"Friendliest Town On The Eastern Shore." Our tradition runs deep. Excerpt from a letter to the editor from a visitor to Newtown, (former name of Pocomoke City) published in the Baltimore Sun, April 28,1847.
This place (Newtown) is a pretty snug little village, containing about 500 clever and hospitable inhabitants; it has good wide streets, quite clear of that "eye sore," known mostly over the Peninsula by the name of "deep sand"; the houses, though built of frame, are generally built substantially and with some discretion and taste; there are two neat, new, and quite handsome frame churches in it; as for the merchants of the place, suffice it to state that they are very clever and hospitable. F. Mezick, Esq., the landlord with whom I stopped, and his very obliging and jolly assistant, are richly deserving of a passing notice, for the good treatment and the extension of the many civilities to "the stranger."
(Reader-friendly viewing of news archives/historical archives material)
December, 1929
(Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune- Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.)
(Excerpts)
NINE EXCURSIONISTS KILLED AS TRAIN HITS OPEN RAIL
TWENTY-FOUR INJURED AS COACHES PILE UP IN VIRGINIA WRECK;
SAILOR IS HERO AT TRAGIC SCENE
Onley, Va., Dec 2- (AP)- Salvage crews today were removing the last of the wreckage of a train that left the rails, piling up coaches with a death toll of nine persons and an injured list of twenty-four. The train was bound from Cape Charles, Va., on the Pennsylvania railroad for New York with excursionists.
Calm orders, "save women and children first," shouted by Kail F. Chenoweth, boatswain's mate, attached to the battleship Oklahoma, probably saved scores from death in the stampede that started in an overturned third car, said A.V. Kemp of Norfolk, a survivor. Chenoweth was injured himself.
Doctors said that Mrs. Kemp was saved from death by the sailor, who tied a handkerchief above Mrs. Kemp's half severed wrist.
Four hundred and eighty-eight passengers were speeding up the eastern shore peninsula of Virginia early Sunday when they were thrown from their seats under a shower of flying glass as the cars struck a broken rail and careened. Two coaches were overturned and four behind smashed into them. The locomotive and the first two cars remained on the tracks.
February, 1913
Marylander And Herald (Princess Anne)
Hospital Report
The fifteenth annual report of the Peninsula General Hospital, Salisbury, for the year ending December 31st, 1912, has been submitted to the Board of Directors in pamphlet form.
It shows that the total expense of conducting the Hospital for the year was about $17,000.00, the largest items being superintendent and nursing, $3,000.00; provisions and servants wages, $5,857.00; light and fuel, $1,500.00; medical and surgical supplies, $942.00; improvements and ordinary repairs, $4,627.00; office expenses and insurance, $1,103.00. The largest items received by the hospital were: State of Maryland, $10,000; patients, $5,992; operating room, $820; Wicomico County, $300.00; Worcester County, $150.00.
From November 1, 1911 to November 1, 1912, six hundred and fifty-eight patients were admitted to the hospital, with 21 left over from the previous year, made 679 under treatment for the year just closed. There came from the following counties: Wicomico, 282; Worcester 123; Somerset, 68; Dorchester, 2; Talbot 2, Baltimore 3; Kent, 6; Queen Anne's, 1; Delaware sent 77, Virginia 110, Pennsylvania, 3, and North Carolina, 2.
The results of treatment in the hospital were: Cured, 517; improved, 66; unimproved, 24; died, 46. Twenty-three of the deaths occurred within 24 hours of admission to the Hospital, and 7 died of senility.
Four hundred of these patients were treated free; 150 paid in part, and 139 paid in full. It will thus be seen that two-thirds of the patients were treated free.
October, 2004
The Somerset Herald (Princess Anne)
(Excerpt)
Town Manager Resigns Abruptly
Disagreement Triggers Departure
PRINCESS ANNE- Town Manager John O'Meara resigned abruptly last week over a fallout with elected town officials over an issue that involved operations of the department that oversees housing codes and building permits.
Brenda Benton, town finance administrator, was named temporary replacement for O'Meara, who in three years became known as "a man of vision" and initiated community projects, increased the property tax base and donated his pay raises to town workers.
June, 1955
The Denton Journal (Denton, Md.)
(Excerpts)
Lolita Hall, 17, Crowned Miss Delmarva VII At Chicken Festival
Lolita Hall, 17 year-old Ocean City brunette, was crowned Miss Delmarva VII at Onancock, Va., Monday afternoon in the beauty pageant which highlighted the opening day of the annual Delmarva Chicken Festival.
Earlier in the contest she was selected as Miss Maryland and in the finals won out over Miss Delaware, Frances Vincent, blue-eyed blonde from Laurel, and Miss Virginia, Joyce Fooks, of Exmore.
Miss Hall was crowned queen by Gov. Thomas B. Stanley of Virginia, on the open air stage at the Onancock High School bowl, with close to 2,000 persons looking on.
She won a $750 scholarship and a trophy.
As soon as the crowning was over, Miss Hall had to rush back to Ocean City to attend her high school graduation exercises.
Bill Jaegger of station WJWL in Georgetown was master of ceremonies. At the start of the pageant, Mrs. Jack Pigman, of Berlin, the former Nancy McGee, who was the first Miss Delmarva, and now married, with three children, gave a short talk.
After the judging was over the girls selected Miss Personality, with Miss Pat Kilmon of Atlantic, Va., winner.
Footnote: In later years Nancy Pigman (the Mrs. Jack Pigman mentioned above) presented the weather on WBOC-TV's "Weather Fashions" sponsored by Benjamin's apparel store in Salisbury.
August, 1908
Peninsula Enterprise (Accomac Court House)
I.H. Merrill Company clothiers in Pocomoke City is having an August sale.. "Every Garment In The Store Is Included."
Click address below to see the big newspaper ad (note + sign at upper left above the ad to enlarge the print).
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn94060041/1908-08-01/ed-1/seq-1/#words=[u'ACCOMAC',%20u'Accomac']&date1=1836&date2=1922&searchType=advanced&language=eng&sequence=1&lccn=sn94060041&proxdistance=5&rows=50&ortext=Accomac&proxtext=&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&index=22
(A visitor to Chincoteague writes his observations)
August, 1903
The Times Dispatch (Richmond, Va.)
PART 3 (continued from last week)
As evidence of the prosperity of Chincoteague, or possibly another form of it, may be found in the number of children one sees on the street. Where two or three men and women are gathered together, there are sure to be found twice as many boys and girls. At the pony penning on Chincotague there were three hundred people at the least, and at least half the number were boys from five years to fifteen. Early marriages are the rule. There is living here now a young woman who was a grandmother at thirty-one years of age. She was a mother at thirteen. Her daughter became a mother at fourteen. The population of Chincotague was only 1,100 ln 1870, and is now over 3,000.
The people of Chincotague appear to be more generally church members then are the inhabitants of other towns. But there are five saloons here, and I did not see evidences of threatened insolvency for any of them. While drinking is more or less general, drunkeness is extremely rare. The sergeant, or constable, told me last night he had not made an arrest in a year.
The majority of the church people are probably Baptists, or have leanings in that direction. This sect has a beautiful church and parsonage on the island. There are also Protestant Methodist and Methodist Episcopal churches and parsonages.
There are three public schools in Chincoteague, including the grade school. But the schools only continue five months and a half, and I was informed that the average number of pupils to a room in the primary grade was from 75 to 110. Better school facilities are badly needed.
But Chincoteague is not an incorporated town. A few years ago Mr. S. Wilkens Matthews, member of the House from Accomac, in response to a petition signed by many of the leading men of the island, went to work and had the Legislature pass an act incorporating the island into a town. But so many of the people were opposed to the measure that a vote was taken on it, and the charter was rejected. The act was repealed.
There are no street lights. There are no water mains. Insurance rates run from five to six per cent. On nearly every house, stores and dwellings, one sees over the door a tin placard bearing the name of the company in which the building is insured. And some day there are going to be numerous policies to pay unless Chincoteague gets a charter and a water system. There is only one brick building on the island.
(More from this article next Sunday.)
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