Peninsula Enterprise, September 19, 1896
Untitled
Moral -- Property crime
Sheriff John H. Wise arrived from Altoona. Pa., last Thursday with Joseph Bocaly and Carroll Wayman, two of the prisoners who escaped from jail recently. Bocaly robbed the Captain of the Virginia Oyster Navy of a considerable sum of money; Wayman is charged with several cases of housebreaking at Harborton.
Untitled
Moral -- MurderAfrican-Americans -- Racial violence
The trial of Wood Chase, of Cattail Neck, charged with drowning two negroes in St. Mary's Co., Md., about five years ago, begins at Leonardtown, Md., next week, and will result in his acquittal without doubt, if the evidence of witnesses counts anything with a Maryland jury. Mr. Chase will be able to prove by several persons of high character and unquestioned integrity who witnessed the drowning of the negroes, that they were drowned while in pursuit of him by the capsizing of their boat and that their only reason for pursuing him was, that he had reprimanded them for whipping a white boy. Mr. Chase will be represented at the trial by Hon. J. W. G. Blackstone, of this county.
Untitled
Infrastructure -- Public : Schools
Margaret Academy, Onancock, opened this week with 88 pupils and accessions are expected soon which will make the number as large as that of any previous year. The school opened last year with a much smaller number in attendance.
Untitled
Infrastructure -- Commercial - Real estate
Holly Grove farm, near Franktown, sold at public auction, at Eastville, last Monday, was bought by Mr. Jno. E. Nottingham for $5,867.
Untitled
Infrastructure -- Commercial - Real estate
The Warrington house and lot, near Keller, sold by Mr. U. B. Quinby, trustee, last week, at public auction, was bid off to Mr. Geo. T. Coleburn at $800.
Untitled
Infrastructure -- Public : Schools
The Onancock School of Business will not close, as has been reported, but is on the up-grade. The principal expects a good school, will confine himself to it and is prepared to give a good English education as well as a practical business one.
Untitled
Infrastructure -- Public : Fire companies
The Board of Supervisors at their meeting at the Alms House on Wednesday, after witnessing practical tests of the Stempel Fire Extinguisher made by Mr. H. R. Bennett, of Parksley, of the Eastern agency, ordered an equipment for the Alms House.
Untitled
Moral -- Property crime
Arthur Laws, colored, one of the eight prisoners who escaped from our jail a few weeks ago, was captured by Constable C. C. Dix on Gasolene Steamer while at Hunting Creek, on her way to Baltimore, last Wednesday. He is the seventh one that has been recaptured. The offense for which he is in custody is, breaking into storehouse of Mr. Asa J. Bundick at Nelsonia.
Untitled
Moral -- Other violent crime
Andrew Braxton, colored, near Pungoteague, was lodged in jail this week by Constable Jos. C. Wescott for striking William Bailey, colored, a blow with a sharp, blunt instrument, which it is thought, will prove fatal.
Untitled
Transportation -- Water - Marine railwaysSea -- Shellfish - Oystering : BaysideSea -- Shellfish - Crabbing : BaysideTransportation -- Water - Freight
Chesconnessex.
Schooner William Mason, Capt. James R. Marsh, left here on Tuesday for Crisfield to have necessary repairs made for the coming oyster season.
Most of our oystermen have left for the Potomac river to engage in tonging until October 15th, and in dredging after that date.
The crabbing season is pretty well over. The Onancock and Chesconnessex houses only buy now daily from 150 to 400 dozen.
Schooners Susie Muir, Capt. William F. Barnes, and Lillie Helen, Capt. Wesley Marsh, returned from Havre de Grace this week with coal for our people.
Untitled
Infrastructure -- Public - Government : Life-saving serviceNatural resources -- Shoreline migrationTourists and sportsmen -- Other recreation - Second homesForests -- Barrel factories Infrastructure -- Commercial - HotelsSea -- Shellfish - Oystering : SeasideTransportation -- Water - FreightInfrastructure -- Public : Fire companies
Chincoteague.
C. E. Babbitt, Jr., of this place, has been awarded the contract to move Cobbs Island Life Saving Station. The beach was so badly washed by recent N. E. winds that the station had to be moved from its present site.
Mr. Sherritts and family, sojourners at Assateague during the summer, left for their home, in Baltimore, on Tuesday.
Mr. O. M. Chandler, of Mappsville, spent several days with us this week, making arrangements for the erection of a barrel-house. He will manufacture barrels here this year on a larger scale than ever before.
Capt. James E. Matthews is visiting the northern cities this week, for the purpose of buying new furniture for his hotel.
Schooners Medora Francis and Sunbeam loaded with oysters this week, for Norfolk.
A public exhibition of the Stempel Fire Extinguisher will be given at Matthews Hotel, Chincoteague Island, on next Tuesday afternoon at 4 o'clock. Every property owner on the island should see this test.
Untitled
Sea -- Shellfish - Oystering : SeasideSea -- Shellfish - Oystering : SurveyingInfrastructure -- Commercial - Commercial constructionInfrastructure -- Commercial - Residential constructionTourists and sportsmen -- Other recreation - BicyclingLaborers -- Construction
Parksley.
D. F. and Roy D. White have been spending the week at Machapungo and Wachapreague, surveying the oyster grounds.
Mr. Wm. Bowen has completed the roof of Pate & Mason's brick store, and of Dr. Ewell's drug store.
Mr. John O. Taylor is engaged in putting the roof on Oscar L. Ewell's and Jas. R. Hickman's stores.
Mr. Chas. W. Truitt, of Onancock, and a force of assistants are busily engaged framing Dr. Drummond's residence. Mr. Thomas Savage is laying the brick foundation.
One of our fair visitors is the possessor of a bicycle, and excites considerable attention and admiration as she gracefully glides through our town.
Miss Lou Johnson's house is finished with the exception of the porch roofing. She and her mother have moved in her new building.
One of the bricklayers on Pate & Mason's storehouse fell from the second floor to the first Saturday, sprained his arm and otherwise crippled himself.
Suicide.
Mental illness
Mrs. Nancy Hart, wife of Capt. Dennis Hart, committed suicide at her home in Cattail Neck, on Monday 14th inst., by burning herself to death. She had been an invalid about 12 years and for the last 5 years has been confined to her bed and could not get out of it without the assistance of others. On Monday she sent her nurse, an elderly lady, to the store about a quarter of a mile distant and her four children to a neighbor and in their absence after saturating herself with coal oil, in some way succeeded in getting about ten yards from the house and set fire to herself, with the result stated. The deceased was an estimable lady and her sad and untimely death has cast a gloom over the community in which she lived. Her death is sincerely regretted by a large circle of relatives and friends. Her mother, husband, four children, brothers and two sisters survive her to mourn their loss.
B.
Untitled
Sea -- Shellfish - Oystering : BaysideSea -- Shellfish - Oystering : SurveyingSea -- Shellfish - Oystering : LegislationSea -- Shellfish - Oystering : Litigation
The committee appointed by the Legislature to investigate the holdings of Mr. Ellinger, deserve and will receive the thanks of the people of the Commonwealth for the careful painstaking and efficient manner in which they performed their duty. In making the investigation, they took nothing for granted which was a matter of record, which had not been first closely scrutinized by them, and accepted as correct no testimony or argument without weighing and sifting them of the fallacies they contained. Unlike many legislative committees, it was in no sense a junketing party. Every meeting, they held, meant hard, laborious work, love for their State, and an earnest desire to find out if her rights had been infringed upon. How well they did their duty the liberal extracts from their report to the Attorney-General of the State, embodied in another editorial, show. That their report will be sustained by the courts which hereafter will have to pass upon it, we do not doubt.
Untitled
Sea -- Shellfish - Oystering : BaysideSea -- Shellfish - Oystering : SurveyingSea -- Shellfish - Oystering : LegislationSea -- Shellfish - Oystering : Litigation
The committee appointed by the last General Assembly to investigate a certain survey and assignment of water area, along the shores of Fox Island, have submitted their report to the Attorney General. In it, they state, that the survey and adjudication did not conform to the requirements of the act in some important details, viz: First, that the application of the riparian owner to the fish commissioner did not embrace all the conditions prescribed; second, that, as shown by the testimony of the fish commissioner, no such computation of water acreage was made as the act required; third, that no preference was given to the original lines of survey, as was evidently contemplated by the act; and, fourth, that no attempt was made to re-establish, as near as might have been done, the original metes and bounds of the State survey.
The committee attach no blame to the fish commissioner in the matter of the adjudication, in view of the fact that the adjudication was made on the claim of certain fee simple rights by the riparian owner, but for the support of which the committee have failed to find proper evidence. Indeed, they report all the record evidence attainable, tends to contradict such claim. That all the surveys made under authority of the State, and all deeds of record pertaining to said island or islands, limit the area of the island to an acreage of only a little more than six hundred acres. No evidence could be found connecting the tumps on the eastward side of the island to the island proper, and the contention of the riparian owner that Muddy marsh was ever embraced in the Fox Island survey, appeared to the committee as entirely untenable. The report embodies copies of all the surveys and deeds referred to, from the original survey of 1773, and the Sacker Nelson grant, under which the land was first ceded.
The committee decides that the mandamus proceedings before the Court of Appeals have no bearing upon the issue before them, because these proceedings in no wise touched the question of boundary claim. The contention of the riparian owner, that the matter is now res adjudicata, cannot the committee reports be sustained; the attempt to conform to the Act having been prosecuted on a false assumption, the State never having designed to give the riparian owner the considerable areas embraced in the survey, and which the act in no sense justifies.
Finally the title and object of the Act, say the committee, provide for the establishment of a boundary straight line, or lines, around said island, in order to avoid the indentations and uncertainties of the original boundary line. The plat of this new survey shows that the boundaries, as claimed by the said riparian owner, before said survey, were straight lines, absolutely without indentation; and such being the case, the requirements of the act could not be met by the establishment of a new and different lines. The committee, in summing up, have decided:
1. "That the property rights of the Commonwealth are being infringed upon by the said William Ellinger."
2. "That proceedings be instituted by the Attorney-General in the proper court to protect the interest of the Commonwealth."
The report is signed by all the members of the committee, and it is understood, that the opinions set forth were mutually concurred in. The committee was composed of Senators LeCato and Stubbs, and Delegates Hathaway and Booker.