The Chesapeake Bay Trade, Part 5
Onancock, Va., July 30. -- There is so much to say from this part of the earth in regard to the evil effects of the monopoly of the carrying trade on the Chesapeake bay that a third letter from Onancock has become necessary.
Attention has already been called in this correspondence to the fact that in the white potato season the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway Company, that carries to market the products of tidewater Maryland, has shown itself a rotten reed upon which the shipper can place no dependence. THE SUN has shown that the steamboats of this line have been overloaded, that they have failed to make anything like schedule time and have had to refuse hundreds and even thousands of barrels of truck already sold at good prices by the farmers, and that some wharves have been left alone so severely that the goods have rotted there.
It is charged all along the bay that in the fine spell of economy that the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic management is practicing even the forces of deck hands and freight handlers have been reduced, and that this is one of the reason for the slow time that steamers now make. Of course, with fewer men to handle the stuff the loading and unloading of boats at the wharves is retarded.
THE SUN'S correspondent disputed this statement with Onancock residents and pointed to a very large force of negro roustabouts who were rushing potatoes from wharf to deck.
"These men," said the Onancock people, "are laborers of this town who are ever ready to take up this work, for which they get 20 cents an hour. Only a few that you see are regular employes of the steamboat company; the others are Onancock men. When the steamer starts you will find few of them going aboard the boat."
APPEAL OF AGENTS.
So serious did the clogging of the operations of the steamers become last week that even the agents of the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic company in Accomac found it necessary to appeal to their company to adopt some rational steps to save its own business. This was circulated at Boggs [Wharf], Evans [Wharf], Harborton, Concord [Wharf], Morley's [Wharf], Davis [Wharf] and Shields [Wharf] wharves, and a note at the bottom said:
"A copy of this will be sent to the president, secretary and general manager of your company."
The agents' appeal or memorial is not the vaporing of discontented outsiders, but Chesapeake and Atlantic's own employes and representatives. It says, in part:
The condition of freight traffic at your several wharves in Accomac and Northampton counties, and the existing state of public sentiment prompt us as your representatives to make this statement: From an interchange of opinions it is safe to say that from one-third to one-half of the trade properly belonging to your line has been diverted to the railroad this season. Putting aside our own losses and our own interests, we cannot disregard facts that affect whole neighborhoods. We simply ask the proper handling of the traffic we have to give you. Few, we think, will be found to condemn this motive. Our bay side section is making rapid strides in improvement. Increased population, comfortable and desirable homes, improvements of lands and increased acreage in trucks can be seen on all sides. This necessarily leads to the lengthening of the freighting season, and to more revenue for your line. At present the steamers on your regular schedule cannot carry the freights.
The sweet potato season will soon be upon us, and your patrons ask to know what they may expect. The crop probably will be an average one, and it is, as you know, the principal reliance for money of many of our farmers. Its proper handing is essential. With this assured by you the future is likely to give a still greater volume of business. Without it, matters must become more and more strained.
In our passenger business the delay at Crisfield is the most objectionable feature. This is fast driving many away from your company. Time only aggravates its disadvantages.
In making this statement we have no desire or intention to dictate matters to you. Let us repeat, we simply ask the handling of the freight brought to our wharves without unreasonable delay, and in steamers capable of making delivery in Baltimore in time for the early markets. So far, every effort made for the last two years to secure better facilities -- and they have been many -- has resulted in failure. Our people are an appreciative people. They will value any effort on your part to render them suitable service, and we suggest now what everyone here has long felt -- the need of a closer touch and of a great degree of oneness of purpose and interest. The wish to serve you prompts this step on our part.
A GHASTLY JOKE.
Said an Onancock business man:
"You know that transportation lines usually have solicitors out to engage freight. Nothing of this kind is necessary here. We require no soliciting. We do not ask, or, rather, we have not asked, that one cent be taken off the rates. All that we have asked is that the company will just carry what we offer it.
"There is a standing joke here which we call the 'Murdoch joke.' It came about in this way: Mr. T. Murdoch, general passenger agent of the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway, recently went down to the Northern Neck of Virginia, on the Western Shore, and spoke to the inhabitants. He is quoted in a Sunday edition of THE SUN as saying that the Northern Neck was a paradise for truckers and that he intended to stimulate immigration to that part of the country.
"We Accomac people consider this a weird joke, since the stimulation of immigration naturally means more freighting from the Northern Neck, while the company has already shown its capacity for taking more than two-thirds of the freight from the Eastern Shore, which does not need the stimulation of immigration to furnish enough freight to swamp Mr. Murdock's company. We think that it will be much more to the point if the gentlemen connected with the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic will just stimulate some steamboat building at Baltimore, Wilmington or Sparrows Point before they take steps to increase the production of a bay county whose goods they now show themselves incapable of carrying to market under the present insufficient transportation facilities."
FAITH IN OLD BALTIMORE.
The faithfulness of these Eastern Shore Virginians to Baltimore almost surpasses belief. What they suffer from the railway system that has a monopoly of the bay carrying trade is enough to turn the temper of a saint, and yet these people have put up with things to continue their relations with Baltimore that belong almost to the realm of sentiment and not to business. But notice is hereby given to Baltimore that this trade is slipping, and continually slipping, away from the Monumental City, and if its business men do not soon arise to face the situation it will take a monstrous lever to push things once more into place.
Once more the reader will look, please, at the map of Accomac and Northampton counties printed in THE SUN last Monday. Those readers have been told that all freight from Baltimore that is marked to go to any point south of Salisbury, Md., goes by steamer of the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic to Crisfield, Somerset county, Md. From the wharf at Crisfield it is put on cars of the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad for transportation to all points south of Salisbury. In a word, the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic steamers to this point (Crisfield) are not distributing media, but feeders for the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk railroad. There is going to be a story in these columns about Crisfield, Md. but right here let it be stated that the service is so bad at that point that few business men on the Peninsula who are served with goods by way of the Crisfield steamer and the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk railroad get their goods in anything like a reasonable and rational time. They have resorted to all sorts of schemes to overcome the remissions of the Pennsylvania system here. One or two think they have solved it, and the rest have come to the conclusion that there is no way but to transfer their business to Philadelphia.
John W. Rogers of J. W. Rogers & Bros., at Onley, Va., said to the representative of THE SUN:
"There seems to be no way out of our difficulties, and we shall have to stop buying goods in Baltimore. The delay at Crisfield is so serious a matter that we never know when we can count on arrivals of our purchases. I have no fault to find with our treatment there nor with the prices in Baltimore, nor with the promptness of the merchants there. The thing is that we can not get our goods through, and you must have goods when you keep a store.
HERE'S A NEW PLAN.
E. E. Miles, of Onancock and Onley, a wholesale grocer and feed dealer, said:
"I have had goods lying a whole week at Crisfield, and that is something no business can stand. I have tried a new plan, and it seems to work successfully; but if there comes a hitch I must deal in Philadelphia, and then I know that goods shipped to me will come promptly to my headquarters at Onley.
"Do you know what I am now doing to maintain my business relations with Baltimore? Why, instead of having the merchants there mark my goods for my main store at Onley, I have the goods shipped to me at Onancock. I know that the steamer will put them off at the Onancock wharf if they are marked that way. When they arrive I send my teams to Onancock and haul the goods two and a-half miles to Onley. I do this, mind you, though I am entitled to have them sent to me at Onley without any drayage on my part. I have teams of my own, however, and if I can get the goods in a fair time in that way I am willing to put up with this disadvantage. I not only have to complain of long delays, but it is so often that the goods come in bad condition that they cause a vast amount of trouble to us."
HUNGRY FOR NEW LINE.
So the complaints come, one after another, and nearly all the business men here are praying for a new and independent line of steamers. It is the talk on the wharf and under the big trees in front of Landlord Conrades' Hotel night after night. The solid men of the town declare that they will take stock in a new steamboat company, and that it shall have as much business as it can handle. What they want is for Baltimore capital to get busy and start the ball rolling.
Onancock is a pleasant town of 1,300 inhabitants, at the head of Onancock creek. The town has its own waterworks, 31 stores, a national bank, a telephone exchange, which puts it in communication with the entire surrounding country, and a privately-owned gas plant.
The town has two newspapers, and the colored population owns one of these. With every evidence of thrift before their eyes, the colored people here are thrifty, too, and it is the proud boast of the white people that their colored population supports the only county paper in the world published for and by the colored people themselves. The colored people also have their own State fair and racetrack grounds adjoining the Tasley Fair ground, three miles from here, and they are fully encouraged by the white people of the prosperous community.
Accomac county has a total population of 36,000, and of this it is believed that not more than 50 residents are of foreign birth.
Much hope is placed in the independent line of steamers that every resident believes will eventually come into being. All hands are preparing for it as if it were a certainty. The faith of the people here is wonderful. They refuse to accept a doubt. It appears certain that, with all the money they command, they will be liberal subscribers to the stock of a new steamboat company.
JUST START THE WHEEL.
"Let the Baltimore capitalists start the line on a firm basis," they say, "and we shall be ready to back them up. We have some schemes of our own to further, and we expect to run a freight and passenger trolley road right across the peninsula to the ocean. Remember, we have a public wharf here which the Pennsylvania cannot absorb. We cannot be blocked out of that.
"Here is the plan of our trolley road: It will start right on the wharf at Onancock. It will run three miles to Tasley, which is the nearest town to us on the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk railroad. Then it will run two miles to Accomack, which is the county seat. Thence it will go three and a-half miles to Battle Point, on Metomkin bay. The power to run this road is also to run an ice factory and to furnish the current for electric lighting.
"This road will cost $160,000 to build and equip, and $30,000 of this has already been subscribed. It will load goods from steamers at the wharf and run them straight to the railroad for quick shipment. As matters stand at present, goods intended for this region are often delayed a full week at Crisfield. Another thing is that on the ocean side there is not a place from Franklin City to Cape Charles from which the oystermen of the seaside can ship their goods. Our trolly line will prove of great benefit to them.
"Battle Point, which is the proposed Eastern terminus, will become, we believe, a notable watering place, and Baltimoreans can visit it by the pleasantest kind of travel, namely, a ride down the Chesapeake to Onancock and a nine-mile trolley ride through beautiful country to the seaside."
The title of the company is the Accomack Traction and Power Company. Spencer F. Rogers is president and T. W. Taylor secretary.