The Eastern Shore of Virginia Produce Exchange, Part II
During its first decade, the Eastern Shore Produce Exchange worked out an arrangement with some of its more important independent competitors whereby it took over their businesses, usually appointing them agents at their shipping points or making them a part of its staff. Among these were Savage (Lloyd J.) & Ames (E. Almer, Sr.), at Onley, Frank B. Bell, at Machipungo, and Parsons (Russell A.) & Moore (Jack V.), at Cape Charles. Parsons & Moore's area included also the shipping points on the Cape Charles Railroad, Cape Charles to Kiptopeke.
To handle its increasing business efficiently, in 1910 the Exchange had erected a large two-story office building at Onley. This it occupied until its dissolution.
That the Exchange early brought prosperity to the growers of Accomack and Northampton is shown by their cooperation and increased production. By 1910, it has been estimated, the Exchange was marketing the major part of the Shore's potato and other truck production. In the "Soil Survey of Accomack and Northampton Counties, Virginia" (1917), issued by the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, it is stated that the Exchange "now handles fully 75 percent of the truck crops shipped from the area. . . ."
The total production of Irish potatoes on the Shore in 1899 (U. S. census of 1900), amounted to 1,269,000 bushels, in 1909 to 3,019,000 bushels, in 1919, to 7,520,000 bushels, and in 1929 (the last year for which this writer has the U. S. census figures), 10,198,000 bushels. The sweet potato production in both counties, according to said census, in 1899 was 2,525,000 bushels, in 1909, 3,143,000 bushels, in 1919, 4,179,000 , and in 1929, 3,622,000 bushels.
Thus it will be seen that the total production of Irish and sweet
of 1899, it had almost doubled in 1919, and in 1929 was twenty percent greater than in 1919. It probably was greater in 1928 than 1929. In 1928 there was a very large yield of Irish potatoes in both counties, though we have no figures, other than that in that year the Exchange marketed 16,000 cars of them. On one day in the 1928 season 883 cars of Irish potatoes were loaded and sold by the Exchange.
From its beginning the Exchange marketed its members' strawberries, onions and cabbage; the combined acreage though was small in comparison with the acreage in Irish and sweet potatoes. For strawberries it maintained one or more "blocks", where the fruit was sold at auction for cash to the highest bidders, chiefly buyers from off the Shore, who paid the Exchange the equivalent of a brokerage fee per crate. In one strawberry season, the particular year now uncertain, 65 FGE refrigerator cars were loaded with berries on a single day from the Onley block. For more than half of the Exchange's years, strawberries went to the markets in 32-quart crates; later on in 16-quart; before it ceased to operate the pint container was being used, and the berries graded before being placed therein. In the 1890's probably as many berries were being shipped in 64-quart crates as in 32's. Most Eastern Shore berries then went by ordinary express. This writer has no recollection of refrigerator cars being used for berries then.
During the latter years of the Exchange, after the acreage in Irish and sweet potatoes had been so drastically reduced (supplanted largely by soy beans and truck crops that had been little grown on the Eastern Shore of Virginia during the first quarter of the twentieth century), it marketed for its members also tomatoes and snap and lima beans, we have heard.
There are no records extant showing the year by year sales made by the Exchange. It is known that in its first year, 1900, its sales
approximated $750,000, and in 1920 it received from 2,957,784 packages it marketed for Accomack and Northampton growers the sum of $19,269,890.81. (In 1920, because of a relatively small carry-over of the 1919 northern Irish potato crop, and a short crop in the spring of 1920 in Florida and the Carolinas, almost all the Accomack and Northampton Irish potato crop sold at prices that were two or three times greater than usually received in corresponding weeks in other years. This writer remembers that very early in the 1920 season the Exchange sold some cars for $15 a barrel f. o. b. shipping points, hundreds of cars for as much as $12 a barrel, and that it was not until July 11th that it sold any "Red Star Brand" (U. S. No. 1's) for less than $10 a barrel. As New Jersey and other Irish potato (spring crop) producing sections began to market, the prices decreased; however, when the Irish potato season on the Virginia Eastern Shore had virtually ended, not a great many cars had been sold for less than $5 a barrel by the Exchange, according to his recollection).
There were numerous other years when the Exchange's sales were between $5,000,0000 and $10,0000,000 a season, and it is believed by some who held positions of major importance with the Exchange for long periods that during its 55 years it distributed to the Eastern Shore growers between $200,000,000 and $300,000,000. During this long period and the handling of these vast sums, there never was defalcation by any officer or employee in either the general office or at a shipping point, according to our information.
Under Mr. William J. Baldwin, who went with the Exchange in 1902 and was with it continuously until he retired in 1947, a modern and efficient system of accounting was inaugurated and maintained. At the
end of each year the books were always audited by a firm of certified public accountants from Richmond, Norfolk or elsewhere -- and always were found in proper order. During the winter months the Exchange's Accounting Department checked the books of the various local agents, to confirm that every grower had been paid the proper amounts for the produce he marketed through the Exchange.
In its many efforts to render to its members the best possible service, the Exchange always was confronted with many difficulties, and that it succeeded as well in overcoming as many of them for such a long period is a tribute to the intelligent and conscientious management of its affairs.
It is likely that its major problem was competition -- both at home and from other producing areas. Before it had been in operation ten years most of the local brokers and buyers had joined the Exchange or voluntarily retired. It has been stated by sources not connected with the Exchange that by 1910 it was handling 88 percent of the Irish and sweet potato production of Accomack and Northampton. It is this writer's recollection that when (1917-21) he worked for the Exchange the number of Eastern Shore produce dealer handling more than 25 or 30 cars of Irish and/or sweet potatoes a year did not exceed half a dozen. He remembers that this competition though often prevented the Exchange from maintaining the morning price quotations to the trade, based on what the Sales Department believed the quantities available justified. Then the reputation of the "Red Star Brand" for quality was such that it was not easy to sell others in competition except at a lower price. Thus the Exchange often was compelled to meet these lower offers, which were not to the advantage of its members.
Often equally as difficult was the meeting of competition from other producing areas that were marketing simultaneously with the Eastern Shore, frequently in great volume.
In years to come it may be wondered why the Exchange, which so greatly profited the people of Accomack and Northampton for such a long time, finally was dissolved. It may not be incorrect to say that it was due to a variety of conditions -- locally and elsewhere -- affecting production, marketing, transportation, etc., that were different from those existing in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Cer-
tainly a factor of major consequence was the enormous decrease in the acreage planted in Irish and sweet potatoes on the Virginia Eastern Shore in the last thirty-odd years.
From statistics received from the Virginia Cooperative Crop Reporting Service in Richmond since last week's article in this series was prepared, it is shown that there was a decrease in Irish potato acreage on the Eastern Shore each five-year period from 1928 to 1954. In 1928 the acreage was 67,000; in 1954, it was [illegible],600. Accomack's sweet potato acreage in 1929, according to the U. S. census, was 17,786, and it too was less in each five-year period than in the one immediately preceding, and in 1949 it had gone down to 6,615; in 1954, however, it was 8,197 acres. The census figures show that in 1929 Northampton had 2,914 acres in sweets, the acreage decreased to 1,759; in 1954 it had risen to 3,746, the greatest since 1919, when 4,848 acres were planted in sweets.
In Accomack in 1925 there were 3,418 farms, and there were fewer every five years; in 1954 the total was 1,069. Northampton's figures were, in 1925, 1,438 farms; in 1954 only 481.
The farm population in 1950 (latest figures available) in Accomack was only 54.6 percent of what it was in 1925, and in Northampton it was 63.3 percent.
This writer is informed that the Eastern Shore now has almost no one, two and three-horse farms, which, during the first three decades of this century, predominated, that now almost all farms are large enough to be and are mechanized.
The increased production of Irish and sweet potatoes in other areas had much to do with reducing the acreage in these truck crops on the Eastern Shore. Lower costs of production in certain sections which require little or no commercial fertilizer were a serious competitive factor in marketing Irish potatoes, as was the growing, in large quantities, of sweets in the South on land that under Federal government subsidies had been taken out of cotton production. These conditions resulted in the Eastern Shore losing many of its markets, especially in the Middle West, to which certain of these producing areas had also a transportation advantage.
The general decrease in the consumption of potatoes nationwide, attributed to the emphasis on reducing, also had an unfavorable effect.
There are some who think that the change in shipping, from railroad to trucks with the latter's unscheduled arrivals and the uncertainty among the trade as to the quantity likely to reach a given market on a given day, had a tendency to make market conditions unstable and affected prices unfavorably.
Apparently the Eastern Shore growers in the early 1950's did not feel the need of cooperative marketing to as great an extent as did the farmers of Accomack and Northampton in the first three decades of the twentieth century, otherwise there could not have been, in the latter years of the Exchange, room for forty or fifty dealers in these two Virginia counties quoting prices for produce. It is understood also that many of the larger growers grade and market their own produce.
The years of the Exchange's greatest successes were those when Irish and sweet potatoes were predominantly the cash crops of the Eastern Shore. Its operations were "tailored" to their marketing. Obviously the relatively radical change of the Eastern Shore growers to crops that were not commercially grown in Accomack and Northampton until about twenty-five years ago required an entirely new approach to marketing, and with insufficient interest in cooperative marketing, it was decided to liquidate and dissolve the corporation. All tangible property, including the general office building at Onley, and also the "Red Star Brand" trademark, were purchased by Mr. Carrol R. Bull, the well known Eastern Shore and Florida produce operator.
Since the foregoing was written, this writer has received a letter from Hon. B. Drummond Ayres, for several years president of the Exchange and later a director to its end, in which he relates some of the efforts made to continue that organization. With his permission, we are quoting therefrom.
" . . . . . when I became president the business was fast changing, owing to the trucks and the privately owned graders. It became apparent from the beginning that unless the cooperative spirit could be revived the Exchange as a coop.
was on its way out. The Board of Directors made quite a valiant effort to awaken the interest of the young farmers in cooperative marketing and to alert them to the danger of losing the Exchange. As a final effort I personally appeared before a joint meeting of the Accomack and Northampton Farm Bureau and tried to persuade them to take the Exchange over. This organisation was then, and I believe now is, about the most active farmers' organization that we have. It was composed of the young outstanding farmers of the two counties. They appointed a committee to look into the situation, and soon afterwards notified me they were not interested. I concluded if we could not reach a group such as this one, there was no point in trying to continue to operate the Exchange. The Board of Directors was not quite ready to give up. . . . . (Later) The Board became convinced that we could not obtain the support of the farmers, and we determined to liquidate the business. . . . ."
The names of such officers and employees of the Exchange as are now remembered by Mr. William J. Baldwin, Mr. Charles R. Waters and/or this writer follow. Undoubtedly there were others who, in the passing of many years, do not now come to mind, a source of regret.
Mr. Baldwin, a native of Aberdeen, Md., went to the Exchange as its bookkeeper on the death of Mr. Ashton C. Southall, a former principal of Pungoteague Academy (where he taught bookkeeping). He grew as did the Exchange and later became its chief accountant, with many subordinates. After 45 years of continuous service, he retired (in 1947). He still lives in Onley. (Mrs. Baldwin died a number of years ago).
It was in 1904 that Mr. Waters entered the Sales Dept; in 1920 he was appointed sales manager, a position he was still filling when in 1933 he resigned to accept employment elsewhere. He returned to the Exchange late in 1945 as general manager and sales manager, staying until its dissolution in 1955. It might be said that Mr. Waters grew up in the produce business. He was born on a farm at Nandua. Before going to the Exchange he was further acquainted with Eastern Shore truck production in the four years he served as assistant purser and extra purser on the steamers of the Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic Railway Company, when there was hardly a trip between the Bayside creeks and Baltimore that the cargo did not include Irish or sweet potatoes. Mr. Waters continues active in marketing. There is probably no other Eastern Shoreman with 57 years' experience in selling potatoes and other produce.
Hon. Benjamin T. Gunter II was president of the Exchange from its organization in 1900 to his death in 1939. From 1922 he was also its general counsel.
Mr. Gunter had a distinguished career. He had been Accomack's Commonwealth's attorney, Eastern Shore's State senator, president of the Farmers &
Merchants National Bank of Onley, trustee of the University of Richmond, moderator of the Accomack Baptist Association, and held other positions of honor and trust; he had farmed extensively.
Mr. Gunter was succeeded as president of the Exchange by Hon. Jefferson F. Walter, a former Commonwealth's attorney for Accomack, and then representing Accomack, Northampton and Princess Anne counties in the State Senate. He continued as president until he was named judge of the Accomack-Northampton circuit courts, in 1942. The next president was Hon. B. Drummond Ayres, prominent attorney, bank official and former member of the Virginia House of Delegates. Mr. Ayres resigned in 1953 but agreed to remain on the Board of Directors. He was succeeded by Hon. Benjamin T. Gunter, Jr., a former State senator, who had been the Exchange's general counsel since 1939. Mr. Gunter discharge the duties of both positions until the Exchange was dissolved, about two years later.
Mr. John E. Nottingham was the Exchange's first vice president. Other Northampton well known citizens who held this position were Mr. John H. Roberts, Mr. Edward Holland and Dunton J. Fatherly, Esq.
Mr. William A. Burton, a native of the Locustville section, who had been connected with a New York commission firm, at the organization meeting in 1900, was chosen general manager, sales manager and treasurer, but when Thomas B. Quinby, Esq., resigned as secretary in September of that year, to devote more time to his legal practice and commercial interests, the office of secretary-treasurer was created and Mr. Burton relieved of the duties of treasurer. When Mr. Burton retired in December, 1941, at the age of 82, he was chairman of the Board of Directors, and executive vice president, as well as general manager.
Mr. Burton was truly a master salesman. A man of sound judgment and of the highest integrity, he had the respect and confidence of the trade. He was such a success that he had offers to join other marketing organizations at more remunera-
tive compensations; these he always declined. The Exchange, his farms and his church were his chief interests. He died within a year after his retirement.
When, in September, 1909, the offices of secretary and treasurer were combined, Mr. Albert J. McMath, who had had so much to do with the organization of the Exchange, was chosen for this responsible position, the duties of which included not only credits and collections but adjustments, and he served with distinction continuously until his death in 1926.
In the 1890's Mr. McMath and his brother George had operated a nursery and greenhouse, and he also farmed, which latter he continued until the end of his life. For 15 years he was a member of the Virginia State Board of Agriculture, continuing under successive governors, and for some time was its chairman. He was an active Methodist, a Sunday school superintendent, a member of the board of stewards of the Onley Methodist Church, and was honored by his denomination by membership on the board of trustees of the Randolph-Macon educational system.
The Exchange's first general inspector was Mr. L. Thomas LeCato of Quinby, who served for a number of years. The next was Mr. William B. Pitts of Onancock, also a farm operator. After Mr. Pitts died, Mr. G. S. Ralston was chosen to succeed him, with the title of superintendent of inspection, in charge of packing and grading sheds. Early assistant general inspectors included Mr. ________ Bell of Northampton, and later Mr. Otho K. Walker, who some years earlier, following his marriage to a Northampton resident, moved from the Pungoteague-Hacks Neck section to Franktown.
It is not now known whether the Exchange had a general counsel as soon as it was organized. As both its first president, Mr. Gunter, and its first secretary, Mr. Quinby, were attorneys, it seems probable that they or one of them attended to such legal matters as was necessary in its early days. The first regularly employed general counsel of whom Mr. Baldwin or Mr. Waters has a recollection was Hon. Nathaniel B. Wescott, distinguished attorney, who had been a member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1901-02. Mr. Wescott continued as general counsel until he became judge of the Accomack and Northampton circuit courts in 1922, when, as earlier stated in this series, Mr. Gunter assumed also the duties of general counsel, and when he died in 1939, he was succeeded as general counsel -- but not as president, by his son, Benjamin T., Jr.
Mr. Charles M. Dunton of Northampton was an early employee of the Exchange. He became sales manager in 1933, when Mr. Waters resigned, and was continuing in that capacity when he died in 1940, at the age of 59 years, after more than thirty years' service. Mr. Dunton was very active in the affairs of his denomination, the Baptist.
Mr. Frank W. Battaile of Boggs Wharf, who for some years had been purser on the steamer Eastern Shore which plyed between Baltimore and Bayside points, seems to have been the Exchange's first assistant secretary-treasurer. He was a victim of typhoid fever (as had been his brother-in-law, Ashton C. Southall, possibly the Exchange's first regular bookkeeper) in a relatively short time after his employment began. He was succeeded by Mr. Landon B. Derby of Accomac, who held the position for several years, until his death in the early years of the second decade. The next to hold this position was Mr. W. Hardy Taylor of Pungoteague. On the death of Mr. McMath in 1926, he was moved up to secretary-treasurer, in which position he continued until the dissolution of the Exchange in 1955. It is thought he began with the Exchange before 1910.
Mr. N. Powell Wescott had been with the Exchange for about ten years when he resigned to enlist in the armed forces in World War I. At one time he was a special assistant to Mr. McMath, the secretary-treasurer; later he transferred to the Sales Department and assisted in selling. Sometimes he was sent to open up new trade territories, including in Cuba, and, as heretofore stated, he devised a telegraph code which saved the Exchange and its customers thousands of dollars each year.
Mr. B. Preston Richardson of Franktown was another who was in the Sales Department for more than a quarter of a century. On the death of Mr. Dunton, he became sales manager, continuing until 1945, when he resigned to take a position with another organization.
Mr. Werner T. Gardner, a native of Accomack County, who had been in the traffic department of the Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic Railway Company in Baltimore for a number of years, about 1920 became the Exchange's first traffic manager, a position he held for a decade or more. He was succeeded by Mr. L. F. Purvis. After his resignation, the Exchange's traffic matters were handled by Mr. W. J. Vaughan.
Some of those sent by the Sales Department to solicit orders for Irish potatoes and make inspections in some of the markets were Mr. Jeff D. Jacob and later Mr. John O. Core (Chicago), Mr. Lloyd J. Savage (Detroit, later Buffalo), Mr. William E. Lewis (Toronto), Harry A. Nock (Montreal); G. Albert Fentress (Boston); John J. D. Taylor (Scranton-Wilkes Barre). Some of these gentlemen had different territories for sweet potatoes. Mr. Thomas Burton, Mr. Brantley Savage and Mr. Ernest Wescott were sales representatives who were sent to various markets as needed. Mr. William F. White spent much of the summers in Baltimore, giving attention to the transfer of potatoes from the Bayside steamers to railroad cars at Canton.
Full time employees, more for the summers only: Messrs. John W. Mears, Elmer A. Rolley, Paul Donahoe, Joseph H. Harper, Clarence Norris, E. Almer Ames, Jr., Robert Oldham, Ben Oldham, John Wise Kellam, Thomas Jacob, Allen Wescott, Wescott Jacob, John R. Burton, Jr., Willard Belote, William Kellam, Clyde Bull, Alfred Kellam, Addison Hopkins, Warner Young, William C. Jacob, Jr., Bert Richardson, William James, "Blue" Phillips, Stanley Vincent, Jay Lang, John Gillett Ayres, Floyd Ames; also Messrs. William L. Harper, Carroll C. Kellam and Hugh Bell, who transferred to the Sales Department. Mr. Harper later was made a kind of liaison or public relations representative, to look into complaints made by members at various shipping points.
Other clerical help in the general office included Messrs. Claude Kelley, Winter C. Cullen, Bernard Twyford, George Coleburn, and (then) Misses Georgia McMath (Tignall), Mary Neville (Kayton), Annie Peters (Wescott), Bet Young, Bessie Wescott (Pitts), Indie Morris (Norfolk), Azie Rogers, Helen Warren, Margaret Wescott (Jacob), Sadie Parks, Audrey Winder (Walter).
Agents included the following gentlemen: Franklin City -- Dick Lang; New Church -- Howard Tull; LeCato --J. L. Byrd; Oak Hall --Martin Hall; Makemie Park -- James Hartman; Bloxom -- Dick Bloxom; Parksley -- V. S. Deitrick, Oscar Ewell; Greenbush --Thoroughgood Melson; Tasley -- Wesley Melson, Herb Milliner; Onley -- W. L. Harper, E. A. Ames, Sr., John H. Beachboard, (Jack Carmine, inspector); Melfa -- William H. Hatton; Keller -- J. Will Stokeley, Dorsey Mears (J. Fred Kellam, inspector); Painter -- Joshua H. Turner, Charles Elmore; Belle Haven -- (Ernest Hornsby, inspector); Exmore -- M. J. Duer; Nassawadox -- Edward Tankard; Weirwood -- George Fatherly; Birds Next -- William Dunton, W. R. Acworth; Machipongo -- Frank B. Bell; Eastville [Station] -- Clarence W. Holland; Cheriton -- Ruton Rooks, Chester Wise (?); Bayview -- Kemper Goffigon, Jr.; Cape Charles -- Russell A. Parsons and Jack V. Moore; Townsend -- Mr. Hamilton.
Wharves; Onancock -- Samuel Waples, A. T. Tignall; Finneys -- Thomas Bailey; Poplar Cove -- Thomas Mears; Harborton --S. K. Martin (J. H. "Bud" Walker, inspector); Evans -- Harry Drummond, John Nock; Boggs -- F. C. "Dick" Taylor; Nandua -- J. R. Lee Drummond, James LeCato (Joe Guy, inspector); Cedar View -- Claude McLane; Concord
-- B. Clarence Knight; Davis -- Roy Kellam; Shields -- A. J. Duer, Sr.
Others not earlier mentioned in this series remembered by Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Waters as enthusiastic workers for the Exchange in it early days, many of whom were directors, were:
In Accomack county -- Messrs. Bernard Powell,, Edward T. West, J. Harry Rew, Thomas H. Melson, Dr. John T. B. Hyslop, William B. Mapp, John L. Warren, Joseph S. Bull, Samuel W. Ames, William T. Mason.
In Northampton -- Messrs. Robert L. Ailworth, George F. Parramore, A. B. Dunton, William A. Hallett, Frank D. Scott.
This writer is deeply grateful to Messrs. William J. Baldwin, Charles R. Waters, W. J. Vaughan, Hon. E. Drummond Ayres, Judge J. F. Walter and Mrs. Margaret Wescott Jacob, all former officers or employees of the Exchange, and to Messrs. George W. McMath, Marvin D. Evans (archivist, Virginia State Library, Richmond) and Irving G. Clukas (public relations manager, Sunkist Growers, Los Angeles) for taking the time to send him information needed in the preparation of this series. His memory also was refreshed by an article on the early history of the Exchange by the late Hon. Benjamin T. Gunter II, in the 55th anniversary (August 6, 1936) edition of the Peninsula Enterprise.