THE STORY OF
SAMBO CREEK

As the Sambo name has long been associated with slaves, one has to wonder how our local Sambo Creek came by its name.  While area journalists have thus far tracked the name of this waterway back to an 1806 land sale, the story of the Sambo Creek goes a bit further back in time.

An earlier survey [D-39-42] conducted in September 1795 notes "the head waters of Sambo Brook in Lower Smithfield Township."

Just a wee bit earlier, in June 1795, a tract of land was surveyed to John Fish [C-47-285] that was described as "situate on Sambo Creek in Lower Smithfield township."

Not yet finished, we can finally track down the earliest survey map [A-58-254] to October 1775 (also surveyed for John Fish), that names and depicts Sambo's Creek on the map:

Of course, this raises the question:  "if Brodhead's Creek was named after the Brodheads, and if McMichael's Creek was named after the McMichaels, and if Marshall's Creek was named after Edward Marshall, then doesn't it make sense that Sambo's Creek would have been named after someone commonly known as Sambo"?  Perhaps. According to the Etymology Dictionary, as early as 1748 the word "sambo" meant "a person of mixed blood in America," and some researchers have pointed to Pennsylvania's 1726 "Act for the better Regulation of Negroes" as having been indicative of the colony's burgeoning mulatto population.  Hence, Sambo might well have been how folk referred to an area mulatto.

Still, one other possibility yet remains to be considered, a linguistic possibility.  In Swedish -- and yes, we have quite a few Swedes in Pennsylvania -- the suffix "bo" is used to form the names of residents or inhabitants of particular places, as in Londonbo ("Londoner").  Accordingly, Sambo might simply refer to "resident Sam's place".  On the other hand, as this area was settled primarily by the Dutch, and not by the Swedes, this linguistic speculation should properly be regarded as a rather remote possibility.