 During a foray up the Pocomoke Sound, Smith and his party encountered a village inhabited by the Pocomoke Indians along the south shore of the sound.By the 1630s, though, fur traders based in Maryland and rival Virginia traders on Kent Island were active all along the bay side of the Eastern Shore.Due to its isolation—separated from the Eastern Shore mainland by maritime tidal marsh and bounded by water on the north, south, and west—the peninsula has been known as Saxis Island since European settlers and speculators claimed land there beginning in 1661.