Reflections on Yesterday — Cecil County History
May 3, 2014 – We had a long winter on the Upper Chesapeake and spring has been slow to arrive. But on this first Saturday in May there was every indication that winter had stopped lingering around Harford and Cecil counties. At the Lower Susquehanna Ferry the temperature climbed to a seasonal appropriate 70 degrees, plants were blooming, and plenty of people were out strolling around Rodgers Tavern and the town’s water front park.
While in Western Cecil County this afternoon with Milt Diggins to check out a few historical traces from the antebellum period, we noticed the open flag flapping in the breeze at the Perryville Railroad Station Museum.
So we stopped in and had a pleasant tour of the exhibits jammed with railroad artifacts, photographs and memorabilia. The guide on duty, Patrick Stetina knowledgably guided us through the 1906 station. As we talked, several fast Amtrak passenger trains zipped by.
The usually hours for the museum are Sunday afternoons, 12 p.m. to 4 p.m., so put it on your schedule some Sunday afternoon and learn lots more railroading in the County.
Thanks Pat for the tour.
November 19, 1968, was a sunny, cold day on the Chesapeake and Delaware and the Pilot, a canal patrol boat, was on its last official run. Months earlier, the Corps of Engineers had decided her work was done, so she was making this final journey from the Town Point Station to the Chesapeake City Dock.
Protestors attempted to save the Pilot, but the government said that closed-circuit TVs, radar, and advances in radio communications had replaced the work. So after completing the final patrol on November 15, the crew tied her to the pier at midnight to await this day, the removal to Chesapeake City.
On that sentimental Tuesday, the men who had patrolled the waterway chatted about the 27-year-old craft’s history, noting how she plied the waters on safety patrols, met incoming ships, checked traffic conditions, enforced safety regulations, and made rescues, the Cecil Whig reported. There had been three boats, but after this mid-autumn day, only Reedy Point, Delaware, remained. Her days were numbered too.
The patrols started after the Corps of Engineers modernized the canal in 1927, removing locks and rickety wooden drawbridges. The Eleanor S., the Joy, the Dragon, and the Escort I were some earlier vessels that churned the waters for the Corps of Engineers, keeping a watchful eye on activities.
As the pilot approached the Chesapeake City Bridge, the engine was slowed down, and soon she pulled beside her retired sister craft, the Convoy, which was “already collecting cobwebs as she rocked softly at dockside.” The Whig noted that this is how the Pilot would spend her last days.
Also of Interest
Tokens for Your Work on the C & D Canal
Cecil County has had more than its share of tragic commercial airline accidents and periodically these tragedies get attention as memorials are dedicated or a remembrance program is held. The crashes are well documented in newspaper clippings, letters, official reports, and photographs in online digital newspaper collections and at various web archives.
Now additional sources are becoming available as old movie footage is digitized and streamed online. That is the case with the Port Deposit Plane Crash, Eastern Airlines Flight 605, which suddenly plunged from the sky on a gorgeous Memorial Day in 1947. The doomed, out-of-control craft streaked earthward and when it struck the ground, observers said there was a puff of white smoke, a flash of orange, and a billowing cloud of smoke. All 53 people on board died from the impact and explosion. Mrs. Jeanette Nesbit Hillyer arranged for a monument to be erected at the site in 2011, assuring that the fading memory of the terrible event would not be forgotten in Cecil County.
In a clip described as the “aftermath of two air crashes in United States of America” British Pathe, a provider of newsreels for theatres, filmed the accident scene outside of Port Deposit in some silent footage. Just before the local incident, another DC-4 crashed at La Guardia Airfield in New York, and that coverage opened the segment. The Cecil County film starts at about 53 seconds into the piece.
While the Society and some private collectors have a number of still photos of the accident, this is the first time we have seen any movie film from an incident that took place in a thick woods outside of Port Deposit nearly 70 years ago.
In a drive to make its archives more accessible to viewers, British Pathe recently released its digital archives of 85,000 films, making them available for free online streaming. These historic newsreel films contain vintage news and feature reports. In this virtual collection, you will find footage of major events around the world and regional news, including the Port Deposit Plane Crash.
For more on the Port Deposit Plane Crash, see this article on Flight 605
North Street was the financial center of Elkton. On the street were a number of banks and on a Friday night the area hummed with activity. People headed downtown to deposit their paycheck and get some cash for weekly shopping in the business district.
The Elkton Banking and Trust Company was one of those institutions and between the two World Wars a number of cars are parked in front of the Trust Company.
Lots of people remember the day America turned 200 years old, July 4, 1976. There were all sorts of special parades, concerts, fireworks, and programs in communities across the nation. It was a big deal in Cecil, too, with plenty of Bicentennial celebrations on the long holiday weekend for the once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.
Working that July 4th, Elkton Police Officers carefully chronicled the passing of Independence Day in the department’s official blotter. Officers Strickland, Smith, Blake, Pease, and George kept a careful watch on the county seat, during a 24-hour tour, coming and going off 8-hour shifts as people enjoyed the festivities.
Considering how big the celebrations and parties were, it was a remarkably quiet holiday in Elkton. There were a few fireworks calls and a couple of burglar alarms, but only one or two cases of disorder to mar the festive occasion.
Given the slow day, someone had time to do a little doodling on this public record, the Elkton Police Blotter. The pages, all except this one, lacked color and sketches. But an officer, getting into the spirit of ’76, wrote “Happy Birthday America,” and decorated the page with colorful artwork and lettering.
So just as our little colonial doodler in an early age, sketched on a Cecil County tax schedule, someone did the same in 1976 on this public record.
A few decades ago these volumes were added to the collection of the Historical Society of Cecil County and are available there.
Although tax season is over for most Americans now that we are a couple of days past April 15th, it doesn’t mean that records generated for annual levies long ago aren’t of interest. In fact, one of the Historical Society of Cecil County research volunteers, Jo Ann Gardner, has been pouring over volumes of those financial transactions, carefully checking the rolls for personal property inventories, tax liabilities, addresses, and the names of people living here in earlier centuries.
Gardner isn’t an auditor with the Internal Revenue Service pouring over what might appear to be mundane pages. She is a library volunteer, helping a patron from Colorado who is trying to identify some long-ago, elusive ancestors in the public records.
Although those citizens from the past may not have been thrilled to pay the county levy, someone looking for evidence for putting together a family tree can be delighted to find ancestors listed in those aging, financial schedules written in a flowing script. While there are many ways to go about family history research, these often neglected vital governmental documents, have great value for historical and genealogical information. Gardner has been at it for some time going page by page through the volumes as the colonial, early federal, and 19th-century tax records at the Society are extensive.
The other day while pouring over those yellowing pages, with an auditor’s eye for detail, she tripped across a surprising item penned in the detailed, dry listings of figures, inventories, assessments, and levies. The county clerk (or someone) did a little fancy doodling, drawing a well-dressed man and also the face of another person. Perhaps it was just a little absent-minded sketching as the clerk sat silently listening to the commissioners review the assessments and make adjustments while waiting for them to complete their deliberations so he could permanently record the details in the county’s public record.
Gardner has named her colonial sketch artist, “Yankee Doodles Dandy,” and in those lists, tabulations, and levies, sources that have great potential for the genealogist probing for that elusive ancestor, “Yankee Doodles Dandy,” stands out. And the over 200-year-old random drawing has been getting lots of attention, as it adds a little color to the public record.
Nearly forty years ago, the County Commissioners determined that our local heritage keepers should also serve as the county archives for records that no longer have day-to-day relevance, but have historical value.
Whatever the case, we have had many doodlers in our nation’s history, as great leaders and others have been known to draw on the margins of a sheet during meetings. So the county clerk from the colonial era was in good company as he performed that most essential function, official recording the business of Cecil County while also taking care of filings, pleadings, dockets, and legal instruments.
Doodling in the Elkton Police Blotter as the Nation Turns 200-Years-Old
This is National Public Safety Telecommunications Week (April 13-19, 2014), a time when the United States honors the professionals who answer 911 calls and dispatch emergency responders. While the nation thanks public safety communicators, Window on Cecil County’s Past pauses to tip our hat to the County’s 911 calls-takers, dispatchers, and technicians who maintain our emergency communication system.
These men and women are on the front line of every urgent situation in Cecil, dealing with life and death situations 24 hours-a-day, 7 days a week. They answer thousands of calls each year, coordinating the response of police officers, paramedics, fire fighters, hazmat technicians, medevac helicopters, and much more to incidents, while also providing guidance and instruction to citizens until first responders arrive. Their service is greatly appreciated.
At the same time, we pause to remember the four professionals who were the pioneer emergency communicators in Cecil. On Monday, October 2, 1961 at 12 p.m. sirens all across the county sounded, marking the beginning of professional, centralized communications as “fire headquarters” was on the air.
The Whig explained the operation. “It will be manned around the clock with trained personnel who have a knowledge of every piece of emergency equipment in the county, where it is located, what it can be used for, and the method for dispatching it without loss of time.”
Four fulltime county employees staffed the 24/7 operation. The one dispatcher alone on the shift juggled the telephone calls, handled radio traffic, and kept the FCC log. The “chief operator” Jack Cooke, was assisted by “operators” Rosemary Culley, Marie Cooling, and Jim Penhollow. Robert Eversole served as a relief operator.
Jim Penhollow recently recalled that it was a couple of days before the first emergency call came in. The times sure have changed and public safety communications has grown more complicated with each passing year. The week is sponsored by the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO).
We salute our public safety communications professionals, current and past.
Spring has finally arrived on the Upper Chesapeake and at old Rev. Duke’s Log House things were busy on this sunny Thursday afternoon as the temperature approached the mid-60s. It was a perfect, early April afternoon as Arts Council volunteers tilled the soil on the front lawn for a community garden.
For additional albums, see this Conowing Post photo album on Facebook.