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."
October, 1883
The Baltimore Sun
Pocomoke, Md., Oct 5, 1883: The Pocomoke Times gives some details of the cyclone which passed over Worcester County, Md., on Tuesday, October 2. The storm was in fact a furious hurricane, during which the rain fell in torrents. For miles fence rails lay in and along the road and large pine trees of the toughest were twisted and broken as if they had been straw. William Trader, returning to Pocomoke from Snow Hill, was blown with his horse and carriage over a fence into an adjoining field, destroying his carriage. James T. Hancock, who had just recently built a new house, had it blown off its foundation, carried thirty feet and dashed to the ground a total wreck. Corn stacks, stables, carriage houses and out houses of all kinds were completely wrecked. Thomas Dickerson, near Girdletree, had a part of his house blown away and his wife injured. A number of Worcester residents suffered from the storm to a greater or less extent. The storm, coming from the west, began about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and lasted nearly an hour.
1918
Only 6 more days before Prohibition
(Maryland Historical Society photograph.)
"Prohibition [Jefferson Liquor Company storefront with customers], [1918]. [Probably] 15 North Liberty Street, Baltimore, Maryland."
April, 1943
The Salisbury Times
Old Dominion Club now Coast Guard Hospital
Accomac, Virginia, April 10, 1943- The Old Dominion Club, one of the most beautiful properties in Chincoteague, located in a little grove on the east side of the island, with deep water all around, is to become the Coast Guard Hospital, it was announced last night by Lt. Charles Mister, in command of the coast Guard at Chincoteague. Lt. mister said the property will be taken over April 15th and $42,000 in new equipment will be brought to the island and installed at once. The Old Dominion Club was taken over to meet the requirements of the Coast Guard and other service men until a permanent hospital can be erected. The Old Dominion Club was built by New York sportsmen and has fourteen rooms.
November, 1959
The Cumberland News (Cumberland, Md.)
Veteran Worcester Sheriff Dies At 71
ASSATEAGUE BEACH, Md. (AP)- Edwin D. (Ned) Lynch, veteran Worcester County sheriff, died Sunday of a heart attack while rounding up stray cattle he owned.
The 71-year-old law officer had been sheriff in Worcester County for seventeen years, having been elected last fall to a fifth four-year term. Prior to that he served eight years as deputy sheriff and constable.
He lived at the county jail in Snow Hill.
Lynch was also a farmer and cattleman. He had been flown to Assateague Island from the mainland and was with a son, Wilson, when he suffered the attack.
January, 1995
The Somerset Herald (Princess Anne)
Professional wrestling coming to Pr. Anne
Mt. Vernon VFC sponsors fundraiser
The Mt. Vernon Volunteer Fire Company along with ACW Wrestling will bring an afternoon of professional wrestling to Princess Anne in March.
The volunteer firefighters recently signed a contract with American Commonwealth Wrestling promoter Ed Zohn to bring professional wrestling to the Tawes Gym at UMES. Included on the Saturday, March 18 card will be Cactus Jack, Shane Douglas, 2 Cold Scorpio, Ron Simmons plus women wrestlers Angel and Peaches.
Tickets for the 1 p.m. event will be $10 for general admission, $15 for ringside seats. Ticket sales and advertisements in a souvenir booklet will benefit the Mt. Vernon VFC. More details will be released as the event date nears.
January, 1963 (Time Machine archive)
(The Salisbury Times)
POCOMOKE CITY - New officers of the city volunteer fire department were elected recently. They are: Joe Byrd, president; Joe Mariner, vice-president; James Fykes, secretary; Raymond Dryden, treasurer; Fred U. Henderson, chief; Raymond C. Dryden, assistant chief; George Young, chief engineer; Clayton Lambertson, trustee.
On the ambulance committee are: Lee Ray Thompson, president; R.I. Givens, secretary and treasurer; Herbert Somers, Pete Dulick, and Dwight Campbell, trustees.
ACROSS THE USA
December, 1878 (Time Machine archive)
The New York Times
Every man for himself is emphatically the modern sentiment, and there are some signs of completing this declaration of independence by adding the clause "Every woman for herself, also."
"THE STRAIN UPON MODERN LIVING."
(Excerpts)
What is more clear than the fact that now no family is left to itself and to its own traditions and habits, but that the most out-of-the-way homes, whether in the backwoods or on the distant coast, are within reach of the world's vast and intense life, and no strangers to its hopes and fears, its learning and its folly, its triumphs and its disasters.
Not only every family that takes a newspaper, but every person who hears the village gossip, knows what is going on all over the globe, and every man who has to buy or sell anything, has cause to revise his estimates from day to day; and very often men lose their appetite for their breakfast by news from the great market of America or Europe that prices have changed sadly to their hurt. A considerable proportion of pain goes with the news of the day, and a large portion of unwholesomeness, for disasters and scandals are dwelt upon with more minuteness than successes and satisfactions, and no great bargains or great weddings are reported half as fully as great frauds and great divorce and scandals.
It is not remarkable that the rich and conspicuous should strive to outshine each other in dress and living, but the remarkable thing is that in our modern life there are now no radical distinctions of class or fortune in costume or habits, and that all persons, and especially all women, follow the same fashions as far as they can, and catch the course of the same social ambition. So far as street dress is concerned, the wives, and especially the daughters, of the poorer classes, make, relatively, far more display than their richer neighbors, and to a certain extent, the exactions of modern society are in the inverse proportion of means and abilities, since they who have least fortune and talent are subject to the same high pressure from the reigning mode, and women who are not usually trained to earn their own living are beset by the same ruling passion for dress and ornament.
The palace of merchants and bankers, and the cottages of farmers and mechanics among us have a similar story to tell. Indeed it may be set down as part of the universal strain on modern living, that its exactions are out of proportion to its means, and the exaction presses upon every family, while the means at hand vary from wealth, or what is called competency, down to limitation and want.
Surely our modern living is under great strain, and many lives break down beneath the pressure.
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!
PPE remembers JMMB.
