Evening star., 1934-03-04

mac River and the Piney Point Light
house was moaning its eerie fog dirge.
A motor truck from an oyster
packer and shipper on st. Georges
Island was run out on the new bridge
that connects the island with the
mainland-the old bridge was carried
away with many of the oystermen's
homes and boats in the storm last
August. The truck, the tongerS were
told, would be their "buy-boat." Buy
boats are the large motor boats which
run out to longing grounds and buy
the tongers' catch at the end Of the
day. The tongers worked furiously.
The ice might close in any minute.
Ice Moves Shoreward.
And the ice did move! A vast sheet
of it, a foot thick and seemingly as
broad as the Potomac that stretched
away off into the mist, began sweep
Ing shoreward. A half-dozen colored
men, welding tong shafts as they
sang slow-rhythmed spirituals, saw it
coming. One broke into a songful
prayer that the "ole river roll back"
Others took up the song. They tonged,
and they rolled their eyes at the ap-
preaching ice. and they tonged again.
The news men watched them from the
motor boat-a log canoe-of Robert
and James Deagle, St. Georges Is
Ianders, who ran in among the colored
men for the photographers benefit.
If a shift came in the shoreward
ice, all the boats would be jammed
between the two foes. But those men
needed oysters. And the ice came on
at two-knot rate. Slowly, deliber-
ately, it drove the tongers of the
bar they were working on. AS the
oystermen retreated, they tonged until
nothing met their tongs but sand and
grass; the oyster bar was feet under
that ice.
The caught oysters then were run
to the st. Georges Island Bridge.
Joseph L. Henderson, an island pack
er, was there with his truck. He
bought every load that came to him,
and then headed for the Washington
market.
The Stars men then went down to
o. INd1y S1tys oOdto WC1C 4AoLCA4 AAA
the st. Marys River, too. Only no
respite came. The only work being
done at the beautiful little Maryland
settlement place of the Calverts, who
landed there just 800 years ago this
month, was the rebuilding Of the
ancient State house. Fifty thousand
brick from old Bushwood Manor are
being placed in the 24-inch walls Of
the house that is being reconstructed
in recognition of Maryland's tercen-
tennary. And men are hand-hewing
the great oak timbers that are going
into the historical structure.
Ferry Is Stopped.
Milestone Landing, on the Patuxent
River, was the next stop. Ice had
jammed there so heavily that the
Solomons Island ferry long since had
stopped. The ghost ships Of war
time commerce and troop transport
lay in the murk. No water work was
being done, and none could say when
1t would.
Hope hit the oyster country up on
the Chesapeake Bay side Of the South
ern Maryland peninsula. The West
River showed the first signs Of re-
turning life to an ice-fast industry.
Capt. Vernon Zang at Galesville, on
the West River, and other rivermen
there, were pushing huge cross-cut
saws in the IA inches about their
boats. LAboriously they had chopped
an entrance In the ice. The saw. one
fH,S1lQf into the
opening Heavy timbers were used
as vertical rams, and ice, in that
fashion, was broken out from about
boat hulls so that the little craft
could float.
Out in the West River, some OF
the oystermen had lugged heavy sleds
fashioned out of great timbers. They
chopped and sawed holes through the
ice and worked their tongs In the
bitter cold as they stood on the edge
Of the pools. Tong after tong came
up loaded with oysters. These were
dumped on the sleds and later were
dragged ashore to the shucking houses.
The thaw struck in earnest yester-
day morning. Capt. Robert e. Lee
and his father, Capt. Robert H. Lee,
fitted out their copper-sheathed mo-
tor boat, Paul L. That old veteran
of the ice had effected the rescue Of
three men whose boat was caught In
the ice at the mouth Of the West
River earlier in the thaw, and the
watermen had confidence in her. All
the oyster boat captains at Shady Side
pooled their efforts in what was to
be an attempt to break channel out
through the ice to q great sheet Of
open water in the Chesapeake Bay.
As the Paul L. started her precarious
journey, the oystermen up and down
the creek-Parish Greek, that body Of
water Is called-ran out on the ice
and boarded her.
Tho Stars men were invited to 10