Dispatch, June 4, 1889

Untitled

Weather -- Northeast stormsInfrastructure -- Public - Government : Life-saving serviceInfrastructure -- Commercial - NewspapersMoral -- Property crimeWatermen -- Personal injuryMental illnessArchitecture -- Other public buildings

Onancock, June 1, 1889.

For the past three days a strong easterly wind has prevailed in this region accompanied by cloudy weather and occasional rains. At times the wind blew a gale and much damage has been done to early vegetables, and sweet potato fields, the young plants having been badly whipped by the winds. Tidings of disaster to shipping are expected from the sea coast, but none have yet been reported.

Lieutenant J. F. Wild, commander of the United States revenue marine and assistant inspector of life-saving stations for the Fifth district, who resides here, has just received information from the department at Washington of the fact that the life-saving stations in the Sixth district have been thrown into his jurisdiction. Lieutenant Wild will leave here in a few days on a tour of inspection to the life-saving stations on the Carolina coast.

The Headlight, is the name of a new weekly paper just started at Cape Charles City, in Northampton county, with Captain George G. Savage as editor and Floyd L. Kurtz as business manager. Mr. Kurtz is also editor and owner of the Eastville Herald. This makes three papers now published at Cape Charles, a town not yet five years old and containing less than 1,000 inhabitants.

Another new paper is the Tidewater News, published in Onancock, with J. T. Ball as editor and Henry A. W. Kellam as business manager. The last-named paper announces that it will be independent in politics.

The coroner's jury that investigated the finding of the body of Captain Henry P. Smith, of Massachusetts, in Gargatha Inlet some time ago, severely censured Nathaniel Belote and John W. Turlington, two of the men who found the body, and after taking from the pockets of the dead man a purse containing $140 threw the body overboard again and divided the money between them. The jury also recommended that the Commonwealth's Attorney take cognizance of the matter. The affair has created not a little sensation here owing to the prominence of the parties in society and the Church, and several ministers have spoken plainly about the affair from the pulpit.

Jackson Kellam, the young man who tried to commit suicide at Belle Haven by shooting himself in the breast and abdomen nearly two weeks ago, is still alive, but the doctors attending him say he has but slender chances to recover. Kellam has now changed his mind and is very anxious to live as long as possible.

The work of removing the court records of this county from the old into the new clerk's office has been completed. It is said the Board of Supervisors will sell the old building at public auction. It was built in the latter part of the last century. The records go back as far as 1663 and are very valuable. The new clerk's office, which is built of fire-proof brick and supplied with the latest and most improved cases, shelves, and desk, is said to be the prettiest building of the kind in Virginia.