Layfield, Grace (1890-1986) |
Worcester County Library: Local History and Genealogy Collection, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, MD
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Interviewee: |
Grace Layfield (1890-1986) |
| Interviewer: |
Katherine P. Fisher |
| Date of interview: |
1979 January 26 |
| Length of interview: |
30 min |
| 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:
Worcester County (Md.)—History
Worcester County (Md.)—Social life and customs
Worcester County (Md.)—Women’s History
Location Terms:
Furnace Town (Md.)
Public Landing (Md.)
Interview Begin
INTERVIEWER: It has been some time since I talked with Raymond Brown, your nephew, and he was mentioning a picnic that you went to with them out to the area of the Iron Furnace, and he said you might remember some things about that area and perhaps something about Public Landing where they used to have days where everybody went down there.
GRACE: Forester’s Day. Forester’s Day is what it was called and it was the first Thursday in August. They always had a picnic at Mt. Olive Church on Wednesday night, Wednesday afternoon, and in the afternoon they had the picnic there at what is Mt. Olive Church now, at Piney Grove. The people would gather there at this picnic-it was a big picnic-with their horses and wagons or mules or buggies or whatever and would leave the picnic and go on to be at Public Landing on Thursday for the big Forester’s Day. That was the farmer’s Forester’s Day.
INTERVIEWER: Where did they sleep?
GRACE: They slept in the wagons. And of course there were families. They would put a pair of horses or mules to the wagon and they’d load their family up in there, with the children and the different families would gather together and they’d carry their food for them the next day. And they would get what could from the picnic and carry along with them and it would be a two days trip. Now I never went to either of the picnics at that time; I don’t ever remember going to Mt. Olive or to Piney Grove picnic. But after I was married and I heard of different ones talking about going to the picnic and then to the Forester’s Day at Public Landing. And I always wanted to go, but it was a long ways. Now where I was raised was near Fruitland, and the only way we had for transportation wherever we went was with horse and buggy or mules and wagon and my husband was working at that time and we had just two daughters and he was working-he couldn’t leave his work and I said I wanted to go. He said, “Grace, if you want to go, the horse will go-horse and carriage-“ and one of my brother-in-laws, my sister’s husband, he was going and carry four of his oldest children. At that time they had two babies and they were twins and the mother couldn’t go-that was my sister. And she couldn’t go because of these two babies. But the father went and they had what they call then an old surrey-roof on top-with two seats in it. Anyway, he had a pair of horses with it, and the four of his children and the youngest of the four that went was Raymond Brown. Anyway, we lived close to Fruitland at that time. Like I say we were married and had two children.
INTERVIEWER: Now did you live toward-on the Worcester County side of Fruitland-toward Eden?
GRACE: No, we lived-Eden was further south from us. This was between Fruitland and like we were going toward Snow Hill. But now then it’s called the Fruitland-St. Luke’s Road. That’s where we lived at that time. He says husband. Well I’ll carry you down there. We got up about 3 o’clock that morning and give the horses time to eat and then we come on down. And Helen says she can remember a little bit about going.
INTERVIEWER: You took your two daughters. And he had his four sons.
GRACE: Anyway, we started and of course it was dark; and then he (husband) went with me down there, and I want on with two teams of us. Yes, I went to my parents and left from there, and my husband he had to go on back to work; he was working at a mill. He was a sawyer at a steam mill at that time. Anyway it was a long trip. We had to take our food and food for the horses; the horses had to have food because then I don’t know how many miles it was, but it was a long time before this highway was built.
INTERVIEWER: You had to go through the forest?
GRACE: Through the forest; winding roads, more like-it used to be a cow path or a sheep path through the woods, but it was a county road. When we got to Snow Hill we thought we had been a long way; and we had. And, it was still a long way to go to Public Landing. We were a little tired, but we got there after a while. It was something I’d never seen before and it never did build up-the last time I was down there it never did build up at Public Landing. The most exciting thing for me. The farmers were not used to such a big body of water like that. And it was hot weather and they wanted to go in that water, bathing. But, honey, they didn’t have any bathing suits. The women wore long dresses and they would take an extra dress to go in the water to bathe; and the men would take an extra shirt and a pair of pants or overalls and they’d go it there. And if you could have the picture of those men and women when they came out of the water how their clothes would cling to them, their long dresses would hang tight around their legs and their hair all in their eyes. They enjoyed it and then when they get through bathing they would come on out. And we didn’t have no bathing houses down there and that was something else was right amusing. You had to hide them the best way you can while they dressed and undressed. And maybe two or three would have a curtain the best they could to hide them so they could dress and undress. But when they come out of there, if we could just had pictures. Then we would be ready to eat our food and most of the time we were hungry, and I think we usually had a plenty to eat. And then we had to think about the voyage back. For that long trip back.
INTERVIEWER: About how long did it take? If you left at 3 o’clock.
GRACE: We left a three o’clock in the morning, and I think it must have been about 9 or 10 in the morning, that’s about 6 or 7 hours. I have no ideas, I never heard anybody say about, now many miles it would have been.
Murray: Well Mama wouldn’t there be more than one carriage of you; wouldn’t Uncle Johnny and his family and all of them; there would be more than just one carriage of you going.
GRACE: I don’t remember of anybody else going along with us.
Murray: I can remember going. I always thought they went too, I thought there was two or three together.
GRACE: They could be, but I just can’t remember exactly about that. But we were tired when we came back. And my husband was there waiting for me to go on home from my parents. I was a Livingston. And I’ve never wanted to drive down there anymore. One trip was aplenty. I think he had been down there, and he said it was a tiresome trip. But there wasn’t many places to go to in the summer, and after all it was something extra. And we’ve been down there since, when we got a car. But that was a long time before this highway was built.
INTERVIEWER: When you got down to Public Landing there were a lot of people who had come there from all over the county?
GRACE: Yes, from all over the county; mostly the farmers, but there were other people. There were a few cars, but there wasn’t many cars at that time, but there was a few. And there was some amusement down there. They had a built place out there over the bay but when the storm come it washed that away, but the board walk is still out there.
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever make shorter trips to the area around the Iron Furnace? For picnics or anything?
GRACE: I’ve never been there so much as I’ve heard the story told and it’s been handed on down. Well the first time that I ever remember of going there, to the old Furnace, you could go in there from the Forest road through there. You could drive through there. You had to get up to it before you could see the Old Furnace. And it was a great curiosity to hear the story of what had happened there when they used to get the iron ore out of the pond out there and then haul it up and dump it down there in that furnace and make the iron ore. And that’s the first I can remember about it. But as far as any buildings or anything I don’t remember seeing any of them only what I have heard. I’ve been told there used to be a little town back there, they had a hotel back there, and buildings, but that’s just hearsay, I’ve never seen any of those at all.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember at all hearing about or seeing because I don’t know when that pond was taken away I think it was when the road went through do you remember seeing the pond? There used to be two ponds, by the furnace a pond about a mile and a half across, it is all just a little tiny stream across on the north end of the furnace there was a huge pond there back in the 1830’s and 1840’s.
GRACE: I don’t remember hearing anyone speak about that. There was a bridge across the pond. And then you know they didn’t have the work to do back there, and they would get together especially in the wintertime, and exchange stories with one another, and see which one could tell the old story. And I remember a little bit; and this was a man, said it was fact, that this man, you may have heard, it is an old story, and it has just been handed down. I don’t know how much it gathered up, like a stone. In this pond-now I don’t know what an otter is-but it’s some kind of a water animal. Anyway, it is said he was a coon hunting one time around this pond, and said his dogs was running this coon and he got in the pond, and this otter got after the dogs, was a biting it, and he said he jumped over in that pond and choked that otter to death. Now I don’t know how much that rolling stone has gathered. I remember hearing that story told.
INTERVIEWER: Where did you go to school?
GRACE: When I went to school I spect it was two miles and a half or more from Fruitland; it was called Bussel School (later Mt. Holly)
GRACE: I enjoy riding through that forest road from the Old Pocomoke Road clear through that forest go by the Old Nazareth Church. I can remember years back when, where the old Nazareth Church is now, it looks like it’s well kept up. Well, from that church on down for a long miles there were farms on both sides of the road, some nice farms, and people lived all along there. I can remember all where there’s woods there now in pine, you could see old Nazareth Church from these farms. You didn’t have to go through the woods there, you could see all these farms. There was a family of Townsends, and Popes, and Puseys, and Wunels, and I don’t know how many different families I can remember when I was a child, because my sister and her husband lived not very far from the old Nazareth Church.
INTERVIEWER: But that’s all forest now?
GRACE: Yes, now it’s all forest and trees.
GRACE: That was years ago. He was an elderly man he was murdered back there. That was Chatam. He lived back there in the forest but it was not very far from the St. Luke neighborhood, but it was in the deep forest, where he lived alone. He never married. And he had a lot of timber; he had money, and it was in the home-that’s where he kept it. Anyway, he was found, he had been murdered and now that’s been years ago.
INTERVIEWER: I know he was murdered, and I always thought he lived near the Old Furnace.
GRACE: I don’t know how far in the forest he lived. But in that same wooded area but it wasn’t right close by.