INTERVIEWER: I read an article, and I was talking about that to the ladies, that
there was a brick kiln in the area of Basketswitch. Have you ever heard of
that? They said that was the reason that the railroad siding was put in there
at Basketswitch, to handle the bricks that were being produced by the brick
kiln at Basketswitch, and it was an article that came out in the Sunday Sun
Magazine, a number of years ago. And I’d never heard of a brick kiln there.
RODNEY: I never did either. There was a, after the church was done away
with. Walt Bowen had a steam mill there. And he got killed. He got wound up
in the one of the pulleys had, the way I understood it, I didn’t see it, but you
know there’s a key that fits in there and the key fit in there and it was loose
and I think he drove some kind of wedge into it, but it stuck out a little bit
pass the axel or whatever, shaft, he walked by and it caught into his clothes.
It was winter time, and had on a lot of loose clothes, right smart clothes
wound him around down and it beat him to death, right there. For several
years after that, before this factory was put there. I can’t think of their names,
now they did it, I know them. But they were from around Ocean City, I think.
INTERVIEWER: I know their name but I can’t remember it. Was there a lot of
woods here in this area and the Basketswitch area? Lets say if you went up
to Queponco, if you went out this way, has this been lumbered? That’s what
I’m trying to say.
RODNEY: Well we had a station right down here. Wesley Station. And a calf
pen where you would bring calves and put them in. They would stop there
and ship them. That’s been a long time ago. I never brought none out there
but I carried them to Newark, and the freight would come along before that
morning and at Basketswitch, and down here they had a place where they
would load cars, a switch. Load three cars or something like it. There was
three mine prop outfits to load them with, as windlass you might say. The
poles settled and braced and then a wench or a shaft went from it, with a
block and pull, and you hook on your load, start your mules out and pull
them around and load your car with. I never loaded any down here, but I did
at Basketswitch.
INTERVIEWER: And they had that at Basketswitch and another one at Wesley Station?
RODNEY: Yes. And at Ironshire it was the same way. I loaded props at
Ironshire. Had a little piece of woods up there, between Ironshire and Berlin,
and that was the closest place to load it. Mine props used to be good
business. And piling and they got so that they were cutting them props in 9
foot lengths, hauling them right to the mines, Trader wouldn’t buy any more,
load his own car then, so that kinda knocked that in the head. That was back
there in the 30s. Gradually the poling business got out too. Anybody that
wanted a load of piling they had trucks to haul them and so it done away with
all their railroad stuff.
INTERVIEWER: Now Wesley Station is right down this road? Yes this is
Cedartown Road. It’s just right down here beside the railroad track. Right/
RODNEY: Where the bushes had growed up and so forth. The fellow bought
the lot and built a home on it, just last year. That’s where the mine props was.
If I remember right the pens that loaded the calves was on the other side of
the railroad. They used to have an extra wheel like that, you know, and all day
long all the little stations, if the farmers wanted to ship calves that’s the only
way he had to get rid of them, was to carry them out, put them on the train.
Continues next Saturday here at The Pocomoke Public Eye.
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