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ELKTON, Sept. 9, 2019 – On this Monday in late summer, first responders, friends, and family gathered to say goodbye to N. Keith Sinclair.  The sixty-four-year-old, passed away suddenly Wednesday morning (Sept 4), while preparing to report for a duty shift at the Cecil County Department of Emergency Services.  Keith was a 911 dispatcher, a position he held for 43-years. 

For all of his adult life, Keith volunteered with county fire departments and worked in communications for Emergency Services.  As a teenager, he joined the ranks of the Singerly Fire Company as soon as he was sixteen.  Starting in May 1971, he worked his way up the ranks, becoming certified as an Emergency Medical Technician and serving as Elkton’s Ambulance Director.  Later, he joined the Chesapeake City Volunteer Fire Company.

In 1978, he was a member of the first Cecil County class of what was then known as paramedics.   In those formative years for Emergency Medical Services, the first ALS providers were known as paramedics as training, and additional levels of certification were some years in the future.  That first class composed entirely of Singerly members had been taught by Frank Muller, Paramedic Instructor. 

In 1976, he took a full-time job as a dispatcher at fire headquarters.   In the mid-1970s, one dispatcher worked a shift, juggling calls and handling radio traffic for police and fire departments while also maintaining handwritten records of the activities.  Dispatcher Sinclair grew with the job, as 911 came in, computers replaced paper logs, and the call volume increased dramatically.  Now a full team of call takers, dispatchers, and supervisors provide the first contact someone has in time of an emergency.

Dispatcher Sinclair, a professional in every way, was a highly respected public safety colleague.  He kept his officers safe on the streets, kept up with changing times, and was that calm, reassuring voice thousands of people heard when they needed help the most.  From the first call he took in 1973 to the last one he handled a few days ago, he was a caring public servant.  That could be seen today as tears were shed and people sorrowfully hugged each other on this sad, sad Monday in late summer.    

Following services at Hicks Home for Funerals, police fire vehicles, paramedic units, and fire trucks led family and friends in a processional motorcade to the graveside service at Gilpin Manor.  At Gilpin Manor the clouds gave way and the sky cleared as the mournful sounds of the bagpipe faded off into the distance while uniformed first responders carried the casket from the old North East Fire engine.  In the final moments of the graveside service, the sound of a dispatcher broke the silence with the final call for Dispatcher Sinclair. 

Keith Sinclair dedicated his life to emergency services and to serving the people of Cecil County.  The friend, colleague, and public servant will be missed.

See album for additional photos from the funeral service for Keith Sinclair. (under construction)

One of the highlights of August for many people living in Cecil County in the decades around the turn of the twentieth century was the annual Woodlawn Camp Meeting.

For two weeks in the heat and humidity of summer, many families vacationed there, escaping the chores of farm life, socializing, and listening to worship services.

Established by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1871, the encampment continued for more than 42 years, annually drawing people to the cool shade of the grove. It was located on what is now called Camp Meeting Ground Road near Woodlawn on a 15-acre grove of tall timbers, which was purchased from F. Marion Rawlings and Theodore J. Vanneman.

There were two long avenues of tents extending on either side of the wooden tabernacle, where a pavilion for preachers and benches were located. While most campers resided in tents there were a few frame structures, such as the boarding tent and ice cream and confectionery stand.

The local Methodist ministers took charge of the camp, and it was their duty to provide preaching talent throughout the week. From morning to evening, there was preaching, praising, and fellowship. Of course, there was an active choir, supplemented by a fiddle and a coronet. “The old hymns of the church were sung lustily and with great fervor,” the Cecil Democrat reported.

The camp meeting also played an important social role. The young people met to promenade up and down the avenues on those hot, sticky August nights. Hopefully, they caught a gentle breeze as they stopped at the picture gallery for photographs or at the ice cream stand for refreshments.

Many of the campers resided in tents, but there were two frame cottages. The boarding tent, and ice cream and confectionery stand were also frame. The boarding tent was under the managed of “Uncle Al Boyd,” a former baggage master on the railroad and a former sheriff. The camp bell called camp goers for meals and meetings and the “never failing pump” was a popular spot.

With the arrival of the automobile and the accessibility of attractions at greater distances, camp days waned. The annual camp meeting went out style in Cecil County in 1913. The ground was sold by receivers in 1915.

For additional photos visit our Woodlawn Camp Meeting photo album on Facebook.

* * * * * *

Sources & Notes

* The Historical Marker Database — Woodlawn Camp Meeting https://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=24111

* At the Head of the Bay: A Cultural & Architectural History of Cecil County

* Period articles in the Cecil Democrat and the Cecil Whig.

Thomas H. Mogle., Jr. served as the sheriff of Cecil County from 1966 to 1970.  When he was elected to the top law enforcement post in 1966, he assumed charge of an agency that was critically under resourced.  Although the small force consisted of four deputies and no county provided police cars, he put an emphasis on professionalizing his command.      

 The Cecil Democrat published a 1967 piece about what was needed to move the agency forward.  In this nearly 50-year-old chat with the Sheriff, he sketched out the minimum needs.

The Department required at least 55 personnel to handle its functions, including answering complaints, patrolling, serving papers, providing court security, and maintaining the jail,  Mogle noted. That force included 27 road officers, with one assigned to each of the nine election districts, around-the-clock as a patrol beat.  “They would answer complaints and could do a great deal to prevent crime.”

Eight men should staff the 100-year old jail so two deputies would be on duty.  “There are just not enough people in this office.  When four phones ring and the office is full of prisoners being brought in, one man behind the desk can’t handle it all.  We need a turnkey and someone on the radio and telephone.”

Judiciary related duties for the Circuit Court and the magistrates required eight men to handle courts and serve papers.  There was also clerical support.

One of his problems was hiring and keeping qualified personnel.  A deputy in 1967 made $1.50 an hour ($4,000 a year) while a clerk for a magistrate received $2.00 an hour.  The Sheriff estimated annual starting pay should be between $6,000 and $7,000.

When the reporter asked if an annual budget of $279,000 for staffing wasn’t rather high, the former Maryland State Trooper remarked, “it isn’t cheap but nothing worthwhile is going to be free.”  He also noted that there were other costs, as there should be county owned cars and 13 were required.

Harford County had 24 men in their Sheriffs’ Department and county owned vehicles, he noted.  They have “police running out of their ears; they have police departments in Bel Air, Aberdeen, and Havre de Grace, they have the state police, and they still hire 24 men for a county-wide police force.”

“Of course the county would be getting a lot better service in return for the expenditures.  With a force similar to the one outlined we could almost wipe out crime in this county,” the sheriff suggested. When asked what he felt his chances of getting some of the men and equipment were, especially in light of the new economy moves the commissioners were making, he said:  “Neither I nor the next six Sheriffs in this county will ever see this.”

He concluded that he wouldn’t run again unless drastic changes were made for the “betterment of the people and the police force.  I thought I could help the county.  I didn’t realize what the situation was in this office, I couldn’t. . . . ”

Continuing to remark about the situation, he said, “There was nothing here when I came, not even a flag.  I’ve ordered a flag and pole now.  It will cost $55 and if the county refuses to pay for it I will.”

Samuel du Pont wrote the paper to support the “overworked sheriff and his underpaid, overworked men” the next week.  “Imagine, just five men to cover the entire county, with its hundreds of roads and hundreds of square miles!  This doesn’t mean five men per shift, but five men altogether.  Now, start figuring three shifts a day.  You want around-the-clock police protection don’t you?  There are two few men and too much work — and then we have the gall to criticize our sheriff and his deputies!  We don’t even provide our men with official cars, as most other counties do.  We’ll soon be expecting them to shake tambourines on street corners for contributions, like the Salvation Army folks.  We have refused the sheriff sufficient manpower.”

Mogle accomplish one objective the next year.  After lengthy political wrangling between the county commissioners and the Sheriff, the Department entered the automobile age on July 1, 1968, when four marked police cruisers went in service.  For the first time in the history deputies drove official vehicles.  The county’s small law enforcement staff was catching up with Elkton, North East, Port Deposit, and Rising Sun, places that had long since provided police transportation.

Sheriff Thomas Mogle died on Oct. 23, 2008

See Also by Sheriff Thomas Mogle

Border Wars Flare up Over Cheap Maryland Booze

For resisting invading Pennsylvania Liquor Agents, Sheriff Thomas Mogle Given Gold Badge

Throughout the summer in the early 20th century, a showboat, a huge, scow-like wooden craft plying the Chesapeake Bay, called at Cecil County’s waterfront towns. Its arrival in Chesapeake City, Elkton, Fredericktown, North East, and Port Deposit brought great joy to the towns.

Once the tug had cautiously piloted the floating theatre up the river or the shallow twisting Big Elk Creek, the craft was moored at the town wharf. The arrival of the James Adams Floating Theatre in communities up and down the Bay was an exciting time as the show was about to begin. Each night during the stay, except Sunday, the curtain went up for a different play, as the cast kicked up their heels, and the performers and musicians entertained ticket-holders with a different show.

Before it moored at the community wharf posters prominently announced the gala week, handbills were distributed, and the county newspapers gave the upcoming entertainment plenty of play. The troupe was always ready when curtain time came as the performers had repeated these plays in water communities all around the Chesapeake. The crew, actors, actresses, and musicians traveled with the boat during the season, so there was plenty of time to rehearse.

After a week in port, the barge made the slow trip back the creek or rivers, heading toward the Bay, as it moved along on its annual circuit, and soon the activities were repeated at some other shore town. In the autumn, as the season turned, the floating theatre began to drift south toward Elizabeth City, N.C., where it normally spent the winter.

But, residents in the waterfront towns in Cecil County knew that sometime next summer the eagerly anticipated cry, “Here comes the showboat” would ring out again, as the tug pulling the floating scow steamed approached. And once again, they would look forward to a show to remember as the troupe’s acting, signing, and dancing entertained them.

The Adams Floating Theatre was launched around 1913/14 and it lasted until around the late 1930s.

For additional Cecil County pictures of the Adam’s Floating Theatre, see this photo album Facebook.

In the decades before the Civil War, Cecil County had a few free black communities.  One, Snow Hill, was situated just north of the Port Deposit town limits on the hillside along Route 222, which was known in earlier times as Cedar Hill.  On this steep grade overlooking the Susquehanna River, free black merchants and laborers established a thriving community as early as 1847.

A team of archaeologists from the Maryland Historical Trust investigated this African-American community in 1982, while completing a comprehensive cultural resources survey of the Bainbridge Naval Training Center, as the federal government prepared to sell the former base.  As archaeologists sifted through this tough rocky patch of soil in 1982 evidence, artifactual and archival, emerged indicating that it was a free black community.  The study noted that “46 lots on Snow Hill . . . were leased to free blacks from 1840 to 1900,” according to the Cecil Whig.  “The lots were owned by whites and leased to blacks under 99-year renewable lease agreements,” the Trust reported. 

The largest landholder in Snow from the mid-1800s was Ann Archer and her heirs.  Thomas Ringgold was identified as a resident of the community.  The site once was part of tracts known in colonial times as “Lucky Mistake” and “Mount Ararat.”   The archaeological investigation turned up 19^th-century artifacts and foundations of several buildings, surviving remnants of this antebellum free black community in Cecil County.

Martenet’s Map of 1858 identified Snow Hill as a colored community and shows eight residents and one church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church.  The Atlas of Cecil County (1877) show the Colored Methodist Church, some 20 homes and 46 lots. 

For additional maps, see this post on Cecil County History on Facebook

Also See

Mt. Zoar, an African American Community Near Conowngo

Griffith AUMP and Cedar HIll

There isn’t much remaining at Frenchtown these days to remind anyone that this place was a bustling commercial spot.  But it once was on the maps of the newly formed nation as boats, wagons, carriages, and trains brought people and freight to this little Chesapeake Bay port.  The reminders of this activity largely faded away around the middle of the 19^th century. 

But the beautiful old mansion house or tavern was a survivor.  When Frenchtown was put to the torch during the British attack during the War of 1812 it was not touched.  Then as the transportation revolution disrupted the order of things as the canal and railroad bypassed the hamlet, this sturdy old building remained, ready to make a run through a large part of the 20^th century. 

Built around 1800 as a mansion house it was on the estate of Frisby Henderson, a large landowner in the area.  The two and a half story English brick building had 17 rooms with fireplaces on each floor, and elegant interior molding and finish. 

The mansion became a public inn at some point as traffic on the main route between Baltimore and Philadelphia grew. Travelers stopping at the village included Andrew Jackson, Davy Crockett, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, Sam Houston, Louis Napoleon, Stonewall Jackson, and an Indian delegation, which included Chief Black Hawk.   

Lorenzo Alagia bought the property around 1944 from the estate of a Philadelphia theater owner.  At that time, the land once occupied by Frenchtown was part of a 300-acre asparagus farm and the tavern, a private dwelling, the Baltimore Sun reported in 1969.

The Algias ran the tavern as a business until a devastating fire swept through the inn on Nov. 21, 1957.  The business never reopened as the flames heavily damaged it.  As Singerly Fire Company battled the flames a wall caved in, injuring two Singerly firefighters, Bob McKeown and Harry Hammond.

Then in June 1964, the unoccupied remains were hit agan by fire, totally leveling the empty structure.  While it had survived the British attack and the burning of the village, the 167year-old tavern had been totally removed from the shoreline as the second fire finished the destruction. 

Frenchtown was never more than a village with its tavern, wharf, warehouses, stables, and a few dwelling, but it experienced more than its share of notable events.  And the old tavern was a central part of the story, hosting, the great and the near-great over the centuries.

Much more research needs to be done on the Frenchtown Tavern and this little corner of Cecil County, to fully develop the story.

See Also

Relics of What Came Before: Old Family Burial Grounds

If you drive down Frenchtown Road these days, you will find it hard to believe that a bustling village once existed where this ancient land meets the Elk River. Steamers came teeming up to its wharf, driving the narrow river into a cauldron of waves and whistling locomotives flew along its shoreline with its loads of human freight, reported the Cecil Whig more than 150 years ago.

Today the quiet county road south of Elkton makes a straight line for the river, past open fields once grazed by cattle, neat modern homes, a centuries-old burial ground and then, at its end the flourishing overgrowth of woods and vegetation.  In the thicket there, just past where the land becomes private property, the water of the Elk River emerges quickly.

The commercial point that grew up in this vicinity two centuries ago was, for decades, a prominent place.  However, it would have remained a quiet setting if it hadn’t been for its location on the western end of a short portage route across the top of Delmarva.

After the Revolutionary War, the popularity of the route for passengers and freight grew.  A regular line of vessels began sailing from Baltimore to Frenchtown.  As boats churned their way to the port, it established itself as a busy relay point on the main line of travel between Philadelphia and Baltimore.  Statesmen and the traveling public came journeying through.

Teamsters driving freight wagons and men cracking the whips on horses pulling stagecoaches gathered at water’s edge as sailing boats docked.  The large volume of traffic eventually led to the building of a turnpike across the narrow neck of the peninsula.

War of 1812

For all of its arresting history, there is none more thrilling than the high-drama that took place there during the War of 1812.  On the morning of April 29, 1813, 150 British Marines roared toward the small village.  A group of anxious defenders awaited the attack as enemy barges loaded with invaders bore down on a hastily erected, poorly equipped fort.

As cannonballs flew through spring air, the marines stormed ashore, forcing the defenders to retreat.  A fishery, warehouses, goods, and vessels lying at anchor were plundered and burned, reported the National Intelligencer.

The era for steam transportation arrived early on this shoreline.  Barely two months after the enemy attack, the first steamboat to float on the bay, the Chesapeake, started plying the route between Baltimore and the village, according to the History of Cecil County.

At the end of the 1820s, new technologies and increasing travel led to the incorporation of a pioneer railroad company, the New Castle and Frenchtown.  One of the first lines in the nation, it was first to penetrate the fields and woods of Delmarva.

Canals and better rails caused the village to fade.  With the completion in 1837 of a rail line through Elkton, one that didn’t require steamboat connections on each waterway, business on the Frenchtown route started declining.  By 1858, stagecoaches, wagons, rail cars, and steamers no longer converged here, crowding down to the old shoreline.

The trackbed had been abandoned by 1858, and the county turned it into a “common neighborhood road,” the Whig wrote.  As the affairs and tools of men changed, it dwindled down to a quiet spot, a place that by that year only had a country hotel, a house for people to use as an untroubled retreat away from the noise and dust of busy life.

With that, the remains of one of the earliest railroads in the country started disappearing.  As the Civil War tore the nation apart, carpenters tore down the old railroad depot.  It had some time ago ceased to be of any use and was “standing only as a monument of the former importance and greatness of Frenchtown,” the Cecil Whig observed in 1863.  Soon, only the road’s desolate banks and a bridge existed as evidence of the enterprise.

These are some of the highlights of a place that is saturated with the past.  Of course, there were happenings before this time.  French Acadians settled there in the years before the American Revolution, according to old records.  Patents of land at the top of the 1700s make mention of the place, but all of that is a subject for another day.

History Isn’t a Stranger at Frenchtown

Off in the thick overgrowth of bushes and trees, a place where the bright sunshine of a spring day has trouble penetrating, are the remains of some of the area’s early settlers.  Here and there a few rays of sunshine make it through the thick foliage, revealing gravestones of people who lived during great periods of America’s past.

All is quiet at Frenchtown right now.  The only thing disturbing the idyllic scene, where history is not a stranger, are faint songs of birds and the occasional drone of a car or a distant motorboat. But that once was not the case.  Angry men cried out in alarm, and cannonballs tore through the spring air, in defense of the shoreline.  The shriek of the steam whistle disturbed the tranquility of woods and fields.  And the locomotive, carrying its human freight chugged along its specially built path

Also of Interest

Relics of What Came Before: Old Family Burial Grounds; from a Window on Cecil County’s Past

$700-M Mixed-Use Project Aims to Transform Elkton, the Cecil Whig. An article about development of land south of Elkton, including Frenchtown.

The Cecil County Fair, which opened for the first time on Oct. 13, 1880, in Elkton, was organized in a whirlwind of activity.  In just a quarter of a year, organizers accomplished daunting tasks such as acquiring fairgrounds and preparing the property to receive thousands of visitors. 

Once Cecil’s agriculturalist incorporated the Cecil County Agricultural Society earlier in 1880, the first order was to raise money, so the managers sold stock valued at $10 a share.  Organizers put the shares at this low value so that every tenant farmer in the county could have a voice in the management of the society, newspapers reported.

Encouraging farmers to support the agricultural society, one newspaper remarked that, “the entertainment that will be awakened among our farmers and the information that will be acquired by the comparison of stock, agricultural products, and methods and experience must constitute a value that can be measured in dollars and cents.” 

Once the Society raised sufficient money, the organizers purchased 27-acres of land owned by A. G. Tuite on Elkton’s northern edge, right next to the railroad depot (Railroad Avenue today).  This expansive parcel stretched along the west side of North Street from the north of Railroad Avenue to part of what is now Elkton Heights. 

It was a most convenient location, only 300 yards from the Railroad Station.  Visitors in the cars weren’t required to seek conveyance to the grounds.  Proceeding at what must have seemed like a dizzying pace, the ground was promptly broken as fences, a race track and structures were built.  One of the most notable exhibit buildings, Mitchell Memorial Hall, opened for the fifth season in 1884.

After that, in early autumn, thousands of people poured into the fairgrounds at Elkton.  In 1887, the Morning News reported that over 14,000 people were admitted at the gates to see the exhibits, examine the agricultural products, look at new farming equipment, listen to talkative politicians, enjoy the delicacies of the food concessions, and attend the races.

After over a long run of successful years, criticism of racing and gambling at the fair started growing.   “A county fair should not be made a place where young people may be tempted into so ruinous a vice as gambling.  Whatever may be said of pool selling as a feature of horse racing, certainly there is no connection between the legitimate purpose of a county fair and such gambling layouts as those which have trapped the unwary at Elkton (News Journal Sep 13 1895).  About this time the state legislature starting threatening “race-track gamblers and outlaw race tracks with laws to prevent gambling (Philadelphia Times, Feb. 28, 1898).

The last fair, the nineteenth one, took place in September 1898.  Up to almost the last minute the following year, people eagerly anticipated the big annual event so it was a  “great surprise” when it was declared off on Sept. 27, 1899.  “The lack of interest by the people of Cecil County compelled the managers to take action and announce to the public that the Elkton Fair” was a thing of the past (Morning News, Sept. 28, 1899).  The Whig remarked, “The immediate cause of discontinuing the annual exhibitions was the general public’s lack of interest in them,” The Cecil Whig reported on Feb. 10, 1900.  When the Society tallied up the balance sheet, the assets were $6,928 while the liabilities were $17,708.

A broader perspective on why the fair ceased to be a drawing card was delivered by the Evening Journal on Oct,. 6, 1900.  The “Elkton Fair starved to death, although sustained artificially by a time by the men who conducted a nest of outlawed race tracks and used the fair grounds at intervals for gambling and racing purposes.”    

Cecil County Fair Starved to Death

The Cecil County Fairgrounds was sold under the auctioneer’s hammer at the courthouse door on Feb. 6, 1900 to satisfy a mortgage held by the Mutual Building Association.  The real estate included 27 acres of land, a half-mile racing track, a grandstand with seating for 1,200,  judges’ stand, Mitchell Hall, and cattle and other shedding, were sold on Feb. 6.

 “The passing of the Cecil County Fair, which years past has attracted thousands of people together annually, is to be much regretted by the residents of Cecil County,” reported the Middletown Transcript .  “The grounds were adapted for fair purposes, situated along the railroad.  Here annually gathered together people from all parts of Cecil County and from Chester County, Pennsylvania and from Delaware.  The people of the county were proud of their fair, which was at one time was considered second to none in this part of the country (Feb. 17, 1900).

George R. Ash, the editor of the Cecil Democrat, acquired the property for $8,400, less than one-third of the original cost (The Times, Philadelphia, Feb. 07, 1900).  The editor sold the old fairground to the Elkton Improvement Company for $10,000 in June 1900.  This Company was established to convert the property into building lots.   

 As a new century moved along memory of this annual happening started fading into the twilight.

For additional photos of the Cecil County Fair in Elkton, see this post on the Cecil County History Facebook page.

CECIL COUNTY AND THE MOON LANDING — For anyone old enough July 20, 1969, is one of those days that is permanently etched into memory. On that Sunday, the United States landed on the moon.

A few days earlier on July 16 when the three Americans rocketed from this planet in a small capsule destined for the moon people took notice since Cecil County had a strong connection to the nation’s space program.

The Elkton Division of the Thiokol Chemical Corporation had contributed greatly to the mission. Thiokol motors had been used in every manned space flight beginning with the Mercury series in May 1961 and when Apollo 11 launched for its flight a number of Elkton division motors were onboard, playing a vital role in the mission, the Cecil Whig reported.

Then when Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. became the first men to land on the moon there was great excitement. It was almost as if everyone in Cecil County was watching as people fixated on living room television sets.

“We will remember” is how the Cecil Democrat’s Columnist George Prettyman headlined his weekly column, Rural Ramblings.

He goes on to capture the moment for us: “Even though it happened right before our eyes, even though we heard their voices, even though the whole historic episode happened as it was planned to happen to the most minute detail, there was an air of unreality about it all. It was as though the TV set was dreaming, and we were observing a fantasy far too miraculous to be true…”

“When that heavily-booted foot came dramatically into view as Astronaut Neil Armstrong made his careful descent from the spacecraft, a feeling of exultation, subdued somewhat by the accompanying chill of awe, came over us; and we gasped in wonderment, as did millions of other viewers, for then it became a certainty that a man would be setting foot upon the moon. In a moment, the first human footprint was implanted upon the dusty surface of the moon,” Prettyman continued. “The scene was somewhat eerie. . . . . .”

As we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the historic moon landing, we are sharing some of the local coverage of this epic moment as covered by county’s two local newspapers, the Cecil Whig and the Cecil Democrat. Cecil County and the moon Landing had a strong connection.

For a complete history of the moon landing see this article on history.com

For more images, see this album on our Cecil County History on FB page.