ORAL HISTORY: Capt. Bill Evans Recalls Ferryboat Days
1950s post card of the Princess Anne steam ferry departing Norfolk for Cape Charles. This was where Capt. Bill Evans got his start as an ordinary seaman — “as low as you could get.”
February 10, 2014
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Cape Charles Historical Society has for more than a decade been recording oral histories of the area’s earlier days. In 2006, Bill and Jan Neville interviewed the late Capt. Bill Evans. A grant from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities enabled 15 interviews to be transcribed, and the Historical Society has made this one available for readers of the Wave. All the transcriptions may be read at the Cape Charles Museum.)
Excerpts from an interview with Bill and Jan Neville, March 31, 2006
PART ONE
Today is March 31st, 2006, and we’re talking with Captain Evans, his lovely wife, Grace is here with us, as is my brother, Junius, aka Jan. I don’t know where to start. I guess one of the things I was curious about, did you grow up around here?
No, I come from Pennsylvania. From the coal mines. Shamokin — that’s an Indian name.
(Grace): Tell them what you were in Pennsylvania. Weren’t you known as a bootlegger?
Yeah, I was a bootlegger in Pennsylvania. You go up in the mountains, you dig a hole and you go down and get the coal out. You’re a bootleg coal miner.
My brother-in-law is a coal miner in western Virginia. I didn’t know you mined coal!
My grandfather and my uncles, they were coal miners, authentic coalminers. I was a bootlegger.
When did you come here?
I come here the first day of January, 1938. I was 18 years old. My stepfather had married my mother and they lived in Shamokin for a while and then he decided to come down here. He took my mother and I went to Baltimore and got a job there on a riveting gang. And got laid off there and I started looking for another job and my mother told me to come on down here. So I come down here and that’s how I ended up down here. Yes, my stepfather was from Cape Charles. His name was Bernice Ward. I come down here and I wound up cutting wood for the house. They come got me one day and told me I had a job on the ferry. But come to find out my father’s father had spoke to one of the captains on the boat and that’s how I got the job.
Inside track! So where did you start out on the boat?
Just as low as you could get! Ordinary seaman. I had to get a lifeboat ticket first. Which I did. You had to have a year’s time on deck to get the lifeboat ticket.
So what did that qualify you to do?
A steamboat had to have so many men that had lifeboat tickets. We were a passenger ferry. That qualifies you to operate a lifeboat with a crew. You were in charge of the lifeboat.
What was the first steamer you worked on?
The Princess Anne. I started out on the Princess Anne. But the one I worked on the most was the Pocahontas. [Read more…]
Oral History Project Planned for Rosenwald School
Historic marker reads: Cape Charles Colored School
Constructed in 1928, this school opened about 1930 for African American children in Cape Charles during legalized segregation. The building was constructed with contributions from the local African American community, the State Literary Fund, and the Julius Rosenwald Fund, established in 1917 to build schools for African American students in the rural South. Staffed by three teachers and a principal/teacher, the school housed grades one through seven, and was a center for educational, social, and cultural events for the African American community. Under Principal Jesse L. Hare, the school closed in 1966 when Northampton County Schools were consolidated four years before their integration. (Wave photo)
February 10, 2013
The Cape Charles Rosenwald School Restoration Initiative is working to preserve the history of the old Cape Charles Rosenwald School, its alumni, and faculty. The group has been awarded a $2,000 grant from the Virginia Foundation of the Humanities to conduct an oral history project entitled “Voices from Over the Hump – An Oral History of the Cape Charles Elementary School – A Rosenwald School.”
The project captures in words and film the history of the Cape Charles Elementary School (identified on the historical highway marker as the Cape Charles Colored School), from the experiences of surviving alumni, faculty, and members of the school’s community, as well as from existing institutional records, personal photos and other historical documents collected from local government and private individuals.
The interviews are conducted by students from the Old Dominion University, guided and supervised by Dr. Bridget Anderson, ODU Associate Professor of Linguistics. The students will record, transcribe and analyze the interviews using ethnographic methodology.
The data collected and analyzed will provide the foundation for a documentary film, booklet of excerpts from the oral history interviews, archived scholarly research materials, a virtual museum for a future web site and traveling exhibit that could be used in schools and other venues in the region.
Nine interviews have been conducted. Six additional interviews are scheduled for the spring. Alumni and faculty members interested in archiving their experiences are asked to contact the Initiative through their Facebook page (click here).
COMMENTARY: Advice to the New School Board
By TED WARNER
February 3, 2014
On Wednesday, January 15, I drove back to Northampton County, across the increasingly overpriced Bay Bridge-Tunnel. I drove around Cape Charles, taking in the familiar streets, and eventually made my way to the Northampton County Public Schools Central Office in order to witness the swearing in ceremony of the county’s first elected school board.
For many of us, the ceremony marked the end of a long process which began several years ago.
Several hundred of us sat in the Old Middle School auditorium to express our outrage over the unceremonious dismissal of a popular high school principal. But there were only eight of us a few weeks later, facing that great, inevitable question: “What’s next?”
Over the next few months, we collaborated closely and struggled to develop a message that was respectful of a long litany of complaints about the state of our public schools, but was also forward-thinking, positive, and would ultimately lead to a positive change in the county. We recognized that the county’s public school administrators and School Board were not responding to needs of teachers, parents, and the community at large. For example, the county’s strategic plan addressed the topic of “community outreach” with only the ominously apathetic words “on going.” That, we felt, was not enough. So we began circulating a petition to create an elected (and not appointed) school board. The petition led to a referendum, which was overwhelming approved by the voting public in November 2012. Then we turned our attention to recruiting candidates for the School Board.
For my part, I was adamant that the candidates be subjected to public scrutiny and that they be asked to articulate an unwavering commitment to involving the expertise of teachers in their deliberations. I firmly believe that almost any problem in our schools can be better solved by a group of teachers, working in the classroom day in and day out, than by Central Office personnel or state-level officials in the Department of Education. Although I was there for every step of this story, I hope that this last point — that the teachers should be more respected — was my contribution.
After a series of public forums, of which the most productive was sponsored by the Northampton County Education Association, a professional association of Northampton’s teachers and support professionals, a group of candidates was selected. In November, the people elected their first school board.
When they raised their hands a week ago and took their oath of office, I hope they realized that although a long story had come to a triumphant conclusion, a new story was beginning. And that story begins with that same great, inevitable question: “What’s next?”
It saddens me that I will not be a part of answering that question. Shortly after the election in November, I accepted a position that required me to move out of the school system. My colleagues congratulated me warmly, and I was grateful for their support. As we all must, my decision to move on was responsible to my family obligations and respectful to the resignation process as defined by School Board policy. I certainly wish that Northampton County could have created the circumstances for me to remain. [Read more…]
FRIDAY 2/14: Celebrate a Love Affair with Puppy Drum
“Puppy Drum on the Eastern Shore” is this week’s topic at the Science and Philosophy Seminar, being held jointly with the Academy for Lifetime Learning, both of the Eastern Shore of Virginia. The seminar begins at 12:30 p.m. Friday, February 14, in the Lecture Hall of the Eastern Shore Community College, 29300 Lankford Hwy., Melfa. [Read more…]
SATURDAY 2/15: ‘Perception’ at Palace Theatre: You Can’t Always Believe in Happy Ever After
February 10, 2014
An Atlanta performing arts production company will present “Perception,” an original play 7:30 p.m. Saturday, February 15, at the Palace Theatre. Tickets are $12.
Perception is the love story of Hamilton and Margaret, a newlywed couple who fall deeply in love and share that love with the baby of their dreams. Their dream is shattered when Margaret awakes one morning to find their baby not breathing and herself on the verge of insanity. Hamilton soon finds himself struggling with the desire to want to move on with their lives but has to figure out a way to deal with his wife’s instability which leaves him at a crossroads. In addition to dealing with his wife’s instability, he now has to deal with a mother-in-law who is willing to do anything to keep her daughter’s marriage together and a best friend who isn’t forthcoming about the troubles of his own marriage. The story of Perception leads one on a dangerous ride that involves love, lust, and betrayal. Are you ready to have your Perception of Love changed?
WEEKEND: South Port Rises
WEEKEND: SOUTH PORT RISES
February 8, 2014
Construction of South Port Investors’ Cape Charles Yacht Center has been ongoing for the past year, but only now has anything risen above the horizon. The two-story wooden structure across from the Coast Guard station began taking shape late last month. The first floor is for equipment storage, while upstairs will be an apartment for an on-site manager.
The bulkhead and floating dock at right were constructed last year to accommodate mega-yachts. At the east end of the yacht center are three boats owned by principal investors Furlong and Eyre Baldwin: a Hinckley sailboat, the restored Buy Boat “Georgie E.,” and the sightseeing vessel “Oyster Catcher.”
Behind the building under construction, a 40-foot high, three-level boatel will offer storage for 33 boats. Drydock yacht repair will take place across the road in the area formerly occupied by the town wastewater treatment plant.
South Port is soliciting vendors for a bistro, rental shops, and a bed & breakfast in addition to boat manufacturing, yacht brokerage, boat rentals, sail making, ship stores, and insurance.
Readers are invited to submit their favorite local photos for Weekend editions of the Wave, when the picture extends all the way across the page. (Wave photo)
EXTRA! Gov. McAuliffe Visits Bayshore, Brings Check
Gov. Terry McAuliffe presents check to Northampton County Board of Supervisors Chairman Larry LeMond and Cape Charles Mayor Dora Sullivan. The grant money goes to Bayshore Concrete Products in return for creating 135 jobs. (Wave photos)
By DORIE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave
February 5, 2014
Newly elected Governor Terry McAuliffe came to town yesterday bearing a gift — a $150,000 grant for Bayshore Concrete Products in return for creating 135 jobs. The expansion at Bayshore comes after a debilitating dry spell: Bayshore General Manager Chad Saunders noted that in 2012, production was down by half. And in 2013 things got even worse: Bayshore poured only 20 percent of its normal amount of concrete.
All that is changing now that Bayshore has won some big contracts: Great Egg Harbor Bridge in New Jersey, the Bayonne Bridge between Bayonne, NJ, and Staten Island, NY, and most recently for New York’s Tappan Zee Bridge. In order to ship larger concrete products out of Cape Charles, Bayshore is spending $4 million on harbor infrastructure.
Northampton Economic Development Director Charles McSwain said that for Bayshore to qualify for the state grant money, both Northampton County and the Town of Cape Charles had to “partner” in the endeavor by providing their own tax incentives to Bayshore. The county and the town will “forgive” Bayshore the increased property taxes for 10 years that it otherwise would pay on up to $1.8 million of infrastructure improvements. Based on current tax rates, that translates to $12,000 county annual tax relief and $5,000 for the town, for a total over 10 years of $170,000.
In December the Town of Cape Charles also awarded Bayshore Concrete a “stimulus grant” that will refund to the company the increased machinery and tools tax it otherwise would pay on its infrastructure improvements. Town Manager Heather Arcos told the Wave she estimates the value to Bayshore in town tax credits at roughly $10,000 a year for five years. The total tax relief package for Bayshore from the town and the county equals about $220,000.
“Things are looking up,” said County Chairman Larry LeMond, “after a difficult last five years.” As Vice President of Bay Coast Railroad, LeMond has every reason to be pleased: Bay Coast Railroad is largely dependent on business from Bayshore, as the cement to cast concrete products arrives on Bay Coast rail cars.
The arrival of the governor shut down Bayshore operations for a couple of hours as every employee gathered at a tent set up for the ceremony. When McAuliffe spoke the magic word “jobs,” the employees clapped and cheered.
Bayshore Concrete employees assembled to hear the Governor (at left). More will join them this year.
Welcome to the New Weekly Wave!
February 3, 2014
DEAR READERS,
Today marks 19 months of publication for the Cape Charles Wave, and the first change in our format. Up until today the Wave has operated as a daily online newspaper, with one or more new stories posted at the top of the page at least five days a week. Judging by statistics, our readers enjoy visiting the Wave each day to see what’s new.
The problem with daily updates, however, is that important news goes away too fast. And so beginning today we are changing the Wave format to place more emphasis on NEWS. Our other categories — arts, dining, events, features, commentary, editorials, letters, columns, passings — will still feature prominently on the front page, but secondary to news stories.
To accomplish this, the Wave is becoming a weekly publication, with a new issue every Monday. The stories published on Monday will remain on the page in that order for a full week, giving prominent exposure to the news stories at the top of the page. However, Comments, Anonymous, Gossip, and Classifieds will continue to be updated in real time, so we hope that many readers will still want to visit the Wave every day to see what others have to say about the news, commentary, and events of the week. And we’ll still publish the WEEKEND photo page whenever we’ve got a good one.
We’ll also make an exception for important breaking news such as the upcoming town elections, which will merit an EXTRA! edition on Wednesday following the vote. (UPDATE: As it happened, Governor McAuliffe’s visit to Cape Charles merited an EXTRA! the very next day.)
This week’s stories lead with news on the chicken front: Town staff has recommended to the Planning Commission to allow residents to keep a few hens (not roosters) on their property.
The next story follows up on Public Service Authority news with details of Bob Panek’s resignation as PSA chairman.
Then comes a restaurant review of the Eastville Inn by our new food critic Clarice MacGarvey, who hopes to visit and review every restaurant in town and nearby.
After that is a humorous but biting commentary by the always controversial Wayne Creed. It sounds like his family might become members of the new Bay Creek Beach Club.
Following that is an insightful analysis of the situation in Northampton County Schools by Ted Warner, who until a few months ago was a Cape Charles resident, a teacher at Northampton High, and president of the local teachers association.
And we’re not finished yet — the week’s offerings conclude with a reprint of a story on Cape Charles published exactly 15 years ago this week in the Baltimore Sun. As always, it’s intriguing to read these reports from a “back to the future” perspective. We’ve been waiting for months to present it on its 15th anniversary. [Read more…]
