Delaware state journal. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1870-1883, 1881-05-26
Lf.tJ-Es.
From n LocaIizer's Life-S Some Short
Selections Caught and Salted Down
A Glimpse OfCenfraI Kent Before
thc Building of the Delaware Rail-
road.

A Glimpse of Central Kent Before
the Building of the Delaware Rail-
road.
From The sunday star.
In the winter of 1853 my parents re-
moved from New Castle TO a farm below
Camden. in Kent county. | was kept at
school in New Castle until July, when
reioined them. ...-H
This was before the building of the
Delaware railroad and the journey was
made BY boat to Dona's landing and
thence by carriage. The steamboat
Zplhgr ran at the time, leaving Phila-
delpilia for Dona one day and making the
return trip the next, touching at New
Castle Delaware City, Port Penn and
Smyrna Landing going and returning.
With the guilelessness and misplaced
enthusiasm OF a boy of IL, going down
country" was something that had long
looked forward towith eager anticipation.
doubt ii shall feel any bigger or more
buuyant when, in the SIMMER OF 1882,
| step aboard an ocean steamer bound for
Europe than | did when | trod the deck
of the /epggr on the way to that miser-
able farm.
| had lively Imagination in those
deemed it probable that deer roarned wild
in the woods of Kent, and | saw myself in
fancy armed with a steel bow, (wood
sounded too common,) and feathered
arrows with steel points, stalking through
the forests and every now and then bring
ing down a fine buck with dexterous shot.
The transition from this 'topia to thinning
corn under the hot summer sun was
tArr N met nI.l had far
tears OF sorrow and vexation.
| never cried SO much in my life.
cried the most of my time for about two
weeks. Every hill of corn that bent
over | watered with my tears. | leaned
up against the pump and cried. | sat
down on the fence and cried. laid down
the trees and cried. | fought the mos
quitoes and cried.
1t was great waste of water power.
The mosquitoes Were very troublesome
up to the building of the Delaware rail
road. After that they were far less nu-
merous. Railroads are great institu-
ton.
But the natives did not mind them
much-the mosquitoes | mean, not the
railroads. | have seen 'Uncle Tommy"
of fence, and stand quietly conversing,
with satisfaction on his face and big
chew of tobacco in his mouth, while little
streams of blood trickling down the back
of his neck marked the places where
dozens of hungry mosquitoes were getting
in their work and yet he was able to say,
like the apostle Paul, tNone of these
things move me"
IL = a.. -
1858 were peculiar people. Many of
them, and their fathers and grandfathers
before them had spent their lives almost
literally on the spot where they were
horn. The country for radius of ten
miles around formed their world. OF
what lay beyond they knew little and
cared less. The had heard of Philadel-
phia. New York, Baltimore, possibly of
London, and they had seen Dover, Cam
den and Frederica. 1t is not strange that
their ideas of the unvisited cities were
gauged by the familiar towns, or that
they should feel surprised that man
from Philadelphia did not know John
Sherwood or a Richard Madden, an old
Camdenite who may have removed thith-
er. Few of them had ever seen rail
| road; many OF them had never seen a
steamboat.
In their vernacular horse was a
''critter,' corn meal was ''injun," tobac-
co was "backy," mosquitoes We're "skeet-
ers, bedquilt was ''kiver.'' to carry
was ''to tote" because was "kase,n etc.
A limited vocabulary of few hundred
words answered all the requirements OF
these primitive people. They had ''heern
tell of the rich ''prraries" of the West
where good crops could be ''growed"
without using ''goanner, but they
''rerkoned" there was "corn, pork and
injun enough i'll Kent for them.
Whenever, as occasionally though rare
| ly it happened that one of these men was
obliged to visit Philadelphia or Balti-
more, he bade his friends good bye, with
the feeling that he was about to embark
on a very long and periluus Journey, and
| that the chances of his safe return were
very uncertain. When he did get back lie
was a marked man-he had been ''to the
| city" he was looked upon as one who
knew rather too much for one man; he
was stocked with conversational material
for the rest of his life, and his children
would astonish their playinates with the
recital OF the wonderful sights that dad"
saw in the .'city."
With the building of the Delaware rail-
road these old time countrymen began to
change. They would not 20 to the out
side world, so the outside world came to
them. Slowly but surely new ideas crept
in; contact with strangers broadened their
vision; newspapers circulated and were
read, and the ''foresters' came out OF
their seclusion, and mingling with new
comers, learned of and became interested
i'll many things which before had been to
them only vague ideas and unrealities.
Then came the peach fever. Orchards
took the place of corniields, straw berries
We're planted whore catbriers had grown,
and Lawton blackberri were assiduous-
| ly cultivated in fields where the indi-
genous and despised dewberry vines had
been rllthlessly uprooted in years by
| gone. Farms that had been bought for
| 80 per acre, rose in value to $50 and 800,
and towns grew up at railway stations
\ where sassafras bushes and pines had
grown from time ilnmemoral.
The farm upon which my father lived
was fair example of tile enhancement in
the value OF land consequent upon the
spread of the peach fever. In lo40 it had
sold for about 50 per acre. In 1852 my
father purchased it at $40 per acre. In
lN1J-p tilt delaware railroad was COM
pleted, crossing the farm and cutting il
i'll two nearly equal portions. In 1883
my father sold it for So per acre. Two
or three years later it changed hands al
$50 per acre; the next sale was at 500
Then the current turned the other way
and the owner was glad to get it OFT his
hands at 800. But the man to whom he
sold at $50 was stuck i'll the fullest senst
OF the word. He held on in the face of
falling market for years and finally some
time in 1879 or 1850, disposed of the place
to the present owner at about $50 pei
acre. The peach fever has had its day
and fortunes are not made now SO easily
by growing fruit AS when there We're fewe
in the business.
10 :e Continued