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History
Somerset House was built in 1852 as a town resident for John Woodland Crisfield (1806-1897), one of the most notable political and economic figures on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. His career encompassed all the major regional developments of the time: land speculation, oyster production, the secession crisis, and railroad development. As a young lawyer from Chestertown he became active in local politics and was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1836 where he championed internal improvements, particularly canals and railroads and the construction of flour mills and shipyards in Somerset County. He was elected as a Whig Congressman in 1847 and befriended Henry Clay as well as another young congressman from Illinois known as Abraham Lincoln.
Clay gave him a slip of a gingko tree, which now graces the entry way of Somerset House.
His last tenure in Congress (1861-1863) was a stormy one where he was buffeted by secession and slavery issues.
After the Civil War, Crisfield organized and served as president of the Eastern Shore Railroad and built a line from Salisbury to Somers Cove that transformed the local oyster industry into a nationally oriented business. The grateful citizens of Somers Cove renamed their town Crisfield in his honor.