Category: Uncategorized

Congressman J. Parnell Thomas, the chairman of the Un-American Activities Committee, began suspecting that Communists might have infiltrated the ranks of Cecil County’s Law Enforcement community one autumn day in 1947.  As the New Jersey Representative with plenty of experience investigating all sorts of high profile Hollywood radicals, the naturally suspicious politician knew when he had stumbled onto an infiltration threat.

Representative Thomas’ reputation as an anti-Communist crusader grew in May 1947 once Republicans took the reins of Congress for the first time in 16-years when he was put in charge of the House Committee on Un-American Activities.  This moved him from being an obscure Bergen County politician to national prominence as the zealous chairman ramped up investigations of the Hollywood film industry, seeking to expose radical infiltration of the Screen Writer’s Guild.  He also knew that Reds had penetrated the labor movement, the government, political parties, the press, radio, schools and colleges, churches and social organizations.

Five months later, the powerful Congressman was well-known nationally because of his zeal in providing leadership to uncover subversion and espionage.  So, with his experience in investigating all sorts of radical activities, he knew he had come across something when Maryland State Trooper Stanley Kaplow arrested him for speeding outside of Port Deposit.

In a letter to the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles, Thomas said he was driving about 30 mph in a 50 mph zone when he noticed the patrol car.  Nonetheless, he lowered his speed more, but Trooper Kaplow lowered his.  Then the Congressman raised his speed to see what would happen but the officer still followed him.

Having had his investigators shadow plenty of questionable types, he became suspicious of the trailing police car.  In fact, he indignantly stopped and confronted Trooper Kaplow, demanding that the patrolman stop trailing him.  To this, the officer replied he was going to continue and for ten miles he did.  “As far as I could find out, he did it for just one reason and that was to annoy me,” Representative Thomas reported.

This touched off the congressman’s suspicions that there was something “dire and foreboding to the action of this officer.  Probably he was an Un-American.”  So he asked the Maryland Commissioner of Motor Vehicles for an official investigation.   The Maryland authorities weren’t too worried about Trooper Kaplow’s loyalty and possible un-Americanism for they appear to have done nothing.

The rookie lawman was a member of Maryland’s first postwar class of state troopers, graduating from the police academy in April 1947.  After graduating from the academy, the Conowingo Barrack became his duty station.  In 1969, when Governor Marvin Mandel took office, Captain Kaplow headed up the 12-man executive security detail. When he retired from the Maryland State Police as deputy superintendent, he held the rank of Colonel.  He died in 1988.

Well before the Congressman resigned from Congress in January 1950, after being charged with padding the payroll, the fear of communists in Cecil County had faded, at least in law enforcement.

The Historical Society of Cecil County’s Winter Speakers Series continues on Saturday, February 1, 2014, with a talk on Early Black Methodism on Delmarva by Syl Woolford.

John Wesley, in his vision of the Methodist Episcopal Church, established a denomination in which all human beings were considered equal.  When his disciples, Francis Asbury, Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Coke, came to America to convert the early Americans to Methodism, they included the plantations and the slaves as part of their circuit rides.  Slaves accounted for 25 percent of the converts to early Methodism.

This story of early African-American preachers such as Richard Allen, Peter Spencer, Absalom Jones, “Daddy” Moses and Harry Hosier riding from camp meeting to camp meeting while  creating some of the great Methodist denominations of today is a part of history that is examined and celebrated in this lecture.

Syl Woolford is a native Delawarean and he resides in Newark.  He is a graduate of Delaware State University with a BS Degree in Business Administration/Accounting and a graduate of Rutgers University with an MBA in Marketing. He has recently retired from a career in accounting and sales.

The speaker’s interest in history began with researching his own family history. He traced his mother’s family, the Saunders Family, for 200 years in the city of Newark, Delaware. Most recently, he has traced the Woolford side of his family back to Dorchester County, Maryland and made a connection with Harriet Tubman’s legendary efforts in free slaves in Dorchester County.

The scholar and genealogist has spent a great deal of time making discoveries about African-American history on the Delmarva Peninsula.  His investigations and popular lectures include the United States Colored Troops, the Dover Eight, the Iron Hill Community Genealogy Project, and many more subjects.

The program, which takes places at the Society’s library at 135 E. Main Street at 2 p.m., is free. No reservations are required.

The Cecil County Historic District Commission (HDC) works to protect the area’s historic and architectural resources.  The duties of the HDC include making recommendations on applications for historic designation.  In addition to preserving the County’s past, there are a number of additional benefits to designation.  Those include a 10% property tax credit for approved restoration efforts and perpetual protection from demolition of the property.

Click here for additional information on the Cecil Historic District Commission, including the application process.

Singerly Volunteer Fire Company, of Elkton MD, will present their twenty-seventh annual “Paper Americana Show” on Saturday January 25, 2014 from 10 AM to 4 PM.

The show will feature over thirty dealers from several states who are offering for sale, antique books, postcards, newspapers, art prints, advertising & regional collectibles, photographs, and general ephemera.

The Singerly Fire Hall is located at 300 Newark Avenue Elkton, MD, near the intersection of Routes 213 and 279.  From I-95 take Exit# 109 (Rt. 279 Newark, DE/ Elkton, MD) interchange toward Elkton approx. 3 miles on right.

Admission is $3.00 per person ($2.00 with this ad) – children under

12 admitted free of charge.   Refreshments will be available by the Singerly Fire Company Ladies Auxiliary. For additional information contact ayersj@zoominternet.net or call 410-398-7735  or

410-398-7300 during show hours.

Date: Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Time: Open for refreshments at 6:30. Speaker program begins at 7:00 pm.

Location: Havre de Grace City Hall, corner of Juniata St. and Pennington Ave. Program: “Locating Historic House Sites within the Boundaries of the Fair Hill Natural Resources Management Area of Cecil County.” by Emily Kilby.

Abstract/Preview: In this presentation, Miss Kilby will present the results of her investigation into the historic ruins to be seen on and around the Fair Hill Natural Resources Management Area. Miss Kilby says, “One of the earliest settled areas in Maryland, a good portion of Cecil County’s Fourth District was part of 7,000 acres of property purchased by William du Pont between 1925 and 1965 to create a cattle breeding and fox hunting estate. Whether by intent or accident, he had reassembled most of New Munster, a land grant made by Lord Baltimore to Edwin O’ Dwire and others in 1683.”

Join us to hear and learn how Miss Kilby’s “…casual curiosity about…a springhouse  sitting in the middle of a wooded lot initiated a project that led bit by bit,…to reconstructing the documented history of this forgotten community that thrived for over two centuries.”

This afternoon at the Historical Society of Cecil County, Emily Kilby talked about mysteries, puzzles, and other wonderments from the past for the monthly winter lecture.   In the program, “Reconstructing 100 Ruins,” the retired magazine editor explained how clusters of crumbling stone ruins and other physical surviving evidence from centuries ago got her attention as she strolled the Fair Hill Natural Resources Management Area.  Curious about the narrative behind these old artifacts, Emily asked questions, but there were few answers.

The more she wondered about these bygone curiosities, the more convinced Emily became that she needed to look into the matter.  So the writer took a systematic, scholarly approach, an in-depth exploration of a previously unstudied subject in a scenic region of Cecil County.  Emily spent many weeks pouring over original, largely untapped source materials, such as old pictures, maps, court documents, census registers, and family papers, and these provided original insights, slowly revealing lost histories of abandoned properties within the Fair Hill Natural Resources Management area.

In this lively program attended by 50 people, she talked about the sparks that raised her interest, the chase for evidence from long ago, and the investigative methods that provided the evidence to piece together the puzzle of 100 ruins at Fair Hill.  The audience was engaged, and once the formal remarks wrapped up they had plenty of questions for the researcher.

Thank you, Emily Kilby, for an outstanding program.

The winter series takes place on the first Saturday of each month and on February 1^, 2014, Syl Woolford will talk about Early Black Methodist on Delmarva.

January 3, 2014 — An overnight snow storm dumped 6.5-inches of snow on Elkton and early this Friday morning the town was beginning to dig out.

An earlier post about an undergraduate thesis examining the desegregation of Cecil County Public Schools caused us to take a look at the last graduating class of George Washington Carver High School.

—————

The nine seniors that stepped forward and received their diplomas on June 8, 1964 at the George Washington Carver High School were the last class to graduate from the school.  On hand helping Principal Charles W. Caldwell and the staff at the commencement were Dr. Percy V. Williams, supervisor of pupil services with the Maryland Department of Education, and Walter J. Finn, assistant superintendent of Cecil County Schools.

Members of the final class were:  Edward Eugene Townley, class treasurer; Genevieve Yvonne Jones, class secretary; Bryant Thomas Wilson; Carolyn Ann Clark, Class President; Robert Henry Henson Jr., class vice-president; Barbara Ann Banks; William Sylvester Calm; Dorothy Marie Water; and Robert Marion Owens.

Principal Caldwell also retired that year after serving Cecil County 35 years.

Sources:  Cecil Whig and Cecil Democrat