TRANSCRIPT OF 1979 INTERVIEW
RODNEY: Do you know where Dryden’s Hatchery is?
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
RODNEY: I was born there, of course the hatchery wasn’t there and the house
wasn’t there. My grandfather owned that place and he wanted to come to
town, come close by, close to town and father bought 20 acres there aside of
it and built a home on it and the three houses, you know in a row, one on the
back, and then takin’ in the one down there where, the 20 acres did. Then my
father bought a farm up in Queponco, then we moved up there and he sold
that place to Denmore Williams, and Denmore sold half of it to Irm Johnson
and Irm built the house that sits down further there. They built 2 houses, I’m
afraid I don’t know who, I think Nock’s owns it now.
INTERVIEWER: Yes, I think so. I’m not sure of that.
RODNEY: About that time we had dirt roads, you know, and sometimes we
would ride out to Newark and get on the train and go to Snow Hill.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. It was probably quicker, wasn’t it?
RODNEY: Especially when the roads was bad. I did that once, there was snow
on the ground, rode over there and hitched my horse…………
INTERVIEWER: And took the train to Snow Hill.
RODNEY: Got to Snow Hill around noon and came back again around 2:30,
something like that.
INTERVIEWER: Well I had never thought about that.
RODNEY: They had two trains a day.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, did you have two trains a day.
RODNEY: Ya, one in the morning and one in the evening. Well they both come
back from Philadelphia.
INTERVIEWER: Now were these regular passenger trains? Or was it a
passenger train and the cars in the back?
RODNEY: Both. The track run right through the farm. Right down this side of
the woods, right alongside the woods. A freight train goes there now.
INTERVIEWER: Right. Very seldom. How old are you? I need to ask so I’ll
know in years when you’re talking.
RODNEY: I was 86 last November.
INTERVIEWER: Oh my heavens. Well I hope I’m up and around when I’m 86.
RODNEY: I was born the 16th of November, 1892.
INTERVIEWER: And you were born in Snow Hill?
RODNEY: At the edge of town. One Mile Lane. Moved up there when I was
fourteen years old. My father bought that farm. I guess you don’t want all my
records, you want your records.
INTERVIEWER: Right, but sometimes the timing will help. When you first
moved up to Snow Hill, there wasn’t any Route 12, you know the road that we
go now from Salisbury to Snow Hill, the road that is there now was it there?
RODNEY: Ya. That’s what they called the Mile Lane. When that was there and
crossed one went to Pocomoke and the other towards Whiton. That part
hasn’t been changed.
INTERVIEWER: Right. I see because you go to Whiton this way and to
Pocomoke that way.
RODNEY: It went out that way a little ways towards Pocomoke and turned and
went that away…………
INTERVIEWER: Just like it does now………..
RODNEY: Since then the road had been cut straight through. That wasn’t
there when I was down there.
INTERVIEWER: There is a road now that isn’t used much but it’s called
Millville Road or Stagecoach Road that runs in from where Millville used to
be behind the Iron Furnace and then it comes on out and I think that was the
main road at one point. And it maybe would have gone into that.
RODNEY: This other one went up there you know where Norman Mariner
lives.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
RODNEY: Well just before you get to Normans the road that runs to your right
and then it comes around by Old Nassawango Church. And that’s the old
Clayville farm, after you get through the woods, past the chicken houses.
And that……..it went around Nassawango and that other one cut through
there somewhere.
INTERVIEWER: Yes, and caught up from it.
RODNEY: Where Gerald Holloways.
INTERVIEWER: Yes it does. It cuts through right past his. On around behind
him.
RODNEY: And I reckon there was somewhere about a half dozen different
roads started out to go to Salisbury.
INTERVIEWER: But they were all dirt.
RODNEY: Ya, all dirt road, and I’ve heard people say that, people said they
never started Salisbury what they didn’t get on the wrong road, or get lost or
something, wind up a different way.
INTERVIEWER: Well I can do that today. Cutting through from Salisbury back
to Snow Hill through the forest, I’ve gotten lost, at least twice and ended up
in Princess Anne, which I didn’t want to be there at all, but I was.
RODNEY: Well I think I’ve been on them roads enough, I don’t think I’d get
lost but, when they put hard roads why they changed them, straightened
them out. Makes it a lot different than what it used to be.
Continues next Saturday here at The Pocomoke Public Eye.
No comments:
Post a Comment