TIME MACHINE ... Crisfield Woman's Startling Confession Reported

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May, 1879

(The Chicago Tribune)

The little town of Crisfield, in the lower part of Maryland, is at present exercised by a singular sensation, which proves only too terribly the old axiom that the innocent are oftentimes made to suffer for the crimes of the guilty. The startling story is the death-bed confession to-day of a dying woman, that she and her son, the latter recently deceased, were the murderers of a well-known merchant near Crisfield about eighteen years ago, for which crimes two negroes were convicted and hanged. The woman, who is alleged to have made the confession, the authorities for the present keeping the matter quiet, is one Patty A. Ward, living a few miles from Crisfield. She is dying with a cancer, and is said to be in great terror of meeting her Maker with so awful a crime upon her soul. It is understood that she has freely confessed the full details of the horrible affair, in which she discloses the fact that she, together with her son, murdered Azariah Dougherty, who was found dead lying in his store in the latter part of the year 1862. When her son died a few months ago, in his last moments he gasped to his friends surrounding his bedside, that he wished to reveal something, but a gesture from his mother prevented him. The object of the murder was plunder. At the time the tragedy was committed, suspicion rested upon two colored men, who were arrested and suffered the death penalty for the crime, as above stated. It was known that Mr. Dougherty had considerable money, but none of it was found after the murder, either in the house or in the possession of the colored men. A penknife, however, was found in the pocket of one of the men which had belonged to Mr. D., and that was the strongest point of circumstantial evidence. On the scaffold both men protested their innocence to the last, and one of them declared in a speech from the gallows that the real perpetrators of the crime would be some time discovered. Although the story of the crime and the execution of the colored men had long been forgotten, it is now revived with great excitement in the country town and in this city, further developments being anxiously awaited.

　

July, 1919

(The Denton Journal)

WANTED

Male attendants and female nurses at the Eastern Shore State Hospital. Salaries, male attendants, $30.00 and female nurses $22.50 per month, including board, room and laundry. Phone or write Dr. Chas. J. Carvey, superintendent, Cambridge, Md.

　

June, 1956.

(The Salisbury Times)

(Excerpts)

Dryden To Be New Purina Sales Chief On Delmarva

Pocomoke City - Clifford M. Dryden of Pocomoke City will be the new Purina sales manager in the Delmarva Division with headquarters here.

He has served as a poultry specialist, as manager of the dairy department, and in sales management. He has been closely associated with the growth of the great Delmarva broiler industry, both in promoting modern poultry feeding and management techniques and in merchandising Delmarva broilers to the consuming public

Mr. Dryden is a veteran Purina salesman. He joined Purina in 1939 and has been Purina district salesman working out of Pocomoke City since that time. Two years ago he was honored as the outstanding Purina salesman of the year on the basis of service to feeders in his area. At that time he was made president of the general sales managers advisory board, the highest company honor available to a Purina salesman.

May, 1976

Jack Peacock of Pocomoke City caught an 82-pound black drum in Chincoteague inlet to claim a citation in the Virginia salt water tournament.

　

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