If you go to Guard Shore, drive to the north point, to your left, you will see
Lankford Island and the Lankford Island house.
From here, scan your eyes across the Muddy Creek channel to the eastern shore
line, where the shoreline indents to form a half moon; this place called, since
the days of my grandfather, Pettigrew’s Bend, named after the people who once
lived in this barren place.
The Pettigrews were not home stock. No one knew who they were – no one knew
where they came from. Maybe Maryland. Maybe the Western Shore. They kept to
themselves – offered no information.
Like the snows of winter, the Pettigrews came suddenly. Someone looked up one
day and there they were, building something of a house in a hammock on the
marsh.
I imagine the Pettigrews were squatters – held no title to the land. People
didn’t pay much attention to things like that, back then.
Where the Pettigrews built their house is the hammock northeast of Guard Shore.
While duck hunting I have been to the location of their house a hundred times –
nothing much now except a few bricks and rotten boards, overcome by honeysuckle.
When did the Pettigrews come to Guard Shore? My grandfather died before my time,
but he told my father, and he was positive, that the Pettigrews came in 1889.
My father spoke of the Pettigrew house as not being much of a house – thrown
together – built by poor carpenters, with only two windows and a slanted
chimney.
People spoke of the Pettigrews as being ‘strange.’ They tolerated no visitors,
kept to themselves. People said you always saw the mother at a distance. The
father was a bent man, not too old, but giving the appearance, who wandered down
the shoreline, catching crabs and fish.
There were three children, two boys and a girl, all in their twenties. The one
child the public got to see was Ishum, a giant of a man with the mentality of a
child, who would walk the three miles to Bloxom for staples, like molasses and
corn meal.
When Ishum came to Bloxom, the townspeople crowded him with questions. What was
his father’s name? Samuel. What was his mother’s name. Elizabeth. His brother's
name? Daniel. His sister’s name, Rebecca.
When asked where he came from, Ishum would point north, never giving an answer.
The Pettigrew brothers were able watermen, oystering from September to April.
When they sold to the buy boat, the elder brother Daniel, handled the
transaction because Ishum had no mind for figures.
So far as is known, no Pettigrew ever stepped on the mainland with the exception
of Ishum – he came and went – the gentle giant.
In 1911, as my father remembered, he and my grandfather, were returning for
Guard Shore by mule cart when they met Ishum on the road, carrying a pine coffin
on his shoulder. Ishum explained.
“Poppa died last night. I went to Mr. Bill Bonniwell (the local undertaker) and
paid $17 for this coffin. I got me some apples from that tree yonder and put
them in the coffin.” And “We are going to take Poppa home to bury him.”
Ishum did not say where ‘home’ was, but the next morning, the Pettigrew’s boat
was gone, as well as the Pettigrews, never to return.
In time, the Pettigrews were forgotten and the marsh claimed the house.
Up until 1960, I had been a quail hunter. I liked everything about the sport –
watching the dogs work – the thrill of the covey rise – the good shots and the
bad. About this time, I decided to expand my sporting habits – I would take up
duck hunting – and became addicted.
I had this friend, now dead, who shared my addiction. Sometimes we hunted
together – sometimes alone – taking joy in frozen feet and runny noses. But on a
night in 1962, he had something to tell me, not concerning ducks.
As he told it, he had stayed late – the sun was gone in the wintry sky, the wind
heavy from the northwest and his boat was small. So he decided to run down the
shoreline at Pettigrew’s Bend, in the event the boat swamped, he would wade
ashore.
Ashore, in the frigid twilight, my friend saw two apparitions take shape, almost
human-like, but wispy and translucent; in seconds being whisked away by the
wind.
He returned to Pettigrew's Bend the next day, but saw or heard nothing.
Over the years, people driving to Guard Shore at night, reported seeing lights
in the hammock at Pettigrew’s Bend, but the sightings were discounted, most
likely, the light being made by some fisherman.
Almost 20 years after my friend had his experience at Pettigrew’s Bend, a
crabpotter had a similar experience.
He was fishing crabpots in Muddy Creek channel, when he looked ashore and saw
this very large man, beckoning to him from the shoreline. Thinking it was
someone needing aid, he made for the figure, only to have it dissipate before
his very eyes.
As I have recited, I have been to Pettigrew’s Bend a hundred times, duck hunting
and rock fishing, the rock fishing usually taking place at night – I saw nothing
or heard nothing. But I was never comfortable there – always expecting the
unexpected.
I never went there without feeling I was in a time warp, between reality and
what may lay beyond.
It’s all a part of the past, but if I close my eyes I can see all of it as it
was; even my father as a boy, meeting Ishum Pettigrew, the gentle giant, on the
Guard Shore Road.
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