Davis, Raymond (1894-1987) |
Worcester County Library: Local History and Genealogy Collection, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, MD
|
Interviewee: |
Raymond Davis (1894-1987) |
| Interviewer: |
Katherine Fisher |
| Date of interview: |
1980 October 13 |
| Length of interview: | 1 Hour 8 Minutes |
| Transcribed by: | C Cole |
| Preferred Citation: |
“Name, Oral History Collection, Date of Interview, Worcester County Library, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, Maryland.” |
Topical Terms:
Berlin (Md.)—History
Education
Trappe Mill Pond
Worcester County (Md.)—Education
Worcester County (Md.)—History
Worcester County (Md.)—Social life and customs
World War I
WWI
Corporate Terms:
Buckingham High School
Buckingham Primary School
Location Terms:
Berlin (Md.)
Trappe (Md.)
Interview Begins
Interviewer: This is a taped interview with Raymond Davis in Trappe Maryland, October the 13th, 1980. Mr. Davis, at the time of this interview, how old are you?
Raymond: 85
INTERVIEWER: Mr. Davis, for the benefit of the tape, has just taken me and shown me around the area which used to be Trappe Mill Pond and Trappe was a really big center at that time. Detailed drawings of this mill pond will be found in a file and you can ask for information about it later. What I will do is when I get home, I will sit down, and I will sketch all these things out so it will show. And then what I will do is bring my sketches back and you and I will go over them and make sure I’ve done it right. And then we’ll have that on file as a map of Trappe Mill. Now you were born right here and right here is right in Trappe. When you were born and you were growing up, what did it look like when you looked over toward the mill, where the mill area was?
RAYMOND: Well it was all open. There were no trees in the pond. The ponds were clear.
INTERVIEWER: And they were much higher.
RAYMOND: Yes, the water was much higher.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember from your parents or anything when the mill itself last operated? Was it like in the 1880’s or 1890’s, or around the turn of the century?
RAYMOND: It was the 1990’s.
INTERVIEWER: Now did they grind corn?
RAYMOND: And wheat.
INTERVIEWER: And wheat. They did both. What other things were around here when you were growing up as a boy? Which if you’re 85 you were born 1895, that you would have been a young boy around the turn of the century. Were there any other stores or buildings?
RAYMOND: Sure, right where the store is.
INTERVIEWER: Where Daley’s is now.
RAYMOND: My father was born right across the road there. My grandparents lived there all my life.
INTERVIEWER: Were they farmers?
RAYMOND: No, he was a, I think they called them wheelwrights. Built carts and wagons, and box carts. He repaired wheels when mule’s and wagon’s wheels broke down, he repaired them.
INTERVIEWER: Now, did he have a shop right there at his house?
RAYMOND: Right where the store is.
INTERVIEWER: Where the store is. Aside from being a wheelwright’s shop were there other activities at the store?
RAYMOND: Well my grandmother, after the children left, as soon as she could, she opened the grocery store, same thing that’s there now. They came on down and the store has been there ever since. Then her children and the youngest brother of the family took the store over as soon as she wasn’t able to do it anymore and he stayed there until he died. The last one was born right over there.
Unintelligible conversation
INTERVIEWER: Where did you go to school?
RAYMOND: Buckingham, the whole family went there, right where the post office is now.
INTERVIEWER: The old one. The one we saw pictures of? How did you get to school?
RAYMOND: Walked, except bad weather, my father, course we always had carriage and buggy and horses. We took the carriage in bad weather.
INTERVIEWER: What grades did you go there? All of them?
RAYMOND: All of them. Except I didn’t go the last year. I didn’t graduate because I had a job.
INTERVIEWER: Right now, in Trappe, there’re not too many people.
RAYMOND: About as many as now. That’s the way it was.
INTERVIEWER: And there weren’t that many more people then?
RAYMOND: There was a house over here that’s burned down, they bought the land rather that went right straight to the house. Just a small country house was right on that corner.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. And the road went through where it was. Did you all as youngsters play on the pond?
RAYMOND: Oh, my yes. People came for ice skating. That was from Berlin and even I can remember when you couldn’t get ice, you know we didn’t have a refrigerator, the merchants who run the wheat stores, had dug a big hole and took some ice out. They came here from New Horizon and cut the ice out and loaded it up on the wagon and carried it up, way back up on to Berlin and put it in that pit and with sawdust all on it and kept it in there.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, I had no idea. Now where was this pit? Halfway between here and Berlin.
RAYMOND: You know where those houses are being put up right there. You know that hill right there. Well they had dug a hole starting in that hill and it went down. The Ayer’s brothers did that. They had that store.
INTERVIEWER: Okay and that’s the store that was across from the where Treasure Chest, where Donaway’s is now.
RAYMOND: Their father owned the land so they could use that.
INTERVIEWER: When they would go ice skating here do you remember any particular event? A lot of times when talking about things, you’ll remember some particular thing that stood out that was either being funny or sometimes dangerous, dangerous isn’t really what you want, but something particularly amusing.
RAYMOND: The only thing that used to amuse us was, that we had some excellent skaters you know, and when they could do all these figures and things like that, well that was a dream.
INTERVIEWER: Well you all went skating too.
RAYMOND: Oh yes. Oh, I skated many times.
INTERVIEWER: The ponds were not interconnected so you could skate from one to the other?
RAYMOND: No, you had to go under if you bridge did.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, but you could go under the bridge.
RAYMOND: No, it didn’t go under the bridge. We walked across the road. They had bonfires at night right on the ice, course winters were more severe than they are right now. Bonfires on the ice. Trappe was on the map then.
INTERVIEWER: In the summertime, did you swim there?
RAYMOND: No, it was too, all that water coming from town,
INTERVIEWER: It was too polluted even then.
RAYMOND: We had boats. Water was deep enough so you could have boats in there.
INTERVIEWER: Were there any fish in there?
RAYMOND: Yes. We used to catch perch and catfish. They weren’t big fish.
INTERVIEWER: But they were fun to catch. What about turtles?
RAYMOND: We had turtles and bullfrogs.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, did you go bullfrogging?
RAYMOND: I didn’t. My brother did. I didn’t. I was one of
Unintelligible Conversation
INTERVIEWER: Okay. So, you had the wheelwright store and then changed into the grocery store.
RAYMOND: The grocery store was put on, took out maybe the corner of the wheelwright store. Down here you had to start a might smaller with a grocery store like that.
INTERVIEWER: Alright now. Who came to this grocery store? The people, I mean, there were just three or four houses.
RAYMOND: There’s German section around here. Germantown was here. See they come here to the store now all the time.
INTERVIEWER: And was it a black section then at that time?
RAYMOND: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Have you heard any stories about how the town got its name?
RAYMOND: No, I never have.
INTERVIEWER: There was a family named Piston. Do you remember anything about them? I think they lived in this area because the woman, Dorothy Nathan, from Newark, she said she was born around here and remembered them.
RAYMOND: Do you know the Buckingham Cemetery is? Somewhere out in that area. There is a dirt road and you come around. I remember.
INTERVIEWER: About how many kids were there here to go to school? I know you all walked at the same time.
RAYMOND: Yes. There were three of us here and then, I don’t know how many across the road.
INTERVIEWER: You picked up some more as you went.
RAYMOND: Yea.
INTERVIEWER: Now was there a school down on Sinepuxent?
RAYMOND: Yea. Military’s across the road.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. And that would draw the kids that way. Were you pretty near the dividing line as to who went where? Or did you go?
RAYMOND: No, no. We were much nearer Berlin than we were
INTERVIEWER: Than you would have been that. When you went to school in Berlin do you remember anything special about, who were some of your teachers? Do you remember any of their names?
RAYMOND: Miss Annie Bell and Miss Anna Jones, Miss Daisy Ray, Miss Daisy Wise.
INTERVIEWER: Now was Miss Daisy Wise, was she related to Mr. Wise the undertaker?
Someone else there: His daughter.
RAYMOND: She taught a long time.
INTERVIEWER: Now when you went to school, did they have, down at Buckingham, did they have a first grade and a second grade and a third grade. You weren’t all mixed together were you?
RAYMOND: Oh no, no, were never mixed together. Miss Nettie Carey was the principle. The high school only had two teachers. Eighth and ninth and tenth and eleventh.
INTERVIEWER: Alright and one teacher taught eight and nine and one taught ten and eleven. Did you have any, I’ll call them, extracurricular activities in school? Like sports or anything like that?
RAYMOND: No. Reading, writing, and arithmetic was all we had.
INTERVIEWER: You didn’t have time for it, did you?
RAYMOND: No. (unintelligible words)
INTERVIEWER: Were there any discipline problems?
RAYMOND: No.
INTERVIEWER: If somebody did try to misbehave what would happen?
RAYMOND: A paddle or a switch or something.
INTERVIEWER: Alright. Would they contact the parents?
RAYMOND: We never had any contact outside of the school. If they had, my mother especially, she said we send you to school to learn and not to cut up. If we cut up and word got down here, I imagine, it wouldn’t have been very good.
INTERVIEWER: It wouldn’t have, would it, my dear? That’s interesting too because that is generally the pattern.
RAYMOND: (unintelligible words) I had jaw trouble and thought I was going to die, and I didn’t finish because my class got ahead of me. I took a correspondence course and then I went in the service. Uncle Sam invited me there.
INTERVIEWER: That was World War I, right?
RAYMOND: Yes, that was 1917. Went to university in 1919, then I went to Columbia University. I took business courses, administration. business law and others. I went there two years and then I came back and went into the bank.
INTERVIEWER: Now when you say you went into the bank, Calvin and Taylor?
RAYMOND: No. Exchange and Savings. And I was there 50 years.
INTERVIEWER: I was going to ask what business you were in. Now I know.
RAYMOND: Yea, that’s right. Unintelligible words. If I hadn’t gone to Columbia, I wouldn’t have gotten in there. I knew I was going there. I didn’t have a business education.
INTERVIEWER: So, you took the education so you would be able to go right into the bank. Your father was a building contractor. Did he build homes, or businesses, or anything that had to be built?
RAYMOND: Well homes mostly.
INTERVIEWER: Did he hire people on to help him?
RAYMOND: Oh yes, I had a brother he was a relay mechanic. He was a cabinetmaker. He inherited it from my father, and I didn’t inherit any carpentry work.
INTERVIEWER: When you went into Berlin, let’s say before the war, what are some of the stores or businesses or something of that nature, that you remember being there?
RAYMOND: Well, of course, our store was right where the Dairy Joy is in Berlin now. John Taylor bought part of the building and put on that drive-in window.
INTERVIEWER: Ok. William’s Tavern. Was that where your store was?
RAYMOND: Yes. That’s where our store was. Vernon and Powell was next, and of course, the bank was out front, and Vernon and Powell came back of the bank. Taylor Bank bought all that back part from the Vernon and Powell company. Then there was J. Flemings, and then, I don’t know, where Mark Williams is. I think the Post Office was right in there, and then of course the barbershop. And you know Raines, they were all there then. Not the same people in them, but the buildings were there.
INTERVIEWER: Who had the barbershop there?
RAYMOND: Raines. Jack Raines. And then across the street, there was a soda fountain there where Missy Cropper’s is. Then Mr. Boston, the Boston store, and the drugstore. And then Missy’s father had that hardware store, the grandfather, I mean. Then next was the drugstore, then next was Joe Holland’s store. They were all there. The Savings Bank on the corner. And the rest of Joe Boston, of course, where the chamber is now.
INTERVIEWER: Now is that called the Odd Fellows building at one time?
RAYMOND: Still is. They own that. They own the whole building, I think. Then beyond there the other bank, Derrickson Bank, then John Ayers, the Ayers brothers, the ones that had the ice. Then there was a garage next to that.
INTERVIEWER: Who had that garage?
RAYMOND: Several people. I can’t remember now.
INTERVIEWER: I know up the other end of town there was Walt Murphy had a garage and somebody else right next to him. There was one right beside the other.
RAYMOND: Course the Atlantic Hotel. I remember the other hotel.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, the Majestic? Or the Eagle?
RAYMOND: The Eagle is what I remember.
INTERVIEWER: You do?
RAYMOND: Yes. Right next to where Dr. Collin’s played the piano.
INTERVIEWER: No, that’s the Park.
RAYMOND: Is that the Park?
INTERVIEWER: Yes, the Park Hotel. The one in back of the town hall. That must have been beautiful. Why was there a need for four hotels in Berlin?
RAYMOND: Well you see, all the traveling salesmen and everybody that came had to have a place to stay. They had to go by train, because nobody had any cars then, you see.
INTERVIEWER: This is before cars.
RAYMOND: Yes. Before cars.
INTERVIEWER: And they depended on the train to get from one place to the other.
RAYMOND: Yes, and they had to stay all night. Where the firehouse is now, that was a junction, you see. North and south and east and west.
INTERVIEWER: When your grandmother had the store here, across here, how would she get her supplies for the store? Would salesmen come?
RAYMOND: I don’t know. I don’t remember back then.
INTERVIEWER: Because a salesman would rent a horse and buggy in Berlin and go around.
RAYMOND: Oh yea. They had a livery stable.
INTERVIEWER: Now where was the livery stable?
RAYMOND: Right next, you know where Williams’s Tavern is, that point where the milling comes down. That was a livery stable there. And then back of the Atlantic Hotel. Gunby had one there. Back of the Atlantic Hotel where the office of the oil company is, back in there, that was a big livery stable.
INTERVIEWER: Now you mentioned Gunby. Was he the same Gunby that had the first like a bus and to go get people from the station?
RAYMOND: I expect so. I think they used to get them with a horse and buggy. The mail and stuff, I know, they used to.
INTERVIEWER: Now, there was a Post Office at Trappe.
RAYMOND: I don’t remember that. That was before my time.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. But there was one before your time.
RAYMOND: Yes, I’ve always heard there was.
INTERVIEWER: When did you get your first car? Do you remember it?
RAYMOND: Yes. I remember. It was a Ford with curtains.
INTERVIEWER: I’ve asked this to everybody that I’ve interviewed and some of them have greatest tales about their first car. Some of which are.
RAYMOND: They said down here that they had a hotel or just a small place, right where I told you the houses were, where the road came, it went around. It came over this bridge and went up over this bridge and right in there where the colored house was, there was a hotel there. Of course, before my time.
INTERVIEWER: It could have been. Because if this was on the stage route you would have needed some sort. Have you heard any stories about how Trappe got its name?
RAYMOND: I never have. I’d like to know.
INTERVIEWER: I would too. I keep asking. I figure someday somebody’s going to either know a story or they’re going to make one up real quick. One or the other.
RAYMOND: They said why Berlin was changed, you see, you couldn’t start putting these railroads, with all these bridges, I mean ponds and stuff, they had to change from here because they didn’t have the means to build bridges over these ponds. And they changed right at that pond.
INTERVIEWER: So that’s why the center of activity shifted from Trappe up to Berlin.
RAYMOND: Yes, because of the railroad. You can see when you look at the water, look how many bridges they had to build over these ponds and stuff. They had to do it.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember riding the trains at all?
RAYMOND: No. no. Not until I was older. Course when I was in Philadelphia, my we rode the train up there. I did a lot of riding. Not when I was a boy, when I was older.
INTERVIEWER: Did they have separate passenger trains? Were you in a passenger car?
RAYMOND: Oh yes. They had passenger cars and they had freight cars on the same train.
INTERVIEWER: Now, were these the kind of trains that had the cinders and the smoke and all the dirty?
RAYMOND: Oh yea. They had the coal. They burned coal.
INTERVIEWER: Did you remember either as a boy or a young man, until about 1920 or so, did you go to Ocean City much?
RAYMOND: Oh yea. My mother let us. We took the horse and buggy and tied it to the stable they had on this side of the bridge and walked the old railroad across.
INTERVIEWER: Now could you have taken the horse and buggy across that bridge if the horse would have gone?
RAYMOND: Yes, because they had it. But it was too dangerous. My mother and father didn’t tell us we could. The train tracks were on there and they had these, what do you call them, so the train could turn, and if you weren’t very careful you’d get the wheel buggy in there and then it would break the wheel. We never tried anything like that.
INTERVIEWER: Now on this side of the old railroad bridge, was it a regular place that fed and watered the horse while you were over there?
RAYMOND: It was a place that had water for your horses. but they didn’t feed them. You carried the feed. I can tell you a little story if you want me to tell you that. No, I’ll tell you when we get through.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Do you remember anything, anything stand out about Ocean City then? What did you do?
RAYMOND: We walked the boardwalk. People, I guess, had more nerve than we did. Mom wouldn’t let us go play in the ocean. We walked the boardwalk.
INTERVIEWER: Did you have much cause, I was trying to think of anything else about Ocean City, of course, this was before the inlet and the fish camps. She wouldn’t let you go down into the fish camps either would she?
RAYMOND: No
INTERVIEWER: They were off limits.
RAYMOND: We’d meet our friends, there that we knew each other, and from school. We were playing. We had a good time getting together.
INTERVIEWER: Could you go on the sand?
RAYMOND: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: But not in the water.
RAYMOND: No.
INTERVIEWER: When you were growing up did you do chores? Did you have things, or did you have a job?
RAYMOND: My mother came from a farm and, my land, we fussed a many time because we grew potatoes. We had to bud the potatoes. In the summertime they made us cultivate strawberries.
INTERVIEWER: Do garden work.
RAYMOND: Yes, many times. We were fussing. She said you’re going to learn how to do it and if you don’t have to do it when you get older it’ll be alright. But if you do have to do it when you get older and don’t know how, it will be bad. It was one of her sayings.
INTERVIEWER: She’s right but it didn’t help any when you were out there picking potatoes. Now did she garden just for her own needs and canning?
RAYMOND: Yes. She had chickens and goose and ducks. We grew empire horses and cows and hogs. We butchered here until after we were married. You butchered what you had here part of the year because there wasn’t all the stores that had all the vegetables. So, she did that for the wintertime.
INTERVIEWER: When you say she did that, did the woman generally do the garden work and all that, while the man did the other farming things that had to be done?
RAYMOND: Oh yes. Course he did, well, some of it, I guess. He didn’t do it, somebody had to do the plowing and getting the ground ready for it. I guess the old timers probably did, but I know daddy didn’t.
INTERVIEWER: Did you use a mule or horses?
RAYMOND: We had mules and horses. My father was trading and getting this and that. We always had cattle.
INTERVIEWER: Somebody was commenting that you don’t see many mules around anymore.
RAYMOND: No.
INTERVIEWER: There used to be white mules on the Berlin road somewhere. I don’t remember to look.
RAYMOND: Well, of course, I have three horses here now because I ride horseback. I ride horseback at my age.
INTERVIEWER: Do you really?
RAYMOND: Yes, I do. I rode last week.
INTERVIEWER: Where do you ride?
RAYMOND: Well, back of the cemetery up here and way over up there and then down to (tape jumps). Mr. Whelan, Sara Brittingham’s father, it was his land out where they hunted because they loved hunting. Course we knew him so well we were invited all the time. Run my horse across the field with the rest of them, cut the dogs at you. That’s the pleasure of fox hunting. You see the fox go across and then hear the dogs. The dogs going across barking like it is really music. (Unintelligible words).
INTERVIEWER: How did you get across to the beach?
RAYMOND: Well, of course, in the beginning, before the storm, we went to Ocean City and drove right on down. But after that they built down at Mr. Tom Cade’s place. He let them build a wharf go down to the bay where the water was deep enough. We put our horses on the monitor. They had monitors.
INTERVIEWER: Is a monitor like a barge?
RAYMOND: Yes. They carried the horses across and then they had a landing place there.
INTERVIEWER: Where he has his summer place now?
RAYMOND: Yes, and we drew the horses off. Take them off. I remember, course we had to go every morning, to school we were going that day, and Pot Pie, we called him, you remember Pot Pie?
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
RAYMOND: He had his monitor and was taking us across. He was pulling his monitor with one of these barges and his rails weren’t high enough on it. I mean, I stood beside my horse. I don’t know how many we had on there. Quite a few. And one horse pushed another horse overboard.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, no.
RAYMOND: They did have a line long enough, so he swam, and they just kept right on going.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, my lord.
RAYMOND: We had some great fun on that.
INTERVIEWER: I bet you did. Now when you were over there at that time, that was before the road, you know that guy that came through and put the road through. I can’t remember his name, and I should know it, Ash, Ashman, Asherman.
RAYMOND: Oh, Ackerman. That was before Ackerman. (Unintelligible conversation). One time we were going down, we always had to go twice a year because we couldn’t leave the colts on their mothers in the wintertime. Byron Days he used to go. He wouldn’t listen to us. In the fall it was, and we were gathering the ponies. You get them in the corrals. They had the corrals right there and you had to pen them in the corral to hold the ponies separate.
INTERVIEWER: The corrals were already built.
RAYMOND: Oh, yes. You had to have somewhere to put them. They said follow the ponies when they’re on the bayside because you know those sloughs, caught in the draft quite often would deepen if you tried to cut across the cove. You had to follow them until you got them off there. And Byron didn’t listen. We went looking and we saw his horse go down in the mires and he went down, and his horse was swimming. We had to get him off and he was soaking wet and we had to share clothes with him. See, that’s the fun we would get out of it.
INTERVIEWER: When you were going over to cut the ponies out, were people still raising cattle over there?
RAYMOND: Oh yea.
INTERVIEWER: Did they graze there all year?
RAYMOND: Yea, I never worked the cattle because cattle didn’t run, you had to just walk along. They were too slow for me. You just had to walk alongside them.
INTERVIEWER: Were they branded, so that they knew who’s was who’s? Were they left over there all year?
RAYMOND: Yes, they branded.
INTERVIEWER: Who were some of the people that had them?
RAYMOND: (Unintelligible) was the only one I know of having.
INTERVIEWER: And just cows and horses?
RAYMOND: Mm-mm. Well you see, every July, even way back then, Chincoteague had their big pony penning. See we had to leave the day before to take the colts off their mothers that were big enough to ween and carry them to Chincoteague to sell at the fair. Unintelligible words. And that way, if they had more colts, they had to go back in November to take them off their mother, because you couldn’t leave the colts on their mothers all winter. And that’s when we had more fun then, because the flies and mosquitoes weren’t very bad then.
INTERVIEWER: They were bad in July, weren’t they?
RAYMOND: Oh my, yes.
INTERVIEWER: I can’t imagine them to be any worse than they are now, but I’m sure they were. Did you go out on the bay fishing? You said you played around with boats on the ponds here. Did you go out on to the bay itself?
RAYMOND: We used to, I had an uncle that lived down on Ayer’s Landing, we call it, and we used to go down there and sail with him.
INTERVIEWER: Now would you salt those fish for the winter or just eat what there was?
RAYMOND: I think way back my mother salted fish for the winter.
INTERVIEWER: This is a non-religious question. Where did you go to church?
RAYMOND: The Episcopal church. All my life. I was organist there for 30 years.
INTERVIEWER: Now when you first went it had not been burned.
RAYMOND: Oh, no.
INTERVIEWER: You went before the fire. It was on 1901 or 4? One of the two anyway. The Presbyterian burned in one and the Episcopal church burned in the other one. Was it a large congregation then?
RAYMOND: As large as it is now, I believe.
INTERVIEWER: That’s not a very large, is it?
RAYMOND: No. I believe it was larger than any of the churches.
INTERVIEWER: That’s what I was going to ask next. By comparison with the Methodist and the Presbyterian.
RAYMOND: Yes, it was the largest. It was large until recently. It was twice as large as it is now. What we had there has decreased.
INTERVIEWER: Now did you all have Sunday School picnics and church suppers and things like that?
RAYMOND: I don’t think we had church suppers. I believe we did, but we didn’t have them as often. But we had picnics, every summer. We always had Sunday School picnics.
INTERVIEWER: Did you go anyplace or just have it at the church?
RAYMOND: We went down here on the dry dock. Down Miss Anna Carey’s (Unintelligible words).
INTERVIEWER: So, you went down to Sinepuxent or South Point.
RAYMOND: South Point. Down that way. Not too far because had to drive the horse and buggy.
INTERVIEWER: Do you ever remember hearing anything about an event that occurred down at Public Landing in the summer, in July I think it was, called Farmer’s Day?
RAYMOND: Oh yes. We’ve been there. And I’ll tell you, I’m glad you brought it up. My father, there was water down there where I showed you where it was washed out, he had a good size boat with a cabin on it. And we loaded up right down there and went clear on down to Public Landing in that boat. Could get out there then. See all this water going out there kept that channel open.
INTERVIEWER: Now what’s this water here called now?
RAYMOND: Trappe Pond.
INTERVIEWER: The branch that goes out to the bay is called what?
RAYMOND: Gray Zeileg owns that land, just water from Trappe Pond.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, because didn’t it used to be called Assateague River?
RAYMOND: No, not clear up here.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, this was an outshoot of what they called Assateague River. But you went all the way down to Public Landing.
RAYMOND: Oh my. There were people down there.
INTERVIEWER: You took your lunch with you. What time did you have to leave to get there? I’m trying to think of water travel time.
RAYMOND: I don’t remember.
INTERVIEWER: It was daylight.
RAYMOND: Oh, yes, it was daylight.
INTERVIEWER: Because I have talked to people that have come to Farmer’s Day from out back of, you know where iron furnace is, back in the forest, and they’d leave at three or four o’clock in the morning and go all day.
RAYMOND: Yes, in horse and buggies.
INTERVIEWER: What did you do when you got there?
RAYMOND: I don’t remember now. I guess had your lunch, meet some friends and talk. I don’t remember anything special.
INTERVIEWER: Except there were a whole lot of people.
RAYMOND: Yes, there was.
INTERVIEWER: When you were big enough to drive a horse you could drive it, if your father said, and nobody else questioned, you could drive a horse. Not like cars. You didn’t have a license. Well in the first cars you didn’t have to have a license.
RAYMOND: No, I never had a license. I’ve never taken an examination. I got my license by mail. I never took an examination.
INTERVIEWER: But I bet they’ve taken your picture.
RAYMOND: Oh now. Can’t even tell it’s me.
Unintelligible conversation
RAYMOND: When we got old enough, we drove to church Sundays. But we always had a horse and buggy for church.
INTERVIEWER: On Sundays when you went to church was it an all-day thing?
RAYMOND: No, just a service.
INTERVIEWER: And you didn’t have any night services?
RAYMOND: I don’t remember, we didn’t go, or I didn’t, until I got so I could drive. See they had a hitching trailer across the front of the church where the wall is at the Episcopal Church. The cemetery didn’t come out quite as far then. And they had it so you could drive up hitch your horse and go right in.
INTERVIEWER: When did you start playing the organ? How did you, hey, I ask that, how did you learn to play?
RAYMOND: Course I had an old pump organ. You know Golden Quarter, the farm up there?
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
RAYMOND: I took my first lessons up there with Mrs. Gibbons. I rode horseback because the road here you couldn’t even get down it in the wintertime with those ruts. Then Miss Anna Carey taught me organ. You had to get your background. I was coming up, before you could commence (unintelligible). But Mrs. Pilchard first taught me when I got older in Berlin.
Unintelligible conversation.
RAYMOND: I would practice by myself a lot.
INTERVIEWER: Well now who was organist before you were?
RAYMOND: Miss Anna Carey.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. And so, you gradually worked in to playing when she couldn’t sometimes?
RAYMOND: Oh yes.
INTERVIEWER: When would you say you first started?
RAYMOND: It’s been a long time since I haven’t been an organist.
INTERVIEWER: Alright.
RAYMOND: I still play now.
INTERVIEWER: You do?
RAYMOND: Yea, at the church. I played in Ocean City in the summertime after we were married, a long time. Mrs. Dot Townsend Waters, she would play in the wintertime but when it got summertime she wouldn’t play.
INTERVIEWER: She couldn’t play.
RAYMOND: She wouldn’t play. She could play, but it made her nervous
INTERVIEWER: Oh, how cute. She wasn’t comfortable doing it, was she?
RAYMOND: No, they start coming down there you know. We had a lot of guests.
INTERVIEWER: Well that was a trip wasn’t it?
Unintelligible conversation
RAYMOND: We’ve had convents at Ocean City since then. We’ve gathered several times. On the sand dunes at the beach and now and then we were in the middle of Ocean City and walk around, Taylor’s Bank was right on the corner, Pilcher’s was just a little farther down. We were on the oceanside walking around in low town.
INTERVIEWER: I didn’t know that was yours. But you were up the beach at one point.
RAYMOND: Oh, my we were on the sand dunes. The (unintelligible) we put in at the time, of course we have changed it since then. We didn’t have beach access, but we were on the same side. We had to drag our friend that had mules and horses and put them in the truck and carry them down there. Unload them, put the harness on them and the chains, put it around the piling and put it around the lumber, and drag it across the beach.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. And that was in 1942. That does show change.
RAYMOND: And then the first neighbor we had was Judge Johnson. (Unintelligible conversation) We’ve had a big change.
INTERVIEWER: Let me see if there is anything else. We talked about schools, we talked about churches, we talked about businesses. I know what I wanted to ask you. You were at the Exchange and Savings Bank. Alright, Derrickson opened a bank there. What was the name of his bank? First Nat?
RAYMOND: Yes, it was a national bank. First National.
INTERVIEWER: When his bank, he shut down or whatever happened to it, did Calvin B. Taylor come in then?
RAYMOND: No, no. Calvin Taylor was already. Never been anywhere else but where it is now. It changed after they closed that bank, it became offices. Lawyers and stuff. It had been that way all the time, until recently when Peninsula bought it.
INTERVIEWER: Who were some, now this is going back to your, before 1920, who were the local doctors? If you were sick here your family took care of you unless it was something bad, did the doctor come to you?
RAYMOND: Oh, yes. Old Dr. Holland is all I remember. There were two Dr. Hollands. Dr. Ethan Holland and Dr. Charles Holland. Dr. Ethan Holland was right on the corner by the church. Dr. Charles Holland, he was in Whaleyville a long time, he was right there where Dr. (unintelligible) is now.
INTERVIEWER: The undertaker. When did Mr. Wise stop, I know it was Mr. Wise and I know there was Miss Anna, but there’s someone in between, isn’t there?
RAYMOND: No, Miss Anna bought Mr. Wise’s business.
INTERVIEWER: Somebody was talking about cemetery records and they brought another name in there.
RAYMOND: Evans. There were two undertakers there. Mr. Evans was right where the flower shop is.
INTERVIEWER: By the red light.
INTERVIEWER: Well now he was there the same time as Mr. Wise?
RAYMOND: I think he was.
INTERVIEWER: Or as Miss Anna anyway.
RAYMOND: Yes. Oh, yes. He was there with Miss Anna Wise.
INTERVIEWER: What happened to him?
RAYMOND: I think he died or something. I don’t remember maybe he was there before I was there because I don’t even remember Mr. Jimmy Wise much.
INTERVIEWER: That takes care of doctors and undertakers. We try to touch a little bit on everything while you are going through. Hospitals, you didn’t have.
RAYMOND: No.
INTERVIEWER: You didn’t need it. Or if you did, it was worth the trip to go.
RAYMOND: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: I can’t think of anything else that we haven’t talked about. I want to, I will go back in, I do want to do just a sketch of the ponds and the things, so that I can show, use that to show. And then someday I’ll call when I am coming back through this way and see if you’ll look over that. It will be a sketch, not a map. It won’t be to size exactly. It will give an idea. But somebody else won’t be as backwards as I was. I thought the water came from the creek to run the mill. I had the water running in the opposite direction. Right backwards.
RAYMOND: And you didn’t know the difference until today.
INTERVIEWER: No, did not know the difference until I was there today.
RAYMOND: Unintelligible Conversation
INTERVIEWER: This is the end of the technical interview that I had with Raymond Davis, but before we started tape recording things, Mr. Davis took me across from his house to show me the location of the three ponds that were associated with the Trappe Mill operation, and also to show to me where the old mill had stood, both the original mill house and the one which was present in his, in the turn of the century. And I need some information that I am going to try to put to here, what I can remember of us talking about that. I did not take the tape recorder with me. I think I should have. And see if we can’t do this and pull a sketch of the pond locations and work this way. In relation to what is presently there, and this may be the best way to do it. If you turn at, if you are coming east from Berlin, on the Assateague Road, you come to Daily’s store D-A-I-L-Y-S or E-Y-S. If you make a right hand turn at Dailey’s Store, immediately, as soon as you get off the bridge, if you make a left hand turn up that lane, another Mr. Davis lives there also. If you go up and park in front of Mr. Davis’ house, which you really shouldn’t do because that’s a private residence there. But he let us do it. You will be walking over to the edge of what now is an overgrown growth area, not a full-grown woods yet. You will be able to see the foundation of the mill house. You will also be able to walk to the very edge of the mill raceway where the water was located. In fact, at this particular time you can still see one of the supports that was used to hold the water wheel in the sluice way gate. Now, from this particular point I will try to describe what Raymond told me, where things were. To our left, which would be west, was the large pond which drained water from as far back up as Ed Phillip’s house, here on the Decatur Farm. All the water from this area drained into this pond. The pond was large enough to completely cover the area that is now woodland. The banks you can see all the tree trunks where the banks were. This pond was there, and this was the pond that controlled the force, from this particular pond, was used to run the wheel. This was the raceway pond. Now looking straight ahead, standing at the edge of the raceway gate looking straight ahead, which would be due north, You can’t see because of the overgrowth, but there is a road which ran straight in between the pond on the left and the creek on the right. This was the road over which people would bring their grain, with their carts and mules and everything, to have it ground. This road, up north of this road just a little bit, Mr. Davis said was another series of gates. These were the flood control gates. If there got to be too much water in the pond, the force of it going through, got the wheel spinning too quickly or a storm came by, these gates had to be opened. They were opened entirely by hand using a series of lever pulley operations. There was no hydraulic lift or anything, so these were operated in this manner. Now, as we left this particular site, we went back out the same road we came in, and Mr. Davis said the original miller’s house, that we have a slide of, the one that’s old and shingly and really tiny. The location for that would be just about, maybe 50 feet west of the dwelling that is there presently. Right along in that area, that was the miller’s house there. As we were going back over the bridge, proceeding north to go back around, to get around this area, he pointed out that this little tiny street now behind Dailey’s Store, he pointed out that when the mill ponds were there in his lifetime, and he was born in 1895. He remembers them as a youth, you know, a young boy, that the water came all the way up to just about the back of Dailey’s Store. All that fill there, is fill. When his grandparents had the store, the water was right behind, there was a big back up of water there. We went on and turned east on the road to Assateague, and then we turned up a road totally overgrown. There were things coming in the car windows on this road, but this is the road you drove to take your wheat or your corn to be ground. So, we drove down this road until we could not go any further. In driving down this road we had on our left the house which is shown in one of our slides, and then ahead of us, the barn which is shown in one of our slides, that in the slides are clearly shown as being on the water. So then, all the area on our right, to the west, was pond. Big pond area. As we turned in, we were fortunate enough to find the owner of this land. His name is Mr. Paton or Mr. Patton, and I cannot remember, I will have to find out. Mr. Davis explained why we were there. Mr. Davis knew this gentleman, and he took us down to behind his house. His house is right on the creek that runs there. He took us down there. He could point out to us, although we were not able reach it on foot, it was too wet, where the road came out. You could see the clear water where the waste gates or the flood gates had been located, he said up until, he had been living there for seven years. He said he remembered sheets of metal standing there where the gates had been. These are no longer there, but he did point out the location of the flood gates, and the road continuation and you can see where it would continue onto the other side. Mr. Davis could remember when this was, the creek here, was wide enough and deep enough for a good size boat to come up, actually come up to the mill because of the force of this water coming through, it was wide enough and deep enough. Right now, Mr. Paton, Patton estimates that the depth of the water, where the waste gates were, is about ten to twelve feet. He does not estimate, he knows, he lives there, that’s his, and the water directly behind his house is shoaled over to a depth of about six inches. And then on down the creek, he said it will sometimes be about six feet deep or so, but Mr. Davis remembers it as much deeper, able to draw (unintelligible). Then we left there, and we went on back around, my memory of my conversation that took place between myself and Mr. Davis as he was showing me around the site of Trappe Pond and the Trappe Mill. We came over to where the other pond, another holding pond. This pond brings water up from back where the streams and stuff up from back (unintelligible words). This as he said was a huge pond. In fact, the point area he had filled in with fill and the road area. The present road that goes to Assateague is new. There used to be a house there, which was torn down when the road was built. The pond area was a part of that when it was built. He also pointed out two other things which I forgot to mention. Going back to Mr. Paton, Patton’s house, in the photograph or slide that we have of the house and barn being on Trappe Pond. The barn is still there and that is Paton, Patton’s. The barn siding from this barn, the owner, Paton, Patton, has used in his house. He has used it with the red side down, so you don’t see the red, you see the dark barn wood, which I think is interesting. You see something from the turn of the century in a new way but still maintaining some of its history. He also pointed out that in his home also he has used some of the boards that were used in the construction of the Buckingham Elementary School, that was just recently torn down, or burned down before it was torn down. Unintelligible words. Going back to Mr. Davis, he pointed out that the stagecoach road went through Trappe. Going through Trappe there are maybe five houses there then and that’s all that is there now. It was a center, because of the fact that the stagecoach did go through. He pointed out that it curved on back and the stage road went the way you go out to come out near Stephen Decatur High School. There is also a road there that goes by the Sinepuxent church, but the stage itself did not go that way. It followed the road out similar to the road that goes out behind Stephen Decatur High School, and it went on up through Trappe and then on up through the countryside, going on over to Friendship and then on up to Snow Hill, Furnace Town and then on up to Delaware. He said that really the thing which made Berlin become an area that was thriving were the buildings and of course the railroad. I think I’ll try to make a sketch of this area as it might have been, to try to locate the dwellings that we show in our slides. I want to be able to sketch a slide and locate these dwellings on the slide, with the location of the pond. I think it will give people a much, more clear idea of exactly how it looked around Trappe, because today you might guess there was a home there but that would be it. All of this I’ve just been saying does not seem to be transcribed. Of course, not historically, it’s from memory. Neither does it need to be erased. We’ll just sort of leave it on here and have this part of the tape. I try to maintain this tape and try to remember to do things like this for when I need more information, when I do not have the tape. I want to add this to the tape. The water flows from the west to east. The ponds were what supplied the water and the water after it had been used by the mill went into the creek, which is the exact opposite of what I had pictured it doing. It flowed from west to east. The water came from the drainage areas of Berlin, it drained from Berlin, and provided the waterpower that way.
End Interview