INTERVIEWER: ............. Was there a post office? At Newark?
RODNEY: Yes, it was Newark Post Office and Queponco Railroad. And they
were as close together as from here as down there to the fence.
INTERVIEWER: Somebody that day said, that if you wanted to send a
telegram, if you were away and wanted to send a telegram, if you sent it to
Newark, it wouldn’t go. You had to say Queponco, even though it was the
same place.
RODNEY: And if you were in Philadelphia or somewhere in a strange place,
that they didn’t know the place they asked for a ticket to Newark, well they
wouldn’t know if it was Newark, Delaware or Newark, New Jersey. No,
Newark, Maryland, well we got no place like that. So you had to tell them
Queponco, before you could buy it. Of course, if they had been an agent for a
long while, well they knew it, and they’d tell you you would have to have it for
Queponco. They had enough stores, and they had a good Blacksmith, and all
that in them days. Of course after the automobiles come around that
changed things a little.
INTERVIEWER: Well you really didn’t have to go to Snow Hill for anything? Or
did you?
RODNEY: Well for any county business, you would go to the courthouse.
Such as that.
INTERVIEWER: But for food and supplies and things like that…..
RODNEY: No, no. And right across the river there was Whiton. That kept a big
store, you know, and they kept anything and everything that was needed.
Same way at Piney Grove.
INTERVIEWER: Is Piney Grove and….I think there are 2 places that are the
same, I’m going to say Mt. Olive.
RODNEY: Now Mt. Olive and Piney Grove are right close together. Mt. Olive
Church and Piney Grove, I don’t think Piney Grove Store was over a mile
from there and the church is still there, but the store is gone. They’ve got two
houses there now, right close by, there’s an old house across the road in the
woods, now there at Piney Grove and you can go up in it. You can start out
and go pretty near Snow Hill without getting out of the woods. I think on one
side of the road, I mean.
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever go to Forester’s Day of Farmer’s Day, down at
Public Landing?
RODNEY: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: I was talking to somebody in Salisbury and they said that they
used to spend the night at Piney Grove and start the next morning, to make it
a shorter trip.
RODNEY: Mt. Olive Church, why they would have 4 mule wagon load and stay
there and go from there right on over. But I never went that way, but I lived on
the road, they had to go right by the next morning. Several wagons would
come. They’d get in Snow Hill, they didn’t want to get there too early, they
wanted to wait till the bar open……That’s what they told me. I don’t know I
wasn’t old enough to see any of that. But I used to go down there to Public
Landing at Forester’s Day and we went, Sunday school would go down in a 4
mule wagon load, from church, Bates Church, it is now……………..
RODNEY: We left Snow Hill, I went to Sunday School there and when we
moved up there we went to here, where the church is tore down.
INTERVIEWER: Was that church torn down here? They couldn’t remember the
other day if it burned or whether it was moved, the one here at Basketswitch.
Is that the one you are talking about?
RODNEY: Well, I can’t tell you for sure, but I think it was torn down. Some
people that lived around there, that opposed to moving it, they wanted to
build a new church right there. But they had more backing for putting it in
Newark, instead of building it right there. I don’t know just the year, but
somewhere about 66 years ago. And that church has gone down and the
house that set beside it there, and all of it is gone down. Tore up. A man
named by the name of Richardson, old man, Mark Richardson, lived in the
house beside of it. And the that went right on around in front of the Bowen
Farm, that was sold the other week.
INTERVIEWER: What was there at Basketswitch or Basket Town or whatever
one wants to call it when……….you say you moved from Queponco, you
didn’t move to Basketswitch, you stayed at Queponco till you moved here.
Do you remember any buildings or stores or anything at Basketswitch?
RODNEY: After the church burned down, was destroyed, I don’t know, tore
down, I think it was, why this gum factory was put there. But that’s been
recently you know. Maybe 20 years, something like that. No there wasn’t any
buildings down there, but the house and church, at that time, besides farm
buildings.
Continues next Saturday here at The Pocomoke Public Eye.
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