Dispatch, May 29, 1889
AN UGLY STORY.
Watermen -- Personal injuryWeather -- Northeast stormsMoral -- Property crimeInfrasturcture -- Public - Government : CountyInfrastructure -- Public - Government : Town
About the Finding of a Body on the Eastern Shore.
[Correspondence of the Richmond Dispatch.]
ONANCOCK, Va., May 29, 1889.
A rather ugly affair is reported from the neighborhood of Mappsville, in the upper part of Accomack county. Some days since a party consisting of Nathaniel Belote, John W. Turlington, William Bundick and Wood West, the last named being colored, were hauling a seine in Gargatha Inlet when they dragged upon the beach the body of an unknown white man. The body was very much decomposed, and the men who found it say there was nothing on it by which it could be identified. The body was clad in good clothes, over which was a gum coat and sailor boots coming up to the waist. Turlington and Belote took from the inside pocket a large pocket book containing a considerable sum of money and two photographs of ladies, on one of which was written, "From your cousin Nettie Paine." The two men after throwing the body back in the surf hurried on home to count the money, leaving Bundick and the negro to divide the fish and bring them along later. Bundick says when he reached Turlington's house Mrs. Turlington told him that the pocketbook contained $140. A little later Turlington came up and said they had found $105 in the pocket book, but when told of what his wife had said he confessed that he and Belote had taken out $25, saying that they had done this because they would have to run all the risk. The negro received $10, and the remaining was then divided equally among the three other men. The matter leaked out, and at first Turlington and Belote were not inclined to talk about it. But soon the whole neighborhood got stirred up, and the foreman of the grand jury took steps to hold an investigation. Some days later a dead body was discovered on the beach near where the fishermen had found the body already mentioned, and Turlington and Belote, hearing of it, went down at night, got the body, made a coffin and buried it in Turlington's graveyard; but many persons do not believe this to have been the same body that was first found. News has been received here from Wellfleet, Mass., that the body first found was that of Captain Henry Smith, of that place, who sailed from Hampton Roads April 5th in command of the schooner Mary Stubbs, with a cargo of oysters for Long Island sound, and has not been heard of since. It is supposed that the schooner sank with all on board in the terrible storm of April 6th, having last been seen off Metompkin Inlet early that day. Some of Captain Smith's relatives are expected to arrive in a few days, when an investigation will be held. The men who found the body profess to have been ignorant of the provisions of the law regulating such matters and they are willing to surrender the money to the rightful owner. Members of Captain Smith's family say he must have had from $300 to $500 in his pocket when he perished.
In the district elections held last Thursday party lines were not drawn, except in a few localities, but nearly all the new officials are Democrats. The Board of Supervisors stands three Democrats and two Republicans, though one of these Republicans, Dr. Nat Smith, of Chincoteague Island, was supported by Democrats as well as Republicans. In Onancock the present municipal officials were all re-elected without opposition.