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)
August, 1947
The Cumberland News (Cumberland, Md.)
10 Fined For Operating "Slots" In Ocean City
OCEAN CITY, Md., July 31 (AP)- Ten persons, including the daughter of a city councilman, were fined $50 and costs each yesterday for operating slot machines in this lively summer resort.
Magistrate James B. Robins imposed the fines after all the defendants pleaded guilty.
And while the brief hearings were held in the magistrate's office here, the Salisbury Times published a story quoting mayor Daniel Trimper:
"If there are any slot machines here I don't know where they are. I don't go into night clubs and places like that."
All ten defendants were named in warrants sworn by Worcester County Sheriff Arthur W. Duer after he and a flying squad raided the resort boardwalk Monday night.
February, 1977
Marylander And Herald (Princess Anne)
(Excerpts)
A Bit Of The Past
Established in 1767 under the name of Somerset Academy, the school today, known as Washington High School, is presently awaiting its new location on Route 13. This will be the fifth location for the school system. A magnificent structure it will house many students from throughout the County, and as they anxiously await their new home, they can look back and recall the history associated with it and the names of those who played a major part in its earliest days, Luther Martin, Phillip Breckenridge, Ephraim Bravard.
Recalling this history of the Washington Academy, I became anxious to learn more of the "forgotten tunnel" that seemingly has been overlooked.
Many of you today traveled the pathway to the tunnel which housed its own "electric bulbs." It provided the "short-cut" as you went to school, carrying your school books and "munching an apple," and must bring back many fine memories.
The tunnel stretched from Beechwood Street, under the railroad track and over to the third Washington Academy, then known as the Washington High School, and now the location of the auction block.
Today there is no evidence the tunnel, as we shall call it, or walkway, if you prefer, ever existed.
November, 1913
Marylander And Herald (Princess Anne)
(Excerpts)
MAIL CARRIER USES AUTO
Mr. Edward Teas, who is the rural delivery carrier for the U.S. mail on the Deal's Island route, uses his automobile very frequently in his delivery of the mail.
Mr. Teas says after the winter sets in he will not be able to use his machine much because of the bad condition the road usually gets in, and will have to fall back upon his team.
The automobile, eventually, will become the most satisfactory mode of a carrier, not only for the rural delivery man, but for the farmer as well.
In some sections of Virginia farmers own their automobile with which they convey their farm products to market. A woman, living in Fredericksburg, motors into that city every morning with a load of milk and country produce.
Times are changing and the antipathy with which the majority of farmers have looked upon the automobile, is rapidly passing away, and it will not be surprising if not before long several of the enterprising tillers of the soil, in the vicinity of Princess Anne, will be using the automobile, or the autotruck, to carry their farm products or heavy loads.
March, 1774
Acquiring an acre of land was authorized at Sandy Hill (renamed Stockton in 1870) for the purpose of constructing a church, "Chapel Of Ease." A tax of 45,000 pounds of tobacco was to be imposed on area citizens, with the Sheriff to receive 5% for collecting the levy.
November, 1910 (Time Machine archive)
(Gettysburg Times- Gettysburg, Pa.)
CARRIE A SUFFRAGETTE
Saloon Smasher Can Find No Good In Political Parties
Delmar, Del., Nov. 7.- Carrie Nation drifted into Delmar and rented the opera house Sunday evening before but few persons knew she was here.
Her lecture was attended by a large audience who heard how she smashed saloons, and her views on cigarettes. Mrs. Nation announced herself to be a suffragette. She denounced both the Democratic and Republican parties as crooks and grafters. Theodore Roosevelt was referred to as a man who mixed in with everything except cigarettes and whiskey.
Mrs. Nation has been on the Eastern Shore for about a week in different towns, but has attacked one place she considered a "hole." At Parksley she entered the local billiard and pool parlor with the cry "This is a hole," and started to smash things in general, but was taken bodily out before much damage had been done.
Footnote: (Source: PBS- The American Experience) Standing at nearly 6 feet tall and weighing 180 pounds, Carry Amelia Moore Nation, Carrie Nation, as she came to be known, cut an imposing figure. Wielding a hatchet, she was downright frightful. In 1900, the target of Nation's wrath was alcoholic drink. Nation, who described herself as "a bulldog running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what he doesn't like," felt divinely ordained to forcefully promote temperance. A brief marriage to an alcoholic in the late 1800's fueled Nation's disdain for alcohol. Kiowa, Kansas was the setting of Nation's first outburst of destruction in the name of temperance in 1900. Between 1900 and 1910 she was arrested some 30 times after leading her followers in the destruction of one water hole after another with cries of "Smash, ladies, smash!" Prize-fighter John L. Sullivan was reported to have run and hid when Nation burst into his New York City saloon. Self-righteous and formidable, Nation mocked her opponents as "rum-soaked, whiskey-swilled, saturn-faced rummies."
While Carrie Nation was certainly among their most colorful members, the members of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, founded in 1874, left more in their wake than strewn glass. Once the largest women's organization in the country, the WCTU concerned itself with issues ranging from health and hygiene, prison reform, and world peace.
(A visitor to Chincoteague writes his observations)
August, 1903
The Times Dispatch (Richmond, Va.)
PART 7 (continued from last week)
Mr Whealton says that Chincoteague was first granted to John Jennifer in 1670. The grant was allowed to lapse, and once or twice after that people who received grants of the island allowed them to lapse also. On the 29th of April, 1692, the island was granted to William Kendall and John Robbins by Lieutenant Governor Robinson on condition of their paying the passage of thirty-five emigrants from England to Virginia. Robins took the south end of the island, consisting of 2,765 acres, and Kendall the north end, 2,725 acres.
Robins and Kendall lived on the mainland and put stock on the island, sending over negroes and whites to care for them. Mr. Whealton thinks the ponies on the island at present are descendants of the horses which Robins and Kendall put here over two centuries ago. The long main and tail and fetlock he thinks due to exposure, and and the small size due to interbreeding. There is a theory that the ponies are descended from horses that escaped from a South American ship which was washed ashore here two hundred years ago. Mr. Whealton's seems much more plausible. I have neglected to mention that there are no commons on this island. All the land is held by deed or will, but the owners do not fence the grazing land, and the ponies run together, the drove often having forty or fifty owners.
A number of Quakers bought 500 acres on the north end of the island about 1800, but in 1828 they sold to Mr. Whealton's father and settled in Delaware, having become greatly dissatisfied with slavery as it existed in Virginia. Delaware slaves could not be sold outside that state.
The population of Chincoteague in 1840 was 540. Mr. Whealton does not remember the numbers for 1850; the census was taken in 1860 but the war came on and he never saw the returns. By the census of 1870 there were 1,100 people on the island.
.
"I saw the flrst oysters planted in the United States and maybe in the world," said Mr. Whealton. "In 1838 two steamers loaded here with oysters for Philadelphia. The weather got so foggy the boats couldn't get out and after waiting several days the oysters were placed in shallow water rlght here in front of the town. When the owners took them up the next fall the oysters were so fat that all of us began planting, seeing that the oysters were so much better by being moved. Now oysters are planted everywhere."
So Chincoteague has the distinction of having given the world the most important fact concerning the oyster that has ever been discovered.
Chincoteague does not know much of the war between the States. There was very little war so far as she was concerned. When the question of the adoption or rejection of the ordinance of secession was submitted to the people in 1861, there were only two votes for secession cast in the island.
(This concludes our excerpts of the article which we've posted during the past couple of months. The writer of the article was signed as Walter Edward Harris. There's still more to this article from 1903 and if you'd like to read it you may access the article in its entirety at this address:
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85038615/1903-08-09/ed-1/seq-3/#date1=1836&sort=date&rows=50&words=Assateague&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=18&state=&date2=1922&proxtext=Assateague&y=9&x=18&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=7
There's also a separate article devoted to pony penning on the same newspaper page.) -tk
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