From then on until the Civil War the steamboat business expanded. All the bay and river boats had both freight and passenger services to Baltimore, Washington or Norfolk. These services were interrupted by the war.
During the Civil War, according to several unpublished letters of that period, the steamboats George C. Peabody and North Point collided in the Potomac on the night of August 13, 1862. Of the three or four hundred persons on board the two boats only one hundred were saved.
After the Civil War the steamboat services were restored.
When the first steamboat ran up the Rappahannock, Bewdley was used as a landing place. This Lancaster County home belonged to the Ball family, relatives of George Washington's mother. When passengers awaited the arrival of the boat at Bewdley, a white flag was raised as a signal by day, and at night a light was placed in one of the many dormer-windows.
HANNAH AND THE FALLING STARS
It was Hannah's custom to get up before daybreak. She was a sixteen-year-old Negro girl of Northumberland County. On this particular morning she was to get the scare of her life. She started to go to the well for a bucket of fresh water but when she stepped outside she dropped her bucket and ran to her mistress screaming: "The stars are all falling down!" Needless to say the whole plantation was aroused to watch the strangest phenomenon they had ever beheld.
Hannah was not the only person who was scared or bewildered that morning. Throughout the eastern part of North America people were exclaiming: "it is snowing fire," "the end of the world has come," "the sky is on fire," "the Judgment Day is here!"
What Hannah and the others had witnessed was the Leonid shower of November 12-13, 1833, which lasted from midnight until day. People of that time were generally uninformed about meteoric showers. It was a topic of comment and speculation for many generations.
Hannah lived many years to tell of the time when she saw "the stars fall." She outlived most of her children and those who were living at the time of her death were too feeble to attend her funeral. She was buried in a quiet spot among the pines on the banks of the Great Wicomico River. Her tombstone bears this inscription: "Hannah Crocket, 1817-1933, Age 116 yrs."