TIME MACHINE ... Eastern Shore Strawberries, 1919 & 1920!

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July, 1919

(The Charlston Daily Mail- Charlston, South Carolina)

PROHIBITION MAKES BERRY PRICE HIGHER

Strawberries In Great Demand for Soft Drink Trade;

Prices Are Unprecedented

Philadelphia, July 26.- Prohibition indirectly produced an extraordinary condition in the strawberry market this year. Prices went higher than ever before because a Chicago packing house opened what was said to be the largest fruit preserving plant in the world in the heart of the strawberry district in Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and bought the product of great berry producing fields virtually without regard to cost to meet the tremendous demand for ice cream and soft drinks produced by the "dry" period.

Strawberries that normally sold from from 5 to 10 cents a quart were snapped up at from 30 to 37 cents. The price to the consumer never went below 30 cents this season. Strawberry syrup for flavoring soda water, formerly sold at 65 cents a gallon, is now quoted at $3.50 a gallon.

Farmers are elated. Many of them made an average of $1,000 an acre on their strawberry crop, and they are looking forward to big profits next year. The packers, when the strawberry season was over, sent their employees to other work and closed the factory.

　　

July, 1920

(The Sandusky Register- Sandusky, Ohio)

Strawberry Crop Big

(By International News Service.)

WASHINGTON, July 2.- The strawberry crop on the eastern shore of Maryland and Virginia will bring into the farmers and truck growers this year not less than $2,000,000 according to growers and bankers in that section. The bank accounts of the Wicomico County farmers alone have increased $65,000 as a result of their berry shipments for the season.

The average price is $7.50 per crate of 22 quarts. Their are 250 crates in a car load and each car is valued at $2,500. The shipments so far from the town of Pittsville have been 164 car loads, and from Marion, in Somerset County, almost twice that much.

　　

May, 1905

(The Daily News- Frederick, Md)

Eastern Shore farmers and housewives are in a dilemma on account of the cooks and farmhands leaving their employers for the strawberry fields.

　

April, 1893

(The Denton Journal)

Somerset County school commissioners will soon complete a high school building at Princess Anne that will cost $1,200.

　

December, 1941

A system of guard duty was put into effect to allow Maryland State Guard members to return to their civilian jobs. The armories in Pocomoke City, Crisfield, Salisbury, and Cambridge remained under guard and closed to all public activities. All guard members were under orders to report to their armories each evening for roll call and orders.

　

December, 1936)

(Cumberland Evening Times- Cumberland, Md.)

Snow Hill, Md., Dec, 17(AP)- The trouble started when 74-year-old Mrs. Ida Altman Barton read a newspaper account of her husband's wedding. His wedding, that is, to someone else.

Today, as a result, Harry E. Barton, 53, of Salisbury, faced grand jury action on a charge of bigamy. Unable to raise $1,000 bail, he remained in the Worcester County jail.

Mrs. Barton alleged that her husband suggested she take a "vacation" to Baltimore in November. While she was away, she asserts, Barton journeyed to Pocomoke City and, after a "whirl-wind" courtship, married Mrs. Mary M. Grandee.

While the first Mrs. Barton still was in Baltimore, Barton removed some of the furniture from his Salisbury home and moved to Pocomoke City to live with his second wife.

Last week the first Mrs. Barton read the newspaper account of the wedding. Returning to Snow Hill, she checked the county records. Yesterday, she swore out a warrant for Barton's arrest before magistrate Walter W. Price.

Barton and the first Mrs. Barton were married in 1913.　

　

　

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