Dispatch, September 1, 1888
FINE POTATO CROP.
Transportation -- Water - FreightTransportation -- Railroad - FreightFields -- Crops - Sweet potatoes : Prices
Big Shipments and Good Prices on the Eastern Shore.
Onancock, August 29, 1888.
Sweet potatoes are being shipped from this section in large quantities. There has been an almost continuous stream of potato-carts through this town to-day. The steamer that left here this afternoon for Baltimore took on nearly 1,500 barrels of potatoes at this wharf alone -- the largest shipment made from here during the season. The railroad, which is only two miles away, is also carrying heavy shipments to Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and other eastern markets. In spite of the heavy shipments prices keep up at high figures, one man living in this town having already cleared over $300 on one acre and a half planted in sweet potatoes. As the crop on the Eastern Shore is a large one, good times are expected here for the rest of the year. Some of Bayly Browne's friends claim that he is the cause of it, but others think the season here and the failure of the crop elsewhere has had something to do with making good prices for sweet potatoes.
A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS.
Watermen -- Personal injuryTransportation -- Water - Sailboats
Thrilling Adventure on Board the Kelso in Virginia Waters.
Onancock, August 29, 1888.
Mr. John S. Tyler, of this town, who is engaged as a travelling salesman for a Baltimore firm, left here several days ago for Tangier Island, about fifteen or twenty miles distant in the Chesapeake bay, taking with him his wife and seven children and two young ladies from Baltimore. They went in the sloop Annie Kelso, belonging to Captain John Kelso, of Onancock, who with his little son Hugh went along to manage the boat. Just after they had gotten out of Onancock creek and were sailing quietly up Tangier sound, both masts of the sloop snapped off suddenly and fell over into the water. There was no axe on board with which to cut the rigging and let the broken masts go, and the sloop began to wallow in the chopped waters of the sound. Captain Kelso and Mr. Tyler, recognizing the danger of the situation, did everything in their power to keep the boat from capsizing. They remained in this condition for nearly an hour, when the sloop White Wing, Captain Heckman, from Crisfield, Md., saw them and came to their assistance. Cutting away the broken masts, he took the disabled sloop in tow and carried her into harbor on Tangier Island. On the following morning Mr. Tyler and party started home in the disabled sloop, which was towed by Captain Connorton, of Tangier island. When they were near the scene of the first disaster Captain Kelso, in stepping backward, fell down the open hatchway, breaking several of his ribs and sustaining other severe internal injuries. Fortunately the steamer Helen, of the Eastern Shore line, came along, and answering to a distress signal, took the sloop in tow and brought here into Onancock creek, the party arriving here about 10 o'clock in the forenoon. Taken altogether it was a remarkable adventure of casualties and lucky escapes. Had the wind been blowing strong at the time the first accident occurred it is highly probable that all the party would have perished. One of the masts in falling missed the head of one of Mr. Tyler's daughters only a few inches. Captain Kelso, who had charge of the party, is an old sailor, and in all of his fifty consecutive years of service on the water this was the first accident that he ever had to befall him. Throughout the series of accidents and dangers the ladies of the party preserved their self-possession and good spirits, and Captain Kelso, though confined to his room, expects to out in a few days.