Recollections from generations past. (Rodney Bounds- 6)

 

(Rodney Bounds 1892 - 1990)

TRANSCRIPT FROM 1979 INTERVIEW (CONTINUED)

INTERVIEWER: I was reading about Stockton, and they said that before the

 railroad, Stockton was the place that all the farmers in that end of the county

 drove their cattle to be driven up to Wilmington or Philadelphia, before the

 railroad came. And that’s one of the reasons it got its name.

RODNEY: Oyster, they would load oyster cars there to and from Girdletree

 and Stockton, too. I think they had loading outfits at both places, Stockton

 and Girdletree. I never did load anything down there and I never did load

 anything down here. Because Newark was the closest place for me to haul

 cattle. You had calves or anything you wanted to ship, why you carried them

 out and ship them, you know. And the express cars were pulled by the

 passenger engines, you could send anything by express, it would cost more,

 but it would be quicker. It went up to Berlin and then had to change cars

 there, there was crossroads there and if you were going up to Philadelphia

 you didn’t have to change, but if you were going to Salisbury, you had to

 change.

INTERVIEWER: Do you happen to know when the railroad came through?

 Was built in Newark?

RODNEY: No.

INTERVIEWER: I think it was in the 1870s, sometime like that, which was even

 before you. I was just thinking of that. With the railroad being right here, did

 they do much shipping by boat, off the landing down here, off Newark, and I

 don’t even know what these Landings are called right now, I forget.

RODNEY: I had a place along the bay down here, and a landing there, what

 they call, I forget it. But anyway they told me they loaded corn down there

 and slab wood and tomatoes, and shipped the tomatoes around to

 Greenback, I believe they said. But man not older than I was, told me he’d

 shipped and loaded cord wood, down there, but I didn’t know it until, I didn’t

 know the place at all, until I guess it was 1933.

INTERVIEWER: That was a bad year to know about if you were on the bay.

RODNEY: I delivered some lumber. I had a sawmill work in the wintertime and

 farmed. I had to keep right smart help, for the farming I was doing and they…

work in the wintertime, so there was some lumber sown there to a place

 across the road, from the place that I bought later. And he was telling me

 about how much nice timber there was on the place and the woman that

 owned the place lived in Philadelphia, and he was going to write to her that

 they were stealing her holly and trapping in her marsh, you know, and she

 was going to sell it if she to lose money on it. So it had been put up and sold

 once, she just loaned the money to some people from Virginia, is the way I

 understood it, they come up here and bought it, for potatoes, they were

 going to have potatoes, and then potatoes went bad and they lost money on

 it, and then that slump, you know, in the 20’s and early 30’s, why they just

 lost all they had, as you might say, so she had it sold and didn’t bring what

 they thought it ought to, she taked it in and ……then the house got burned

 down on it, so she decided to sell it, so this old man told me about what

 timber there was on it. He says you come on down and I’ll show it to you.

 Man lived across the road that I was delivering the timber to. Thanksgiving is

 next Thursday, and you are not going to work then, so he said come on down

 and I’ll show you the lines, so I went down. I got a neighbor to ride down with

 me, I was living up there in Queponco at that time, so we went and found the

 boundary lines, and then I take the old man that run the mill for me, to look at

 it, and he says, you’ll do alright on it, but it’s too far away, I can’t help you on

 there, he says. He lived up there pasts Hungry Town. So this old man went

 with me, to see the man that was down there, and see her father, and he says

 I don’t know whether she want to sell it or not. She and her husband lived in

 the city, but she had some money, she loaned it, you know, and taked a

 mortgage on it, but he says her mother is sick and she’s coming home this

 weekend, says I’ll ask her and if she does I’ll have her call you. Well she

 didn’t call me, so I thought to myself, well either she doesn’t want to sell it, or

 she didn’t come down, one. So on Monday, she and her brother-in-law drive

 up. They wanted to talk to me face to face. So she told me what she wanted, I

 said, well I don’t believe I can stand that much into it, you couldn’t get much

 from farm produce at  that time, everything was just as cheap could be and I

 just cut a track of timber and sold it for 13 dollars a thousand, just because

 time was running out on it, didn’t own the land you know, hauled it to

 Hebron, for 13 dollars a thousand. Of course labor didn’t cost nothing then, a

 dollar, or a dollar and a quarter a day.

INTERVIEWER: And they were grateful to get it, I’m sure.

RODNEY: So we cut it and cleaned it up…..When she left, well we were 500

 dollars poorer. And she says if you decide you want it, well give me a ring, I’ll

 be home until tomorrow night. Well I said I didn’t think I could stand anymore

 than that, but if you take a notion you want my price, then you call me. That

 day she called me, she says 2 years taxes on the place, will you take care of

 that/ I said I’ll split the difference with you.

INTERVIEWER: Boy, you are something.

RODNEY: So I bought it right there.

INTERVIEWER: That was quick, but you got what you wanted.

RODNEY: And I cut timber off it, right away. I put tracks down and mill in on it,

 I had that mill on a stand that had about another year. Well next spring we

 went ahead and finished that up or the next fall and moved it down there and

 started it up in the Spring and left it till the next Spring and I settled that, I

 finished cleaning that up there for 15 dollars, Adkins Company at Berlin. But

 the Adkins Company in Berlin couldn’t handle it. The year before, Cordrey

 Company, in Snow Hill, the Adkins Company to Salisbury couldn’t, so it went

 out to Hebron, out there to Boss Bounds. Well I don’t need it, he said ain’t

 holding a thing, but if it is good stuff I’ll give you 13 dollars a thousand, so it

 was either leave it or get it. So I left it. So the next we went down and cut that

 other and moved it down there, but as things picked up a little better that

 summer and Adkins Company, to Berlin, had some orders to Ocean City and

 they wanted some so I finished all that up, and started cutting there, and that

 was 15 dollars, they went up to 15 dollars. And then they went to 19 dollars,

 the next year and I finished all that up down there. I lost 3 men one year, one

 of them got killed in the woods, and another got killed on the road, he was

 drinking and he got run over. The other man had a stroke and they were the

 best mill help I had.

Continues next Saturday here at The Pocomoke Public Eye.

Recollections from generations past. (Rodney Bounds- 5)

 

(Rodney Bounds 1892 - 1990)

TRANSCRIPT FROM 1979 INTERVIEW (CONTINUED)

INTERVIEWER: I read an article, and I was talking about that to the ladies, that

 there was a brick kiln in the area of Basketswitch. Have you ever heard of

 that? They said that was the reason that the railroad siding was put in there

 at Basketswitch, to handle the bricks that were being produced by the brick

 kiln at Basketswitch, and it was an article that came out in the Sunday Sun

 Magazine, a number of years ago. And I’d never heard of a brick kiln there.

RODNEY: I never did either. There was a, after the church was done away

 with. Walt Bowen had a steam mill there. And he got killed. He got wound up

 in the one of the pulleys had, the way I understood it, I didn’t see it, but you

 know there’s a key that fits in there and the key fit in there and it was loose

 and I think he drove some kind of wedge into it, but it stuck out a little bit

 pass the axel or whatever, shaft, he walked by and it caught into his clothes.

 It was winter time, and had on a lot of loose clothes, right smart clothes

 wound him around down and it beat him to death, right there. For several

 years after that, before this factory was put there. I can’t think of their names,

 now they did it, I know them. But they were from around Ocean City, I think.

INTERVIEWER: I know their name but I can’t remember it. Was there a lot of

 woods here in this area and the Basketswitch area? Lets say if you went up

 to  Queponco, if you went out this way, has this been lumbered? That’s what

 I’m trying to say.

RODNEY: Well we had a station right down here. Wesley Station. And a calf

 pen where you would bring calves and put them in. They would stop there

 and ship them. That’s been a long time ago. I never brought none out there

 but I carried them to Newark, and the freight would come along before that

 morning and at Basketswitch, and down here they had a place where they

 would load cars, a switch. Load three cars or something like it. There was

 three mine prop outfits to load them with, as windlass you might say. The

 poles settled and braced and then a wench or a shaft went from it, with a

 block and pull, and you hook on your load, start your mules out and pull

 them around and load your car with. I never loaded any down here, but I did

 at Basketswitch.

INTERVIEWER: And they had that at Basketswitch and another one at Wesley Station?

RODNEY: Yes. And at Ironshire it was the same way. I loaded props at

 Ironshire. Had a little piece of woods up there, between Ironshire and Berlin,

 and that was the closest place to load it. Mine props used to be good

 business. And piling and they got so that they were cutting them props in 9

 foot lengths, hauling them right to the mines, Trader wouldn’t buy any more,

 load his own car then, so that kinda knocked that in the head. That was back

 there in the 30s. Gradually the poling business got out too. Anybody that

 wanted a load of piling they had trucks to haul them and so it done away with

 all their railroad stuff.

INTERVIEWER: Now Wesley Station is right down this road? Yes this is

 Cedartown Road. It’s just right down here beside the railroad track. Right/

RODNEY: Where the bushes had growed up and so forth. The fellow bought

 the lot and built a home on it, just last year. That’s where the mine props was.

 If I remember right the pens that loaded the calves was on the other side of

 the railroad. They used to have an extra wheel like that, you know, and all day

 long all the little stations, if the farmers wanted to ship calves that’s the only

 way he had to get rid of them, was to carry them out, put them on the train.

Continues next Saturday here at The Pocomoke Public Eye.

Recollections from generations past. (Rodney Bounds- 4)

 

(Rodney Bounds 1892 - 1990)

TRANSCRIPT FROM 1979 INTERVIEW (CONTINUED)

INTERVIEWER: ............. Was there a post office? At Newark?

RODNEY: Yes, it was Newark Post Office and Queponco Railroad. And they

 were as close together as from here as down there to the fence.

INTERVIEWER: Somebody that day said, that if you wanted to send a

 telegram, if you were away and wanted to send a telegram, if you sent it to

 Newark, it wouldn’t go. You had to say Queponco, even though it was the

 same place.

RODNEY: And if you were in Philadelphia or somewhere in a strange place,

 that they didn’t know the place they asked for a ticket to Newark, well they

 wouldn’t know if it was Newark, Delaware or Newark, New Jersey. No,

 Newark, Maryland, well we got no place like that. So you had to tell them

 Queponco, before you could buy it. Of course, if they had been an agent for a

 long while, well they knew it, and they’d tell you you would have to have it for

 Queponco. They had enough stores, and they had a good Blacksmith, and all

 that in them days. Of course after the automobiles come around that

 changed things a little.

INTERVIEWER: Well you really didn’t have to go to Snow Hill for anything? Or

 did you?

RODNEY: Well for any county business, you would go to the courthouse.

 Such as that.

INTERVIEWER: But for food and supplies and things like that…..

RODNEY: No, no. And right across the river there was Whiton. That kept a big

 store, you know, and they kept anything and everything that was needed.

 Same way at Piney Grove.

INTERVIEWER: Is Piney Grove and….I think there are 2 places that are the

 same, I’m going to say Mt. Olive.

RODNEY: Now Mt. Olive and Piney Grove are right close together. Mt. Olive

 Church and Piney Grove, I don’t think Piney Grove Store was over a mile

 from there and the church is still there, but the store is gone. They’ve got two

 houses there now, right close by, there’s an old house across the road in the

 woods, now there at Piney Grove and you can go up in it. You can start out

 and go pretty near Snow Hill without getting out of the woods. I think on one

 side of the road, I mean.

INTERVIEWER: Did you ever go to Forester’s Day of Farmer’s Day, down at

 Public Landing?

RODNEY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: I was talking to somebody in Salisbury and they said that they

 used to spend the night at Piney Grove and start the next morning, to make it

 a shorter trip.

RODNEY: Mt. Olive Church, why they would have 4 mule wagon load and stay

 there and go from there right on over. But I never went that way, but I lived on

 the road, they had to go right by the next morning. Several wagons would

 come. They’d get in Snow Hill, they didn’t want to get there too early, they

 wanted to wait till the bar open……That’s what they told me. I don’t know I

 wasn’t old enough to see any of that. But I used to go down there to Public

 Landing at Forester’s Day and we went, Sunday school would go down in a 4

 mule wagon load, from church, Bates Church, it is now……………..

RODNEY: We left Snow Hill, I went to Sunday School there and when we

 moved up there we went to here, where the church is tore down.

INTERVIEWER: Was that church torn down here? They couldn’t remember the

 other day if it burned or whether it was moved, the one here at Basketswitch.

 Is that the one you are talking about?

RODNEY: Well, I can’t tell you for sure, but I think it was torn down. Some

 people that lived around there, that opposed to moving it, they wanted to

 build a new church right there. But they had more backing for putting it in

 Newark, instead of building it right there. I don’t know just the year, but

 somewhere about 66 years ago. And that church has gone down and the

 house that set beside it there, and all of it is gone down. Tore up. A man

 named by the name of Richardson, old man, Mark Richardson, lived in the

 house beside of it. And the that went right on around in front of the Bowen

 Farm, that was sold the other week.

INTERVIEWER: What was there at Basketswitch or Basket Town or whatever

 one wants to call it when……….you say you moved from Queponco, you

 didn’t move to Basketswitch, you stayed at Queponco till you moved here.

 Do you remember any buildings or stores or anything at Basketswitch?

RODNEY: After the church burned down, was destroyed, I don’t know, tore

 down, I think it was, why this gum factory was put there. But that’s been

 recently you know. Maybe 20 years, something like that. No there wasn’t any

 buildings down there, but the house and church, at that time, besides farm

 buildings.

Continues next Saturday here at The Pocomoke Public Eye.