Sunday, July 14, 2013

TIME MACHINE ... 1929, 1909, 1930, 1982, 1897


(Reader-friendly viewing of newspaper archives material)


August, 1929
(Denton Journal)

A Street Afire

The intense heat of summer is said to cause asphalt paved streets in some of our cities to expand for several inches, but it remained for Crisfield to furnish the first instance in the country's history where a highway actually caught fire. One day last week children playing with matches on "Paper Street," set off a lot of trash and paper which had been dumped there by the city garbage man and it required the local fire department to put the blaze out, as the flames were spreading desperately near to several large buildings. "Paper Street" runs parallel to Main Street and is a continuation of Broadway. It runs through the marsh and is being constructed of garbage and waste paper, collected by the city garbage man. In this way the city has found it inexpensive to build the street and at the same time to provide a dumping place for waste paper.

 

May, 1909  (Time Machine archive)
(Trenton Evening Times- Trenton, N.J.)

LAND WITHOUT AN OWNER

NEW CHURCH, VA., MAY 20 - There is a strip of land of considerable area lying between here and Pocomoke City, Md., that for more than a century truly has been called "No Man's Land." It is not within the recollection of the oldest resident of Accomac County, Va., or of Worcester County, Md., that anyone ever has laid claim to it, nor are there any records of it in the courts of either county. Even the question as to which of the two states the land belongs has been considered seriously.

Not a few of the older residents hold the opinion that the land does not even belong to the United States, some of them going so far as to say that, if it belongs to any country at all, it is England's as the mother country owned everything down this way before the Declaration of Independence changed ownerships, and they think it more than likely that, in dividing up, Maryland and Virginia overlooked "No Man's Land," leaving it out in the cold and making of it a miniature territory unto itself, without a ruler.

There are between 300 and 400 acres of virgin soil in the tract that could be made to produce bumper crops, but no one cultivates it, and, so far as is known today, there is no one who has any desire to do so. For some unaccountable reason it does not appeal strongly to the farmers and truckers of this section, and they always take good care to steer clear of the apparently hoodooed land.  


 
November, 1930
(Cumberland Evening Times)

INDIAN BURIAL GROUND FOUND IN MARYLAND

Unearthed By Worcester Co. Roads Engineer Employees At St Martin's
Pocomoke City, Md., Nov. 22 (AP)- What is believed to be an ancient burying ground of the great tribe of Pocomoke Indians, that roamed the Eastern Shore 300 years ago, has been unearthed at St. Martin's by employees of the Worcester County roads engineer's office who are constructing an improved road in that vicinity. The relics disclosed have been found on the Noah Adkins farm and the excavation of several loads of sand from a nearby hill, for use on the road, unearthed arrow heads, tomahawk stones, pewter bowls and parts of skeletons. Since several hundred loads of sand remain to be taken from the hill engineers are interested in prospects of digging other relics of other days.


September, 1982

Pocomoke City Mayor J. Dawson Clarke was to be one of five Maryland mayors to be featured in the 1983 winter issue of Maryland Magazine according to The Maryland Municipal League bulletin. The other mayors featured would be from Baltimore, Frederick, Easton, and LaPlata. The bulletin stated "these mayors were selected for the article because of their innovative and creative approach in managing their city/town and also because of the variety in population, size, and geographic location. The Department Of Economic And Community Development published the quarterly magazine. 

 
March, 1897 

(Emmet County Republican- Estherville, Iowa)

William Moore, of Snow Hill, Md., on a wager of 5 cents, attempted to kiss a possum and is now mourning the loss of part of his nose.

 
Do you have a local memory to share with PPE readers.. such as a big snow storm, a favorite school teacher, a local happening, something of interest your parents or grandparents told you about? It can be just a line or two, or more if you wish. Send to tkforppe@yahoo.com and watch for it on a future TIME MACHINE posting!
 

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