TIME MACHINE ... 1913, 1977, 1947, 1930, 1934

(Reader-friendly viewing of newspaper archives material)



(It's 1913 and a young Salisbury office worker is found dead in her office. Subsequent articles will follow, as investigation heightened the mystery surrounding her death.)
　
June, 1913
(The Washington Post)

FOUND DEAD AT HER DESK

Coroner Investigating Demise of Bookkeeper at Salisbury, Md.

Body of Miss Florence Wainwright Discovered With Box of Tablets by Her Side.
　
Special to The Washington Post.

Salisbury, Md., June 21.- Suspicion has been aroused by the death of Miss Florence Wainwright, aged 25 years, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Washington Wainwright, who was found dead last night in the office of the Home Gas Company, where she was employed as a bookkeeper.

Miss Wainwright had been employed by the gas company for about five years, and worked at the office all day yesterday. It being pay day she returned to the office last night to pay some of the employees who were working out of the city.

It was Mervin Ellis, a brother-in-law of Miss Wainwright, who discovered her dead body. While passing the office on his way home he noticed the lights were burning, and on investigation, found every door wide open and the screen hooked back. When he went inside he found Miss Wainwright sitting in a chair, dead. She had a box of tablets on the desk beside her. Dr. J. McFadden Dick was quickly summoned, and said Miss Wainwright had been dead some time.

It was at first said that Miss Wainwright had died from heart disease, but an autopsy is alleged to have disclosed that her death was not due to natural causes. The coroner refused to discuss the real cause and swore the jurors to secrecy.


　
January, 1977
　
The public was invited to dedication services marking the completion of a new sanctuary, seating approximately 300, at Lynhaven Baptist Church in Pocomoke City. Soloists Mrs. Rene Oliver, Mrs. Joe Duke, and Mrs. Elvie Whealton were to perform along with the church choir. The Executive Director of the Baptist Convention of Maryland, Dr. Roy B. Gresham, was the scheduled guest speaker. Groundbreaking for the new sanctuary was in October, 1975. The church was its own general contractor, with Jack Krimmel as building committee general chairman, and Charles Bryson as supervisor of construction. Architect was J. Linwood Walker of Nassawadox.




March, 1947
(The Annapolis Capital- Annapolis, Md.)
　
Salisbury, Md., March 28 (AP)- The lower Eastern Shore looked like a Christmas Card today as the sun shone on a countryside covered by a three-inch overnight snowfall.



January, 1930 (Time Machine Archive)

(Site selected for a new PHS on Market Street)

An injunction against building a new Pocomoke High School on a site selected by Worcester County Commissioners was denied in Circuit Court. County Commissioner Charles L. Mason and 20 area residents were seeking the injunction, claiming the County Commissioners authority was limited to a site within Pocomoke City's corporate limits.

The site selected by the commissioners was at Ninth Street which marked the city boundary. The Circuit Court ruling upheld the right of the Board Of Commissioners to determine the site.
　
Footnote: PHS was located on Market Street between 10th and 11th streets, but did those streets exist in 1930? When the school was constructed perhaps Ninth Street, as referenced above, was the closest street adjacent to the site selected for the school location. Anyone know more?
　
　April, 1934
(Eastern Shore News- Onancock, Va.)
　
Aged Man Tells of Early E. Shore Life

The material of this article was gotten from an interview with Benjamin F. Scott, a ninety-six year old Civil War veteran of Chincoteague Island. Beginning with his birth he has given us some interesting highlights of his life, which acquaint us with the conditions of former days.

Mr. Scott was born on the 8th of May, in 1838 at Hog Island.

(PART 4)


After the war Mr. Scott mentioned the carpet-baggers coming in and how they made money, facts which everyone knows. He could not remember any Eastern Shore negro who had held office but said the negroes were allowed to do pretty much as they pleased.

Mr. Scott, after talking of his Civil War experiences, discussed the causes of the war. He said that the North brought the negroes here and sold them to the South, then the North wanted them freed. (It was rather unfair!)

He told us of a church, the Northern Methodist, on the upper end of the Island. It firmly believed in the abolition of slavery. From the pulpit came political rather than religious sermons. Mr. Smith, the preacher, had been an old fighter. One morning three men met him on the way to church and forbid him to preach. Mr. Smith defied them and taking off his coat went into the pulpit to begin his talk. Two of the men charged him, one on either side. They dragged him to the church door and the other man brought his coat. They kicked him out. A general "free for all" fight resulted. Mr. Scott saw three women who had been there. Their old slat bonnets were torn up and their long capes were very mussed. To all appearances they had their share of the fight. The preacher never came back.

At this church negroes as well as white people could join. If a white person was converted but he owned a negro, he could not become a member, but if the negro was converted he could join. They had a gallery for the negroes which seated about forty. This gallery had a door which opened to the outside and a flight of stairs leading down. After the preaching the negroes held their meetings outside while the whites stayed inside. The wife of Mr. Matthews, Mr. Scott's second employer, was converted at the church. They owned a slave and the church would not let her join. The slave was converted, also, and when the members asked Mr. Matthews for the negro's certificate, he refused, "cussing them high and wide." Such little hard feelings and incidents in both the North and South helped bring on the Civil War.

In talking of slaves Mr. Scott explained that since it was so hot working in the cotton fields, the slaves could do the work much easier then whites, thus making them very useful in the south. Slave traders got much money. Mr. Scott heard a man say if he could rig up a ship and make one trip he would be fixed for life. A big, husky boy sold for $75 to $100.

The pirates were the slave traders' dread. They had a great, heavy chain on their ship to which the slaves were tied by a rope. When pirates threatened the slaves were pushed out of a hole in the ship and the chain pulling them down, drowned them.

The people of those days still used flint and steel and Mr. Scott was the first to carry matches to Hog Island.
Many are the tales that Mr. Scott tells, and they are interesting, both for themselves and their historic matter.


　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!