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Quote of the Day

The way things were in days gone by on the Delmarva Peninsual–theEastern Shore of Maryland, the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and Delaware.

Mirror of the Almighty Tangier Island Camp Meeting Featured Image
Way Back Machine: ‘A Mirror of the Almighty’ on Tangier Island, 1828 Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

Way Back Machine: ‘A Mirror of the Almighty’ on Tangier Island, 1828

The modern-day tourism trade on Smith and Tangier islands dates to the 1960s, when tour boats first started shuttling curious daytrippers out into the middle of the bay. But visitors have actually been flocking to these islands for centuries. In 1821, one observer reported seeing more than 400 boats anchored around Tangier. He estimated the crowd attending that year’s Methodist camp meeting at more than…
June 22, 2023
This Rug Tells a Bedtime Story: When Pittsville Was “the Strawberry Capital of the World” Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

This Rug Tells a Bedtime Story: When Pittsville Was “the Strawberry Capital of the World”

"The Strawberry Capital of the World:" That's the title of the artwork above by a famous "rug hooker," Mary Sheppard Burton. The setting is our own Pittsville, Md., one of the towns just off of Route 50 between Salisbury and Ocean City. (The artwork is below here as well, in a bigger size at the end of the story.) Burton was born in Salisbury in…
May 28, 2023
Dream Come True: The Long Journey to Chincoteague in 1912 Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

Dream Come True: The Long Journey to Chincoteague in 1912

In wandering through old newspapers I sometimes come across a piece of writing that kinda blows my mind. Such is the case with the story novelist Lucy Meacham Thruston wrote for the Baltimore Sun on July 21, 1912, in which she tells the tale of what happened when she decided to make one of her travel dreams come true. Some extended excerpts: STARTING OUT: THE…
May 21, 2023
The Best Trip You’ll Never Get to Take: Cobb’s Island Hotel in the 1860s Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

The Best Trip You’ll Never Get to Take: Cobb’s Island Hotel in the 1860s

This is an excerpt from my book, You Wouldn't Believe: 44 Strange and Wondrous Delmarva Tales. You can find more info on that and my other books at this link. Outdoorsman Alexander Hunter wrote an essay describing his visit to the Cobb Island (Va.) Hotel shortly after it opened on the barrier island of that name off of Virginia's Eastern Shore. The essay was published…
March 26, 2021
Country Stores in 1918
Life & Times in Old-Fashioned Country Stores, 1918 (with lots of photos!) MiscellanyQuote of the DayWay Back Machine

Life & Times in Old-Fashioned Country Stores, 1918 (with lots of photos!)

I was looking up something else in the February 23, 1918 edition of the Denton (Md.) Journal when I got distracted by the wonderful little essay below. It’s about the many roles that general stores and their shopkeepers filled in the communities of Delmarva around that time. There was no headline on the piece. Nor was there a byline. Old newspapers can be weird like…
March 1, 2021
Jubilee End of Slavery Featured Image
Celebrating the End of Slavery in a Black Church, 1864: ‘You belong to nobody but de Lord now.” Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

Celebrating the End of Slavery in a Black Church, 1864: ‘You belong to nobody but de Lord now.”

The way slaves in Maryland gained their freedom was a little bit different. The Emancipation Proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 applied only in Confederate states, not in the three Union states where slavery remained legal, even while the Civil War raged. It was up to Marylanders to end slavery on their own. In October 1864--22 months after Lincoln's proclamation--the state's voters approved a…
February 4, 2021
Harriet Tubman Funeral Featured Image
“Now I’m Almost Home!” The Death and Funeral of Harriet Tubman, 1913 Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

“Now I’m Almost Home!” The Death and Funeral of Harriet Tubman, 1913

When her time came, Harriet Tubman was ready. Among the last recorded words of wisdom that we received from the Eastern-Shore-born heroine of the Underground Railroad comes to us by way of suffragette and civil rights activist Mary Burnett Talbert, who made a pilgrimage to upstate New York upon hearing that Harriet's health was failing. It was February of 1913. Harriet had been living in…
January 31, 2021
Delaware Quote of the Day: The Great Turkey-Thief Crime Wave of 1934! Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

Delaware Quote of the Day: The Great Turkey-Thief Crime Wave of 1934!

Here is a detailed report from the Wilmington (Del.) News Journal that appeared on Nov. 27, 1934 under the headline below. "Thieves Steal Fowl, Haul to City 'Fences':" A band of chicken and turkey thieves are operating from Harrington and Milford to the Delaware-Maryland line at Delmar, and hundreds of the fowl are reported to have been stolen within the past few weeks. The thieves…
November 26, 2020
Quote Harvest Liquors in Trappe, Maryland FEATURED IMAGE
Harvest Time, 1850s: Roast lamb for lunch, swigging rye whiskey in the field … Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

Harvest Time, 1850s: Roast lamb for lunch, swigging rye whiskey in the field …

This Delmarva "Quote of the Day" comes from the 1976 book Trappe: The Story of an Old-Fashioned Town by Dickson Preston. Trappe is located just up from the Choptank River in Talbot County, Md. "Trappe was an up and coming place , the market center for a large and prosperous farming area. It had at least eight storekeepers, three doctors, five shoemakers, seven carpenters, two…
October 30, 2020
Choptank Maryland Waterfront Featured Photo
A Day in the Life of a Child in Chopank, Md., early 1900s Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

A Day in the Life of a Child in Chopank, Md., early 1900s

I am not sure which individual is responsible for the memory I'm sharing here, as my source material was the work not of a single author, but of a committee of volunteers. Back in 1976, the Choptank Bicentennial Committee put together a little booklet to mark 200 years of American independence by celebrating life in their own little town, which lies on the river of…
September 1, 2020