Sunday, February 10, 2013

TIME MACHINE ... 1827, 1976, 1965, 1908, 1890


 
(Reader-friendly viewing of newspaper archives material)



March, 1827 
(Washington Daily National Intelligencer- Washington, D.C.)

Sea Bathing Place on Smith's Island.

The subscriber is deposed to grant a long lease, and very advantageous terms, to any person or company who will erect a Sea Bathing Establishment on Smith's Island. The vicinity of the light-house, now building by Government on eastern end of Smith's Island, affords a situation peculiarly well adapted for sea bathing. The distance of four or five miles from the wooded part of the island, which is usually infested with mosquitoes, there's a breeze, and a superb beach, give the vicinity of the light-house every possible advantage for sea bathing to be found on the southern shores of the Atlantic. It is believed that there is no establishment of this sort on the margin of the Ocean, for several hundred miles of coast. A healthier spot than Smith's Island would rarely be found. The sports of fowling and fishing may be enjoyed there to an almost unlimited degree, and the contiguity of the Eastern Shore of Virginia, affords an easy access to most excellent society.

Please to apply to Captain William Jarvis, near Eastville, Northampton County, Virginia, or to the subscriber.
GEORGE W.P. CUSTIS
Arlington House, near Alexandria, D.C.
 
 
  May, 1976
 
Members of the graduating class of the Emergency Medical Technicians, held in Pocomoke City, were: James Ashby, Susan Sartorius, Margaret Hill, Dan Blevins, Patrick Kelly, Dave Twilley, Mike Dean, Joe Byrd, Leslie Thompson, Tom Elliot, and Marion Butler Jr., all of Pocomoke City; Joni Reed, Cindy Pusey, and Gilbert Perdue Jr. of Snow Hill; Clay Stamp and Barry Duffy of Ocean City; Joe Cylypezuk of Berlin. The instructor was Gilbert Perdue Sr. of the State Department Of Health And Mental Hygiene. The students were from local fire, law enforcement, and medical services.



August, 1965 (Time Machine Archive)

Country music fans on the Eastern Shore were looking forward to a big show at the Wicomico Youth And Civic Center in Salisbury, featuring Ernest Tubb And The Texas Troubadours, Loretta Lyn, and Carl & Earl Butler. Pre-show entertainment would be provided by the popular local group Bill Godfrey & His String Kings. Advance tickets were $1.50 for adults and $1.00 for children; 50-cents higher on the night of the show.



October, 1908
(The Denton Journal)

New Peninsula Directory Ready

Polk's new Peninsula Directory of Delaware, Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia for 1908-1909 is now off the press, and ready for delivery. As its name indicates, it contains a complete list of the business and professional men, also the farmers of the above mentioned geographical division, arranged to their different professions and businesses.

It contains besides a complete co-partnership directory with Wilmington, also complete city directories of Cambridge, Salisbury, and Dover. This is in an addition to a large amount of information concerning every town, village, and settlement in the entire Peninsula, which will prove of the utmost interest to every inhabitant throughout these districts.

Former patrons of the work will scarcely recognize this well printed, prettily bound pictorial volume as the successor of the old Peninsula Directory.

Anyone wishing for a copy can procure same by sending five dollars to R.L. Polk & Company, Calvert Building, Baltimore, Md.

Footnote: This item was printed as a news item, not an advertisement. Just a guess that the newspaper may have received a complementary copy of the directory in return for the news item publicity. Wonder if a copy of the directory still exists? What a wealth of information it would contain about the Eastern Shore of a century+ ago!

 
 
Memories of Accomac, 1890 John S. Wise Jr.. "Memories of Accomac, 1890" Peninsula Enterprise (Accomac, Va.: August 21, 1937)

A friend recently said to me that after all, our memories remain with us and with many are all they get out of life. Certainly I cherish nothing more than my memories of old Drummondtown and Accomack County in 1890, now nearly half a century ago, when I spent a summer with my dear old cousin, Dr. John J. Wise, at his old home "Woodburn," about a mile north of Drummondtown.

I was then a lad of fourteen and full of youthful vitality and activity and interest and curiosity about all things of the Eastern Shore new to a boy who had spent most of his time in the inland country mountains.
 
(PART 7, concluding portion)

About the biggest entertainment of those days was a beach party.

Two or three sailing bateaux would take a party out to Metompkin Beach. They started in the early morning and spent the day in the torrid heat and got home all hours of the night and morning according to the wind.

In those days we had little ice. We had no thermos bottles. We had to be content with cold sandwiches.

We had no cabins on the bateaux and we had to take the sun and rain until we could reach the Life Saving Station.

On one beach party we were storm bound over night in the Life Saving Station and I think extra mosquitoes were brought in from all the world. On another years later the weather detained our return.

I was piloting one boat and old John (Sounding-pole) Lilliston another. John wouldn't accept it that I knew the Metompkin Bay better than he did and refused to follow me. He put his boat up Deep Gut and grounded it on an ebb tide.

I brought my people in about mid-night but his people spent the ebb in the marsh with the mosquitoes and got home the next morning about nine o'clock.

I am glad to say not all the landmarks have been swept away.

I had the satisfaction of being partially instrumental in the elimination of the old Coleburn storehouse and extending the open space in the centre of the town and in building the present tavern set back of the road.  

I hope the old place will preserve its old character.

These are rambling recollections but they bespeak happy days never to return with these old folks.

They are not intended to present any historical theme — just memories of the old place and the folks as they lived.
 
 
Do you have a local memory to share with PPE readers.. such as a big snow storm, a favorite school teacher, a local happening, something of interest your parents or grandparents told you about. It can be just a line or two, or more if you wish. Send to tkforppe@yahoo.com and watch for it on a future TIME MACHINE posting!

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:32:00 AM

    Please note that the bathing place was to be on *Smith's* Island at the southern tip of Northampton County, and not *Smith* Island in Somerset County. Many residents are not aware that Smith's Island even exists.

    Your friend,
    Slim

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Slim for clarifying Smith and Smith's Island.

    If ever in doubt about an Eastern Shore matter, I've said it before, my bet's with Slim's info!

    tk

    ReplyDelete

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