Voyage of The Paper Canoe [45]
short ferry conveys the passengers across the water to a narrow island beach, which is considered by Bayard Taylor, the author, the finest beach he has ever visited. This new watering-place is called Ocean City; and my friend, B. Jones Taylor, was treasurer of the company which was engaged in making the much-desired improvements. The shallow bays in the vicinity of Ocean City offer safe and pleasant sailing-grounds. The summer fishing consists chiefly of white perch, striped bass, sheep's-head, weak-fish, and drum. In the fall, bluefish are caught. All of these, with oysters, soft crabs, and diamond-backed terrapin, offer tempting dishes to the epicure. This recently isolated shore is now within direct railroad communication with Philadelphia and New York, and can be reached in nine hours from the former, and in twelve hours from the latter city.
From the Hommack to South Point is included the length of Sinepuxent Bay, according to Coast Survey authority. From South Point to below the middle of Chincoteague Island the bay is put down as "Assateague," though the oystermen do not call it by that name. The celebrated oyster-beds of the people of Chincoteague commence about twenty miles south of the Hornmack. There are two kinds of oysters shipped from Chincoteague Inlet to New York and other markets. One is the long native plant the other, that transplanted from Chesapeake Bay: this bivalve is rounded in form, and the most prized of the two. The average width of Sinepuxent was only a mile. When I turned westwardly around South Point, and entered Assateague Bay, the watery expanse widened, between the marshes on the west and the sandy-beach island on the east, to over four miles.
The debouchure of Newport Creek is to the west of South Point. The marshes here are very wide. I ascended it in the afternoon to visit Dr. F. J. Purnell, whose attempts to introduce the pinnated grouse and California partridges on his plantation had attracted the attention of Mr. Charles Hallock, editor of "Forest and Stream"; and I had promised him, if possible, to investigate the matter. This South Point of Sinepuxent Neck is a place of historical interest, it being now asserted that it is the burial place of Edward Whalley, the regicide.
Early in 1875, Mr. Robert P. Robins found in a bundle of old family documents a paper containing interesting statements written by his great-great-grandfather, Thomas Robins, 3d, of South Point, Worcester County, Maryland, and dated July 8, 1769. We gather from this reliable source that Edward Whalley left Connecticut and arrived in Virginia in 1618, and was there met by a portion of his family. From Virginia he travelled to the "province of Maryland, and settled first at ye mouth of ye Pokemoke River; and finding yt too publick a place he came to Sinepuxent, a neck of land open to ye Atlantic Ocean, where Colonel Stephen was surveying and bought a tract of land from him and called it Genezar; it contained two thousand two hundred acres, south end of Sinepuxent; and made a settlement on ye southern extremity, and called it South Point; to ye which place he brought his family about 1687, in ye name of Edward Middleton. His own name he made not publick until after this date, after ye revolution in England, (in ye year of our Lord 1688,) when he let his name be seen in publick papers, and had ye lands patented in his own name."
The writer of the above quotation was the great-grandson of Edward Whalley (alias Edward Middleton), the celebrated regicide.
Four miles from South Point I struck the marshes which skirted Dr. Purnell's large plantation, and pushing the canoe up a narrow branch of the creek, I waded through the partially submerged herbage to the firm ground, where the doctor was awaiting me. His house was close at hand, within the hospitable walls of which I passed the night. Dr. Purnell has an estate of one thousand five hundred acres, lying along the banks of Newport Creek. Since the civil war it has been worked by tenants. Much of it is woodland and salt-marshes.
From the Hommack to South Point is included the length of Sinepuxent Bay, according to Coast Survey authority. From South Point to below the middle of Chincoteague Island the bay is put down as "Assateague," though the oystermen do not call it by that name. The celebrated oyster-beds of the people of Chincoteague commence about twenty miles south of the Hornmack. There are two kinds of oysters shipped from Chincoteague Inlet to New York and other markets. One is the long native plant the other, that transplanted from Chesapeake Bay: this bivalve is rounded in form, and the most prized of the two. The average width of Sinepuxent was only a mile. When I turned westwardly around South Point, and entered Assateague Bay, the watery expanse widened, between the marshes on the west and the sandy-beach island on the east, to over four miles.
The debouchure of Newport Creek is to the west of South Point. The marshes here are very wide. I ascended it in the afternoon to visit Dr. F. J. Purnell, whose attempts to introduce the pinnated grouse and California partridges on his plantation had attracted the attention of Mr. Charles Hallock, editor of "Forest and Stream"; and I had promised him, if possible, to investigate the matter. This South Point of Sinepuxent Neck is a place of historical interest, it being now asserted that it is the burial place of Edward Whalley, the regicide.
Early in 1875, Mr. Robert P. Robins found in a bundle of old family documents a paper containing interesting statements written by his great-great-grandfather, Thomas Robins, 3d, of South Point, Worcester County, Maryland, and dated July 8, 1769. We gather from this reliable source that Edward Whalley left Connecticut and arrived in Virginia in 1618, and was there met by a portion of his family. From Virginia he travelled to the "province of Maryland, and settled first at ye mouth of ye Pokemoke River; and finding yt too publick a place he came to Sinepuxent, a neck of land open to ye Atlantic Ocean, where Colonel Stephen was surveying and bought a tract of land from him and called it Genezar; it contained two thousand two hundred acres, south end of Sinepuxent; and made a settlement on ye southern extremity, and called it South Point; to ye which place he brought his family about 1687, in ye name of Edward Middleton. His own name he made not publick until after this date, after ye revolution in England, (in ye year of our Lord 1688,) when he let his name be seen in publick papers, and had ye lands patented in his own name."
The writer of the above quotation was the great-grandson of Edward Whalley (alias Edward Middleton), the celebrated regicide.
Four miles from South Point I struck the marshes which skirted Dr. Purnell's large plantation, and pushing the canoe up a narrow branch of the creek, I waded through the partially submerged herbage to the firm ground, where the doctor was awaiting me. His house was close at hand, within the hospitable walls of which I passed the night. Dr. Purnell has an estate of one thousand five hundred acres, lying along the banks of Newport Creek. Since the civil war it has been worked by tenants. Much of it is woodland and salt-marshes.