TIME MACHINE ... Accomac County's 1906 Sensation!

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March, 1906

(The Washington Post)

THE RED DEVIL IN ACCOMAC COUNTY

Special Correspondence of The Washington Post

Onancock, Va., March 17.- The automobile has appeared in this village, creating almost as much of a sensation throughout Accomac County as the railroad did years ago when it came and drove out of business the big fleet of sweet potato schooners which took Onancock's chief product up the Chesapeake to Baltimore for transportation to nearly every corner of the land. The auto is owned by the paying teller of the Onancock bank.

Occasionally a machine has been seen rolling serenely over the sandy roads, stretching almost in an unbroken level clear down to Cape Charles, but never before had a resident of this place indulged in the luxury of owning an auto. It was thought that no one would have the audacity to thrust aside time- honored precedents and give up the little Accomac horse for an invention of the old boy.

The Accomac fancy once painted this creature black, but since the red auto came they have changed his color. The pace of the auto is most disconcerting to the natives, who are accustomed to drive leisurely in their buggies, phaetons and sweet potato carts through the village, giving a bow, after the immemorial habit of Accomac folk (to people they meet).

The horses of Accomac wear no breeching, as they have no hills to descend. They are strong, but they are not swift, and in these respects they may be likened to their masters.

The auto frightens the horses and gives them a tendency to run. A running horse would be an innovation in Accomac. The country is so level that even the brooks refuse to run; they simply lounge and ripple.

The oldest residents are particularly shocked by the auto. Their conservatism is equaled only by their hospitality, which is the greatest institution in Virginia.

When the auto was first observed on the main street of the village there were several carriages before the biggest store. The chug-chug of the auto and its strangeness set the horses prancing, and men and women who owned them rushed out, grabbed the bridles, and looked with disapproval at the vanishing vehicle.

The news spread fast over the county, and within a week the Accomac imagination in the isolated districts pictured the red auto as a thing somewhat like a trust monster in a comic supplement, and the trade of the village merchants fell off, because the country people were afraid to venture into town.

The horses are getting somewhat accustomed to the auto now, but the natives are still timid. If they are out driving, and nearly everybody in Accomac drives, they turn their horses in on the side of the road and wait until the red devil passes. Women afoot lift their skirts as if somebody had shouted "Mice!" and get close to the building line.

The driver of the auto is not greeted with the usual cordiality. Grandpa Parks, the oldest man in the county, always alights when he sees the machine coming, and, firmly holding his horse's bridle, he bows low, not to the owner of the auto, but to the auto itself. The bow is one of the most elaborate and ironical ever seen in Accomac, which is famous for its fine old colonial brand of courtesies.

The paying teller has hopes that the people finally will get accustomed to the auto, and buy a few themselves, as many of them are quite able to do so.



March, 1941

The Pocomoke City Lions Club informed McCready Memorial Hospital in Crisfield that it would pay for the purchase of an incubator for the hospital. A formal presentation would be made in May at "Hospital Day" at McCready. Pocomoke Lions Club member Rev. "Parson Jack" Wooten came up with the idea for the purchase.



January, 1985

Former Pocomoke City councilman Paige Webb passed away at age 69. He served 12 years on the town council and operated Webb's Market in Pocomoke for more than 20 years.





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