Norfolk Virginian, August 26, 1890
Untitled
Tourists and sportsmen -- Other recreation - Horse racingInfrastructure -- Public - Government : School administrationDisease
Onancock.
The horse Little Bets, belonging to J. R. Jones, Esq., of this county, which did such good trotting at the fair at Cape Charles last week, has been sold to a Richmond man for $400. He has since refused an offer of $1,000.
The school census for this county gives the total number of pupils by districts as follows: Pungoteague, 2,777; Lee, 3,151; Metompkin, 2,070; Atlantic, 2,420; Islands, 802, and the total number of children between the ages of five and twenty-one years, 11,220. the census of 1885 was 924, which gives the present census an increase of 1,956.
A large number of cases of typhoid fever are reported in and around Marsh Market, this county.
This Year's Crops Puts the Farmers on a Good Footing Again.
fields -- Crops - Sweet potatoes : YieldFields -- Crops - Sweet potatoes : Prices
Onancock (Accomac Co.) Va., August 25.
The two counties comprising the Eastern Shore of Virginia -- Accomac and Northampton -- have enjoyed this year an unprecedented era of prosperity, which has enlivened every channel of business and put the tillers of the soil once more upon a solid foundation. Northampton, with her staple crop of Irish or round potatoes, can now stand one or two seasons of business depression, while, if this had been a dull one, her workingmen would have been in a sorry plight, and Accomac, with her old standby sweet potatoes, which are still being shipped at a lively rate and are averaging about $3.00 per barrel, is rapidly shoving to the fore.
The sweet potato crop this year is about 2,500,000 barrels. The scarcity of fruit and vegetables on the market causes an unceasing demand for potatoes.
AN UNROMANTIC SUICIDE.
Mental illness
A Sixty Year Old Husband Kills Himself in Open Field.
[Special to The Virginian]
Tasley, Va., August 25. -- From an undoubted source your correspondent has learned that James Custis, a white man, aged about sixty-two years, committed suicide yesterday at New Church, this county, his home. The circumstances as learned are: A neighbor of Custis went to his house and requested his wife to keep house for him, temporarily, while he went away, which she consented to do. Custis told her if she went she would never see him alive again, but taking no heed of him she repaired to the neighbor's house. Upon her return that evening her husband was found in a field near by with a gun, the trigger of which was tied to his toe and the muzzle, pointing to his head, in his hand, and his head blown off.