s treatment of Wye Hall, a plantation home that was funded by Declaration of Independence signer William Paca and designed by White House architect James Hoban.
Footner writes that Wye Hall was “celebrated alike for its magnificence and its horrors. In the final clearing of the stage through murder, suicide, and madness, the story has the elements of a Greek tragedy. The house has been destroyed by fire three times” (p. 300). This particular Eastern Shore saga has a decided Southern Gothic quality to it, and Footner tells well the grim tale of the fall of the house of Wye Hall.
The book was written more than 75 years ago, and some of its perspectives occasionally seem dated. The illustrations, line drawings by Aaron Sopher, are exaggerated to the point of caricature. And Footner sometimes seems much more interested in the grand world of the antebellum planters than in the humbler stories of the ordinary people, black and white, whose stories were more characteristic of the Eastern Shore experience.
But then I would find Footner criticizing Eastern Shore whites' blindness to the cruelty of the antebellum slave system, or writing appreciatively of the unconquerable spirit of Frederick Douglass, who was born into bondage on one of the plantations of the Lloyds of Wye, but escaped from Eastern Shore slavery to become one of the greatest Americans of his time. It is in such ways that the book surprised me.
Rivers of the Eastern Shore: Seventeen Maryland Rivers was published in 1944. At that time, the Eastern Shore was still a very isolated place. The building of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge was still eight years away, and Baltimoreans and Washingtonians who wanted to visit the Shore had to cross the Bay by ferry. Today, wide highways connect the once-remote towns, and the same big-box retailers and fast-food emporia that clutter the streetscapes of other American towns are to be found in Eastern Shore communities like Salisbury and Cambridge as well. Hulbert Footner's Rivers of the Eastern Shore draws an historically valuable picture of an earlier time in the history of this important American region.
Footner, a Canadian-born author who specialized in adventure and crime stories, spent a good deal of time on the Eastern Shore; and his familiarity with the region shows, as he provides rich and evocative description of the marshes, trees, farmsteads, towns, and people to be found along Seventeen Maryland Rivers (the book’s subtitle).
Rivers of the Eastern Shore was published as part of the "Rivers of America" series. You may never have heard of "Rivers of America," but it was a very big deal in the American literary scene of an earlier time. Published from the 1930's through the 1970's by Farrar & Rinehart and its successor corporations, the "Rivers of America" series seems to have had its genesis in the following idea: As the flow of a river can be related to the flow of an individual human life, and to the steady onward flow of human history, so the story of a nation's rivers might be a good way of telling the story of that nation in its totality.
It is an intriguing idea and a novel approach to history; and the series often drew upon the talents of poets and other literary figures, as when Illinois poet Edgar Lee Masters, author of Spoon River Anthology, wrote The Sangamon (1942) as his contribution to "Rivers of America."
Today, when the "Rivers of America" series has long since flowed to its end in an unknown sea, volumes in the series are most likely to be found in used bookstores, or reprinted for regional interest by university presses, as when Frederick Gutheim's The Potomac (1949) was republished by the Johns Hopkins University Press in 1984. While the series has passed into history, the books of the series still have value for students of the regional diversity of the United States; and Footner's Rivers of the Eastern Shore provides a good example of what the books offer to any student of American regional history and culture.
After four chapters of introductory and general history, Footner guides the reader from south to north along the Eastern Shore's rivers, from the Pocomoke River in the south to the Sassafras and Bohemia rivers in the north. Footner voyages up each river, inviting the reader along for the ride as he describes historic houses and tells interesting stories of events that transpired along these rivers and their banks. Occasionally, Footner and the reader go ashore to visit some of the major towns of the Eastern Shore -- Oxford, St. Michaels, and Chestertown -- communities that remain singularly graceful and beautiful places.
His talent for description emerges in this passage from a chapter on the Little and Big Annemessex rivers:
Upon rounding Holland Point on the south shore, the river swerves abruptly to the east, and even south of east, as if making back to the Pocomoke. The wide stream narrows down and presently is crossed by a long wooden bridge, innocent of paint and silvery with age. Vincent Van Gogh would have loved to paint this scene, the silvery bridge, the winding stream…the green rushes, the gently rising fields. Off to the right there is an old farmhouse under trees to complete the composition. (p. 100)
Footner makes the reader party to this journey along seventeen Maryland rivers, so that the reader gets to experience the little misadventures that can befall any traveller making a river voyage, as in this passage relating to Footner’s time on the Choptank River:
The question of gasoline on this unfrequented river was momentarily becoming more serious. We were now reduced to a couple of inches in the bottom of the tank, and nearly twenty miles to go! It was with great relief that we saw the village of Choptank looming around a bend. Upon tying up at the basin of the Preston Yacht Club, we found that our captain had no can; however, he was fortunate enough to obtain the loan of one from a glittering yacht tied up near-by. We watched him disappearing along the village road in no little anxiety. However, he proved to be a man of resource. In due time, he hove into view weighed down by a full can. I asked no questions. (p. 203)
The history can be vivid, and often troubling – the planters who dominated the economic, social, political, and cultural life of the Eastern Shore in antebellum times were touchy, honor-obsessed, and not averse to violence. Those qualities of antebellum Eastern Shore life come through in Footner’s treatment of Wye Hall, a plantation home that was funded by Declaration of Independence signer William Paca and designed by White House architect James Hoban.
Footner writes that Wye Hall was “celebrated alike for its magnificence and its horrors. In the final clearing of the stage through murder, suicide, and madness, the story has the elements of a Greek tragedy. The house has been destroyed by fire three times” (p. 300). This particular Eastern Shore saga has a decided Southern Gothic quality to it, and Footner tells well the grim tale of the fall of the house of Wye Hall.
The book was written more than 75 years ago, and some of its perspectives occasionally seem dated. The illustrations, line drawings by Aaron Sopher, are exaggerated to the point of caricature. And Footner sometimes seems much more interested in the grand world of the antebellum planters than in the humbler stories of the ordinary people, black and white, whose stories were more characteristic of the Eastern Shore experience.
But then I would find Footner criticizing Eastern Shore whites' blindness to the cruelty of the antebellum slave system, or writing appreciatively of the unconquerable spirit of Frederick Douglass, who was born into bondage on one of the plantations of the Lloyds of Wye, but escaped from Eastern Shore slavery to become one of the greatest Americans of his time. It is in such ways that the book surprised me.
Rivers of the Eastern Shore: Seventeen Maryland Rivers was published in 1944. At that time, the Eastern Shore was still a very isolated place. The building of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge was still eight years away, and Baltimoreans and Washingtonians who wanted to visit the Shore had to cross the Bay by ferry. Today, wide highways connect the once-remote towns, and the same big-box retailers and fast-food emporia that clutter the streetscapes of other American towns are to be found in Eastern Shore communities like Salisbury and Cambridge as well. Hulbert Footner's Rivers of the Eastern Shore draws an historically valuable picture of an earlier time in the history of this important American region.
October 11, 2013
Rivers of the Eastern Shore takes one back into history -- the history of Maryland's Eastern Shore, to be sure, but with some literary history thrown in as well.
The "straight" history, of course, is of the rivers themselves -- Seventeen Maryland Rivers, as the book's subtitle indicates. Author Hulbert Footner, a Canadian-born author who specialized in adventure and crime stories, spent a good deal of time on the Eastern Shore; and his familiarity with the region shows, as he provides rich and evocative description of the Eastern Shore's rivers, marshes, trees, farmsteads, towns, and people.
The literary history pertains to the "Rivers of America" series. You may never have heard of "Rivers of America," but it was a very big deal in the American literary scene of an earlier time. Published from the 1930's through the 1970's by Farrar & Rinehart and its successor corporations, the "Rivers of America" series seems to have had its genesis in the following idea: As the flow of a river can be related to the flow of an individual human life, and to the steady onward flow of human history, so the story of a nation's rivers might be a good way of telling the story of that nation in its totality.
It is an intriguing idea and a novel approach to history; and the series often drew upon the talents of poets and other literary figures, as when Illinois poet Edgar Lee Masters, author of Spoon River Anthology, wrote The Sangamon (1942) as his contribution to "Rivers of America."
Today, when the "Rivers of America" series has long since flowed to its end in an unknown sea, volumes in the series are most likely to be found in used bookstores, or reprinted for regional interest by university presses, as when Frederick Gutheim's The Potomac (1949) was republished by the Johns Hopkins University Press in 1984. While the series has passed into history, the books of the series still have value for students of the regional diversity of the United States; and Footner's Rivers of the Eastern Shore provides a good example of what the books offer to any student of American regional history and culture.
After four chapters of introductory and general history, Footner guides the reader from south to north along the Eastern Shore's rivers, from the Pocomoke River in the south to the Sassafras and Bohemia rivers in the north. Footner voyages up each river, inviting the reader along for the ride as he describes historic houses and tells interesting stories of events that transpired along these rivers and their banks. Occasionally, Footner and the reader go ashore to visit some of the major towns of the Eastern Shore -- Oxford, St. Michaels, and Chestertown -- communities that remain singularly graceful and beautiful places.
The book was written in 1944, and some of its perspectives occasionally seem dated. The illustrations, line drawings by Aaron Sopher, are exaggerated to the point of caricature. And Footner sometimes seems much more interested in the grand world of the antebellum planters than in the humbler stories of the ordinary people, black and white, whose stories were more characteristic of the Eastern Shore experience. But then I would find Footner criticizing Eastern Shore whites' blindness to the cruelty of the antebellum slave system, or writing appreciatively of the unconquerable spirit of Frederick Douglass, who was born into bondage on one of the plantations of the Lloyds of Wye, but escaped from Eastern Shore slavery to become one of the greatest Americans of his time. It is in such ways that the book surprised me.
Rivers of the Eastern Shore was published in 1944. At that time, the Eastern Shore was still a very isolated place. The building of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge was still eight years away, and Baltimoreans and Washingtonians who wanted to visit the Shore had to cross the Bay by ferry. Today, wide highways connect the once-remote towns, and the same big-box retailers and fast-food emporia that clutter the streetscapes of other American towns are to be found in Eastern Shore communities like Salisbury and Cambridge as well. Hulbert Footner's Rivers of the Eastern Shore gives the reader a valuable chance to see Maryland's Eastern Shore as it was.
The "straight" history, of course, is of the rivers themselves -- Seventeen Maryland Rivers, as the book's subtitle indicates. Author Hulbert Footner, a Canadian-born author who specialized in adventure and crime stories, spent a good deal of time on the Eastern Shore; and his familiarity with the region shows, as he provides rich and evocative description of the Eastern Shore's rivers, marshes, trees, farmsteads, towns, and people.
The literary history pertains to the "Rivers of America" series. You may never have heard of "Rivers of America," but it was a very big deal in the American literary scene of an earlier time. Published from the 1930's through the 1970's by Farrar & Rinehart and its successor corporations, the "Rivers of America" series seems to have had its genesis in the following idea: As the flow of a river can be related to the flow of an individual human life, and to the steady onward flow of human history, so the story of a nation's rivers might be a good way of telling the story of that nation in its totality.
It is an intriguing idea and a novel approach to history; and the series often drew upon the talents of poets and other literary figures, as when Illinois poet Edgar Lee Masters, author of Spoon River Anthology, wrote The Sangamon (1942) as his contribution to "Rivers of America."
Today, when the "Rivers of America" series has long since flowed to its end in an unknown sea, volumes in the series are most likely to be found in used bookstores, or reprinted for regional interest by university presses, as when Frederick Gutheim's The Potomac (1949) was republished by the Johns Hopkins University Press in 1984. While the series has passed into history, the books of the series still have value for students of the regional diversity of the United States; and Footner's Rivers of the Eastern Shore provides a good example of what the books offer to any student of American regional history and culture.
After four chapters of introductory and general history, Footner guides the reader from south to north along the Eastern Shore's rivers, from the Pocomoke River in the south to the Sassafras and Bohemia rivers in the north. Footner voyages up each river, inviting the reader along for the ride as he describes historic houses and tells interesting stories of events that transpired along these rivers and their banks. Occasionally, Footner and the reader go ashore to visit some of the major towns of the Eastern Shore -- Oxford, St. Michaels, and Chestertown -- communities that remain singularly graceful and beautiful places.
The book was written in 1944, and some of its perspectives occasionally seem dated. The illustrations, line drawings by Aaron Sopher, are exaggerated to the point of caricature. And Footner sometimes seems much more interested in the grand world of the antebellum planters than in the humbler stories of the ordinary people, black and white, whose stories were more characteristic of the Eastern Shore experience. But then I would find Footner criticizing Eastern Shore whites' blindness to the cruelty of the antebellum slave system, or writing appreciatively of the unconquerable spirit of Frederick Douglass, who was born into bondage on one of the plantations of the Lloyds of Wye, but escaped from Eastern Shore slavery to become one of the greatest Americans of his time. It is in such ways that the book surprised me.
Rivers of the Eastern Shore was published in 1944. At that time, the Eastern Shore was still a very isolated place. The building of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge was still eight years away, and Baltimoreans and Washingtonians who wanted to visit the Shore had to cross the Bay by ferry. Today, wide highways connect the once-remote towns, and the same big-box retailers and fast-food emporia that clutter the streetscapes of other American towns are to be found in Eastern Shore communities like Salisbury and Cambridge as well. Hulbert Footner's Rivers of the Eastern Shore gives the reader a valuable chance to see Maryland's Eastern Shore as it was.
March 11, 2026
Interesting book about the Eastern shore. I now plan on visiting (either by car or boat) the rivers I have not been on and keep this book as a reference. Also, I want to read the others in the Rivers of America series.
January 21, 2026
E-60.00/0.00 (123125)
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