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Laurel Archives - Secrets of the Eastern Shore

MiscellanyWay Back Machine

Revisiting the Glory Days of Summertime “Camp Meetings”

Though much of the 1800s and well into the 1900s, "camp meetings" ranked as a summertime joy for families on the Eastern Shore and in Delaware on the level of our beach vacations and downtown block parties. Sponsored by local churches, these religious revivals were conducted out in forests and fields, mostly in the dog days of August. The preaching and singing and soul-saving stretched…
July 7, 2022
CharactersWay Back Machine

This Milford, Delaware Man Who Helped Ice Cream Parlors Take Off in the 1920s

In the beginning, the only folks who screamed for ice cream were filthy rich. The history of the ice cream parlors we know today dates back to France in the late 1600s, but the sweet treat didn’t take off with the general population until the arrival of industrial refrigeration technologies in the 1870s. Even then, there were problems. Early parlors served ice cream on paper…
March 25, 2021
Way Back Machine

SUSSEX COUNTY SPAT: When Seaford Set Up Blockades to Keep Out People From Laurel, 1916

In the spring of 1916, a small smallpox outbreak popped up in Laurel, Del. In the days that followed, health officials in the neighboring town of Seaford came to believe that their colleagues in Laurel weren't doing everything they could to keep the disease at bay. They ordered a halt to all traffic between the two towns. The Wilmington News Journal, May 15: "Guards have…
May 5, 2020