Our Peninsula
The following from the Telegram, of Hartford, Conn., shows what two recent visitors from abroad thought of us. We object to their claim upon Mr. Reed as a northern man, "being a native and to the manner born," because he is enterprising, but like them regret we have not more like him:
A couple of Hartford gentlemen, who have been down in the above region for the past few days, have come home with such glowing accounts of the beauty of the place, the courtesy and kind hospitality of the inhabitants, that some of their friends here are in doubt whether they actually were there or in some earthly paradise not before heard of.
The party left here Saturday at 2:30 p. m. and reached their objective point -- Read's wharf -- 5:45 a. m. Sunday morning. This place is situated on an arm of the Chesapeake bay, about one mile from the bay and about five miles from the Atlantic ocean, right between the two, so they have a breeze off the water from whatever point of the compass it may be blowing. All the property adjoining the wharf is owned by a George H. Read, who, going down there after the war, purchased a 200 acre farm and to-day has seven or eight houses on the property, a store containing the post office, a wharf at which the Baltimore steamers stop, a fishing station from which 4,500 pounds of shad, blue fish, rock, sheepshead, etc., were shipped to Baltimore and Philadelphia markets on Monday, oyster beds running for a mile along the shore, soft shell crabs lying there ready to be caught, every kind of vegetable possible to raise in any climate, in addition to which he raises, fattens and kills all his own beef, mutton, poultry, rabbits, tame geese and wild geese (he has a flock of seven wild geese, domesticated, and steadily increasing), and game is abundant all about his house. There is not a single thing necessary to make a man happy and contented that he does not produce on his place, except coffee, tea, sugar and clothing, and we are not at all sure from all accounts that if these gentlemen visit there again they will not find ready made clothing growing on the trees, where they can pick it off as needed, as they now pick figs. It shows what a thorough going, energetic man can do, and the South would be better off if they had more like him.