Carey, Clifton (1923-1991) |
Worcester County Library: Local History and Genealogy Collection, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, MD
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Interviewee: |
Clifton Carey (1923-1991) |
| Interviewer: |
Katherine Fisher |
| Date of interview: |
1978 December 5 |
| Length of interview: |
1 hour |
| Transcribed by: |
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| Preferred Citation: |
“Name, Oral History Collection, Date of Interview, Worcester County Library, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, Maryland.” |
Topical Terms:
Farming
Transportation
Worcester County (Md.)—Education
Worcester County (Md.)—History
Worcester County (Md.)—Social life and customs
Location Terms:
Furnace Town (Md.)
Public Landing (Md.)
Snow Hill (Md.)
Interview Begin
INTERVIEWER: What I would like to know is anything that you remember that your grandfather told you when you visited, either about the Furnace or about Snow Hill; if you lived around Snow Hill—
CLIFTON: I lived in Snow Hill. I---the drug store window. You know where the firehouse is, the old firehouse, back there two buildings from the corner there on the third floor; I fell out of that window.
INTERVIEWER: The third floor?
CLIFTON: Yes, the third floor, out of the attic window, when I was a baby.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, my dear.
CLIFTON: On the bricks. My great grandmother lived there and of course my father-in-law as a kid kept store there between Shockley and Humphreys and the old hotel there across the front up there, the store-
INTERVIEWER: Ok.
CLIFTON: And during this time that I was there, my great grandfather, Mr. Taylor, sold fish through the country and all, and I used to go with him when I was a child, and we used to go back through-past the Old Furnace, and he has, quite a few times, took me up to the Furnace and showed me around. The Furnace today is not like it was years ago because there is so much stuff has been ripped off of it and stolen. I would say there has been at least some estimates about 25 tons of steel has been tore out of that Furnace. What I am basing my estimates on is on other people has said so there and I have-There used to be, I guess I call them rails that you’d climb to the top of it. It wasn’t-it was, I assume later, pipes running down for the runoff of ore and stuff like that.
INTERVIEWER: Right.
CLIFTON: If you notice, in the Furnace today you can see holes in the side where there were things that run out, and today’s Furnace, a good part of it, has been closed off because there were openings up there that had to be—Now, when I seen it-I seen it before the tree was growin’ in the top of it.
INTERVIEWER: Before the tree was there.
CLIFTON: Before the tree. It may have been a grass spot up there, but it was before the tree was in the top part of it, and then the tree got larger and larger, and in the later thirties it was a pretty tall tree. The houses there-the foundations of the houses there, they ran back-I understand, to the best of my recollection, that it was caught afire and burned, or something of that sort. But the sills and stuff-the sills were still there at that time and it run clean across to where the new road has been cut in there. Now, my grandfather said that there used to be, at times when it was in production, that they had some visiting Indians that used to camp that way, and also he said there was what we call a hotel today, but they called-places where you could get rooms and board and stuff and live. Now, the stables and all-they had teams that they pushed the carts up and dumped them up to the top. Now, these teams was blind, and the way they, I understand,-they may have been mules or donkeys or something of that sort-but it actually, literally was backed up, and why they blinded them was so on account that-the story I got, they had a load when they were using live ones with their eyes in, they got nervous and backed off there and were killed, and from then on, they turned them, blinded them and trained them and used them. The stables were there and the person that tended to the teams was on the back side of that, lived on the back side.
INTERVIEWER: Of the Furnace.
CLIFTON: Of the Furnace. Now, years ago, at that time you could tell where there used to be a stable there because it was still-I wouldn’t say manure-but it was still-you could tell.
INTERVIEWER: Loamy, the soil, and everything.
CLIFTON: Yes. You could tell where it was, and this is what my grandfather told me, and he said that they-why the reason-why they shut down is because the pipe-the clay that they were getting was not a whole lot-it was not as good as it should have been.
INTERVIEWER: Ok.
CLIFTON: And now I never-he never mentioned to me-he said that they poured the ore in with-he told me at that time what they used. I-they poured the clay and they also would pour other stuff in there, a mixture. They used a mixture of the stuff and it came out and it came in two different ways. He explained it to me and part of it went one way and part of it went to the other. They used a water wheel for the turning of it and that water wheel ran from one part of that plain to the other. Now, they had ways-now they had teams to haul that up there with, but I think what they did, they hooked the blind team to it when they wanted to back up the hill.
INTERVIEWER: When they wanted to back up.
CLIFTON: Now, when I was there at one time, those timbers-that woodwork was there and the timbers across there to that place I can remember to be there.
INTERVIEWER: Ok, the bridge.
CLIFTON: The bridge to the place was there when I was a child; I can barely remember, and this here was in-it’s funny how you can remember things when you were a child that you can’t remember today. I can remember sittin’ on the counter of my father’s store when I was a baby about the size of this one here, but I do remember that. It was dangerous; you couldn’t go up on it, but it was, I think, four pieces of timber there, completely rotten, but it was dangerous to do it, and what happened was, that that was tore down when the people came to rip the iron off of it to sell, and they even ripped the guts out of the center of the place.
INTERVIEWER: For goodness sake.
CLIFTON: And that went back a good ways from where it is at the present time. It went past the outer roads and there was a mess of houses and I think, if I remember right, there was storage sheds and stuff of that order.
INTERVIEWER: Ok.
CLIFTON: To the best of my recollection, he said that at one time there, it was-I am trying to remember-it was between 75 to 100 head who either lived or worked there, the best that I can remember.
INTERVIEWER: That sounds about right, because there were a lot of houses out there.
CLIFTON: Yes, and there was people that lived there that worked there to the-
INTERVIEWER: That’s good. Nice to see you and I enjoyed your-
CLIFTON: But that was when-that and the show place that we called years ago, the house down the road from that-
INTERVIEWER: Warren’s-
CLIFTON: And I was very fortunate to have known them and I was very glad that my father did take the time to explain a lot of this to me.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember-you know the two little bridges that you go over on the way to the Furnace, where those two little ponds are, there was supposed to have been a grist mill and a saw mill in operation there, around 1900. Do you remember him saying anything about the saw mill, or anything?
CLIFTON: The only thing that I can remember was that after they shut this down, that there was other operations there and there was other mills there, but he did not go-did not elaborate too much on that point. Now, he did show me where other buildings was up there, closer to the river bank, but I cannot remember today what he told me what they were. That could have been where that they-I thought that was where they had stowed their stuff; maybe it was where the saw mill used to be.
INTERVIEWER: It could have been either, couldn’t it?
CLIFTON: I do know that they had a brick kiln where they heated that stuff, on the other side of the road.
INTERVIEWER: O.K.
CLIFTON: And where that road is, it is a shame when that road went through there, they took quite a bit of the stuff away, and years ago, there used to be an open field back in there where the woods-
INTERVIEWER: O.K., where the woods is now.
CLIFTON: Yeah, yeah, where the houses were, it grew up-of course, as you know, years later it growed up to be-they blocked it off, trying to steer us from-and the snakes got in it so bad it got to be a dangerous place to even go see.
INTERVIEWER: Right.
CLIFTON: And you even had to watch yourself-but definitely, I want to explain to you that they did use teams and they did back them up on there, and they used the water to turn it, and the stables were behind there, and he told me how many guests there-that little tavern, I would call it-
INTERVIEWER: O.K.
CLIFTON: At least what he called it was a tavern, but they did rent rooms out at the tavern to the workers at the time-but those rooms were---sandy at that time, approximately two feet of sand-
INTERVIEWER: Oh, my dear. We went down-there is a road going through the forest, called Sandy Road now, and we went through in a car and we wished we’d never gone through, and this was just this year, because the sand was bottomless, and I guess they are all like that.
CLIFTON: Uh-huh. Years ago, all your roads through that Pocomoke Forest was sandy. Reverend Balsam that used to keep church there in Snow Hill, on the corner of the Public Landing Road turnoff, the Christian Church there, he was the one that was a great one to get the wood. He had a couple of churches later in the Pocomoke Forest and he was a great help. In fact, he had a church in Fruitland. He was the one that really did for the people down there and the roadways was begun with the help of him and the people that lived back there.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, for goodness sake.
CLIFTON: But 100 percent of the roads at that time was-the cars today could not get down. If you took a horse cart and you started down them, some of them would be up to your ankles.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, my dear.
CLIFTON: He had an old Tommy-he started off with a horse and buggy, with fish in the back, and then he bought an old Model “T” with the high wheels, and at times there, I think he was glad for me to be along, even though I was a kid, to give him a shove once in a while.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, I bet so. Now, where did he get his fish?
CLIFTON: He got his fish from Girdletree, Public Landing, and those. Fishermen in those days-in fact, I’ve even, we even hauled seines down in the river, the Pocomoke River, there between the Old Furnace and-I forget the name of the place-Mrs. Della Clark lived on the farm up the road there.
INTERVIEWER: O.K., down Nassawango Creek.
CLIFTON: Yeah, yeah.
INTERVIEWER: O.K.
CLIFTON: Now, we hauled-see, my father had a net and we and the Chief of Police and myself and my father and my uncle used to haul seine and catch shad and all with Mr. Clark and pull shad and fish up, even snakes out there. And we used to go hunting and all, and there are some awful tales I could really tell. One of them was that this guy was a crack shot-this chief of police which was retired off the State Police force-I can’t quite remember his name now, at the present time-but we treed a coon up a tree-and he said we’ll shoot him out, and they held a flashlight up there, and the lantern, of course a flashlight was very rare, they mostly had lanterns, and my uncle went up the tree part of the way with the flashlight-with the lantern, and it was some kind of-I would call it-it had some kind of lantern that had a reflection on it that would shine out-
INTERVIEWER: I see; all right.
CLIFTON: But he emptied his gun and he never hit that, and what was so funny about it is, my uncle went further on up the tree and cut the limb and they fell down, and right at that time it fell down near me and I had to cover up and the dogs like to ate me up with a ‘possum or a coon, I forget which.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, my gosh.
CLIFTON: But in Snow Hill, it is there-that is where my place that I fell out of the window at, was where my great grandmother died.
INTERVIEWER: All right now, that is on Green Street.
CLIFTON: Yes, the house is still standing there and one of the neighbors seen me when I pushed out-about the size of my grandchild here, and pushed out the screen and I fell on-they took away from there three cartloads of bricks there, and my mother at that time had left me upstairs for some reason or another; that’s where we were livin’ and after that, we lived up and kept store-the first store that we had was up there by-behind the jail, at the end of Washington Street.
INTERVIEWER: Washington Street; yeah.
CLIFTON: Right on the corner of Washington Street, and then my father and mother bought-that was one of the places-the first place they ever kept store and lived was there where the old shirt factory is today; in that section over there, there was a store over in that section.
INTERVIEWER: But there was a shirt factory; that is over on Belt Street.
CLIFTON: Yes, yes.
INTERVIEWER: That is near where I live; oh, for goodness sakes-
CLIFTON: And they kept store there, and then they moved from there to there and he was working for Mr. Payne at that time, and I think Mr. Payne ran that store, and right next to that was Mr. Mears that kept a restaurant there, in the corner there where Mr. Shockley and Humphreys joined.
INTERVIEWER: O.K. Now, what kind of store did your father have?
CLIFTON: My father had a grocery store there, with a home over top of it, but as a child they closed up the alleyway there. What happened was, Shockley-Humphreys owned that building there and they also had a store in there next door which they rented out, but they closed up that alley, and when they closed up that alley, and when they closed up that alley, there was a disagreement, so to settle it all, they made it into the a fish market. Years ago, it was different to what kids are today. We had to work, and I worked when I got out of school, and in the summertime I even had to work. I went to school then with the-I went-my teacher-I was in her room and graduated from her room-the one that the library there in Snow Hill was named for.
INTERVIEWER: Oh.
CLIFTON: She was a heavy-set woman and she really could carry a mean switch if she wanted to use it.
INTERVIEWER: I can’t think of her to save my life.
CLIFTON: I thought the world-she was just like a second mother to me. Of course, the school today has been tore down and it’s been tore down quite a while. I know that they had named the library uptown after her, because they asked a donation from me as being in her class, etc. Now, what the new library is today’s name, I don’t know.
INTERVIEWER: It’s just the Worcester County Library.
CLIFTON: At that time, the other library was started in her name and I had her as a principal from the first grade on up.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, for goodness sake.
CLIFTON: To the seventh.
INTERVIEWER: Now, you went to school, to the old school over there off Federal Street.
CLIFTON: Yes, indeedy.
INTERVIEWER: O.K. I had got pictures of that.
CLIFTON: Well, I went there. Now, I have pictures of the flood and everything there when that water rose-
INTERVIEWER: Do you? I have got about five that somebody-Esther Evans-do you know her? Oh, no, I forget who she was. Her father had a store down at Public Landing, or a shop. Richardson, she was-that she had given me.
CLIFTON: I don’t remember. You know at one time there, that as far as if it would have went on-Ocean City started as small as Public Landing. If Public Landing hadn’t got burned or got destroyed by burning out or by that storm, I forget which it was-
INTERVIEWER: I think the storm destroyed it, and then there was a fire after that that did both.
CLIFTON: I think it was a combination of the two that caused it, but that could have been made into Ocean City and at that time, we went there instead of going to Ocean City.
INTERVIEWER: I will bet so.
CLIFTON: And they done an awful lot of fish-sound fishing, and some of the fish they caught in those days I have never seen now, today, was called “greenback”. They were a small fish, approximately maybe from two to five inches long and you got ‘em by haul seines.
INTERVIEWER: Sort of like you do fatback.
CLIFTON: In the waters of Public Landing and Greenback and along there, and of course you could go anywhere along thee and clam and so on and so forth, which they brought in. Now, we did have fish shipped in, in the wintertime. Fish were shipped in, in ice, and brought in by the Express Company, by train, and my father bought-when they quit running, and my father sold his store uptown, he bought another place as you go toward Girdletree.
INTERVIEWER: O.K.
CLIFTON: Out there we had-part of our land was inside Salisbury and part of it right today is owned by my aunt, Aunt Bessie, part of the farm---which we have had and the railroad track, down there by Paul Scarborough’s. The barn that was living quarters for him and his wife. They were separated, but they both lived on the same farm. He lived upstairs, and he kept this great big horse trailer in the barn and we moved that down there before that heavy storm in ’33. We moved that down there and they were goin’ to make that into an apartment house-make it into a home, and when that storm-we had cow sheds on the back part of that farm there. It was a 35 or 40 acre farm, and we had cow sheds on the back part that was open but was tied down by wire and rope.
INTERVIEWER: O.K.
CLIFTON: Fastened down thataway. One flash of lightnin’ we seen the place standing. I was looking out the window of the house, checkin’. The next flash of lightnin’ you could see the whole thing in the air, and it fell across the railroad track there and it completely tore up, and it also ripped up the back cow sheds and hurt the farm, but it is the first twister that I’d ever seen in my life and I hope and pray it’s the last.
INTERVIEWER: ---it’s the last. My.
CLIFTON: But the home places today that I have been over has gone down quite a bit. The gardens there where the two women are livin’-I forget their names-their names don’t come to me-I have been in their house many a time and in their gardens. They had the prettiest gardens on the Eastern Shore.
INTERVIEWER: Oh-Payne, Nellie and Winifred-
CLIFTON: Yes, they were funny people, but of course I can remember when the mill-Payne Millwork-before that burned down.
INTERVIEWER: O.K. I don’t remember that. Where was that?
CLIFTON: It was located two blocks-you know where the Gordy-where the-it was located two blocks over, behind the firehouse.
INTERVIEWER: O.K., towards the river?
CLIFTON: Towards the river.
INTERVIEWER: All right; where Worcester Fertilizer-
CLIFTON: Yeah. Well, the fertilizer plant was there still, but it used to be-the fertilizer plant was there and there was a house there, it was Skidmore lived behind. I have a picture of the home place. It had main streets there like---My father used to work for Mr. Payne and it was a feed mill in there and I remember the night that it burned there, and it was a large size building and the mill was as large as one of the-it was three stories tall.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, my goodness.
CLIFTON: And it was as large as-I would say it was-they carried the feed upstairs and it was ground on down and it was bagged up. As a kid, I went through it, and he also had a thing-after that burned he opened up a bigger place on the river, on the other side of the track.
INTERVIEWER: O.K.
CLIFTON: In a smaller building which was done away with later, and of course I at one time there-the hardware store was there on the corner of Washington, by the bridge, you know.
INTERVIEWER: All right; where Adkins Company used to be.
CLIFTON: On both sides, and then of course, they had their coal pits back there along the railroad track, back in there. They sold coal in those days. I guess there were fifteen coal bins there, right next to the river. The fact of it is, you barely could get behind it.
INTERVIEWER: All right; so it was between the railroad and the river.
CLIFTON: Yes. The coal bins was between there. Now, they had a row of other businesses between that little row. It was Shockley, Humphrey had their place there, side of daddy’s store, and they owned the alleyway back there, and in front of that there was Shockley and Humphreys. Where we were at, we had a gate there, and then the hotel was on the other side where they’d rent rooms and apartments out, and it was about-back of me-back of this hotel was another storage building there, and then it was where Skidmore used to build boats, years ago. His name was Skidmore and he built the boat pretty near a year. Those times there was in the Depression, in the 30’s.
CLIFTON: He says, well, the only thing I know to do is, if you want me to, he says, I will build you a boat for it-so, they started and when they laid the keel and got part of the boards up-as soon as they could get enough of them up they could turn it over so they could test it. They poured water into it; if the water stayed into it that day it was put overboard. A boat in those days didn’t leak. Now, that boat was put over at Public Landing and there was twenty-one head went out on it.
INTERVIEWER: Twenty-one?
CLIFTON: Twenty-one head went out on it, the first trip. And it was over and it was moved down to Captain Scott’s Landing---and with the storm that tore up Public Landing and did so much damage, that boat had air tanks into it so it couldn’t sink. It had a cabin on it, and one week to the day that storm hit. The storm was coming up so they moved it from Public Landing, down to Captain Scott’s and I can remember going down there with my father at that time. Captain Scott called him and told him to come on down, that he didn’t know what and he wanted to see him and we had to leave the car and we walked in water for a couple of miles ‘til we reached the place, and the only way that you could tell where the boardwalk was, the water was so high and you could see it there where the pilings that came up and it had a great big sailboats in there that he had, fishing craft, the kind you use for work boats, and she was tied and she rode the top part of the water. She was tied on both ends and we baled her out that day, and Captain Scott says if things go to worse would it be all right to just cut her loose, because that’s what he was going to do with his. So things went to worse. The storm broke loose one of the big sailboats and the masts of that sailboat or the front end of that sailboat punched a hole into the cabin of this boat, and then it went-as soon as this happened, he seen it was going tear her up so he cut her loose and she left and they found her seven miles, a week later, on a forest, half a mile from the water, and she had pounded herself to-the holes in the planks of the floor. Now, they turned around and my father had, at those times, he had approximately $2300 involved in her. Realize, at that time, during the Depression, what a boat that size would cost. Now, that boat was sold and a new bottom put in that boat and it was used down to Pocomoke, by the oil company down there-Mr.-his name is still on some of the buildings down there. He sold oil, anyhow; now, what is his name? They sold cars and sold oil and everything, right down on the river, on both sides-
INTERVIEWER: Duncan’s.
CLIFTON: Duncan’s.
INTERVIEWER: ----------
CLIFTON: But-and then, of course, as you know, at one time there, that the fertilizer factory used to be the main interest.
CLIFTON: There was a lot of bootlegging going on in those days, too.
INTERVIEWER: Well, I have heard tales about that in the Snow Hill area and in the Forest.
CLIFTON: Yeah, it was-because I will tell you-I will be completely honest-I have known of where-we didn’t know where the sugar was going to. We had ideas, but as far as that, they would come and pick up the sugar in the middle of the night. One of these times, there was about a ton of sugar in the back alley, waiting for someone to pick up, and the old man was drunk and these people come load up the sugar and he hauled off and shot down in that alley and scared the devil out of them. But it was, but those were the good old days, I guess. There’s some tales to be told quite a few ways-but it was-it was bootleggers-it was people that-it was a few people I think, during that time, that did lose their lives, and also lived. As far as that, I don’t condemn them as far as myself, but of course, you could get-my father got a dose of lye-------he might have lost his life on it, so I don’t say-I am not proud of the fact that in those days it happened, but it did happen. It is part of the history.
INTERVIEWER: Right.
CLIFTON: I remember the flood there, where it came up and came through my my back door, and I have pictures of that, if I can find them.
INTERVIEWER: If you could find those pictures sometime, they’d be good-
CLIFTON: They had a row boat tied up to our back door there. It was the same time that we lost that boat.
INTERVIEWER: Lost the boat. O.K. And lost the barn at the same time, too, or was that different?
CLIFTON: No, that was different.
INTERVIEWER: That was different; O.K.
CLIFTON: That was different, and of course, I can remember when Mr. Perdue had his garage there and sold parts, and cars sold at that time as low as $355 for a new vehicle. I seen down there, last week, I seen where they had a Model “T” Ford listed for $525, but again a car that’s listed price---
INTERVIEWER: O.K.
CLIFTON: But what was so funny about it is that there used to be a hardware store there, and there used to be, behind the hardware store was a blacksmith shop.
INTERVIEWER: O.K., and was it Turner’s Hardware Store?
CLIFTON: I think so. It was an old man. He quit, he sold out, and then it was torn down, and then the-
INTERVIEWER: I have got a picture of the inside of that hardware store.
CLIFTON: Well, I have been all over there as a kid. Now, he was robbed there at one time; one Sunday he was robbed and I went back there, and the bars that they had there was prised up on the back window, and him and the policeman was standing inside, and I lived across the street, and you know how kids will do, and I reached up there. I wasn’t big enough to see inside of it and I put my hand on the sill to pull myself up, and he said to me, Clifton, you are going to go to jail because I got a fingerprint expert coming take fingerprints of this place.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, no!
CLIFTON: Now, you talk about somebody scattering home. I scampered home. But I used to go in there when I was---and watch them fix horseshoes and make horseshoes and all, and I used to take the horseshoes that they made-that’s an art in itself; it is a lost art today-but they had to cool them three or four times before you could catch them with your bare hands, and I made a mistake. I used to help him pile them on the rack, and I made a mistake one time there. I grabbed hold of some of those and I burned myself completely brown. But those were really good old days. Back there, side of the place there, they had a hot dog stand right side of the hardware store. There was a house up there, but in the corner of that, it was a restaurant which we would call---on four wheels it was pulled up there. We called it-it was a little restaurant where you could get hot dogs and fried oysters and it was just about the size of a small trailer, a very small trailer of that type where it had glass into it that you could let down and close up, and I can remember when Dr. Pepper first came out-when the Nehi Company came out with their soft drinks and they offered a dollar for the caps; if they spelled the name, you would get a dollar.
INTERVIEWER: O.K.
CLIFTON: They were the good old days, I tell you.
INTERVIEWER: Well, good. Did you ever go over to-you were talking about Scott’s, which is Scott’s Ocean House, on the beach. Was that where you were talking about, or on the mainland? You talked about Captain Scott?
CLIFTON: Yeah; Captain Scott.
INTERVIEWER: He was over on the beach, right? Well, O.K. I was going to ask if you ever went down to Ocean Run.
CLIFTON: Yeah, I have been to all of those places because we had haul seines. My father and my uncle had fishing nets and what we would do, we’d put them on the rowboat and row out and the nets would come off and then you would row back into shore and then you would pull them into the shore. We also bought fish from other fishermen that done the same thing.
INTERVIEWER: O.K.
CLIFTON: Now, we really would not consider ourselves fishermen. We done it more as like you would take a rod and reel today and go out and fish, but there was people that did it for a living. It’s just like Captain Scott and all those. He kept boats and all. He kept places there. That was where he made his living, doing that type of work. At one time there, the best I can remember, is, that I thought, as a kid, that it was the biggest thrill if you went down to Public Landing. You went to, like what some people would call Atlantic City or Hollywood today. But it was a shame that storm tore it up at that time because I think it would have made Ocean City instead of where Ocean City is today, I think it would have been-and it was the foresight of some people that lived in Ocean City and it was very foolish of some people that owned land in Snow Hill. They wanted to keep it for their selves because they had nice homes there and they wanted to keep it exclusive and they wouldn’t let it grow up to be more like it could have been.
INTERVIEWER: Good.
CLIFTON: Do you know of anything else that-?
INTERVIEWER: No, because you’ve told me about the Furnace and about Snow Hill.
CLIFTON: Now, these pictures-if I find these pictures, I will be glad to let you have copies of them. Now, there were rails sticking off of that Old Furnace that’s not there today, and don’t let nobody tell you that it was brought up by hand, because it was not, because I heard from a gentleman there that said a team could not back up there to do it, but they did back up there to do it. I had too many people tell me that, besides my grandfather.
INTERVIEWER: Right!
CLIFTON: Now, he’d seen it. I mean, he’d visit there when they had saw mills and all that. Now, there was saw mills that I went to in those days there, in the---that was owned by-he lived out on the Old Ocean City road-he lived out on the old road as you go to Berlin, over on the right, there.
INTERVIEWER: Northam?
CLIFTON: No, his daughter-they moved from there and moved down back of Princess Anne, and his daughter married one of the men that works to-that I growed up with as a kid, and he owned two or three saw mills.
INTERVIEWER: Was it Pusey?
CLIFTON: Pusey.
INTERVIEWER: O.K.
CLIFTON: Pusey, yeah, Pusey, that’s who it was.
INTERVIEWER: For goodness sake.
CLIFTON: He owned a big home there, if you know where ---lived up there, near the Christian Church, and he lived on down there. Now, I musk ratted, me and my uncle, down there behind where the river-we musk ratted behind the old ice plant is now-we musk ratted back there.
INTERVIEWER: Where is the ice plant?
CLIFTON: I don’t know whether there’s an ice plant there now or not. You know where the road is that you turn to go to Public Landing and the park side---which you go out to---you go out to Public Landing. This will carry you on to there; right over here was the ice plant.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, for goodness sake.
CLIFTON: Now, the ice was brought in.
INTERVIEWER: All right.
CLIFTON: Now, it was not made, it was made in Salisbury, I think, and brought down there, but they kept ice in there. There’s where we considered the ice plant.
INTERVIEWER: O.K.
CLIFTON: And behind that section and where the oil company is today, a lot of that was marshland, and so on and so forth. I have caught many a muskrat out of there, and we had rabbit traps there, and the first rabbit trap-the first rabbit I ever took out of a trap, though I had seen my uncle do it, he rapped him behind the ear and you could lay him down and reset the trap, and he told me-I told him that-Suppose, he says, can you do it? I says, yeah, I can do it. I reached in there and I got that rabbit and I hit him behind the ear and I hit him about half a dozen times, and I said, I got him, and he went on because he was taking the muskrats out of the traps, and I started to set that trap and I had that trap and something skittered through the bushes, and I looked, and that rabbit had come alive again and had gone, and I hollered to him and he said, “Well, that just teaches you. From here on, you leave it alone”. But it was very marshy place behind there, considering everything. Behind that ice plant there, they used to have some old cars there and we would jump on-I don’t know what’s there today. We used to have clumps of grass that we had to jump on and then jump on a car top and go back in there.
INTERVIEWER: Well, you know a lot of the young boys fish back in there and they get into the river, but they say you have to walk on things to get there.
CLIFTON: Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: There might still be some old stumps back there.
CLIFTON: Yeah, that’s so, and we used to fish off the pier, and there was a young man-I was down there, fishing off the pier and there was a colored man down there and a white boy who was older than I was got off, he slipped and fell right down there, where that-you know, there’s spots in that river where they say they cannot-it’s too deep-and so when he went over and he came back up and we tried to give him a pole to do it and the colored man-I guess he was 65 years old-jumped in there and pulled this boy to shore. And of course, there was another colored man come up there that was listening and helped get him all up, but that boy’s life was saved by that colored man. Now, when I got home and told my father and mother of that, I got a spanking because I wasn’t supposed to be there. But it-a lot of the town has stayed pretty near the same there as far as the streets and all and some of the houses has gone down, and I know a lot of the furniture that was in some of those houses today, in those days was worth a fortune at Salisbury. Snow Hill was-had quite a bit of money in those days, and those people, they held on to it, I tell you.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, dear.