Peninsula In Passage

Betsy, the Bennett’s Creek Market Cow Betsy, a full size black and white Holstein, fiberglass breed, has been part of the Bridge Road landscape since the early 1950s when the Matthews family ran the Bennett’s Creek Restaurant on the corner of US 17 and Shoulder’s Hill Road. The family also ran a dairy and featured ice cream and dairy products on their menu. Betsy was a perfect mascot even though she was almost knocked off her brick pedestal a couple times when cars, including a police squad car, backed into her. In the 1960s J. C. Matthews opened a farm stand to sell the family farm’s extra produce. With the road upgrades of 1968, Matthews upgraded his produce stand to a market to serve the greater number of travelers using Bridge Road. Shortly afterward the family sold the restaurant to Portsmouth bar-b-que guru Juddy Rodman who ran it for several years before

John H. Sheally II

Betsy

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