Franklin City is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

Accomack County, Virginia Accomack County is a United States county that, together with Northampton County, constitutes the Eastern Shore region of the Commonwealth of Virginia. These two counties also form the southern portion of the Delmarva Peninsula, which is bo ...

, United States.

History

Greenbackville Greenbackville is a census-designated place (CDP) 4.5 miles (5 km) south of Stockton, Maryland in Accomack County, Virginia, United States, located just south of the Maryland state line. Per the 2020 census, the population was 173. Histor ...

and neighboring Franklin City grew as a result of the railroad line laid in the late 19th century to transport

oysters Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of Seawater, salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in Marine (ocean), marine or Brackish water, brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly Calcification, calcified, a ...

and other

shellfish Shellfish, in colloquial and fisheries usage, are exoskeleton-bearing Aquatic animal, aquatic invertebrates used as Human food, food, including various species of Mollusca, molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish ...

from Chincoteague to

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

, and

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. By the 1870s, the Frankfort and Worcester Railroad reached

Snow Hill, Maryland Snow Hill is a town in and the county seat of Worcester County, Maryland, United States. The population was 2,156 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Salisbury, Maryland-Delaware Metropolitan Statistical Area. History Snow Hill was founded ...

. In 1876, Maryland judge John R. Franklin, a stockholder in the railroad, was able to get the line extended to land he owned just south of the state line in Virginia. Later, the

New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad The New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad was a railroad that owned and operated a line that ran down the spine of the Delmarva Peninsula from Delmar, Maryland to Cape Charles, Virginia and then by car float, ferry to Norfolk, Virginia. It ...

built track the length of the

Delmarva Peninsula The Delmarva Peninsula, or simply Delmarva, is a peninsula on the East Coast of the United States, occupied by the majority of the state of Delaware and parts of the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Eastern Shore of Virginia. The peninsula is l ...

, reaching Cape Charles in 1884 and joining the Frankfort & Worcester.Carol Vaughn
Federal Government Wants Early Railroad Building Removed
, ''Eastern Shore Post'', Feb. 27, 2020. After the construction of the Chincoteague Causeway,

the Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

and the nor'easter of 1962 continued to erode Franklin City's and Greenbackville's economic base. Little remains of Franklin City.Reprint of article from Norfolk ''Virginian-Pilot'' of January 6, 2008.
Retrieved April 8, 2008.

References

Unincorporated communities in Virginia Unincorporated communities in Accomack County, Virginia {{AccomackCountyVA-geo-stub