Peninsula In Passage

The Hurff family recently had its 100th consecutive family reunion in Hurffville NJ, not far from Egg Harbor. Conrad Harf came to America in about 1726 and had three or four sons who all took the name Hurff. Conrad was a friend of George Washington. Frank Hurff, a descendent of Conrad, came to Edenton with a cousin around the Civil War to raise melons. On their way to Edenton they had to change trains in Suffolk. The cousin was taken ill in Suffolk and carried to the Allen home at Rose Hill to recoup. The cousin died but Frank Hurff loved Rose Hill and later bought it but finally sold it to a Portsmouth land development firm. Frank Hurff married Emily Darden and took her to Swedesboro, New Jersey and farmed there. They had child and Emily was not doing well so they all came back to Suffolk. Hurff also farmed where Obici hospital was originally built and bought every house, all Queen Anne style, on Catherine (now Katherine) Street and sold them. I grew up there on Katherine Street and remember ice-skating with guests from New Jersey on the pond in the ravine. Ice-skating was a big thing. We had dozens of those old fashioned skates hanging up waiting for people to use. In 1933 my father bought a custom Packard and took my mother and another couple on a road trip to Chicago for the World’s Fair. They brought back a souvenir, the first piece of plastic – napkin rings. Coming back through Indiana they were stopped several times at roadblocks where police were looking for John Dillinger. When I was a child my 13 months younger brother, Wilber Rawls Cross, and I were put on the train in Suffolk by our parents to ride the seven miles to Driver where our Uncle Walter Hurff would meet us. We’d ride standing up in the back of his pick-up – all trucks were small then - to his house, the frame, now brick, two story Twin Oaks on Bennett’s Pasture Road. We’d pass all the churches and the three stores on the corners. Arthur’s had the post office and a damn sweet array of candy in the front of the store. Their house had a hole the back yard with a board over it and the hole was filled with electrical wires. The two light bulbs in the house – one in the dining room, one in the kitchen – would sputter and Walter Hurff would have to go out and work on the wires. The house had a barn behind it. We were always barefoot and played in the hayloft. We were always in the mud and would go swimming with a rope swing over the creek. Everyone was friendly and knew each other. Bennett’s Pasture Road then was a dirt road lined with cedar trees. All the roads were dirt – we were really in the country.

Frank Cross and his son, John Cross

Bennett’s Pasture Road came right to the ferry at the end of Bennett’s Creek Lane. There was a footbridge at Gaskins Farm where people could walk to the other ferry to go over to Newport News. Back then you could walk along Bennett’s Pasture Road and not see a car for three hours. There were maybe 20 houses on the whole peninsula. Phones came to the area after electrical power but there were four people on the party line and kids always listened in on the phone. Two rings for someone and four rings for someone else. Every day we rode in the pick-up to get the mail and that meant candy for the kids.

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