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 Perryville, January 28, 2014 — As Maryland continues to shiver in this frigid weather, the mouth of the Susquehanna River is beginning to freeze over.

Jo Ann Gardner, one of our volunteers, has been producing brief videos of Cecil County history to share with our audience.  Since we are presently in the middle of a polar vortex that is creating some frigid January nights, she thought this one would be appropriate as the weather brought to mind the winter of 1852.  That year so long ago, the Susquehanna and the Chesapeake Bay froze over and the thermometer plummeted to minus seven degrees in Elkton.  Enjoy this flashback in time.

After thirty-seven years of “sudden suppertime departures and early moving arrivals,” Singerly Fire Company Chief Edgar (Speck) Slaughter, Jr. told the Cecil Whig it was time to “hang up his hat” in 1970.  The 53-year-old had been a firefighter at Cecil County’s busiest department for 22 years, eleven of those as the chief.  Before that, he fought fires with the Townsend Delaware Fire Company for 15 years.  “I’ll be around if they need me, but to be fair to my wife, well . . . I think I’ve had enough,” he remarked.

Coming up through the ranks in Elkton, he had seen a lot of changes.  Singerly grew from “two pumpers and one ambulance to four pumpers, two brush trucks, two ambulances, and an aerial platform snorkel truck.”

On his watch, he served as the incident commander at two of Maryland’s largest accidents.  Chief Slaughter directed the response to a horrifying crash of a Pan-American World Airways Flight, which exploded in mid-air over Elkton in December 1963.

Pennsylvania Railroad Wreck

In the pre-dawn darkness of October 31, 1965, a Pennsylvania Railroad freight train rumbled through Elkton.  As the 118 cars neared the municipal limits on the western edge of town, 41 of them, some filled with toxic chemicals and liquid propane, derailed.  The Sunday tranquility in the county seat was jolted by the noise of the crash, which was sending huge flames and dangerous smoke into the sky.

While Chief Slaughter mobilized his forces and requested aid from as far away as Wilmington and Aberdeen, an enormous explosion sent a towering mushroom type fireball into the sky.  Soon 100 firefighters were on hand, struggling to contain the spreading flames.

About 7 a.m. the chief ordered an urgent, mandatory evacuation for parts of western Elkton.  The Sunday morning DJ working the early shift at WSER took to the airwaves, broadcasting the emergency information as National Guardsmen went door to door to make sure residents departed immediately.

By 1 p.m. the situation was under control, but it was reported that the fires “would burn all night.”  A spokesperson from the railroad said, “it was the worst wreck he had seen in the last 20 years because of the location and the danger from the burning cars, which were filled with poisons and liquid petroleum gas.”

Chief Slaughter

The election of a new fire chief took place on February 2, 1970.  On that day, Jack Cook, a member for 20 years took command.  After eleven years on the job, Chief Slaughter was able to put away his hat, knowing that another capable leader was taking up the watch.

Chief Speck Slaughter, a respected fire service leader, led the department through a period of rapid growth and served as the incident commander at major incidents.

For additional photos of the Elkton Train Wreck album on Facebook.  

Whenever there is a major snowstorm, Cecil County police officers, paramedics, firefighters and other public safety professionals face a significantly increased workload as they patrol and respond to 911 dispatches in snowy, wind-blown conditions.  \

But whatever Mother Nature hands them, these men and women are always geared up and ready to go.  This evening is no exception and as a major wintry blast rumbles through they are out working in the elements this frigid January night, keeping the public safe.

An online photo share of an Elkton patrol car on the evening watch this Tuesday reminded us of the fine work these agencies do in all sorts of weather.

Here is an old photo from an earlier snow patrol.  Of course, it wasn’t a major snowstorm.  But on a long ago Sunday afternoon (mid-1970s) at the end of the day watch, the Elkton Police Department corralled their suspect, the snowman.  Officers Jeff MacKenzie and Ralph Newton were preparing to hand things over to the two officers on the evening patrol, and a little light snow gave them a chance for a brief moment of relaxation as they gathered up their notebooks and other materials.

 

 

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.