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? Causes of fatal
: accidents examined
m
3 Fatal accidents may be produced
by such external factors as en
vironmental hazards and such in
?
-ternal factors as carelessness. The
records of Perquimans County
describe many such accidents, which
-are often revelatory of life in the
past.
I Nature filled Perquimans with one
major hazard ? water. Crossing or
navigating branches, creeks and
fivers was a necessity for anyone
traveling far in the county. Rickety
bridges and flimsy boats too easily
paused fall into the water.
An autumn day might invite a sail
down river. Early on the morning of
October 20, 1873, nineteen-year old
Edmund John Skinner set out in a
10W -foot sailboat with his friends
Stephen Dail and Abram Whedbee.
With Skinner steering, the boys
sailed from Hertford down river for
some distance.
The wind was blowing hard and
rough. Suddenly the boat ran under
and turned over to windward,
throwing the boys overboard. All
three were able to surface, but as
Dail climbed on the stern the boat
turned over again.
On board once again, the boys
found the boat righted but full of
water. Skinner jumped out and swam
to a net stake, his exertions causing
the boat to overturn a third time.
Dail and Whedbee got on again.
Then a fourth overturn. In panic,
Whedbee caught Dail and pulled him
under. Dail got clear, spied the boat
six yards away, swam to it, and got
aboard. Whedbee he saw no more.
Clinging to the net stake, his head
only a little above water, Skinner
called out "Save yourself" as the
drifting boat carried Dail along. Four
hundred yards Dail drifted before
forever losing sight of his friend.
Aside from boating, swimming and
bathing accounted for many water
accidents. Then, too, water was
hazardous when solid as well, as
Rebecca Roberts found in January
1837 when she went "walking on the
ice and fell across the Log... in a
certain place in baly Hack (and) was
found dead."
Animals also proved a threat to
human life. When his horse ran off in
a state of fright in 1852, Henderson
Arrenton was violently thrown from
his cart. He did not survive a frac
tured skull.
A similar injury afflicted Francis
Newby in March 1830. He "received a
kick on the head. ..from a horse. ..Mr.
N. was a solider of the revolution,
and after having excpaed the bullets
of the enemy in our struggle for in
dependence, and lived to the good old
age of 73 years, was killed by a kick
from his own horse."
Domestic beasts and wild animals,
farm tools and household im
plements, striking lightning and
exploding mills and many other
factors were vehicles for death by
accident. Nevertheless, a major
cause of accidents has always been
human carelessness.
In September 1847 John Sutton,
probably hunting, came upon a
certain oak tree lying by the road
side. He climbed onto that unsteady
observation post, whereupon his flint
pan gun accidentally discharged and
killed him.
William T's accident was his own
falut and could have been prevented.
At 4:30 a.m. on Sunday in August 1892
he was rim over by a train in Hert
ford. He had been in a state of in
toxication. Too much Saturday night,
no more Sundays or Mondays or...
History and common sense plainly
teach, "Be careful!"
Looking back
20 Years Ago
By VIRGINIA WHITE TRANSEAU
HERTFORD'S TOWN BUDGET
INCREASED TO $225,000 FOR
FISCAL YEAR '63-64: The Hertford
Town Board, adopted the budget and
tax rate for the fiscal year 1963-64 at
a meeting here Monday night.
The tax rate is the same as last
year's, 95 cents.
LOCAL STORE GETS
CALIFORNIA ORDER: White's
Dress Shoppe, owned by Mrs. Jim
Bass, recently received an order
from Newport Beach, California.
Mrs. Bass states this isn't the first
Letters
The PERQUIMANS WEEKLY
welcomes the opinion of its
readers We print letters to the
editor on subjects of local, state,
national and international in
terest.
Letters should be limited to 300
350 words and should include the
name, address and telephone
number of the writer. Only the
name and address will be
published with the letter.
The subject matter should he of
interest to the community, not a
personal gripe. Letters may be
edited by our news staff for
clarity and space limitations.
Mail letters to: The
Perquimans Weekly. P.O. Box
277, Hertford, N.C. 27944, or drop
them off at our offices at Cour
thouse Square.
T
order the local store has received
from a distance.
EIGHTEEN BIRTHS AND ONE
DEATH IN PERQUIMANS
COUNTY IN AUGUST: Seventy-two
persons died and 182 were born in
Perquimans, Pasquotank, Camden,
Chowan, Currituck, Dare, Gates,
Tyrrell and Washington Counties in
August of this year.
Perquimans County reported 18
live births and one death, which was
caused by heart disease.
TRIO FROM HERTFORD AT
TENDS SCOUT MEET: W. S. (Sam)
Long, Area District Commissioner of
Boy Scouts, John Ward, assistant
Scout Master and Dilman Young, a
committeeman, attended the
Tidewater Council Boy Scouts Adult
Leaders Training Course held at
Little Creek Amphibious Base
Saturday.
BPW CLUB PLANS FOR GUEST
NIGHT: Members of the Hertford
Business and Professional Women's
Club met at the home of Mrs. R. M.
Riddick to make final plans for their
"Guest Night."
One feature of the evening will be a
fachion show with Miss Thelma
Elliott as mistress of ceremony, in
which the following members will
take part: Miss Hulda Wood, Mrs.
Anne Young, Mrs. Essie Burbage,
Mrs. Roxana Jackson, Mrs. Tommy
Matson. Mrs. Mac Kanojr, Mrs.
Marie Elliott. Mrs. Mary Dale Lane,
Mrs. Betty Swindell and Mrs.
Georgia Roberts.
i
THE PERQUIMANS WEEKLY
Published Every Thursday
By Advance Publ., Elizabeth City
Jane B. Williams
Managing Editor
Pa1 MontfWd * "
Advertising Manager ? Ken Castelloe
? Circulation Manager '
Think I'll surprise her and bake a pie
? t w v. - . :kS ;
The beginning of the computer age and
the end of mankind m
If there is one person in this whole
world I'd love to get even with, its the
person that invented computers.
Computers are those wonderful
little devices that are supposed to
save human beings all sorts of time,
money and headaches.
Computer manufacturers and
salesmen will tell you that when you
enter information into a computer it
stays there until you decide to
eliminate it. Sure it does.. .a com
puter is almost as reliable as a three
year old with a secret.
In the last three weeks the won
derful little computer system used by
this newspaper has done everything
except what it was told to do.
For starters it totally changed the
entire memory system used to index
stories recorded on its files. Then to
make matters worse it erased the
stories that were on these changed
indexes.
The next week things went pretty
smoothly until we started putting the
paper together and then we found out
that most of our news copy was in the
wrong size. I really enjoyed that little
trick considering we were already an
hour past our deadline.
Last week things really got fun.
After all of the hustle and bustle to
A Chat
With Jane
By
get all our stories completed on time
the computer refused to transmit our
copy to The Daily Advance where our
paper is printed.
Everytime we tried to send our
copy over, the computer made ex
tremely rude beeping sounds and
kindly informed us that there was a
transmission error.
After Cindy Leicester, our typist,
went through all the proper
procedures about 50 times we came
to the conclusion that our computer
had done the impossible IT MADE
A MISTAKE.
Now anyone that has ever sold
computers will tell you that com
puters don't make mistakes.... the
computer operator does.
That wasn't the case. With four
eyewitnesses we know that it was the
computer.
This isn't the first time that our
wonderful little computer system has
fouled up our lives. There was the
week that everytime we inserted a
disc into the computer it gave us a
readout similar to
hfyikhtujkh78oijht54 567uh
fgtuijhfcxxrfhmnuygjiuyh. That
wasn't a very good day.
I've talked with a lot of other
people that have been coerced into
purchasing a computer to "simplify"
life in the office. Most of them
weren't too thrilled with the results
they got either.
Every time you think you've got
the system down pat and under
control something else will go wrong.
Tar and feathers are too good for
the inventor of this infernal con
traption. I personally would prefer
seeing him boiled in oil.
Computer salesmen make the old
"Miracle Cure" peddlers look like
saints. These guys seemingly enjoy
watching normal everyday people go
completely beserk sitting in front of a
computer display screen.
There's a lot to be said about the
"Computer Age", unfortunately
most of it isn't all that good.
I guess the worst part of all is that
once you switch to a computer
system to handle your office work it
is virtually impossible to improvise
when your system goes down.
That's the problem we're having
this week. When our terminal began
malfunctioning last week, I loaded it
up in the car and hauled it to
Elizabeth City to get our "expert" to
have a little talk with it about the
tricks it was playing. So far the
computer hasn't responded to any of
the friendly methods being used to
get it back into functioning order.
With three or four people needing
the use of the terminal and only one
terminal left available it has
presented quite a problem, but with
any luck at all you'll be reading this
column at about the same time that
you normally do.
I guess I should say something nice
about computers since the one I'm
using right now seems to be func
tioning properly (so far). Okay, I've
got it, Computers make interesting
conversation pieces. (They also
provide jobs for a lot of people that
enjoy being called in to watch editors
have nervous breakdowns.)
All in all, things generally go pretty
good once you get used to a com- m
puterized system, or so I've been
told. It's hard to say, we've only had
this one for about five years.
Perquimans Opinions
EDWARDS
This week's opinion queitioa Is
what should the VS. poller he
regarding U.S. Military Involvement
la Beirut?
WALTER EDWARDS J*....." My
opinion on U. S. pretence in Beirut is
that the United State* has to learn at
some point that we can't he the peace
keeping force tor the world,
especially in aa area such as the
Middle East which I think is ose of
the major trouble spots la the
"It Should l? obvious to anybody
BYKUM
who's followed news accounts of the
events that have taken place la
Beirut that there are so many fac- ,
ttoos involved that tt would be next to
impossible for the United States
Marines to even know exactly what tt
is they're supposed to be doi*. I
think it's just dearly a Mae where
the United States has absolutely no
CASTELLOE
personnel over there waiting to be
killed."
. UN CASTELLOE...."! feel that
the U.S. haa once again gotten into a
crisis that we have no business being
involved hi. We should take the time
to consider what la at stake far the