Spirit Of The Season Here In Worcester County!

Cancer treatments prevented him from attending a parade so a parade came to him.

View story:

http://www.wboc.com/story/39640718/special-christmas-parade-thrown-for-11yearold-snow-hill-boy-with-cancer

                                     

Time Machine: 1971, 1949, 1921.

December, 1971
  

                                                                                     

Above items from The Democratic Messenger, 12/15/71

December, 1949

Democratic Messenger

Footnote: Every year during the holiday season Coffman-Fisher clothing store, at the northwest corner of Second and Market Streets in Pocomoke City, set up a large toy department on an upper level of their store.  Children of that era may still recall climbing the flight of stairs above the balcony level of the store to visit the once a year display of toys and games, and  wish list items such as scooters, sleds, wagons, and bicycles.  

December, 1921

                                                                                Worcester Democrat

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Count To Ten And Continue On...

 

December 4th left a dark mark on Salisbury's history.

Various news media this week have reported on a 1931 mob lynching that occurred in Salisbury (i.e. http://www.wboc.com/story/39588284/memorial-marks-87th-anniversary-of-williams-lynching-in-salisbury).  The local news media of 1931 perceived metropolitan newspaper coverage of the event as unfairly connecting all Eastern Shore citizens to the ilk of mob rule.  What follows is the text of first-hand recollections by the late Charles J. Truitt who was editor of The Salisbury Times in 1931.

*********

   "On Friday, December 4, 1931, Daniel J. Elliott, a highly respected Salisbury lumber dealer, was talking over the telephone in his office about mid-afternoon when Matthew Williams, a negro he had employed for eight years walked in from behind shot Elliott in the head. Death was instantaneous.

   Williams, wounded when arrested, was taken by city police to the hospital where he was questioned by State's Attorney Levin Claude Bailey.

   A report was spread around Salisbury that Williams had told the state's attorney a dozen or more Salisbury business men had been marked for death, that each had been assigned to a black for assassination and that 'I've done my job and I was the only one that did.'

   About 8:30 that night a group said to number 12 to 15 appeared outside the ground floor hospital ward where Williams was lying in bed. He was smuggled out through a window and walked three blocks to the courthouse lawn. There he was hanged from a tree.

   My wife and I had planned to see a movie at the Arcade Theater after dinner. As we walked along the block of Main Street toward the theater I was told of the alleged conspiracy against certain community leaders, which I completely discounted. After sitting in the theater for a time, I decided I should, as a newsman, investigate what may be happening outside. As I walked the half block to the office a passerby, replying to my inquiry about a gathering at the Main and Division Street intersections, said Williams was being hanged. Upon reaching the office door I thought I could discern in the darkness a shadowy figure dangling from a tree on the south side of the courthouse lawn. I hastened back to the theater to tell my wife, who was expecting soon, not to leave her seat until I returned.

   I then went to the street intersection across from the courthouse lawn. With only street lights for illumination, I estimated the crowd to be about 100. Someone said Williams body was being taken away. There was no mob shouting as reported in some newspapers. Rather, the gathering appeared to be one of awe-struck spectators, rendered silent by the nature of the spectacle some of them had just witnessed.

   As expected, for the next several days the Eastern Shore was the object of editorial page lingual gymnastics in a sizable sector of the metropolitan press. The most volative vituperation appeared in The Evening Sun, which then author, Henry L. Mencken, titled 'The Eastern Shore Kulture' :

   Not many observant Marylanders, I take it, were surprised by the news of last Friday's extraordinarily savage and revolting lynching in Salisbury. Something of the sort has been plainly hatching down in that forlorn corner of the State for a long while. The whole area is a lush stamping ground for knavish politicians, prehensile professional patriots, and whooping soul-savers. It is quite naturally, a stronghold of prohibition (and of the rot-gut liquors that go therewith), and within its bounds tin-poy revivalism is making its last stand in Maryland.

   Another vitrolic blurb appeared by Mencken in the same newspaper a week later. His statement that every schoolboy knew the identity of those who had participated in the hanging of Williams, brought an immediate chorus that he be summoned before the grand jury to testify. His response was that he would not voluntarily appear and the matter was dropped there.

   Meanwhile Eastern Shore newspapers, editorially asserting mob action was not to be condoned, took issue with Mencken. The Cambridge Daily Banner recalled that Mencken himself had advocated lynching when he once proposed to take Williams Jennings Bryan 'to the top of the Washington Monument, in Washington, disembowel him and hurl his remains into the Potomac.' A somewhat similar charge was leveled by the Worcester Democrat, of Pocomoke, edited by a retired college professor. The Maryland & Herald, Princess Anne, referred to Mencken and aids as being affiliated with 'anarchists and communist groups, composed for the most part of men and women from the lowest strata of the mongrel breeds of European gutters.'   

   Attorney General William Preston Lane came to Salisbury and was closeted for four days with State's Attorney Bailey, and his law partner Hooper S. Miles, questioning a queue who might establish identity of the leaders. No clues were found that could justify convictions. The calibre of those three may be considered reflection of the seriousness of the inquiry. Mr. Bailey became chief judge of the state Court of Appeals, Miles later was president of Maryland National Bank, largest financial institution in the state. Mr. Lane became state governor."   

Visit Santa And Mrs. Claus Downtown

SATURDAY DECEMBER 8TH & 15TH

12:00 - 2:00 P.M.

DOWNTOWN POCOMOKE AT CORNER OF MARKET AND CLARKE 

BRING YOUR CAMERA AND TAKE A PICTURE WITH MR. & MRS. CLAUS!

IT'S FREE

TIME MACHINE 1966, 1922, 2013

December, 1966

 

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(Above items- Pocomoke City Messenger)

December, 1922

 Democratic Messenger

December, 2013

Chincoteague Beacon

Do you have a local memory to share with PPE readers or something of interest your parents or grandparents told you about? Please send to tkforppe@yahoo.com .

When you're clicking around the Internet remember to check in with The Pocomoke Public Eye. We strive to be a worthwhile supplement to your choices.

A Young George H. W. Bush And The Eastern Shore

(Parade Magazine- April, 1989)

Appeals Court rules in favor of former Chief Sewell

More here: http://www.wboc.com/story/39568699/new-trial-granted-to-former-pocomoke-police-chief-convicted-of-misconduct

Old Ocean City Building Coming Down

(WBOC)



The building is more than a century old and can not be restored but the owner has an interesting plan for the location's future.

See more at http://www.wboc.com/story/39569892/a-historical-building-in-ocean-city-has-out-lived-its-time

Pocomoke Christmas Parade Winning Entries...

(See winners list:)
http://pocomokechristmasparade.com/Winner%27s%20List%2018.pdf

downtownpocomoke.com

TIME MACHINE: 1952, 1968, 1922.

December, 1952

Baltimore Sun

December, 1968

Daily Times (Salisbury)

Footnote: 1968 was the last year for the Fruitland holly auction. 

December, 1922
(It was in April of 1922 that a conflagration swept many dozens of buildings in Pocomoke City including residence and business structures, and understandably left citizens on edge when subsequent fires occurred.) 

 

 

Worcester Democrat

Footnote: The building housing the Empire Theater escaped the April fire. The theater was located on the southwest corner of Market and Front Streets as seen at the right in this picture.

(Pocomoke Fire Department picture)

Do you have a local memory to share with PPE readers or something of interest your parents or grandparents told you about? Please send to tkforppe@yahoo.com .

When you're clicking around the Internet remember to check in with The Pocomoke Public Eye. We strive to be a worthwhile supplement to your choices.