Category: Port Deposit

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Port Deposit Police Chief Horace Boddy

Port Deposit Police Chief Horace Boddy
Port Deposit Poice Chief Horace Boddy (an undated snapshot provided by Chief Boddy)

Port Deposit Police Chief Horace Boddy passed away on July 21, 2019, at the age of 95. Horace became an auxiliary officer on the Port Deposit force in the early 1960s. About 1966, the council promoted him to the top position. This made him the first African-American police chief in Cecil County once he took charge of the department. Although it was a part-time position, he was on call around the clock.

A Young Man’s Interest in Policing

As a 9 or 10-year-old growing up in town, the dream of becoming a police officer started one day during a snow storm, he recalled in an interview with the News Journal. He and a friend were making their way through the frigid winter blast to a store when a Maryland State Trooper from the Conowingo Post pulled up. The trooper told the pair to jump in, and he gave them a warming ride to their destination. During that ride on a long-ago winter day, the impressed youngster was enchanted by the helpfulness of the officer and “the excitement of the police car, especially its radio.”

After 16 years of service to the municipality, the chief contemplated retirement as the 1980s got underway. Finally, in February 1980, he stepped down as the town’s top lawman, but he wasn’t ready to completely retire.

Stepping Down as Chief

His second in command, 33-year-old Bill Waibel, became the chief, and Mr. Boddy stayed on as a member of the force. He told the News Journal that it was time to “let somebody else handle it. Twenty-four hours a day is pretty rough when you work at a job 16 years, I think that’s enough.” He retired completely from law enforcement in 1983.

It was a job well done. When he announced the decision to step down “mostly due to the increasing demands of the office and the pressing needs for more specialized training, which would best be filled by a full-time Chief, Port Deposit Mayor Donald Post remarked to the News Journal: “Officer Boddy is well-respected and known in the community for his friendly manner and civic pride and this unselfish act is a continued expression of that concern.

He had faithfully served as the Port Deposit Police Chief.

The Port Deposit Police Department in the mid-1970s
Port Deposit Police Department — The four members of the force posed for a picture as Chief Horace Boddy reminded everyone that “safety is always in season. Part of a calendar from the early to mid-1970s. (L to R) — Officer Cornelius Scott Sr., possibly Carl Ridgley, Chief Boddy, and Officer Edward E. Pierce. (Source Chief Boddy)

For Additional Photos of Chief Boddy and the Port Deposit Police Department, see this album on Facebook.

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Port Deposit Steam Engine Rushed to Havre de Grace To Help Save City From Conflagration

When a terrible fire struck the DuBois Planning and Sash Mill, the largest industry in Havre de Grace,  one June day in 1883, men rushed the town’s small Holloway Chemical Engine to the factory.  Once on the scene, they worked frantically trying to check the destructive advance.  But the “ruthless flames” turned the factory and nearby buildings into a mass of blazing ruins as the conflagration spread to large piles of nearby lumber.

The small stream from the soda and acid engine, which wasn’t designed to suppress a large industrial fire, was totally ineffective for this growing inferno so officials telegraphed nearby fire departments, asking that special trains be commandeered to rush steam engines to the stricken community.  Hastily in Port Deposit, Wilmington, and Baltimore the P.W. & B Railroad assembled a locomotive and flat car and cleared the road for quick, emergency runs to the river town.

The Water Witch Fire Company of Port Deposit apparatus was on the grounds first, going right to work to prevent the advance.  “The Port Deposit boys displayed themselves to good advantage and worked with a zeal and skill that would have done credit to a more experienced force,” the Havre de Grace Republican remarked about the three-year old firefighting organization.

Just over an hour later a second pumper, the engine from Baltimore, shrieked into town, the engineer laying on the whistle warning unsuspecting people to clear the tracks.  No. 11, from Baltimore, showed from whence the well-earned reputation of the Monumental City Fire Department was derived, the paper remarked.  It was supervised by Chief Engineer George W. Ellender.  The Reliance Engine from Wilmington, Delaware, under direction of Chief Engineer Murphy, went into action about forty-five minutes later.

With three powerful steam pumpers playing large streams of water on the blaze, the “fire ladies” from neighboring places finally subdued the inferno, with the help of the citizens.

Two Water Witch Fire Company Steam Engines on Main Street Port Deposit in late 1800s.