The Chesapeake Bay Trade, Part 3
Onancock, Va., July 28. -- If over there was a hot, discouraged, fermented and fighting-mad community in the world, it is right here in Onancock and its adjacent country in Accomac and Northampton counties, Virginia.
These two counties form the lower tip of the Maryland, Delaware and Virginia peninsula, and if the God of nature ever favored a bit of territory with the soil and climate of Eden and peopled it with a generous, open-hearted, wide-awake and rational race of men, he has done it here.
On the other hand, if ever a badly-managed, back-number transportation company had put its rough and pitiless hand upon the prosperity of a community endowed by nature and location with prosperity as a right, the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway has done it here. In fact, to the people of Accomac and Northampton this season's antics of the railway company's boats between this region and Baltimore has become a transportation horror and commercial catastrophe.
The people of prosperous Accomac and Northampton love Baltimore. They know its every street and avenue, its public buildings, its wharves, its residents, its manners and customs. Even Baltimore's local news is of interest to the inhabitants here. Cambridge and Easton, in Maryland, have in a large part gone to Philadelphia; Salisbury, Md. is almost wholly an Eastern dependency; Crisfield, Md., with its trade is bodily a producing spot for Philadelphia. These places are gone or rapidly going from the Monumental city, but the Eastern Shore of Virginia still holds its longing clasp upon the Maryland metropolis and nobody can tell, unless a change soon comes, how long or how short a time it shall be until ruthlessness shall tear that clasp loose and these rich counties shall be mere annexes of Pennsylvania's commercial capital.
No attempt shall be made here to condone any remissness that can be laid at Baltimore's doors. It shall be a purpose of the correspondence to show what Baltimore has done or left undone to lose such Maryland and Virginia trade as it has lost, but the fact will remain that to the bay transportation between Baltimore and her natural business allies one of two things has happened. Either:
It has been most woefully and incompetently mismanaged to the detriment of all Maryland interests, or:
It has been most ably, shrewdly and designedly managed by master hands and with design aforethought to make Baltimore a nullity and to transfer out of the State the very soul of Maryland's home trade.
A TRANSPORTATION HORROR.
This problem was seen in all of its nakedness here last week in Accomac county, particularly at Onancock. Here steamer after steamer of the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway came in and was able to take only a fraction of the goods that were offered for transportation to Baltimore. Onancock is the first and most important stop on Onancock creek and, as a matter of course, if any goods are taken aboard the boats on this creek they will be taken on at Onancock. Day after day the overloaded boats left here without clearing up the wharf, and when the vessels reached the two other stations on this water -- Finney's wharf and Mears' wharf -- nothing at all in the way of freight could be taken aboard. Therefore only passengers were put ashore or taken on.
What was the result? Wilted and stale goods, when the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic steamer did get a chance to move them, and low prices for the producers when the goods finally reached the market.
Had the trouble stopped here there might still have been some case for the consciences of the men who caused this waste to occur, but when Baltimoreans are told that many barrels of potatoes, that should have passed through Baltimore in prime condition, actually rotted on the wharves of Accomac and became so much garbage, they can easily understand why all of Accomac county and her sister, Northampton, draw one deep breath and anathematize the transportation corporation that assumes the responsibility of carrying their products to market and falls most miserably to do it, either through design or rank incompetency.
Bankers' circulars may try to smooth this thing over, but some Accomac farmers' potatoes are rotten and they will get no money for them. Now, what are you going to do about it?
A MONOPOLY IN CHARGE.
The thing that fills the Virginia Eastern Shoreman with indignation is not only the inability of the Baltimore Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway to move his crops, but the fact that that company has shelved all opposition in the carrying trade on the Eastern Shore. In a word, the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic cannot carry the goods and has practically said "Nobody else shall," for it has bought up the bay steamers and wiped out all opposition.
Mr. R. P. Custis of Onancock, told THE SUN representative that on the wharves below Onancock creek he had seen potatoes that had rotted until the mass had sunk a foot below the top rims of the barrels.
It is well known here that because of the overloaded steamers falling to take produce from Mears' and Finney's wharves, the desperate farmers tributary to those wharves have been forced to cart their potatoes to Onancock in the hope that their goods would have the good fortune to be included in the cargoes that finally found transportation to Baltimore. THE SUN'S staff correspondent was told by one young farmer at Mears' wharf that he had hauled 156 barrels of potatoes five miles to Onancock, although Mears' wharf was right at his doors and the steamer is scheduled to stop there for freight. Even then several steamers went off from Onancock without his produce.
Even the steamboat employ are in sympathy with the farmers, and, under cover, criticize their employing company. One of them who saw the farmers going through the barrels of rotten potatoes in an effort to save something out of the mass of muck is reported to have said in the presence of Accomac county men: "Those fellows are foolish for going into that mess when they can recover at law for their entire loss from the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway.
The fact is that just now there threatens to be such a mass of damage suits from this quarter as will shake the company until the tremor is felt in the Broad street offices in Philadelphia. One batch of goods is said to have been left so long at Finney's wharf -- 10 days in fact -- that the quotations on produce dropped 40 per cent., and the farmers lost, through his goods were delivered to the transportation company in ample time to have caught the top prices in the market. One farmer in this pinch is said to have lost $1,200 by the double losses resulting form the market drop and the spoiling of his goods.
GOODS GROW STALE.
Mr. W. A. Burton, general manager, and C. R. Waters, assistant, of the Eastern Shore of Virginia Produce Exchange, at Onley told THE SUN that they have sold in the last two weeks from 15,000 to 20,000 barrels of stale goods that could have been delivered in prime and fresh condition, so far as they and the producing farmers were concerned. Previous to these shipments they had sent out 10,000 packages that had become stale through transportation delays. "The advance guard of the complaints is just coming in," said these gentlemen, "but remember, we have had no settlement as yet with the recipients of these lost goods, running from 10,000 to 20,00 packages. We are awaiting with interest the returns that are sure to come."
This country, then, that is anxious and willing to do business with Baltimore is hindered in every way by the transportation arrangements. When the staff correspondent of THE SUN, on Thursday last was told that the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic steamers were making a round -up and were clearing the wharves of left over freight, he received from the lips of a Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic steamboat employe the information that 325 barrels of potatoes had been left on Onancock wharf by the steamer Enoch Pratt. When they were to reach Baltimore only the arbiter of the destinies of men and potatoes know.
One day last week, according to a majority of the residents of Onancock, there were left on the Onancock wharf 2,300 barrels of potatoes. It is needles to say that not a single package was taken that day from Finney's and Mears' wharves, on this same creek. In the round-up of last Thursday, when more than 300 barrels were left at Onancock, Finney's was cleaned up for the first time in many days.
TAKE WHAT WE OFFER.
The people of Onancock and the surrounding country do not quarrel with the steamboat management about freight rates. Potatoes are carried to Baltimore for 20 cents a barrel. This is, of course, higher than was formerly charged by the company, but the people here with one voice say: "Let the rate stand, but carry the goods which we offer you at your own rates." This the company has failed to do and now the farmers and merchants are clamoring for an independent line and say they will take stock in it. This is the talk that one hears around the Onancock Hotel and wherever men congregate here.
Through this fertile region runs the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk railroad of the Pennsylvania system, familiarly called the NY, P and N. It carries immense quantities of the products to the North and East for distribution. When it was a young road and not an ally of the corporation which owns all the steamers on the Chesapeake bay, it urged all the farmers south of Onancock to carry their potatoes to Cape Charles City to be transported North and East, and allowed 10 to 15 cents a barrel to each farmer who, on his own boats, carried the goods to Cape Charles or paid that sum to watermen who transported them. The reader will refer to the map and grasp the idea that these products were sent southward some 25 miles on the Chesapeake bay that they might be put on cars at Cape Charles and transported north, passing on the return trip the very farms upon which they had been raised. When the farmer had no boats handy the goods were sent to Cape Charles on lighters furnished gratia by the railroad company. The goods were nevertheless sent to their destinations as cheaply as if shipped from the farmers' nearest stations.
In the present stress of inability on the part of the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic steamboat service to handle the Accomac and Northampton crops the farmers tributary to the wharves south of Onancock creek, remembering the old system, have been boating their produce southward to Cape Charles once more. Now, however, they do it at their own coast, paying as high as 15 cents a barrel and cases are on record of goods going 37 miles southward to Cape Charles. This money and time cost hurts the shippers to the full extent, but the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk railroad, through it has been frequently clogged with freights along its peninsula stations this summer, removes the goods before they become stale and lose seriously in value; and what the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk carries northward on the peninsula does not go anywhere near Baltimore. This southward boating is purely a development of this summer of 1907. It had not been done up to this year, since the people of this region felt secure in having an outlet at Baltimore. One business man of Onancock said in rather picturesque language that the outlet to Baltimore is now like a vent pipe choked with a dead cat.
PROSPEROUS PEOPLE.
Baltimore, look on the map presented to you today. Do you realize that here are two counties that are richer than if they contained gold mines? Do you realize that no other spot on earth is now producing more for the people than Accomac and Northampton? Shall Baltimore deal with these people or leave them for Philadelphia? Let us see what they are worth as friends, neighbors and business relations.
There has been raised on the Eastern Shore of Virginia and shipped this season 600,000 barrels of white potatoes alone. And before the potato season began great quantities of onions and cabbages were shipped. The cabbage crop in Northampton county alone brought $250,000. The crop of white potatoes for the two counties brought in more than $1,000,000. Accomac is not a very large county, but at the Jamestown Exposition it is shown that Accomac produces one twenty-first part of the whole agricultural production of Virginia, and yet this little county is only one of 100 counties in this big State. Is it worth while to save the business of this State that naturally comes to Baltimore?
Look still further. On Friday, July 10, the Eastern Shore of Virginia Produce Exchange -- on that one day -- handled and passed out 164 car loads of 200 barrels each amounting to 32,800 barrels of white potatoes alone. This does not include the production of that day by a good deal. It does not include private consignments, purchases by local buyers, shipments by Baltimore steamers or 10,000 other packages handled by the exchange. The shipments to Baltimore, whether carried to that city or left to shrivel on the wharves here, amount to 10,000 barrels. Through the white potato crop was worth more than $1,000,000, it must be borne in mind that this is the lesser product of these two counties, for the sweet potato is the main dependence and is known as the money product of the region.
MAIN CROP TO COME.
The sweet potato crop is very much larger and is of main importance with the people. Last year, in spite of continued wet weather and other drawbacks, the shipments reached 1,000,000 barrels. This year it will be immeasurably greater and the one great question, since the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic has failed so signally on the smaller crop is: How shall we get our goods to market?
It is the first question each farmer asks of his neighbor when he arises in the morning and the last that is asked at night whenever two or more of them come together. Their souls are filled with dread over the proposition, and this prosperous people, with plenty of goods and plenty of customers for those goods fear that they will be marooned by inadequate transportation. The sweet potato crop will in a few days begin to move. Unlike the white potato crop, which passes from here over a period of four to six weeks, the sweet potato crop will last three months. What scenes of waste and destruction will occur when the big crop comes remain to be experienced. But this subject is too big to be treated in one letter and more on this subject will be shown in the next article by THE SUN's staff correspondent from this point.