MUSKRATS

MUSKRATS

BY

BALTIMORE SUN

An abstract from the Baltimore Sun, found in the November 9, 1900 Morning News

titled

Homes of Muskrats, Sometime Served as Mock Terrapin

As nights grow colder and long muskrats begin to build their winter homes and put on

winter coats.

The cone shaped houses are made of coarse dry grass, small water soaked pieces of wood,

small stones, all cemented together with a peculiar mortar which only the muskrat knows how

to make by chewing clay and mud into a fine preparation. The cementing is done by the

paws of the rat.

There are two or three holes, 'leads', which allow the rats to pass out or in, below the water

or ice. The muskrat seems to know how high the spring tides will flow and build according.

Inside, the house is a stick floor, stuffed with grasses, always above the water., upon which

the muskrat will lay, heads toward the lead, so at a moments notice can dash out and appear

on the surface hundreds of yards away in the deep waters.

Laws protect the fur producers which are caught by the thousands each winter. The little

animals are usually caught by steel traps, chained to a stake, and when caught dives into the

water and pulled down by the trap into the water and drowned.

It is known that a muskrat will breath under water and can travel for miles by a scientific

air producing process which cause them to stop every twenty minutes to eject its breath into

the water, this air forms a bubble that becomes oxygenated then the rat breathes the bubble

and resumes it's trip full of air.

Muskrats are served on the Eastern Shore as mock-terripin, properly skinned to do away

with the musky taste and odor. Then, properly cooked, the black flesh is tasty, juicy ,

tender and sweet.

The muskrats feed on the roots of marsh grass and small shrubs growing on the shore, and,

are thoroughly 'warshed' before consumed.

Abstract by Harrison H. March 1^st 2018.   

1944 WW II 24OTH ARMY BAND

WW II FORT MILES

240TH ARMY BAND

1944

Chief Warrent Officer, Henry Kloman Schmidt, whose home is 300 South Aiken

Avenue , Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, his birthplace, is the commanding officer and

director of the 240^th Army Band of Fort Miles, Delaware, a duty he is fulfilling

effectively.

He enlisted in December 1940 in the 176^th Field Artillery and was a member of the band

for a year and a half before being sent to the Army Music School at Fort Myer, Virginia,

to study band conducting under Captain Thomas F. Davey, the U.S. Army band leader.

Schmidt was born to a Pittsburgh musical family, graduate of Catholic High School, 1932,

entered Carnegie Tech Music Department and majored in composition with Vick O'Brien,

study trumpet with Louis Panella, and piano under his father.. After graduating Tech he

was active in professional music as an arranger and trumpet player.

He is a member of several music societies and federations, in not married and has no

hobby except music.

Chief Warrant Officers sister Edith is a professional soprano, his other sister, Lt. Rita

Schmidt, an Army Nurse serving overseas is an organist at leisure moments.

Source: Pittsburgh Press, Sunday February 6, 1944. Abstract February 22, 2018 by

Harrison H. and www.iinni.blospot.com

1943 FORT MILES SPORTS TEAMS

WW II FORT MILES SPORTS

Philadelphia Inquirer, August 20 1943 :

Fort Miles, Delaware.

The Fort Miles Hilltoppers base ball team won their third straight victory in the Fort Miles

baseball tourney by defeating Cooch's Coasters 7 to 4., led by Joe Maginnis who is from

Cynwyd, Pennsylvania a former Temple University star who had a perfect day at bat

with four for four. The game was played at Carpenter Field at the Delaware Capes.

Other games saw the A Battery Lammers haand the Stingers an 8 -0 washout, and the

Hornets outlasted the Hellcats to win, 8 -4.

Fort Miles has seven baseball teams and fifteen softball teams, plus some real good players,

like Tom Dunleavy of Philladelphia, George Katsaiba of the White socks, Zip LeGates

and Frank Suthard from the Eastern Shore League.

A field house is underway for other sports. A few Saturdays ago one of the Fort Miles soldiers

met Al Tribuani in a boxing match for benefit of the post athletic fund.

Football is possible too, with Lt. Tom Cerra , a Scranton University player, then assistant

coach at Miami University., Tim Wible, a Penn State guard under Bob Higgins., at bay

plus many ex high school player's in the ranks. Games would be with other service teams

and perhaps some college teams.

1951 NASSAU SOUTHERN STATES COOPERATIVE

NASSAU SOUTHERN STATES COOPERATIVE 1951

Tuesday,, September 25, 1951 Salisbury Daily News, Salisbury, Maryland

Co-Op district manager, Daniel Brame, in his report to the membership meeting at

Cool Spring Community Hall said “ $134,000,000.00 worth of purchasing and market

volume went through the Southern States Cooperative during the fiscal year, accomplished

by more than 250,000 cooperative members of it's six state operating territory.

Irving Daniel Burton, the Nassau store manager reported on local services.. Mr. Minos

Conaway was chosen to represent the local board at the November annual meeting in

Richmond , Virginia , with William Dormaan as the alternate.

Elected to the Advisory Board were James W. Hopkins, of Lewes, and Willard White

of Milton. Conaway was elected Chairman of the Nassau.

Absract; February 20, 2018 Harrison H for facebook & www.iinni.blogspot.com

FOUR COAST GUARD MEN RETIRE 1951

Salisbury Daily Times Friday July 13, 1951

Retirement of four veteran Coast Guard men of the Lewes Station was announced . They

are Chief Commissary Steward John Quillen, Quakertown, Chief Boatswain Mate

William A. Beauchamp, Chief Boatswain Mate Joseph Walker, Rehoboth, and Harry

Metzner, First Class Companyman of Milford.

Quillen served 26 years, enlisted 1925 at Berlin, Maryland, his hometown. He was stationed

at Ocean City, two stations in Maryland, three in Virginia, two on Long Island, three in

Delaware and was on duty during WWII off the coast of Japan. Retired, he is working with the

merchants, Rickards & Ramsey on Lewes Beach.

Beauchamp has 25 years and is also from Berlin. He was aboard the Lightship Overfalls off

the New England coast after it was transferred from Delaware Bay.

Joseph Walker,, has 25 years in and is at home on Dewey Beach Cutoff in the old Rehoboth

Station now converted to a dwelling.

Harry Metzner served 21 years, received a disability retirement and was the cook at Lewes

Station and lived in Rehoboth when on active duty.   

SOUTHERN DELAWARE GREENWAY TRAILS

SOUTHERN DELAWARE GREENWAY TRAILS

Gordons Pond Trail:

65. miles long, one way, walking or cycling. Has no arcades nor pizza shops and

runs between Lewes and Rehoboth. It opened 2014

Here, you can see bald eagles, deer, heron, osprey, and just birds of all feathers.

The Gordon Pond boardwalk, which was built to protect the dunes, keep the trail drained

dry, turns into gravel , friendly to bike tires, and there are self service stations at each end.

There are places where you can 'taste' nature, and there is an overlook a short distance in.

Easy access to wildlife usually best at sunrise or sunset and it is photo worthy. During the

warm weather season, water, insect repellent , is good to have along. It has a lot of marsh

grass and wetlands, which hold ticks and chiggers. Look for pink ladys slippers and beach

heather in the spring and keep away from the edge with poison ivy growing along the trails

edges. While here take a gander of the Delaware Breakwater, the Bay and lighthouses.

Junction & Breakwater Trail:

6 miles long, one way, walking, running or cycling. Still no pizza shops. Runs along an

old railroad, so to speak, which was the Junction & Breakwater built in 1878. The trail is

from Gills Neck, Lewes, to Hebron Road, Rehoboth, with access point here and there.

You will see farmlamd,, pine forest, open fields and wetlands. There are two railroad

trussels, one built in 1913, between the two towns. The surface is of crushed stone and

some asphalt..

McCabe Preserve Trail :

3 mile walking, goes through a143 acre Edward H. McCabe Preserve of the Nature

Conservancy, ranges from upland forest to swamp to tidal marsh, scrub-shrub wetlands,

and native meadow at the trailhead. There are river views and hillsides. Start at Round

Pole Bridge, goes to the Broadkill River. Get a look at the land as it was long, long, ago.

SOURCE: Delaware Today 2018 Ultimate Guide: Abstract Harrison H.

1861 FIRST MEDAL OF HONOR

MEDAL OF HONOR

February 13, 1861 is the earliest military action to be revered with a Medal of Honor award

was performed by Colonel Bernard J. D. Irwin, an assistant army surgeon serving in the

first U. S. - Apache conflict. Near Apache Pass in southwest Arizona , Irwin, a Irish

born doctor, volunteered to go to the rescue of Second Lieutenant George E. Bascom ,

who was trapped with 60 men of the U.S. Seventh Infantry by the Chiricahua Apaches

Irwin, and fourteen men, without horses, began the 100 mile trek to Bascom's forces on

army pack mules. Fighting along the way they captured Apaches and recovering stolen

horses and cattle. The reached Bascome's troops Febuary 14^th and proved instrumental

in breaking the Apache siege.

The first U. S. - Apache conflict began when Cochise, the Chircahua Apache Chief, had

kidnapped three white men, to exchange for his brothers and two nephews held by the U.S.

Army on false charges of steeling cattle and kidnapping a child. When the exchange failed,

Cochise killed the white men and the army responded by killing his relatives, setting off the

first of the Apache Wars.

Although Irwin's bravery in this conflict was the earliest Medal of Honor action, the award

itself was not created until 1862 and it was January 21, 1894 when Irwin received the

nation's highest military honor.

Source: www.history.com/this day in history/first-medal-of-honor-action

February 13, 2018 abstract by Harrison H for www.iinni.blogspot.com

BLANCH AND 'BLUB' THOMPSON OF REHOBOTH

The Wilmington News Journal , Monday, May 27, 1957 reported that at Rehoboth

in the VIA clubhouse, twenty pupils of Mrs. Blanch Thompson, piano teacher of

Rehoboth Beach staged a recital last Friday night. How many Rehoboth folks remember

Blanch Greenley Blackstons Thompason ? She payed piano and organ at many weddings,

funerals and special occasions during the 1940's, 1950's and up to the '70's or later. Blanch

was born in Millsboro to Ernest Coward Blackstone , a Millsboro druggist and his wife,

Maud Edda Blackston , April 30, 1909.

On November 8, 1933 she and Leon Leslie Thompson were married in Wilmington,

Delaware. They had two sons , Ernest Blackston Thompson, born 1934, and I think\

his name was George, probably born in early 1940's .

Leon Leslie Thompson, best known around Rehoboth as “Blub” was born in Laurel on

11 June 1899 . His father was a dry goods merchant in Laurel. 'Blub' was a WWI Navy

aviator, discharged as a Lt. Commander, was the Rehoboth railroad freight station manager,

helped start Rehoboth airport, taught many of the area how to fly, and was a civic leader for

years.

Leon and Blance Thompson a are buried in All Saints Episcopal Cemetery, Indian River,

Sussex county. Did anyone know them?

OK, now to the recital and the young pianists of the late 1950's. They were; Linda Austin.

Linda Maull, Patricia Brittingham, Margaret Rowland, Tony Hill, Roberta Marshall,

Jane Hirnyck, Carol Ann Massey, Norrene Austin,, Stevie Lehman, Carol McNeilly,

Patricia Morris, Susanne Mark, Dolores Pfister, Lois Wilson, Ellen White, Barbara

White, Barbara Bailey and Rite Ware. Lets have a rundown of them.   

SAILFISH

SAILFISH

What is a sailfish. You can call it a sailing surf board. The difference being that a surfboard bow will stay above water while the sailfish bow will dive

into the water throwing torrents of water over it's crew. It is an inexpensive , $340, sporty boat, easy to handle, almost unsinkable, and low upkeep. In 1963 there were no sailfish in Lewes. Then , in three summers, Lewes developed one of the largest sailfish fleets on the east coast.

The very first sailfish in Lewes was bought by T. Rowland Marshall,

then commodore of the local yacht club and his neighbor, Bill Dosey

Soon the Lewes sailing enthusiasts were buying, building, andd

bargaining for sailfish right and left and it was not long before on any sunny

Sunday afternoon dozens of bright red, white, blue, yellow, green, or orange

sails were spotted along the Lewes Delaware Bay beach.

There was no harness to the enthusiasm , even in poor weather, after

they had become accustomed to their boats, the Lewes sailor would take to the rough waters of the bay and breakwaters.

Sixty per cant of the sailfish are sailed by youngsters who can 'right' them

in a matter of seconds.

Rodney Evans is one of Lewes' sailfish devotees ho has built seventeen of them. The yacht club has fourteen races , on Sundays, and the competition

leaders are Carlton Young, William Poulter and Rodney Evans.

Source: Wilmington Morning News, Saturday August 24, 1957

OCEAN CITY HISTORY SKETCH

SKETCH OF OCEAN CITY HISTORY

JULY 4 1976

SALISBURY DAILY TIMES

This written history for Ocean City goes as far back as 1799 when on the 5^th of January

that year the “Ocean Bird” an English sailing vessel , wrecked at what is now Ocean City.

The skipper, Captain Wiilliam Carhart, drowned. His crew buried him on the high land

across the Isle of Wright Bay.

A few years later, an English vessel, carrying a marble tombstone sent by his family, put the

marker on his grave. This was along what became the number 1 fairway of the Ocean City

Golf Course Farms at the home of John Whaley and his wife.

Between the years 1910 and 1918, prior the WWI , the Philadelphia based Camphene

Club , several hundred members strong, annually held an 'outing' at this grave site.

The first structures on the island probably were built by Bernard Ulman, one of a Salisbury

family, around 1869.

Old records describe a holstery. Owned and operated by Isaac Coffins, the grandfather

of Captain William B. S, Powell, a later large land owner and real estate operator. The

“Rhode Island” Inn was a one story 'inn' and tavern and made question if it were the sun,

beach and ocean, or Coffins Bar, that was the big attraction bringing people to one spot on

the lonley Atlantic coast.

Sinepuxent Beach Corporation was formed with well known Ocean City names, Purnell,

Showell, Taylor, Henry and Toadvine, among its stockholders.

In the 1860's to spend a day at the beach, one had to arise in the wee morning hours,

travel to a farm wharf on Sinepuxent Bay to take a flat bottom ferry over to the Ocean front.

Upon time to leave in early evening or late afternoon, it was late that night when families

would arrive back home.

An implication that it was mainly the women making this trip is carried in the name of the

land grant “ Ladies Resort To The Ocean” patented by Benson and Tabor in 1868 what is

now the site of Ocean City proper.

Dinning room menus included Maryland Fried Chicken, terrapin, duck or geese wildfowl,

soft crabs, fresh fish, Maryland Country Ham, Maryland beaten biscuits, hot bread,

gravies, sauces, puddings and pies. Hotel rates were $12 to $15 a weekat the best hotels.

Lavishness was on order of the proprietors.

Until 1914 Ocean City was a fishing village with few homes and hotels, there was no inlet

and the sea fishermen had to pull their boats ashore with horse or mule teams.

By 1875 the Atlantic Hotel had been erected, followed by the Seaside, Congress and

Plimhimmon in the 1880's. The railroad had been extended from Salisbury in 1879

and by 1881 was brought into Ocean City proper. Later years saw all these hotels being

destroyed by fire, only the Atlantic being rebuilt.

In 1928 a road of sorts was built to Rehoboth along the coast and Ocean City was Maryland's

only seaside resort. Development was slow from Somerset & Talbot area northward. Finally

reaching the Delaware state line it ended, this was “Highrise Row”.

The trip from the western shore or Baltimore to Ocean City was a major undertaking to say

the least. At first bay boats carried vacationers to Claibourne where they boarded trains

that took them to Salisbury. Prior to 1879 stage coaches traveled from Saliabury to the edge

of Sinapuxent Bay where they boarded scows to cross the water to the ocean.

By 1879 travel by train from Clairbourn, through Salisbury, to Ocean City was possible.

Ladies in their feather boas, ostrich plumed hats, elaborate wrap around skirts were

under a constant rain of soot from the funnel shaped stacks of the engines.

Pine slabs furnished the fuel for the engines and stops were common to “wood up” from

ready cut piles along the way. The first thing everyone had to do upon arrival at the

Baltimore Avenue station near Somerset Street was beat the cinders and smoke out of his

clothing and wash his soot covered face.

Baggage haulers with ox drawn carts met the trains and took the guest to the hotel of their

choice. The hotel featured the last word in conveniences, soft goose down mattresses ,

polished oil lamps, wash stands, wash bowls, pitchers of water, fine table and a great

supply of spirits for the thirsty at the bar or lounge.

Abstract: Saliiisbury Daily Times, Sunday, 4 July 1976 by Harrison H. February 2018.

CHARLES EDWARD MITCHELL LEWES COAST GUARD.

CHARLES EDWARD MITCHELL

20 YEAR COAST GUARD

The funeral service for Charles Edward Mitchell, age 78, of Lewes was held Tuesday,

March 8, 1988, in Lewes Presbyterian Church, where he was an Elder and Trustee. He had

died with a heart attack the previous Friday. Interment was in the adjoining cemetery.

Mitchell had served 20 years in the Coast Guard at the Cape Henlopen and Lewes

Lifeboat Stations. He belonged to the award winning Eastern District Rowing Team and

had won a bronze medal in 1938 f or U. S. Coast Guard International Capsize

Championships..

After his coast Guard service he was a service man with Pyrofax Gas Corporation , retiring

in 1973 after 20 years .

Mr. Mitchell was a forty year member of Jefferson Lodge 15, AF&AM.

Surviving him is his wife of 61 years, the former Ruth Cory Greenley, two daughters,

Evelyn M. Rogers, Lewes, and Alcine Wilson of Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, his

brother Lewin W. Mitchell of Rehoboth,, two sisters, Elizabeth Harper of Frankford,

and, Pearl Quillen, Rehoboth Beach. He leaves three grandchildren and three great

grandchildren.

Charles Edward Mitchell was born 10 November 1909 in Sussex county, to Oliver Henry

and Eva Wilson Mitchell , married 28 Ocrober 1926 in Rehoboth to Ruth Cora Greenly.

He served his county from 1927 to 1947.

Abstract 5 February 2018, by Harrison H., from Salisbury Daily Times, Monday,

March, 7, 1988.

FRANKLIN BRITTINGHAM LICENSE PLATE COLLECTION

FRANKLIN BRITTINGHAM , SR.

AUTHORITY ON LICENSE PLATES

Franklin Brittingham of Lewes is one of Delaware's foremost authorities on license

plates and has a collection of near 3000 that took him ten years to complete. Also he

knows the history of Delaware motor vehicle department. His collection consists of

all most every type of tag issued by the state.

1909 was the first year the state issued a tag, he has two of them. Up to 1942 Delaware

require tags on front and back.

He has truck tags, taxicab tags, political tags, mvd tags, blue, gold, black, silver, red,

and above this collection is a Delaware tag 1, with “ governor “ on it.

He has a good bit of money in this collection and is ready to sell or trade. 1930 to today's

tags are not too hard to find, but 30's back is tedious. Dealers tags, began in 1914 and are

difficult to come upon. He has two of these.

Homemade tags were used before 1909 and sometimes made of leather.

There were no state police until 1923, in Sussex County, so lower \Delaware people never

bothered with tags.

In 1909 tags we $1. There were 298 cars registered, five in Lewes, eight in Georgetown, Milton nor Rehoboth had none.

Salisbury Daily Times, April 19, 1970, by Rick Cullen.