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.
A rusting abandoned bridge carries the rails of the P. B & C. Railroad across the Octoraro Creek outside Rowlandsville. The Port Deposit & Columbia Bridge is seen in the background.
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.
North Street, Elkton, 1953 Source: Robinson Collection, the Historical Society of Cecil County
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.
William P. Craighill. served the Chesapeake Station for the Army Corps of Engineers for 25 years. Source: Wikipedia
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 19th 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.
Kayaking at the top of the Elk River. Elk Landing is in the background. Source: Cecil County Citizens Kayak & Canoe ClubThis map, showing where the Big and Little Elk creeks meet the river was drawn by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1926-1927. It was created after Craighill retired. Source: Army Corps of EngineersThis map shows the Big Elk Creek in the vicinity of Bridge St. It was drawn by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1926-1927, long after Craighill retired. Source: Army Corps of Engineers
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.
Last hanging at the old Elkton jail.
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.
Deputy Smokey Elliott locks the cell block in the old jail sometime in the early 1970s. (photo by Dixon)
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.
Many said there were ghosts in the Cecil County Jail. This photo of the jail is fro the 1950s or early 1960s.
A northbound Amtrak Acela rushes past the Perryville Station.
The old P.W. & B. Perryville Railroad Station looks rather fine on a late summer day as an Amtrak Acela rushes past. Built in 1904, the station continues serving commuters as about 14 Marc trains chug into the station each today and the conductors shout all aboard. Each morning the parking lots fill, and the old depot hums with activity with passengers climbing aboard for the morning commute to Baltimore and Washington.
Built in 1905, the Perryville Railroad Station is an important stop on Maryland’s commuter rail system.
One of our library volunteers, Steve Higham, has created a new online research resource to help those studying family and local history during the Civil War.
Here is Steve’s Description of the manuscript he worked with over the summer. “In the Civil War, the Federal government established quotas for each state as to the number of required enlistments. To meet these quotas, the states set quotas for the counties and authorized funds that the various counties could offer to entice volunteers to enlist. This payment (bounty) was paid to the volunteer at initial enlistment and a subsequent payment was made at a later date. In Cecil County, Maryland, most local enlistees received an initial bounty in September/October 1862 and the second payment (if still serving) was made later. A ledger was kept by Cecil County accounting for these bounty payments. The ledger indicated the name of the soldier, the locale and election district of the volunteer, his age, marital status and payee and payment date. Also shown is the date of the subsequent payment (if any) and the unit in which the soldier served.”
Here is the link to the Excel spreadsheet containing the names of the soldiers. Steve carefully scrutinized the 19th century handwriting, entered the data into a spreadsheet, photographed the appropriate page and linked it all together.
At Cecil County’s history and genealogy library, our volunteer librarians are working to use web-based technologies to increase the study and understanding of the area’s history. Thanks Steve for giving your time to create this digital research product.
By-the-way, he is working on other online research materials and we will announce those as he finishes working on them.
Librarian Carol Donache and Steve Higham examine the Cecil County Civil War Bounty digital research product.
A postcard of the Mobil Gas Station in Perryville: Source: Boston Public Library Flickr Commons
As a result of developing research materials for centuries many of the nation’s largest public libraries have vast collections of photographs and postcards from earlier times. These items, which are helpful to those digging into the past, have always been available, safely preserved and stored away for visiting patrons. But now access is greatly enhanced as many of these institutions implement online sharing platforms that support the organization’s mission by increasing access for education, research, and personal enrichment.
The Boston Public Library (BPL), following the example of the Library of Congress, is one of the institutions that has embraced this approach. It has about 86,000 images on the Commons. BPL’s photostream is organized into collections and sets. clustered by major topic and state. It has many historical treasures, including posters, postcards, labels, sheet music, trade cards, and much more. There are 189 Delaware and 380 Maryland postcards, for example.
The goal of the Flickr Commons is to increase access to publicly held photograph collections and provide a way for the general public to contribute information and knowledge.
Check it out. You will find images there that will catch your interest as more institutions find innovative ways to share holdings found in the “world’s public photography archives.” Beyond making the images available on the Internet, visitors are invited to contribute to the public knowledge by adding tags and leaving comments.
———————–
Flickr, Google and Others are Out to Catalog the World’s Public Photo Archives.
The blog Indicommons has a lot of additional information about the the Flickr approach. Check it out for details, but here are some points the site makes
“The Commons . . . expands creative freedom and enriches culture by pushing cultural media outside of the confines and limitation of physical media and by making this media available . . .”
“Participating institutions benefit from greater exposure of its collections through Flickr’s high profile and it’s large user base.”
“The Commons also allows participating institutions to harness the limitless power of the crowd to mine otherwise inaccessible data.”
“The Commons provides educators and their students a wealth of historical imagery and information from around the world. It also allows educators and their students to participate in the historical research and tagging.”
A multimedia program by journalist Nancy Lynch and Vietnam Veteran Rick Lovekin, who frequently corresponded with Lynch. From 1968-1972, Lynch ran a column in the Wilmington News Journal called “Vietnam Mailbag.” In 2008 she published a book of the letters. Lynch will share corespondences from local soldiers in Delaware and Cecil County.
