Dredgers and Tramps in Marlboro'.
[Special Dispatch to
the Baltimore Sun.]
Upper Marlboro'. Md., Jan. 17. - Since the cold weather set
in the Upper Marlboro' jail has been filled each night with tramps who come and
apply for food and lodging. A great many of the discharged crews of oyster pungies
pass through on their way to Washington.[1]
They -apply for food and shelter at the farm-houses, where their pitiful
condition excites compassion. Many of them have frost-bitten feet, hands or
ears, and appear to have suffered terribly, all of them have harrowing tales of
cruelty by their captains to tell.[2]
[1] John
Wennersten. 2007. The Oyster Wars of
Chesapeake Bay. p. 99.
"The securely name to
pungy boat was a direct descendent of the Virginia pilot schooner and came into
use in the oyster industry in the 1840s. Plungies were colorful boats painted
in light pink and an bottle green, with large keels and two tall raking masts.
In the words of maritime historian Robert Burgess, "In all but superficial
details of construction, the pungy was merely a reduced version of a Baltimore
clipper." The pungies were strong sailing vessels of 23 to 69 tons and
where long favored by oyster dredgers."
[2] Sun,
published as The Sun; Date: 01-18-1893; Volume: CXII; Issue: 54; Page: [1];
Location: Baltimore, Maryland.
Transcribed by John Peter Thompson, January 18th
2014.
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