Robins, James B (1883-1977) |
Worcester County Library: Local History and Genealogy Collection, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, MD
|
Interviewee: |
James B. Robins (1883-1977) |
| Interviewer: |
Kathy Fisher |
| Date of interview: |
1977 February 28 |
| Length of interview: |
30 min |
| Transcribed by: |
|
| Preferred Citation: |
“Name, Oral History Collection, Date of Interview, Worcester County Library, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, Maryland.” |
Topical Terms:
Furnace Town (Md.)—History
Worcester County (Md.)—History
Worcester County (Md.)—Social life and customs
Location Terms:
Furnace Town (Md.)
Snow Hill (Md.)
Interview Begin
INTERVIEWER: How did people get from Snow Hill to the Iron Furnace when you were a boy?
JAMES: Well you know our old farm, corner, turn to the right, keep straight ahead, as you go to Salisbury, and the road to the left goes over Nassawango Creek, that’s going towards the Furnace, there’s one or two little forks that you take. You go several ways, if you follow that road for about, about a mile and a half, you got to that, and a, these other roads go up Powellville and you can keep goin’ and cut out to the highway, going from Ocean City to Salisbury.
INTERVIEWER: Okay I know in that. Well there’s a road that they call Millville Road or Old Stagecoach Road………………
JAMES: Ya, well that’s right in that neighborhood.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, it runs right behind the Furnace.
JAMES: Ya, well that’s a, they probably, a lot of people take that road. They don’t know what road that is.
INTERVIEWER: I think Millville used to be over towards Whiton somewhere. It’s not anywhere now.
JAMES: Whiton?
INTERVIEWER: Ya it used to end up over there. But they’ve said that Millville Road was the main road between Salisbury and Princess Anne, so they used that.
JAMES: Well you know for a long time they drove the mail, came by horse and buggy for a great many years. From Snow Hill to Princess Anne and they went across that road there.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, now how did, was there always a bridge across the river at Snow Hill where it is now?
JAMES:
INTERVIEWER: Ya
JAMES: No they wouldn’t go across the bridge. They would swam them across I’m sure.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, okay.
JAMES: I don’t know just when that bridge was put there.
INTERVIEWER: That’s what I was wondering.
JAMES: It was the second. They build a bridge there before they put this……..
INTERVIEWER: Oh there was?
JAMES: Oh yes and a, it’d been a wooden bridge. It was probably fired a lot of times. Cut us off from gettin’ in town for while.
INTERVIEWER: Oh ya it would, wouldn’t it.
JAMES: Ya block the road.
INTERVIEWER: Uhum. Now as your going out to the Iron Furnace, you cross 2 little bridges on that road, on the way……………….
JAMES: Oh that’s the, that’s the stream that furnishes the power to drive the water, ram.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, now, was this roadway a dam at one time?
JAMES: Was what?
INTERVIEWER: A dam.
JAMES: Ya, they were dammed up so that water had to go, goes over those little bridges, and they made the spill and fall on the paddle wheel or mill wheel, you know that’s what drove ‘em.
INTERVIEWER: Right.
JAMES: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: Well somebody said that there was a saw mill out there.
JAMES: I think there was and that was driven by water power too, I think. I don’t know that, but I think so.
INTERVIEWER: Ya that could be. Do you know when the road was put through there, where those bridges are? I looked at the bridges this week-end and they’re fairly new, and I wondered when they were put through?
JAMES: Wondered what?
INTERVIEWER: When those 2 little bridges were put there, going out towards the Furnace.
JAMES: They were built I imagine right there. They always build bridges like that.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. They’d do them there.
JAMES: The county probably them, sounds like.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, ya they probably would’ve.
JAMES: Sometimes we would reassemble them. That’s what you’ve got to do.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, they do that.
JAMES: ………………tremendous boulder or somethin’ behind it.
INTERVIEWER: You told me that you saw Sampson Hat.
JAMES: Oh ya. Many a time.
INTERVIEWER: Were there any buildings out there? When you saw him out there?
JAMES: Ya there were the remains of several small buildings like the kind that he was livin’ in.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
JAMES: I figured was a half a dozen of ‘em, rotted away and were not livable.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. We went out Sunday and we could find some foundations of the building and what we’re going to try to do is locate where all those building were, to maybe, you know at least rebuild or somethin’ someday. We found a cellar hole for the mansion house.
JAMES: You did?
INTERVIEWER: Ya it’s about 6 feet deep under there and right good brick work. Now tht was over towards the Millville roadside, wasn’t it?
JAMES: Ya I think it was. I wish you’d seen ‘em when it was there, beautiful woodwork in that home.
INTERVIEWER: Ohhh, my. Well there’s nothing there now.
JAMES: No they stole everything there was in it. In my time.
INTERVIEWER: Okay they did indeed. Do you remember ever hearing about a bank out there?
JAMES: No I can’t say I did.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
JAMES: Early days for banks.
INTERVIEWER: Ya that’s what I thought.
JAMES: You know the first bank in Worcester County is the First National Bank of Snow Hill. That’s the first bank in Worcester County.
INTERVIEWER: I didn’t know that.
JAMES: And my grandfather was cashier. He’d been Clerk of Court for many, many years. He overseed, overseed the building the bank and went stayed until he died with heart failure, and a, of course that was John Walter Smith, was the big dog in that bank.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Now he bought………
JAMES: He was Governor of Maryland.
INTERVIEWER: Right, and he at one time owned the Iron Furnace Property.
JAMES: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, ‘cause his daughter…….a………what’s her name?
JAMES: I’ll tell ya in a minute. Lottie Foster. Lottie Smith Foster.
JAMES: That’s it. Still owns it or her heirs own it.
JAMES: Ya, the boys, I haven’t seen him for a long time. I used to know them when I lived in Snow Hill.
INTERVIEWER: I’ll be darned.
JAMES: One of them, they call Monk, the other one they call Little Arthur. He was named for his father.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
JAMES: John Walter Smith had 2 daughters. Lottie and………I don’t know.
INTERVIEWER: The man that got the Furnace goin’, Spence, you were tellin’ me about him last time. I read somewhere that he was buried in Snow Hill. Is that, do you know that? It said after he lost all his money at the Furnace he went to Salisbury and did something there.
JAMES: Seems to me I ever heard that. I don’t believe I can tell ya…….Arthur I remember was buried in Snow Hill.
INTERVIEWER: Ya but one thing I read said he used all his wife’s money on the Furnace.
JAMES: He was connected with the Teagle Mansion. Run away with Townsend.
INTERVIEWER: Ya there was one that connected with that. Yes it was, ‘cause he was from Princess Anne.
JAMES: That’s who it is, he was a Townsend. I bet ya. You’ve read the Entailed Hat. I suspect Teagle Townsend or his family. I bet ya anything on that.
INTERVIEWER: That would have been.
JAMES: 2 or 3 people lost about what they had in that deal.
INTERVIEWER: We’re tryin’ to find out some of the families who lived at the Iron Furnace to see if there are any of ‘em today that could tell us about it. And I’ve only come with one name, MacAllen.
JAMES: MacAllen?
INTERVIEWER: MacAllen, and I don’t know who they are.
JAMES: Well they were, of course that was before your time, the first library they had in Snow Hill, that was called the MacAllen building. There was 2 brothers, that’s the same family your talkin’ about now. Of course they’re both dead. Will MacAllen, and let’s see, what was the other one. They ran a bakery there in Snow Hill for quite a long time. Still there, and Snow Hill used it for a library.
INTERVIEWER: Ya I didn’t know what that was. Huh.
JAMES: They made pretty nice bread, pies and that kind. They had a great big ginger cake. It was 4 or 5 inches in diameter. Man they were good.
INTERVIEWER: I’ll bet so. There was a man named Hill who, who according to what I’ve said was raised by the MacAllens out at the Furnace and then he went back and worked at the, I’ll say saw mill or at the boarding house. He lived out there for a while. Now you suppose that relations to Hill’s that are still there today.
JAMES: I imagine, I’m tryin’ to place the man.
INTERVIEWER: John James Hill.
JAMES: Huh?
INTERVIEWER: His first name was John. I think he’s some relation……..
JAMES: One of those Hills had a short leg. Had a cork shoe, build him up about 6 inches, I’d expect, and he limped. He taught school at the high school for years and years.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Is he related to Mabel Hudson? Do you know Mable Hudson?
JAMES: Yes indeed.
INTERVIEWER: I think, it’s supposed to be some relative of hers. Does she have any Hills?
JAMES: Let’s see, Mabel Hudson married, Mable Dunlap. Well Dunlap was a baker with MacAllen brothers.
INTERVIEWER: Was he?
JAMES: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: Of for goodness…….well that’s not any relation to Jack Dunlap? You know the young lawyer that we know in Ocean City. You know who I mean?
JAMES: No, I don’t know who you mean.
INTERVIEWER: He was a nice policeman.
JAMES: Not to my knowledge, but it could have been.
INTERVIEWER: Ya it could have been, I’ll be darned.
JAMES: But a, that’s when, ya he was a baker, Dunlap was.
INTERVIEWER: Okay that’s good. You don’t know any other families that used to live out at the Furnace?
JAMES: No I’m afraid I’m pretty dumb on that.
INTERVIEWER: Well nobody else knows any either.
JAMES: Well I don’t know, if you had time, sometime if there’s one, two or……, but, just stop at all those houses around or nearby the Furnace, they might lead you to somethin’. Nobody knows anything about it. It’s pretty hard to dig up, you just have to stumble on it.
INTERVIEWER: Well that’s what we’re doin’. There’s a family named Ardis that lived out near there.
JAMES: Ya I knew them very well. They came, Accomac County, Virginia. Moved up here.
INTERVIEWER: Oh they did?
JAMES: Ya. They hadn’t been livin’, of course they been there 35 years maybe, 40. Time passes fast.
INTERVIEWER: Now what about the Hancock’s that live out there? Have they been around long?
JAMES: They moved there, and I, let me see if I can tell ya where they moved. I don’t know whether, you know Jim Hancock, Bill Hancock, but there’s the family. There was the grandfather that moved there. I’m tryin’ to think of his first name……………….
INTERVIEWER: Vaughn or Arthur?
JAMES: No they was his sons.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
JAMES: Now let’s see where did those Hancock’s came from? I know just as well as anything. They came, I think, I’m pretty positive on that, some general area around Stockton.
INTERVIEWER: Yep. There are a lot of Hancocks down in Stockton. Still.
JAMES: That’s the family I think………
INTERVIEWER: Ya that was the family.
JAMES: Anyway it was down around there, somebody ought to try to check with ‘em to see…………….
INTERVIEWER: Ya, ‘cause if there was supposed to have been a thousand people livin’ there, sure they went somewhere. Somebody ought to remember ‘em.
JAMES: Somebody’s got to……………………………………