Peninsula Enterprise, February 23, 1884
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Transportation -- Water - Boat building
Mr. Philip Kirkwood, a shipwright of Baltimore, and who has been engaged of late years in building vessels in this county, died in that city Tuesday, at the ripe age of 80 years.
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The restaurant of Mr. G. L. Doughty, Belle Haven, recently opened, will compare favorably with any in city or country, and the cost of a meal there being considered, it beats all of them. You cannot get anywhere a finer oyster stew. Call to see him once, and you will continue to favor him thereafter with your visits.
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Transportation -- Railroad - Construction
Work has begun last week on the bridge of the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad over the Pocomoke River. According to the contract made with the builders, it will have to be finished by the 15th of March. Information received from an authentic source is to the effect that it will be completed at an earlier date than is designated in the contract.
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Forests -- SawmillsSea -- Shellfish - Oystering : SeasideSea -- Shellfish - Oystering : PlantingTourists and sportsmen -- Field sports - Hunting : Fox
Atlantic.
A steam saw and planing mill is soon to be established, according to current rumor, in or near Queen Hive Swamp, by Dr. T. T. Taylor & Bro.
James Collins, a successful oyster planter in this locality, convinced, it is said, that Jack's Cove, his present planting ground, is a natural oyster bed, will shortly remove his oysters thereon to another point.
Fox hunting is a growing amusement in our neighborhood. About forty men and boys participated in a hunt last Saturday, in Wallop's Neck.
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Infrastructure -- Public - Government : Life-saving service
Chincoteague.
Mr. Henry Hopkins who contracted disease last winter, while in the employ of the Life Saving Service, is very justly receiving recognition from the Government by a continuation of his pay. He enlisted a few years ago hearty, hale and strong, he retires from the service a wreck. No set of men in the employ of the U. S. Government are called up to endure such exposure and hardships as these "Angels of the Beach," and while Congress is on the still-hunt for pensioners from the war of 1812 down to the "Stay at homes" of 1861, we hope she will not forget those veterans of the Life Saving Service, than whom none are more deserving. Let them be employed twelve months in the year instead of eight.
The Railroad.
Transportation -- Railroad - ConstructionTransportation -- Railroad - FreightLaborers -- Railroad
Notwithstanding the bad weather there is a little progress to report every week. Steel rails have been distributed along the line of the road between Delmar and Crisfield and the work of taking up the old rails and putting down the new ones is going on. About three miles of the road between this city and the Junction have been relaid, and the difference is so great as to be easily detected the moment the train leaves the old track and strikes the new one. The steel rails weigh sixty pounds to the yard, which will admit of the running of very heavy trains. The building of the road in this substantial manner is a guarantee that it is something more than a mere speculation, and that it is to be made one of the most important trunk lines to the South. When the road is completed, which is expected to be about the first of July, fast trains will be run from New York to the South, via Cherrystone, without change of cars.
A branch is to be built from the main line to a point near the Red Hills, in order to catch the immense oyster traffic that now goes over the Delaware, Maryland and Virginia Railroad. Several car loads of oysters are shipped from this point every day.
Work on the bridge has begun. A monster pile-driver -- the hammer weighing three thousand pounds -- was placed in position Thursday, and a number of piles have already been driven. It is thought that not over a month will be occupied in completing the structure.
Forty more laborers came down Tuesday night and were put to work on this side of the river. It is hoped to get the greater part of the grading done by the time the bridge is completed, so that the work of laying the rails may proceed without interruption.
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Sea -- Shellfish - Oystering : BaysideSea -- Shellfish - Oystering : Law enforcement
Dear Sir:
I am credibly informed that a report is being circulated, and generally believed in some localities, that I was bribed with a "roll of greenbacks" to hang the jury of which I was a member, in the case of the Commonwealth vs. Henry A. Thomas, for unlawful dredging. The report comes to me as follows, to wit:
"After the jury was empannelled, a horse and carriage were procured and a man dispatched to a juryman's house, living six miles above the C.H., with instructions to see the man upon whose land he lives, and ask him to offer a bribe, which he refused to do. But the bribe was offered and received, and that the juryman hung the jury."
Three of the jury would not agree to send Thomas to the penitentiary, and as I am the only one of the three that lives above the C.H., (I live exactly six miles above, the others seven or eight miles below) there is no other inference to be drawn, except that I am the man.
I deny the charge that I was influenced either by "bribe money" or personal persuasion to take the course I did. Understanding the law and evidence as I did, I have never seen the day or hour that I have regretted my course. If it had been my aim to court popular favor, I doubt not that it might have been realized by adopting a course different from what I did. Those who are ignorant or biased enough to believe my motives were otherwise than those of a man aiming to do justice between man and man, in the fear of God, by whom he took a solemn oath to do it, can do so. But I stamp the LIE upon the man or men who originated or spread the report.
I am informed by a gentleman, that one Crockett, a "patent-medicine tramp" whose only claims to notoriety are the futile and vulgar attempts at "
E. W. Barnes, Woodberry, Va., February 20, 1884.
Rusticus on Postmasters.
Infrastructure -- Public - Government : Postal service
MR. EDITOR -- Dear Sir: I noticed in THE ENTERPRISE a week or so ago your comments upon some irregularities of the mail, which you ascribed to the poor condition of the horses of the carriers. The citizens of the Bayside route are subject to annoyances that cannot be attributed to this cause, but which are occasioned by the stupidity, carelessness or indolence of many of the postmasters. I have been a subscriber to the Baltimore Daily Sun for more than a year, and every few days a paper is missing, which sometimes turns up in a week afterwards, and frequently does not come at all. Letters and postal cards, too, sent to and from Baltimore and Accomac are not certain to reach their destination. During the past year several that I have written, or were mailed to my address, were "lost, strayed or stolen." The postmaster at Onancock can testify that every time the Bayside mail leaves there he finds letters and papers for postoffices all along the route, which the postmasters fail to take out, and which he has the trouble of sending back. The postmaster where I get my mail has a singular propensity of not giving you your mail when you go or send for it. This has occurred to me frequently, and I have gone to the office next day before any mail arrived and received it. Perhaps he may think he is playing a huge practical joke, or maybe he fondly hopes, by getting a fellow back to his store, to sell him something -- or, it may be he is too lazy to look! Be that as it may I object to going to the office twice, when once should be sufficient. I think it is time the Postmaster-General should make these folks understand that the mail is not rubbish, but important matter which the people want handled with care and dispatch. Yours truly,
RUSTICUS.