INTERVIEWER: I was reading about Stockton, and they said that before the
railroad, Stockton was the place that all the farmers in that end of the county
drove their cattle to be driven up to Wilmington or Philadelphia, before the
railroad came. And that’s one of the reasons it got its name.
RODNEY: Oyster, they would load oyster cars there to and from Girdletree
and Stockton, too. I think they had loading outfits at both places, Stockton
and Girdletree. I never did load anything down there and I never did load
anything down here. Because Newark was the closest place for me to haul
cattle. You had calves or anything you wanted to ship, why you carried them
out and ship them, you know. And the express cars were pulled by the
passenger engines, you could send anything by express, it would cost more,
but it would be quicker. It went up to Berlin and then had to change cars
there, there was crossroads there and if you were going up to Philadelphia
you didn’t have to change, but if you were going to Salisbury, you had to
change.
INTERVIEWER: Do you happen to know when the railroad came through?
Was built in Newark?
RODNEY: No.
INTERVIEWER: I think it was in the 1870s, sometime like that, which was even
before you. I was just thinking of that. With the railroad being right here, did
they do much shipping by boat, off the landing down here, off Newark, and I
don’t even know what these Landings are called right now, I forget.
RODNEY: I had a place along the bay down here, and a landing there, what
they call, I forget it. But anyway they told me they loaded corn down there
and slab wood and tomatoes, and shipped the tomatoes around to
Greenback, I believe they said. But man not older than I was, told me he’d
shipped and loaded cord wood, down there, but I didn’t know it until, I didn’t
know the place at all, until I guess it was 1933.
INTERVIEWER: That was a bad year to know about if you were on the bay.
RODNEY: I delivered some lumber. I had a sawmill work in the wintertime and
farmed. I had to keep right smart help, for the farming I was doing and they…
work in the wintertime, so there was some lumber sown there to a place
across the road, from the place that I bought later. And he was telling me
about how much nice timber there was on the place and the woman that
owned the place lived in Philadelphia, and he was going to write to her that
they were stealing her holly and trapping in her marsh, you know, and she
was going to sell it if she to lose money on it. So it had been put up and sold
once, she just loaned the money to some people from Virginia, is the way I
understood it, they come up here and bought it, for potatoes, they were
going to have potatoes, and then potatoes went bad and they lost money on
it, and then that slump, you know, in the 20’s and early 30’s, why they just
lost all they had, as you might say, so she had it sold and didn’t bring what
they thought it ought to, she taked it in and ……then the house got burned
down on it, so she decided to sell it, so this old man told me about what
timber there was on it. He says you come on down and I’ll show it to you.
Man lived across the road that I was delivering the timber to. Thanksgiving is
next Thursday, and you are not going to work then, so he said come on down
and I’ll show you the lines, so I went down. I got a neighbor to ride down with
me, I was living up there in Queponco at that time, so we went and found the
boundary lines, and then I take the old man that run the mill for me, to look at
it, and he says, you’ll do alright on it, but it’s too far away, I can’t help you on
there, he says. He lived up there pasts Hungry Town. So this old man went
with me, to see the man that was down there, and see her father, and he says
I don’t know whether she want to sell it or not. She and her husband lived in
the city, but she had some money, she loaned it, you know, and taked a
mortgage on it, but he says her mother is sick and she’s coming home this
weekend, says I’ll ask her and if she does I’ll have her call you. Well she
didn’t call me, so I thought to myself, well either she doesn’t want to sell it, or
she didn’t come down, one. So on Monday, she and her brother-in-law drive
up. They wanted to talk to me face to face. So she told me what she wanted, I
said, well I don’t believe I can stand that much into it, you couldn’t get much
from farm produce at that time, everything was just as cheap could be and I
just cut a track of timber and sold it for 13 dollars a thousand, just because
time was running out on it, didn’t own the land you know, hauled it to
Hebron, for 13 dollars a thousand. Of course labor didn’t cost nothing then, a
dollar, or a dollar and a quarter a day.
INTERVIEWER: And they were grateful to get it, I’m sure.
RODNEY: So we cut it and cleaned it up…..When she left, well we were 500
dollars poorer. And she says if you decide you want it, well give me a ring, I’ll
be home until tomorrow night. Well I said I didn’t think I could stand anymore
than that, but if you take a notion you want my price, then you call me. That
day she called me, she says 2 years taxes on the place, will you take care of
that/ I said I’ll split the difference with you.
INTERVIEWER: Boy, you are something.
RODNEY: So I bought it right there.
INTERVIEWER: That was quick, but you got what you wanted.
RODNEY: And I cut timber off it, right away. I put tracks down and mill in on it,
I had that mill on a stand that had about another year. Well next spring we
went ahead and finished that up or the next fall and moved it down there and
started it up in the Spring and left it till the next Spring and I settled that, I
finished cleaning that up there for 15 dollars, Adkins Company at Berlin. But
the Adkins Company in Berlin couldn’t handle it. The year before, Cordrey
Company, in Snow Hill, the Adkins Company to Salisbury couldn’t, so it went
out to Hebron, out there to Boss Bounds. Well I don’t need it, he said ain’t
holding a thing, but if it is good stuff I’ll give you 13 dollars a thousand, so it
was either leave it or get it. So I left it. So the next we went down and cut that
other and moved it down there, but as things picked up a little better that
summer and Adkins Company, to Berlin, had some orders to Ocean City and
they wanted some so I finished all that up, and started cutting there, and that
was 15 dollars, they went up to 15 dollars. And then they went to 19 dollars,
the next year and I finished all that up down there. I lost 3 men one year, one
of them got killed in the woods, and another got killed on the road, he was
drinking and he got run over. The other man had a stroke and they were the
best mill help I had.
Continues next Saturday here at The Pocomoke Public Eye.
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