Onancock and Accomack County
Onancock, situated on an estuary of the Chesapeake, had for a hundred years or more been the leading business center of Accomack county. This position still holds. The population now exceeds 1,2000 with railroad and water transportation, and many of the advantages of the modern town. Handsome churches, a good school, department stores, and others with special lines only, electric gas and ice plants and a larger portion of comfortable and attractive residences than any other place of its size in the State.
Laid out as port Scarborough, a name that for some cause it seemed unwilling to bear, it first became famous as the refuge of Governor Berkeley during Bacon's Rebellion in 1676. The old house that he occupied was only replaced by a structure of very different architecture five years ago. The county records, still in excellent condition, bear evidence of his presence in the orders for supplies levied by the authorities for his use, as well as copies of his many commands and proclamations.
VARIED PRODUCTS.
The county has had several radical changes in the products produced, but the town always remained the chief shipping point on the Chesapeake side. Up to 1860 corn and oats were the principal crops, with peach brandy and sun-cured peaches as valuable and important aids.
With the occupation of the county by the federal soldiers in November, 1861, came not only changed conditions, but a change in crops. Following the lead of Somerset County, Maryland, the county north of us -- then the largest sweet potato producing section in the United States -- the cultivation of sweets was generally adopted, and rapidly increased. A little later followed the early round potato crop and this by other vegetables, until now the two counties, Accomack and Northampton, have become a great truck garden. Up to the 1860's the trade of the county was done by vessels only. A number of granaries lined the Onancock wharves, and to these farmers hauled their corn and oats for sale to the merchants for the shipment.
Steamboat connection with Baltimore was established in 1868, and at the building of the New York , Philadelphia and Norfolk railroad in 1884, Onancock had become the largest shipping point for sweet potatoes in the world, having nine vessels and three steamers engaged in the trade.
COMPARATIVE FIGURES.
A comparison of the county products before and after the war is of much interest. The census of 1840 gives the following items: Meat cattle, 14,000; sheep, 10,000; swine, 27,000; wheat, 14,000 bushels; corn, 643,000 bushels; oats, 453,000 bushels; potatoes, 113,000 bushels; scholars in school,751.
Now the cattle will not number over 1,500, confined almost exclusively to milch cows.
Sheep are less than 1,000, and swine do not exceed 5,000.
But little wheat is raised, and by far the largest part of corn is imported.
Oats have been abandoned as a crop, the soil having repeatedly refused to grow them, except as straw, due doubtless to the exhaustion of the ingredients necessary to their production.
The 113,000 bushels of potatoes have grown to 1,250,000 barrels, besides 400,000 crates of cabbage, onions and berries.
WEALTH FROM THE WATER.
The water, too, adds its share. Fisheries both for menhaden for oil factories and other fish for table use, and soft crabs, are important industries, and largely increase the country's wealth. Crabs are now shipped to Portland, Oregon, and to many places in Canada. The superiority of the principal crop -- sweet potatoes -- is unchallenged wherever they have been eaten, and their use is not only spreading over this country, but England is becoming a regular purchaser.
Of the ante-bellum crops, few of the younger generation here know that Accomack produced more oats than any county in the State, and was surpassed only by Albemarle, Fauquier and Pittsylvania in the production of corn. At the commencement of the Civil War, Baltimore and Washington depended almost entirely upon the county for her supply of oats, and one of our leading citizens now recalls his freighting them to Georgetown and sale to the heads of the departments for government use. Nor is it generally known that the early occupation of the county by Federal troops was to secure a supply for the great number of cavalry and artillery horses then concentrating around Washington. With the disappearance of the oat crop another change came almost as great.
PEACHES NO MORE.
Up to 1861 upon nearly every farm was found a peach orchard of fine native fruit. The peaches were dried , or suncured, by the females, white and colored. Or made into brandy by the males. The county had long been noted for both products, and they were important pecuniary factors.
After the war an unnecessary attempt was made to raise grafted fruit, and now there is not a brandy still in the county, and the peaches grown would not give the inhabitants a single meal.
SCHOOL STATISTICS.
The school statistics show a marked difference. Scholars attending school, the greater part of them beyond the county limits, numbered 751. Now the public schools of the county have 156 teachers, a school population of 10,353, and property valued at $172,000.
Equally great is the change in the population. Then it was 17,096 -- whites 9,518; slaves 4,830; free negroes 2,848, the last named being more than three times as great at any county except Henrico, in which Richmond city was included. The present population is 38,000. Changed crops and changed conditions abound, but the people retain the same pure English stream. In the whole county not 100 persons of foreign birth can be found.
It should go without saying that nature has not been sparing with her gifts to this section. Water luxuries from ocean and bay are within the reach of them all, and a fertile soil rewards the farmer's labor. A number of historic estates near the town -- "Cokesbury," "Meadville," "Onley," "Mt. Prospect," and others -- show the ante-bellum civilization, and bear striking testimony of the lives of Virginians of other days.