The Pocomoke Public Eye: 4/19/15

"Friendliest Town On The Eastern Shore." Our tradition runs deep. Excerpt from a letter to the editor from a visitor to Newtown, (former name of Pocomoke City) published in the Baltimore Sun, April 28,1847.

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)

Expressed more than a century apart.. two very different points of view regarding "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

July, 1903..

Peninsula Enterprise

2015..Wikipedia (excerpt):

Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman.

Stowe, a Connecticut-born teacher at the Hartford Female Seminary and an active abolitionist, featured the character of Uncle Tom, a long-suffering black slave around whom the stories of other characters revolve. The sentimental novel depicts the reality of slavery while also asserting that Christian love can overcome something as destructive as enslavement of fellow human beings.

Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel of the 19th century and the second best-selling book of that century, following the Bible.

April, 2003
The Somerset Herald (Princess Anne)

Crisfield real estate market booms
Speculators, retirees buy up properties
By Liz Holland

Not very long ago, Crisfield was a city struggling to survive the decline of the local seafood industry, the closing of two major employers and a double-digit unemployment rate.

While city officials and local business owners have been successful in recent years in developing tourism as a way to draw people back to the bayside town, most of them weren't prepared for the influx of people over the past six months who are buying up properties as fast as they come on the market.

"It's hot as a firecracker," said Rick Evans, co-owner of Chesapeake Realty. "Properties have three or four contracts on them in a day. It's just unheard of in Crisfield."

Evans and others in town believe much of the sudden interest in Crisfield is connected to the recent passage of a bill to allow Somerset County to negotiate for the rights to run a high-speed ferry across the Chesapeake Bay.

"There's been quite a bit of interest," said City Manager Frederick B. Gerald. "Two weeks ago, we started fielding calls about real estate."

Gerald said there were 11 or 12 property transfers in the city just in the first six days of March. Normally, Crisfield has that many or fewer in an entire month, he said.

Supermarket and fast food chains also have recently been looking at Crisfield properties, Gerald said.

April, 1892..

Evening Star (Washington, D.C.)

June, 1942 (Time Machine archive)
(The Salisbury Times)

TEN NEW SIRENS BLOW AT WORCESTER POSTS

Berlin, June 29.- John I. Timmons, senior air raid warden for Worcester County, yesterday announced that ten new air raid alarm sirens have been purchased by the Worcester County Board Of Commissioners for county towns.

Four of the new sirens have been received and erected in Whaleysville, Newark, Girdletree and Stockton, Timmons said. The other six will be placed in Ocean City, Berlin, Snow Hill and Pocomoke City, with Berlin and Snow Hill receiving two alarms each.

May, 1893
Iowa Postal Card(Newspaper)- Fayette, Iowa

The bog iron industry has lived and languished in the flat, sandy far-southern counties of the eastern shore of Maryland for perhaps a century, though there never was a time when it was especially profitable. Now and again, however, some native with money to spare is tempted by the tradition of iron in the swampy lowlands, and he undertakes the task of extracting it.

January, 1955 (Time Machine archive)
(Salisbury Times)

Pocomoke Lions To Entertain Farmers

POCOMOKE CITY - Members of the Pocomoke City Lions Club will be host to the Ruritans of the Atlantic District of Virginia and to farmers of this area for a meeting Tuesday night in the firehouse.

Last spring, Pocomoke City Lions visited the Ruritans and Tuesday's meeting will give them the opportunity to play host again in the series of yearly meetings. Approximately 150 are expected to attend.

Lions President Vaughn Wilkerson also announced that the local club will sponsor the sale of tickets for a special basketball game Feb. 19 between the Greenbelt Lions Club and the Pocomoke Chiefs. Proceeds will be contributed to the Pocomoke City Boys Club.

Do you have a local memory to share with PPE readers.. such as a big snow storm, a favorite school teacher, a local happening, something of interest your parents or grandparents told you about? It can be just a line or two, or more if you wish. Send to tkforppe@yahoo.com and watch for it on a future TIME MACHINE posting!

PPE remembers JMMB.

The Pocomoke Public Eye

Thursday, April 23, 2015

TIME MACHINE ... This Sunday's Preview.

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Sunday, April 19, 2015

TIME MACHINE ... 1903, 2003, 1892, 1942, 1893, 1955.