High atop a perch on the old brick firehouse in downtown Elkton, a 128-year-old weathervane has pointed out the direction of the blowing wind for centuries. From that central location or the nearby courthouse where it originally claimed a spot, it swung in changing breezes, gusts, and gales always serving as a steady sentinel — keeping a watchful eye out for shifting conditions.
That interesting weathervane, in the form of a shad, was originally placed on the roof of the old courthouse that stood at the corner of North and Main streets. This 18th-century public structure was being renovated in 1886 when the Cecil Whig wrote about the attractive crown. The expanded building “has been decorated by a handsome and unique weather vane, which is all new. . . .” The contractor, George S. Fox of Rising Sun placed the ornamental piece of roof work there. Harry Hearn designed the instrument, the Baltimore Sun added. Above the courthouse cupola, the decorative piece had a sweeping view of the Big Elk Creek crowded with boats, during an era when fisheries were an important part of the everyday.
Detractors complained about the expansion. But “the critics can’t carp at this new vane, however vain the architect or builder of this vane may be, simply because there is no carp about it but all shad, a massive gilt shad, its body made of copper, with the scales wrought in shape by hand and covered with real gold leaf. Below it are gilt balls . . . with the four index letters of the compass in gilt letters about 9 inches in size,” wrote the Cecil Whig. “Outside of the beauty and usefulness of such an ornament, we are glad to know that it is one of the few things about the building which were got up at home.”
By the 1930s, the judicial system and county government needed more space. Thus, the county erected a new courthouse one block east of the original facility. County officials handed over the first seat of justice to the Town of Elkton, and the city council promptly tore it down in Oct. 1940. They, however, saved the shad from the wrecking ball, and sometime after, they moved it to its present location, a municipal property that served as the fire station. This was its perch when the Baltimore Sun wrote about it in 1958.
In this age of instant access to weather data on our smartphones, computers, and cable television, the attractive, twisting, and turning instrument, a once useful monitor of the whims of the weather, reminds us of an earlier time.
Love these bits of history.