Recollections From Generations Past (John Wesley Adkins - 5)

 

(Transcript continues)

INTERVIEWER: Other people. Did you? The train in Newark is sort of important. Did you go on the train much?

JOHN: No, because if I wanted to come to Snow Hill, we walked. It was only 7 miles.

INTERVIEWER: Only 7 miles he says, only 7 miles. (laughter) I couldn’t make it. (laughter)

JOHN: And it was 27 cents from Newark to Snow Hill.

INTERVIEWER: Alright.

JOHN: That was the fare. And then they used to have excursions.

INTERVIEWER: Yes. I’ve heard of that.

JOHN: I don’t know once or twice a year and then the people would gather up and they’d go up to cities and they load the trains down (inaudible speech). Just as far as going to Newark we never … (inaudible talking over each other)

INTERVIEWER: Snow Hill you just …

JOHN: Snow Hill and all …

INTERVIEWER: Right you just walk.

JOHN: We just got down to the railroad and just walk.

INTERVIEWER: Alright, you walk down the track (inaudible speech).

(Recording cuts out.)

(Inaudible speech.)

INTERVIEWER: Alright now how often would you come to Snow Hill? Cause you had to walk it you didn’t make too many trips.

JOHN: Well I … My sister lived here.

INTERVIEWER: Alright.

JOHN: And I would. I would come here not too often, until when I moved down here. Then I stayed (inaudible speech) then I worked on the highway then when I wanted to go back home I wouldn’t catch no train (inaudible speech).

INTERVIEWER: How long would it take?

JOHN: I haven’t the slightest idea because I didn’t have a watch. I didn’t even know what a watch was really. I mean I knew the word.

INTERVIEWER: You didn’t need one really.

JOHN: I didn’t need watch.

INTERVIEWER: No.

JOHN: No, I didn’t need a watch. I just. I just say. Just like from our house down where we used to go (cough) crabbing.

INTERVIEWER: Alright.

JOHN: That was almost as far as Snow Hill from Newark.

INTERVIEWER: Now where would you go crabbing?

JOHN: We would go down to … You know Vic Townsend in Newark?

INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

JOHN: Well that would be the same bay.

INTERVIEWER: Alright.

JOHN: Now he lived to the same bay but it would be a different. It would be a different place. I mean it would be the same bay but it would be a different angle.

INTERVIEWER: Alright.

JOHN: Now where we lived we could go and just take go to the mailbox and turn a little bit right and just go out on to the woods and go out to what they the call the old Potts Farm and that was the largest farm there is that I know. In Newark the roads from the house to the woods is exactly one mile and when we used to scratch potatoes there they had to cut the roads in half. They had groups of people there that there they would let one group carry one half another group have another half. Then from their house to the bay is where you had to really go catch the crabs was at least I’d say a quarter of a mile because the rest was the marsh.

INTERVIEWER: (Inaudible speech.)

JOHN: But now they’ve got it so the last time I was down there I was deer hunting oh I’d say oh a long time ago about 10 or 12 years ago. I went down there and I just decided that I was (inaudible speech) and I went down there and they’ve got now it’s a beautiful place people go down there they have picnics. And it’s a beautiful place to go swimming, you can wade out there and everything.

INTERVIEWER: Did you go swimming much when you went down?

JOHN: Wading, I really couldn’t swim. We used to. We had a boat my brother and I and they were gonna have a picnic someplace and we kept our boat hidden in the seaweed and we would go get our boat and then we would go in our boat and paddle across where they had the picnic.

INTERVIEWER: Now that’s good.

JOHN: When they had the picnic they would cook fried chicken, make cakes, make muffins they wouldn’t they wouldn’t make a layer cake they’d make muffins and everything (inaudible speech) and then they went in a horse and drove a wagon and the people would load up in horse and wagon so (inaudible speech). 

(Continues next Saturday here at The Pocomoke Public Eye.)

Time Machine Preview-

This Sunday here at The Pocomoke Public Eye: 

PLUS

1915  ..

2012  ..

2009  ..

(Princess Tea Party at a Pocomoke Church  .. more photos and names.)

Somerset fatal accident-

 

One person died and three were injured in a late Wednesday afternoon crash at the intersection of Route 13 and Flower Hill Church Road in Somerset County.

(View WBOC news story:)

One Killed After Two-Vehicle Crash in Somerset County | Latest News | wboc.com

Salisbury to Florida flights-

 

In an airline statement released Wednesday, Breeze said it will offer twice weekly, nonstop service from Salisbury Regional Airport to Orlando, Florida, on Mondays and Fridays starting Oct. 1.

(View news story:)

Breeze Airways offers new flights to Florida from Maryland

Offshore wind lawsuit-

 
5/6/25

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Looks like it's bye bye Rite Aid.

 

Rite Aid customers can expect their local store to close or change ownership in the next few months, as the struggling drugstore chain goes through another bankruptcy filing.

(View news story:)

What customers can expect as Rite Aid closes or sells all its drugstores | AP News

Worcester Public Schools Survey-

 

2025 WCPS Family Survey is Now Open

Worcester County Public Schools

May 5, 2025

Beginning today, May 5, 2025, the 2025 Family Survey is now available for your participation. This survey is one of the most important ways we can learn how we can improve both your child’s experience and yours as a family.

Feel free to complete the survey on any device that is convenient for you. We thank you for sharing this important feedback with us before the survey closes on Friday, May 16, 2025.

Participate by visiting: https://tejoin.com/scroll/318855779

Off to the races- coming soon!

Downtown Pocomoke Association

Let’s have some fun during May’s 4th Friday!!! Shopping Cart Races coming to Downtown Pocomoke on May23rd!! Grab your friends, plan your costumes and join us for hometown fun!! Email susan@pocomokemd.gov with any questions!

Time Machine: 100 years ago this week in Pocomoke's newspaper; 1885, 1965.

 

April, 1885

Baltimore American

September, 1965

Salisbury Times

tkforppe@yahoo.com

Recollections From Generations Past (John Wesley Adkins - 4)

 

(Transcript continues)

INTERVIEWER: Did you all go to church?

JOHN: Oh, yes.

INTERVIEWER: Alright, where was the church?

JOHN: The church was right down by the school.

INTERVIEWER:  Alright, right down. Okay, by the school.

JOHN: It was there now but before it was on the curve right up by Mr. Hark Townsend. You know Tom Sturgis?

INTERVIEWER: Yes.

JOHN: Well his wife’s homestead was right up just before you get to the church, right where the cemetery was. They I don’t know. The church, I think whilst we was away. I think they did away with the church. I don’t know whether it burnt down or whether they tore it down or what, but I think they moved it. And they moved it up to Newark across the railroad.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of church was it, a Methodist church?

JOHN: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. Was it an all-day affair on Sundays? I know a lot of people I’ve talked to, Baptists especially. I think they went in the morning, they stayed all day and then they stayed at night some too on Sundays.

JOHN: No. They went Sunday morning and then they would come home about 11:30, 12:00 and then. But they had class meeting, experience meeting. Every Tuesday night was prayer meeting and then they had class meeting, experience meeting. You’d get up and testify tell them how (inaudible speech) your soul was doing and all that and then they had prayer meeting and my father and all I used to go. But you see I was, I mean we was. We wasn’t. We wasn’t not even what you called a wealthy, that wealthy. I didn’t even have shoes to wear.  I used to have to wear my sister’s, my half-sister’s shoes. But I would go. I would go and Mr. Harry Bowen he had a store. And so one day he says, alright everybody called colored old people. So he says bring the kids out, he says I want to clear the attic out with some shoes. So we took us all out there, we went up the stairs and just about everybody picked out what they wanted to wear and I picked out above everything else a pair of women’s sharp-toed (inaudible speech) shoes. But they fitted (laughter) and he said no (inaudible speech). So he says if he wants them let him have them. So I wore em, I took em and carried em home. I was the oldest one out of the family that would go to church with my father. Every time he went to church I would go and I used to sit there and watch them in prayer meeting. I don’t know whether you don’t know what an old-time prayer meeting is?

INTERVIEWER: No I really don’t. I may have read about one but …

JOHN: Well it’s, you see, they sing and they clap their hands and they motion and they throw their heads and I used to say they’re gonna bust their heads you know (laughter) like that but they never did. They never did hit their heads. Then after a while one would pray. They would pray then somebody would start another hymn and they’d sing about three pieces like that and pray and then they’d go around and shake hands with everybody and then they’d have a group time with the Lord. If they took up a collection, I can’t remember because that was very poor collection. It wasn’t a thing of money at the churches in them days. It wasn’t a matter of a whole lot of money. It was matter of spiritual and friendship you know there wasn’t.

INTERVIEWER: Okay was there a minister?

JOHN: Yes, they had a minister.

INTERVIEWER: Do you remember who it was?

JOHN: Well I can remember. I can remember Reverend Stuart. We had a preacher named Reverend Stuart. Had one name Reverend Jolley and I can’t remember.

INTERVIEWER: And as far as did they, did they live in Newark or did they travel around to different churches?

JOHN: No they only tended to …

INTERVIEWER: To Newark.

JOHN: They only the church. You see (inaudible speech) one Cedar Chapel and one would be Williams Chapel. I don’t know the difference yet. I never figured it out. I never tried to really. But they didn’t. They didn’t visit or they didn’t preach, each one preached.

INTERVIEWER: To their own place?

JOHN: To their own place mostly.

INTERVIEWER: Now as far as ministers today get all sorts of salaries. Would they be helped out by their congregation by given things to eat and things from the garden and things like that or did they make their own way?

JOHN: No. They got a salary but the salary that they got it was probably about … I don’t know, it was probably very small.

INTERVIEWER: They had a very strong spiritual commitment then?

JOHN: Yes. Yes, and there were a lot of em. Reverend Jolley he was one preacher that (inaudible words) He would go right in the fields with the rest of the people and scratch potatoes.

INTERVIEWER: Okay so he worked in addition to preaching?

JOHN: Yes. Yes, and then Sunday morning he’d be up in the pulpit you could see mud on his shoes uh dirt where his shoes was dirty.

INTERVIEWER: That’s good too. He wasn’t setting himself above?

JOHN: No. No.

(Continues next Saturday here at The Pocomoke Public Eye.)