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Dover

Typical Chicken Farm 1940s FEATURED PHOTO from Poultry Industry History
Way Back Machine

You’ve Heard of Bootleggers? How about Meatleggers? There Were Lots of Them on Delmarva in the 1940s

What you see up top here is an ordinary Delmarva chicken farm in the early 1940s. But that decade was anything but ordinary for the poultry industry: Think black marketeering, bushel baskets of cash hidden in attics, and military roadblocks set up on DuPont Highway. These were World War II years. Among the array of complex logistics in that conflict was the task of feeding…
September 21, 2023
Chocolate Candy Murders Featured Photo
From the BooksWay Back Machine

Flirtation to Fury: The Chocolate Candy Murders

This is a free excerpt from my book, You Wouldn't Believe! 44 Strange and Wondrous Delmarva Tales. More info about that and my other books exploring the history, travel, and culture on the Eastern Shore and in Delaware here. If Shakespeare had written tragedies in early 1900s America instead of early 1600s Britain, he would have had another character named Cordelia to write about. The plot…
January 27, 2023
Dover Ingenuity Road Trip Featured Photo
DestinationsFrom the BooksRoad Trips

Road Trip! The Dover Ingenuity Trio

This is a free excerpt from my book, Eastern Shore Road Trips #1: 27 One-Day Adventures on Delmarva. More info about that and my other books exploring the history, travel, and culture on the Eastern Shore and in Delaware here. When Eldridge Reeves Johnson graduated from Dover Academy in 1882, the school’s director gave him some blunt advice: “You are too god damned dumb to…
August 3, 2022
Neil Armstrong on the moon in ILC Dover suit
Way Back Machine

A Frederica Story: From Ladies Undergarments to Man on the Moon

Sometimes the stories Delmarva has to tell are hiding in plain sight. Consider, for example, the generic-looking, aluminum-clad buildings that make up the ILC Dover complex along Carpenter Bridge Road on the outskirts of Frederica, Del. Passersby could be forgiven for assuming this was just another warehouse or widget maker. The postal address contains a clue that something else is afoot: 1 Moonwalker Road. The…
April 15, 2018
Spence's Bazaar in Dover, Delaware
Destinations

Spence’s Bazaar: Visiting a Delaware Classic

    Delmarva traditions can be funny things sometimes. Take Spence’s Bazaar in Dover, for example. When I approached the sprawling old marketplace for the first time recently, it had the look of a joint that hadn’t changed one iota since the day it opened eightysome ago. The flea market outside was old school, with table upon table upon table set under sweet shade trees.…
October 10, 2017
Tubman TravelsWay Back Machine

“TUBMAN TRAVELS” EXCERPT: The Miraculous Escape of the Dover Eight

The story of the Dover Eight that follows is excerpted from Tubman Travels: 32 Underground Railroad Journeys on Delmarva, a book by Secrets of the Eastern Shore that tells stories of Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and many other men and women whose journeys in slavery and out of bondage went through the Eastern Shore and Delaware. BIG PICTURE: The Pressure Cooker of 1857 The lush…
March 1, 2017
Jehu Camper, Master Whittler of Delaware
CharactersWay Back Machine

Harrington Character of the Day: The Master Whittler of Delaware

This piece about Jehu Camper, the master whittler of Delaware, is a free excerpt from Eastern Shore Road Trips: 27 One-Day Adventures on Delmarva. t's from a Road Trip that visits a trio of interesting little museums in Dover, including one that features works by Mr. Camper. Here goes: Over the course of a long life stretching across 91 years, Jehu Camper jumped from this to…
December 5, 2016