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CONOWINGO – Sept 1, 2018 – Over the Labor Day Weekend, St. Patrick’s Chapel marked the beginning of a yearlong celebration of the 200^th anniversary of the chapel.   In addition to mass, activities included a presentation on the history of the church, tours to discuss the renovation and restoration, and refreshments.

Irish Catholic immigrants who came to the area to build the canal on the Lower Susquehanna River and work in related industries, built the church, Dr. Bill Pare told the overflow audience, as he opened the day’s activities with a history presentation.

The Rev. Roger Smith, a priest from St. Ignatius Church in Hickory (Harford County), purchased a half acre plot from Daniel Glackin for a church and a burial ground, the Dialog reported.  The first religious services were held that year.  “The congregation consisted mostly of Irish immigrants working in the lumbering operations bordering the Susquehanna River and the canals on both sides of the Susquehanna.

On this Saturday, the sanctuary, which seats about 100 people, quickly filled, but there was additional room under a large tent outside where a live video feed streamed the mass to the overflow crowd.

St. Patrick’s Historical Association was created in 2004 to preserve and restore the quiet little church in remote northwestern Cecil County, a short distance below the Mason Dixon Line.

We were delighted to see the fine work the St. Patrick’s Historical Society is doing to preserve Cecil County’s heritage.  Check out the organization’s website and Facebook page for more information on upcoming activities.

Thank you St. Patrick’s for a fine event and for the warm hospitality you extended to everyone.  It was a great event.

“St. Patrick’s is the second oldest Catholic Church in Cecil County.  The oldest is the Shrine of St. Francis Xavier in Warwick, dedicated in 1797,” the Dialog reported.

For an album of photos from the Saturday event marking the start of the bicentennial year, see this picuture album from Cecil County History on Facebook .

To attract more visitors, industry and residents to the area, the Cecil County Chamber of Commerce issued an attractive booklet touting the advantageous of the county.  The Chamber remarked “We have endeavored in the following pages to illustrate, both graphically and verbally, the advantages and facilities that have contributed to make Cecil County the prosperous and contented community that it is, and which should be of fundamental importance to the prospective settler.”  The booklet was issued around 1927.

Click here to see the full booklet, Cecil County Maryland (this is a large file and will take a moment or two to download).

Cecil County History on Facebook passed a milestone with 6,000 followers on August 21, 2018.  Thus, we want to say thanks for stopping by to spend a little on our social media channel.  Your visits to this public history space and your participation in conversations there and on our blog make our effort worthwhile.

The mission of the page is to inspire curiosity, enjoyment, and understanding about Cecil County’s fascinating past for a broad audience. We do this in two ways: Curating and selectively sharing content created by others; and contributing our own original pieces — photos, posts, and rich media — to this universe.

If You Are Cecil County Curious

Cecil County History on Facebook

Frederick C. Breitenbach Sr., of Cherry Hill, served as the last B & O station agent at Childs. retiring in 1954. Starting work for the railroad at the Singerly Tower in 1904, he served stints at Childs as a clerk and at Leslie as the stationmaster. The company brought him back to Childs as the agent in charge in 1935, where he sold tickets, handled freight, mail, and baggage, oversaw the arrival and departure of trains, took care of the property, and supervised employees.

Until 1949, passenger trains stopped at Childs, but as he marked a half-century of service, the country station only handled freight, most of it going to and from the Elk Paper Company Plant. When he started at Childs, it was the most important Cecil County stop, and three people worked there for the B & O. But in 1954, he was the only remaining employee as this rural depot slowly reached the end of the line.

He was born in Baltimore in 1885 and died in Union Hospital on May 16, 1958. Married to Ida V. Breitenbach, he was survived by his wife, three sons, Frederick, Jr., Steelville, PA; William H., Elk Mill, Robert E., Baltimore, and four daughters, Mrs. Ida R. Couden, Elkton, Mrs. Marion L. Walters, Elkton, Ruth E. and Blanche V. Breitenbach at home and Mrs. Dora Z. Pearce, Elkton. Interment was at the Cherry Hill Cemetery.

For more photos and a post of the last B & O Stationmaster, click here.

In the aftermath of World War II in Europe, the world faced an enormous humanitarian crisis.  Millions of people had been made homeless by the terrible conflict that had ripped the continent apart.  While the struggle’s end neared, President Franklin D. Roosevelt worked to establish the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, an international agency to plan and coordinated relief of victims of the war, and after the war was over Congress wrangled with the problem.  After strong and forceful involvement by President Harry Truman, the reluctant lawmakers managed to pass the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, which authorized the admission of 200,000 European displaced persons (DP) for permanent residence.

The DPs coming to the United States had to have a sponsor and a place to live before their arrival.  The first 813 refugees arrived in New York on Oct. 21. 1948.  Over the next twelve months, some of the DPs came to Cecil County to start a new life.  One of those was the family of Walter Mudryk, 38.  The Germans had taken him prisoner during the War.   His families prosperous Ukraine farm had been seized, some family members were put to death, and others served as forced laborers for the Germans.

Norman Fell sponsored this family in Cecil County, and they arrived here on January 21, 1949, to work on his farm near Calvert.  They departed from Munich for the United States, and after arriving by steamer in New York, they were sent to Baltimore on the railroad.  Mr. Fell met them at the Fifth Regiment Armory in Baltimore, where hundreds of refugees waited to meet their sponsors.

Out of this terrible conflict, their homeland destroyed, Walter Mudryk, 38, Nina, 25, his wife, and their two-year-year-old son Victor settled down on the Norman Fell Farm to start a new life in Calvert.  Sponsors in Queenstown and Virginia had also hosted some family members.

Source:   The Maryland News Courier, May 6, 1949:  Russian D.P.’s Now at Work on Calvert Farm.

Before the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal became a sea-level canal for ocean-going vessels, there were at least six lighthouses along the 14-mile route between the waters of the Delaware River and the Chesapeake Bay.  Navigation aids, these beacons of light, warned tugs, barges, schooners, sloops, and steamboats, that they were approaching a bridge, lock, or some other hazard along the waterway. The thirty-foot wooden towers were fitted with red oil lamps.  Lighthouse tenders hoisted the lamps up into the lantern room of the light to signal vessels of the approaching obstacle.

The Army Corps of Engineers completed widening and deepening the canal in 1927, discontinuing the familiar lighthouses that had stood guard along the waterway. The Army Corps of Engineers Museum in Chesapeake City has a full-scale replica of the original Bethel Bridge Lighthouse. The replica was donated by the Chesapeake City Lions Club in 1966.

Tomorrow (Aug 7) is National Lighthouse Day so we are resharing a post on a Cecil County lighthouse. On this date in 1789, Congress approved an act for the establishment and support of lighthouses, becaons, buoys, and public piers. According to the American Lighthouse Foundation is a day “to celebrate lighthouses and the commitment and service of those who tended America’s lights for generations.”

The Turkey Point Lighthouse in Elk Neck, Cecil County, was built in 1833. It sits on a 100 foot bluff at the tip of the Peninsula bordered by the North East and Elk rivers. C. W. “Harry” Salter was appointed the keeper of the Light in 1922.

CHESAPEAKE CITY DRY — On Aug. 17, 1914, someone passing through the canal in Chesapeake City penned a brief message on the back of this postcard. The traveler wrote: “passed through at noon.  All sober.  Dry town. . . .” Postmarked in Chesapeake City, the message was mailed to William Mauer, Norristown, PA.

In the decades before prohibition, Maryland had a patchwork of wet and dry counties and communities. State laws permitted local referendums on the question, and if enough local voters had an aversion to alcohol, sales could be banned in the municipality, district, or county. The divisive issue appeared on the ballot regularly, giving the citizens plenty of opportunities to soberly reconsider the matter of wet or dry.

For more on temperance and prohibition see

Beer Is Back They Shouted as They Raised a Glass to Prohibition’s Death Knell