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As decades slip all too quickly by once young soldiers grow old.  While aging the defenders often recall their battles, remembering stirring times until that final voice is silenced.  That time was rapidly approach in 1896 for soldiers of the War of 1812, when the Utica Morning Herald reported that only fourteen pensioners remained.

In that group was a Cecil County centenarian, Elijah B. Glenn.  He had been born at Carpenter’s Point in August 1796.   Glenn was the “last survivor of the ‘Old Defenders who saved Baltimore from the British attack” in September 1814, according to the Cecil Democrat.  He died on July 25, 1898, at 102 years of age at the home of his granddaughter, Mrs. John E. Barcklow in Newark, NJ according to the New York Times.  The private joined the Maryland Militia when he was 18, serving in Captain Peter Pinney’s company, the 27th Maryland Regiment, which fought at the Battle of North Point.

The Port Deposit Chamber of Commerce has entered the high-tech heritage tourism world by piloting a new product, becoming the first Cecil County destination spot to offer walking tours delivered over a wireless network.  Strolling throughout the historic town nestled between granite cliffs and the east bank of the Susquehanna River, the past comes alive for curious types, tourists, and residents as the present meets the past.  While ambling along a street with fine buildings from an earlier time, visitors dial in on a cellphone to hear engaging and informative narrations.

The buildings in this river town have always seemed as if they were just waiting to tell lively stories of the past and that was done traditionally with a walking tour pamphlet.  Now the earlier eras speak to the passerby.

Port is an ideal town for an afternoon walking tour on a beautiful autumn day (or anytime really) similar to this one.  So be sure to visit soon, but don’t forget to bring along your digital devise.  The recorded messages, all brief (less than two minutes), describe events from the past and the points of interest.

The phone number is 585-546-1776.   There are eleven stops and callers select what they want to listen to by dialing the stop number on the keypad.  Small signs posted around town alert visitors to the locations.

Thank you Port Deposit Chamber for helping make Cecil County history more broadly accessible on an audio that gives everyone a chance to hear a lively and engaging personal tour of major historic spots and events around a town that has so much history waiting to be shared.  This pilot product was developed earlier this year in order to help the Chamber learn about navigating the process of working with these emerging products and it will enable them to enhance the tour over time.

The Historical Society of Cecil County is holding a remembrance program on Dec 8^th 2013, as it will be fifty years since Pan American World Airways Flight 214 crashed outside of Elkton, killing everyone onboard the jet.  As we honor the memory of those on the flight and the first responders who answered the urgent call that stormy night, families from throughout the nation are traveling to Elkton on this date.

The Elkton Comfort Suites has partnered with the Society to offer an exclusive discounted rate to those traveling to Elkton over the remembrance weekend.  If you are attending the programs and need overnight accommodations feel free to check with the Comfort Suites.  Tell them you are attending the “Cecil County Historical Society Program,” and they will make the special rate available to you.

The Society thanks the management of the hotel for helping support this important program as families return to Elkton on this weekend in early December to the remember the tragedy that touched so many lives in so many ways.

Beginning after the Civil War, the Army Corps of Engineers worked to maintain water access to communities located at the head of navigation of many rivers on the Chesapeake. That ongoing struggle, extending well into the 1900s, required constant effort as the Corps mapped waterways, carried out dredging, removed shoals, and built dikes, making the waterways navigable for sailing and steam vessels.

For places that had grown steadily because of the location at the top of a waterway, silting the river beds was a problem, making them nearly unreachable via the traditional routes, except on high tide.  These centuries of labor generated a lot of helpful technical reports, many of them done by engineers, and those old original records are often available to help understand the passage of centuries along a stream.  As the Corps superintended the dredging, they produced pages of notes, sketches, hand-drawn maps, letters, official correspondence, and official documents.  Many surviving manuscripts are stored safely away in the Philadelphia Branch of the National Archives.

The North East River was one of those watercourses that received attention.  The Engineers did a detailed examination of the waterway for the House of Representatives, surveying it to its head in 1937.  The United States dredged a channel of 6’ feet depth to the Davis Wharf in North East in 1893, at a cost of $5,140, “exclusive of an expenditures of $15,500 under prior authorizations.”  At this point, commercial interests desired to have a channel 10 feet deep to a point 300 feet above the foot of Church Street, ending in a suitable turning and anchorage basin.  If the Government would agree to do this proponents offered to “furnish necessary rights-of-way and spill-disposal areas, construct a public wharf, and contribute $100 toward the cost of improvement.”

Noting the value in this work, the report said there were 1,500 inhabitants, principally engaged in the manufacture of brick, insulating products and baskets, processing of vegetables and fish, and the repair of boats.  The nearby areas were devoted chiefly to farming, although a number of summer residential developments are located along the lower reaches of the stream.  The commerce of the harbor for 1935 consisted of 10,000 tons of fish and 500 tons of salt at a fish-pickling plant near the lower town limits.

If the work was performed, it should lead to the receipt of substantial quantities of petroleum products, building materials, fertilizers and miscellaneous freights with saving in transportation costs estimated at $3,750, the authors estimated.

Another study in 1910 noted that the town of 1,000 had a taxable basis of $500,000 and was governed by a board of five commissioners.  It contained one bank, a grade and high school, a newspaper, two hotels, three churches, two brickyards, a shirt factory, a basket factory, a cannery, three fish-packing houses, a charcoal kiln, a flour mill, an electric light plant, a boat building, and a cooperage plants.  One railroad passed by the town.  Twenty-eight sailing craft and 92 power boats were owned here, 75 percent having a capacity of 10 tons or less.

Water transportation was limited to one 35-ton power boat, drawing 5 feet of water, which plied between North East and Baltimore.  It had to wait for flood tide to pass over the bar, which was causing a failing off of profits.

Additional examinations were conducted in the 1870s and 1880s, and these manuscripts, especially those highly detailed maps drawn so long ago, help answer many of our questions about the time and place.

H. W. Sherman, one of the assets acquired by the Federal Government with the purchase of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, was retiring from the Army Corps of Engineers in 1953.  The 70-year-old administrative assistant spent 48 years on the waterway, having started with the corporate owner of the route across the Peninsula in 1905.

It was a lock canal when Herman moved from Philadelphia to Chesapeake City to work as a clerk.  “You should have seen the barges coming through in those days,” the retiring employee told the Baltimore Sun.  “They were long and loaded with lumber, pulpwood, and pig iron.  There wasn’t any oil in those days, but there was wine.”

It was a toll route, and every vessel paid as it moved through the first lock.  “Big shippers posted a bond so their barges could move through without any holdup.  Each week drafts were sent to them for payment.  If they failed, the bonds were seized.  The small operators paid cash on each voyage.”  In 1912 Mr. Sherman became a collector, picking up the cash at the first lock.  “In those days, because the locks were small,” he relates, there were teams of four mules to pull barges through.”

He added that the only other person associated with the canal still alive in Chesapeake City was Harry Borger, a mule driver and later a steam rig operator.

The veteran employee noted the changes:  “It’s a good thing we haven’t had to worry about tolls with all this big traffic moving through.  Think what it might be checking up on the big lots in the freighters that have been using the canal.    The 70-year-old planned to stay around Chesapeake City, where he had spent his last 48 years, working in his huge flower garden and cutting the shrubbery around his white frame house in Chesapeake City.

The times had changed on the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal.

Trains on the old Philadelphia and Baltimore Central Railroad didn’t go far and they didn’t go fast on the line that twisted and turned its way through some of the most scenic parts of Cecil County.  Beginning on the state line at Sylmar, the rails passed through valleys, alongside creeks, and through granite hills until the junction of mainline, the Columbia and Port Deposit Road, was reached.  On a trip through this attractive area today, rusting iron bridges, abandoned right-of-ways, and other relics of the railroad-age remain.

Yesterday afternoon, Milford Sprecher kicked off the Historical Society of Cecil County’s popular 2013-14 speakers series with an engaging, photo-illustrated talk, “Elkton in the 1960s.”  On the pleasant Saturday, he vividly captured the spirit of those years locally, providing views and perspective of someone who came of age in the county seat during a pivotal era.

It was a period of change in the nation and in Cecil County.  The opening of I-95, integration, urban renewal, a changing central business district, the Vietnam War, and tragedy all affected Elkton, and Milford talked about those matters.  Also, on the enjoyable track through some 50 years to this special place, his thoughts drifted back to fond memories acquired long ago, when Elkton was a much different place.  The speaker kept things rolling along, but laughter periodically interrupted the presentation as he recounted humorous incidents from the past.  After it was over, people eagerly clustered around the speaker to converse and share additional stories.

This was part of the Society’s annual speaker’s series.    During the cooler months, the Society hosts a series of popular talks on topics ranging from practical research methods to fresh lectures that have broad appeal.  All lectures are designed to be informative and enjoyable while concentrating on new, broadly engaging topics or applied sessions to help with research.

Click here for additional information upcoming events from the speakers series,  The free programs take place on the first Saturday of each month at 2:00 p.m. at Cecil County’s History and Genealogy Library at 135 E. Main Street in Elkton.

When Dr. James Johnson started practicing medicine in Elkton in the middle of the Great Depression the county’s healthcare system was segregated, just like every other aspect of life in Cecil County.  Union Hospital had a separate ward for African-Americans and the young physician didn’t have admitting privileges.  If one of his patients required hospitalization, he arranged the admission through another doctor.

As integration made inroads in areas such as public accommodation and education, an entire generation of black doctors worked with others to bring an end to the racially segregated health care across the nation.  The system of separate wards here appears to have been eliminated by the mid-1960s but prior to that time, the physician hadn’t been given admitting privileges at the hospital.

The daughter of Dr. Peter Stavrakis, Olga, recalls that period:  “He was a good physician and my father respected him enough to leave him in charge of his patients when we went on vacation even before the civil rights movement and before Dr. Johnson had rights to put patients into Union Hospital.  Sometimes people would react to that and I would assure them that my father only went off call to the best practitioner in the county.  He also got involved in helping to get full hospital privileges for the physician for he felt that he was a skilled healthcare provider.”

The young man from Baltimore, a 1928 graduate of Lincoln University, went to Nashville, TN to enroll in Meharry Medical College, a school that was founded in 1876 by the Freedman’s Bureau as a school for African-American physicians.  It and Howard University in Washington, D.C., were the only medical schools for black students at that time.

After returning to Baltimore to complete his internship at Provident Hospital, the urban professional settled in rural Cecil County, opening his office at the corner of East High and Booth streets in Elkton in 1934.  Barbara Boddy, 61, of Elkton worked for him in that bustling office as a teenager.  “Doctor would make his rounds at Union Hospital first thing in the morning, then visit the sick in their homes in the afternoon.”  You know Doctors made house calls in those days, she casually remarked.

But his day was far from over “We would open the office for patients later in the day,” Barbara adds.  “Often we worked late into the night as Doc took care of everyone.  When he was ready for his afternoon caseload, “he would say okay open the door.  Sometimes there would be so many people already there waiting for us.”  Barbara, serving as his assistant, would attend to office functions and help the physician as he swabbed throats, took temperatures and blood pressures, cured various pains, and treated a range of ailments.  You would also find him traversing the county at all hours of the night to respond to emergencies at patient’s homes she adds.  “He was always working.  He never seemed to tire.”

“Six dollars, yes that’s what it cost for a Doctor visit,” Clifford Jones recalls.  “For that, he dispensed whatever medicine you needed too. Doc always fixed me right up, curing whatever ailed me.” “He was a sweet wonderful person,” is the way Barbara remembers him.  “He was always working for people and it didn’t matter whether they could pay or not.  He just took care of them.”

For his many contributions to the community, the respected doctor was recognized as the citizen of the year by the Chamber of Commerce in 1971. He was particularly proud of his effort to get a modern school built at Booth Street for children in the African-American community during the separate but unequal period of the past.

Into the 1970s he maintained a busy medical practice, keeping his office open five days a while visiting patients at Union hospital seven days a week. His days often began before dawn and ended well after sunset. Jim Cheeseman, the Cecil Whig photographer said in 1971: “The one picture I would really like to shoot is a silhouette of the good doctor rushing to Union Hospital in the early morning before dawn like I have seen him do so many times.”

Dr. James Johnson passed away on Feb 24, 1978, at the age of 73. He had practiced medicine in Elkton for 43 years.

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Here is a link to an earlier post about Dr. Johnson, along with comments from readers.

Cecil County Citizens Kayak & Canoe Club recently established an open Facebook group, a place for those interested in the area’s five rivers.  Once the social media page launched, views of the Upper Elk River (the Kayaker’s perspective) caught my attention, causing me to start digging through old research files in a search of some detailed 19^th century charts of the river.

I had been involved in research that sought to document how water access to communities at the head of navigable rivers changed over the centuries.  That decade-old question took me to the Philadelphia Branch of the National Archives to examine long untouched, original records of Major William Price Craighill, the head of the engineering office of the Army Corps of Engineers in this region from 1870 to 1895.  (He retired as a general, serving in the highest post in his branch.)

With over 25 years at this station, he superintended the dredging of many of the Chesapeake’s rivers.   His products, including the original notebooks, sketches, hand-drawn maps, letters, and official reports, are safely stored away at the Philadelphia branch.  As he supervised engineering on the Upper Chesapeake, his men were involving in mapping the Elk River.  They also  carried on dredging, removed shoals and built dikes, making the waterway navigable for sailing and steam vessels.

These manuscripts helped answer many of our questions at that time, and the recent posts by the Facebook group drew my interest to those highly detailed maps drawn so long ago.  His work contained detailed information — both reports and maps — on many of the rivers in this area and would be helpful for anyone doing a study of the waterways.

The rivers in our corner of Maryland have a fascinating narrative waiting to shared, going back to the pre-historic period.    Thank you Cecil County Citizens Kayak & Canoe Club for working to promote this heritage and natural beauty.

And thank you Col. Craghill for mapping the Elk River.

For more on the Elk River, See Steamboating Days on the River

Although it’s been unused as a jail for over a quarter of a century, an inmate or two might still linger inside the unoccupied 19th-century Jail on North Street in Elkton. If they do, they are ghostly inhabitants since prisoners moved out of the aging lockup under the cover of midnight darkness in 1984. Or could it be the spirit of some other occupant since sheriffs, their families, and guards lived and worked there for generations?

Some 12 years ago, a lady who had just taken a job in the building when it had been transformed into offices for Cecil County Senior Services revealed to me that the place frightened her. At first, I thought this believable person was kidding as she mentioned creepy things like shadowy forms, shadows seeming to disappear into a dead-end, empty corridors.

On the evening when she came to talk to me about these troubling matters, she told of cold spots, things moving around, and unusual creaks and groans while working early evenings alone inside strong walls built to confine criminals. There were noises that rattled her nerves too. Men shouting, chains clattering, heavy footsteps reverting down unattended hallways, and metal iron-barred doors slamming shut in an otherwise empty building. It was all taking place in an ancient jailhouse built for hen-house robbers, horse thieves, drunkards, unruly types, cold-blooded murderers, and evildoers from another age.

What More Likely Spot for Spirits

As I listened, I had a chilling thought.  What more likely spot for spirits to linger but a place filled with centuries of violence and tragedy as thousands of people who ran afoul of the law passed through its steel-barred doors.  The long obsolete lockup was constructed six years after the end of the Civil War, an era when the gallows and whipping post were major parts of the criminal justice system.  During its 123 years as the quarters for hardened lawbreakers, three executions took place there.  Two other men agonizingly passed their last night on earth in cells before being taken outside town to forfeit their lives on the hangman’s gallows.

Lots of other dreadful things took place there. The bloodiest day occurred in 1912 when a heartless shooting snuffed out the young life of a lawman as his wife watched. Sheriff J. Myron Miller was slain while attempting to take a pistol away from a prisoner. The dying officer was carried back inside, where he lingered briefly.

Those cold walls have silently witnessed plenty of other sorrowful incidents of violence, suicide, and lonely natural deaths. And as her story of unexplained goings-on or ghosts continued I intently listened while she talked frankly about things. Before the noise of those long-vanished prisoners could really get on her nerves, she would hurry to finish work, getting out of there before darkness descended on the place.

But in the depths of winter, that was a problem. On particularly troublesome cold, shadowy evenings, she tried something else. I know so and so she would shout back at those spectral mischief-makers. My perplexed look caused my source to add a childhood friend’s father sometimes got locked up for having a little too much fun on Friday evening outings in the decades between the World Wars. If those long-ago jailbirds were making the racket causing her distress she reasoned this would stop those scalawags. It worked she declared. The jail quieted down!

Once she heard a distinctly male voice painfully calling out a woman’s name. The next day I checked some old records and was surprised to find there was a connection between some of the names associated with tragic violence at this place. But how would my source know about those deeply buried facts?

The doubter in me contemplated what I heard about the jailhouse as I kept pitting logic against a convincing witness. Ghosts are not real I thought as I mulled it over and thought of some less dramatic tales I heard from other workers. Then there was the time I had a group for a walking tour of the town, including some ghost hunters. While I stood outside walls that have witnessed human tragedies talking about the history of this building, the crowd shrieked that a man was looking out a window at us. I turned but saw nothing so I assured the group that the building was vacant.

Things That Went Bump in the Night at the Jail

While attending an Elkton Historic District Commission hearing on a developer’s plan for adaptive reuse of the historic structure, motion after motion dragged on. With the commissioner debating weighty legal, procedural, and technical matters, a retired deputy sheriff, Ralph Newton, lightened things up by sharing some testimony about strange late-night occurrences.

Back in the 1960s, in the middle of a long Cecil County winter night when one elderly jailer, Elwood Racine, guarded seven prisoners, while Deputy Newton patrolled the county on the graveyard shift, the road man got an urgent radio call.  The turnkey needed help as someone was freely roaming the cell block.   But all the prisoners had been accounted for and securely locked down for a quiet, peaceful night in the old lockup from another era.

But something was wrong in the cell blocks; someone was roaming around. When the backup arrived, they both heard footsteps echoing through the cell blocks. They were sure a prisoner had managed to release himself from a cell.

Ready for a jailbreak or some other kind of trouble, the officers grabbed those big keys and cautiously opened that heavy steel-barred door, the one that secured the prisoners in the cell blocks.  A careful search failed to find anything on that quiet 1960s night as the handful of detainees slept soundly or wearily looked around, trying to figure out what the racket was about.  During that security check, the cautious lawmen couldn’t find anything wrong.

Periodically those heavy footsteps returned on other quiet Cecil County nights as if someone was descending the metal steps to the main cell block. At other times the officers would hear those heavy iron-barred doors slam shut.  These sorts of unnerving things occurred often enough, but those two lawmen working the graveyard shift never did find anything on those dark, lonely nights in the post-Civil War-era hoosegow.

The officers got used to those bumps in the night so they would shrug it off, assuming it was a ghost of a prisoner who had breathed his last in the old prison as he met the hangman’s noose or some other unsettled spectral type of thing.

Do Ghosts Still Lurk in the Jail

Do ghosts lurk inside the vacant brick and granite jail on North Street in Elkton? There are some true believers with some dramatic experiences. They believe there are ghosts in the building and the stories continue from occupants of the apartment building there now.