The Simmons brothers, Wroten and Stewart of Lancaster County, owned the Chesapeake Bay buyboat “Seven Brothers.” They are the same Simmons who lived on Simmons Lane between White Stone and Kilmarnock.
The watermelon season started near the end of summer and many local buyboat captains purchased boat loads of watermelons for the Baltimore, Philadelphia, Norfolk and Washington, D.C. retail watermelon market. Some would go “down the ditch” (on the intracoastal waterways) as far away as Edenton, N.C. to buy melons from growers.
Captains would buy a load of watermelons for $125 or so from farmers; haul the load to the docks in the cities; and then huckster the watermelons from decks of their boats to customers coming down to the dock.
The Simmons brothers were right good businessmen. Stewart would stand on top of the pilothouse and scream — “WATERMELONS!, WATERMELONS! — Biggest and Best in the Land — one for dime and two for a quarter!”
According to the brothers, customers bought them all day long — two for a quarter.
Baltimore Sun newspaper
One day at the dock in Baltimore, Stewart asked his brother for some watermelon money to buy a Baltimore Sun, the city’s daily newspaper. Wroten was right tight with the money and when Stewart asked for a dime to purchase the morning Sun newspaper, Wroten said, somewhat irritated, “Jesus Christ, Stewart, I gave you a dime for that same newspaper yesterday!”
It Happened Here in Rivah Country!
