The Great Conch IncidentSometime in the 1950’s, after a big storm, there was a bounty of conch shells that washed up on the beaches of Ocean City. Now, it was not unusual for beachcombers to scour the beaches of Ocean City for all kinds of things to wash up on the beaches. They may find an old Spanish coin from the 1700’s or a piece of unusual looking driftwood. I guess the same circumstances exist today. There has never been a situation like the one in the 1950’s.
My grandfather liked to fish in the surf at Ocean City and he went over after this storm to do a little fishing. When he saw the amount of conch shells along the beach, he saw dollars, not conch shells. Upon returning to Salisbury, he called his old friend, Norm Holland, at Pocohantas. Having used Pocohantas many times for their sand and concrete in his construction business, Norm was more than willing to grant my grandfather a favor. So, one of Pocohantas’ trucks went to Ocean City and completely filled it with conch shells. They then proceeded to dump them at the end of my grandfather’s driveway at the corner of Church and Truitt Streets. My grandfather was ecstatic by this display of his new found cache of wealth. He knew that conch shells sold for good money and he was going to clean up.
At this point things started going downhill. Its seems that a portion of the conchs still contained their live inhabitants. Today, that would be a nice bounty, as conch now sells for about $4.00 a pound. That was not the case in the 1950’s. At best, it was fish bait. Time brought about the death of the conchs and the subsequent accompanying fish smell to the whole neighborhood. Needless to say, people started to complain and he saw no solution except to have the Pocohantas truck remove all the conchs and the offending smell.
The only good that came out of it was that my grandmother took a few of the empty shells and lined a walkway in her garden. At the time they were exotic and were a nice addition. I still have some of the shells from her garden and a nice memory of “the great conch incident”.
8 comments:
Did anyone see the freak show press conference from Jim Ireton about the River? I saw the pictures and those people were SCARY!
Creekwatcher and Environmental Trust member Dr. Judith Stribling speaks during a news conference on Friday where she shared the results from the 2011 Water Quality Monitoring Report for the Wicomico River and its watershed. (Matthew S. Gunby photo)
Had to laugh, George. Wound up with a live critter in a shell a time or two myself, and sure enough, they stink after awhile!
That story was funny-thank you Mr.Chevalier!I can only imagine the stink!My husband brought my child home two conch shells and we could not "extract" the inhabitants so we tossed them out in the yard and what a stink!So I cannot imagine the odor of a truckload of them.
And this is relevant to this story?
Are conchs in the river endangered?
One day while I was loading bags of horsefeed into a truck I noticed app 20 50 LB boxes of conch meat(frozen).I asked the driver where that was going (just like it was any of my business).He stated "It's going to the Campbells plant in New Jersey.They use it as a substitute in their clam chowder".Honest to god.Whether clams were becoming hard to get or conch was just cheaper I have no idea.
Good luck finding a conch in a river lololol
lol 2:24
Just looked up Campbell's clam chowder ingredients. Clam is listed, not conch. Are they legally allowed to call a conch a clam?
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