TIME MACHINE ... Eastern Shore Clay Eaters?

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( In searching newspaper archives I occasionally come across an item that raises a flag as to its authenticity. It makes one wonder if such items were, in their day, like hoax items that flood the Internet today. The following item made its rounds in more than one newspaper, and was a front page news story in the 1885 publication mentioned below. Was it legend..hoax..or fact?)

　

December, 1885

(Reno Evening Gazette- Reno, Nevada)

Eastern Shore Clay Eaters

Of the "clay eaters" on the eastern coast of Maryland, it may be said that they are not reptiles or animals, but people- real human beings, most of whom have never seen a railroad, heard a locomotive whistle, or voted the Democratic or any other ticket. It is hard to understand the appetite that craves clay as a diet. Some people refuse to believe that people can live and eat clay, but a reputable and truthful physician who recently contacted a severe case of the shaking ague in making a tour of eastern shore swamps, declares that these peculiar specimens of the Maryland population do eat clay and have a passion or habit of chewing it like lovers of hasheesh. There is a kind of clay in that section that is oily, like putty, with little sand or grit in it. Dr. S. P. Denisen, the physician referred to, says that clay-eating swampers are miserable specimens of humanity. With legs that are mere sticks, narrow hips, depressed chests, pot bellies, and blush-yellow complexions, they present about the lowest type of the white race found in the United States. The swampers who acquire the habit of eating clay are generally short lived, but the other inhabitants of the Eastern Shore swamps are as hardy as others and as ignorant as Hottentots. Their morals are lax, and a man and woman will live together and rear a family without troubling themselves about a marriage ceremony. Many of their houses are built on piles, and they reach them in boats through the lagoons. Though they shake with the ague half a year, and have skins the color of saffron, they seem to be insured against any other disease, for it is rare to hear of any other sickness in the swamps than ague. It is astonishing what quantities of quinine and whiskey are consumed by these people. The women, who are not clay eaters, chew tobacco and drink corn juice the same as men. In the summer the women and children gather huckleberries, which are plentiful in the vicinity. The men go off in the woods and make shingles, which they sell to the nearest country stores for cheap wearing apparel, corn meal, bacon, quinine, and whiskey. These people are never reached by the tax collector, the preacher, the book agent, the politician, or the lightning rod agent, and when they are not shaking with chills they are happy and contented.

　　

May, 1938

(The Daily Mail- Hagerstown, Md.)

Flags Down Train,

Water Stops Fire

POCOMOKE CITY, MD., May 20 (AP)- Opportunity blew a whistle for the Pocomoke City volunteer fire department.

Battling a lumber yard blaze four miles south of here, the department ran out of water. Undaunted, firemen flagged down a Pennsylvania railroad freight train, drew water from its boilers, and brought the fire under control with but one shed destroyed.

　

April, 1956

Jerry Miles was assigned by the Baltimore Orioles to the Thomson team in the Georgia State League. The 18-year-old Parksley, Va. righthander was a standout pitcher on Pocomoke City's 1955 Central Shore League team.

Footnote: Miles was in an automobile accident during the winter of 1957 and he later requested the Orioles to place him on the voluntary retired list for the upcoming season. No Information was found about his future activity in baseball.

　

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