Before 1686 Snow Hill was a growing town, but in that year the law-makers recognized its importance, and that it should be classed as a town, and so it was laid out as such by an act of the General Assembly. The act prescribed that thehouses were to cover four hundred feet of ground, and the chimneys were to be built of brick. At this time the town was still in Somerset County, that county not being divided until 1742, when Thomas Bladen-was Governor of Maryland. At that time an act was passed for laying out anew the town of Snow hilt.