Forgotten Fair Hill – Part II, will be presented by Emily Kilby on March 9th, 2013, at 7 p.m. at the Fair Hill NRMA. Part I packed the house and the meeting room was filled to capacity, so if you plan to attend be sure to call and reserve your seat.
Come learn of the world that exited in the northeast corner of Cecil County, which is now contained within Fair Hill Natural Resources Management Area. Amateur historian Emily Kilby will share her ongoing discoveries about the homesites, industries and families whose traces remain hidden among the park’s natural beauties. Old pictures, maps, and tales will bring them back to life.
Taking a scholarly approach to this in-depth exploration of this scenic region of Cecil County, Emily as spent many weeks pouring over original, largely untapped source materials to provide original insights on this unique Cecil County Story.
If you plan to attend, be sure to call and reserve your seat at 410-398-1246 in plenty of time, as the last program was full.
In an outstanding program this evening, the significant contributions of Cecil County Civil Rights pioneer McKinley Scott were recalled by his son, Michael Scott, for an engaged audience at the public library in Perryville. The tireless crusader, struggling to create cracks in the walls of segregation and level the playing field, stood up against injustices while tackling tough issues despite threats of harm. His local activism came during the tensest times of the nation’s Civil Rights movement.
Joan M. Scott-Cruise and Michael Scott at this evening’s program about Cecil County’s Civil Rights pioneer, McKinley Scott.
Mr. Scott graduated from the “Elkton Colored School” in 1930, and when the attack on Pearl Harbor jolted everyone’s life, he joined the Navy. There, the gifted musician from the George Washington Carver High School served in the Navy Band at the Great Lakes Naval Air Station. He returned home to North East after World War II, bringing new energy and ideas learned from serving his country back to Cecil.
Recalling life while growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, Michael said he would hear his family discussing what was happening in the South. His father was anxious to see improvements here. When a local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was formed in 1962, he became active in the organization, leading it during its formative years. As Mr. Scott jumped into the midst of politics and the civil rights movement, Michael started attending Charlestown Elementary School, as the option plan had been implemented.
McKinley Scott campaigned for the House of Delegates in 1968.
In the early 1960s, a segregated system for public accommodations prevailed here. Going to the movies in North East, he asked why he and his older brother had to sit upstairs. “That’s just the way it is,” was the shrug. At the Conowingo Diner, a restaurant on the highly traveled Route One, just south of the Mason Dixon Line, his father was involved in attempting to integrate the eatery. There were other efforts related to voting and an unsuccessful campaign for election as a state delegate in 1968.
Events of 1968 hit close to home for the Scotts. The campaign for a seat in the House of Delegates was underway, headline-grabbing news about violence, riots, and assassinations alarmed the family, and there were personal threats. When President Johnson, the chief executive who pushed through important public accommodation and voting laws, announced his surprise decision not to seek reelection, it was a subject of concern for the advocate.
But darker days were ahead. An assassin’s bullet killed the Civil Rights Crusader, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis, TN, creating some of the nation’s most troubling times. As Mr. Scott entered his family home that spring so long ago, his wife said, have you heard the news? But the violence of this unsettled, troubling year was far from finished.
One dark July night on a rural road outside North East, an explosion suddenly rocked the family home. As everyone scrambled to safety on that unforgettable summer, police cars converged on the home in the country. The Ku Klux Klan had tossed an explosive device at the home of the president of the local NAACP. This resulted in a major investigation by the FBI and Maryland State Police, and the law enforcement agencies infiltrated the local KKK, the Cecil Whig reported.
About a month later, the police suddenly appeared at the door and said you have to get out of here now, as we have information that another attempt is going to be made to bomb the house. Michael, a 15-year-old, grabbed his precious valuables: a Bible, a savings account book, a little change, and a small box he had made in the woodshop. The family spent that tense night at the Maryland State Police Barrack as a large squad of officers surrounded the house. Neighbors were also evacuated, and three State Troopers from the Bel Air Barrack were assigned to cover the local patrols here as county law enforcement geared up for a long all-night vigil.
In the wee, quiet hours of that weary Sunday, the surveillance team observed a vehicle creeping up on the house. When the police staked out on each side of the property swooped in to arrest the men, they fled. But an outer perimeter detail blocked the road, capturing the driver, although a second person in the car jumped out and fled into the woods. The arrested man had 15 sticks of dynamite on him, so an Edgewood Army Arsenal explosive team, a part of the well-organized detail, defused the bombs.
Days later, the leader of the Cecil County NAACP was offered a major promotion on the railroad, working out of Northern New Jersey. Over the next few decades, Mr. Scott rose through the ranks of the Pennsylvania Railroad and Amtrak, eventually retiring as the chief engineer in charge of the road between New York and Washington, D.C.
He returned to the family home in 1992. The aging crusader who was willing to stand up to injustices and was not afraid to tackle tough issues despite threats of harm died in July 2012 at 89. “This country has come a long way and Cecil County has come a long way,” Michael observed as he concluded an insightful program about the Civil Rights era at the top of the Chesapeake.
This was a valuable library program that explored some new areas of history. Thank you Cecil County Public Library and Michael Scott for sharing Mr. Scott’s powerful story. Here’s a link to a recording of the talk.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jam8ZfJNS5o&t=558s
Michael Scott talks about his father, Cecil County Civil Rights Activist McKinley Scott
In June 1952, ten Port Deposit firefighters, members of the Water Witch Fire Company, completed a 60-hour basic course of instruction provided by the University of Maryland Fire Extension Service. As county growth soared in those post World War II years, made sure they were fully trained to serve the community. This is a Cecil Democrat photo.
Members of the Water Witch Fire Company complete basic Fire Extension Service training in 1952
In a popular 1952 column in Cecil County’s paper of record, the Cecil Whig published a picture from the pa, and asked subscribers if they remembered when. In one 60 year old issue from October of that year, they featured the Rising Sun champion baseball team from 1904.
Rising Sun Champion baseball team in 1904. Source: Cecil Whig.
Recently dedicated Pennsylvania historical marker presents the story of the Rachel Parker kidnapping.
As the Historical Society of Cecil County’s Winter Speakers Series continues, Historian Milt Diggins will present “Stealing Freedom Along the Mason Dixon Line” on March 2, 2013. The talk examines the story of Thomas McCreary, a kidnapper and slave catcher, making whatever profit he could from the institution of slavery. Working out of Elkton, he was active around the time the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed.
The program by the author and retired educator is presented for the first time in Cecil County. It offers a scholarly, thoroughly researched examination of slave hunting and dealing in the Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware areas and its political ramifications. This case study tells of McCreary’s most famous kidnapping, that of the Parker sisters in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and the mention of McCreary in the treason trial of Castner Hanway, a Pennsylvanian who refused to help a posse search for a runaway slave. The free program takes place at the Cecil County History and Genealogy Library at 135 E. Main Street Elkton at 2 p.m.
An independent researcher, Milt served as the editor of the Journal of Cecil County History and is the author of “Images of America:
Cecil County. ” He has also lectured at the subject at the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Conference.
Here is a list of the early police chiefs of Elkton. The data is drawn from municipal records and newspapers.
George M. Potts . . . . . . 1908 – 1935
Jacob Biddle . . . . . . . . . 1935
W. Coudon Reynolds . . 1936 – 1938
W. Coudon Reynolds . . 1945 – 1948
William H. White . . . . . 1948 – 1962
Thomas N. McIntire, Jr. 1962 – 1980
Frederick Nebrauer . . . . 1981 – 1983
Calvin Krammes . . . . . . . 1984 – 1993
(note: When George Potts started on the force, the title was bailiff. By the time he retired it was chief. For a period of time, supervision of the patrolmen was put under the Supt. of Public Works.)
Chief W. Coudon Reynolds talks on the police call box that was located at the corner of Main and North streets. Source: Baltimore Sun, January 20, 1938
The Sanborn Map Co lists the company’s inventory of firefighting equipment in 1912
Elkton was well protected from fire in the years before World War I as the Singerly Fire Company had all the latest equipment for controlling a blaze. The horse-drawn Steam Engine and Hook and Ladder were supported by two hand-pulled hose carts, and whenever the old alarm bell rang out with an urgent appeal those units were soon on the spot.
But the era for horse-drawn apparatus was quickly fading and the company was determined to have modern equipment to protect the growing county seat. So Singerly purchased a motorized unit in 1914 for $2,800, a GMC Truck from James Boyd & Brothers of Philadelphia. The vehicle was able to tow either the hook and ladder or the steamer.
Before a week was up the truck had its debut as it demonstrated how quickly it could get to an alarm. At the Prest-O-Lite Factory on W. Main Street, an explosion blew out some doors frames and the reliable old alarm bell called out the volunteers. Usually when that happened people lined the streets to watch as a team of horses pulling the steamer and hook and ladder raced by. But on that Thursday in the summer of 1914, they watched as the auto-truck flashed past the excited crowd, its gong clanging a warning for carriages, wagons, and pedestrians to clear the way.
The passage of the horse-drawn firefighting era in the county seat passed quicker than anticipated. The next year, the hook and ladder was sent to a paint shop on Bridge Street to be overhauled. While there the structure caught fire and all the contents was lost. So a second GMC truck with ladders and other firefighting equipment was purchased in 1915. The third truck, an Ahrens Fox first-class pumper, was added in 1920.
The Sanborn Map Company report on fire protection in Elkton in 1922.
Singerly’s fire trucks are parked on the station ramp in this postcard, which was mailed from Elkton in March 1919.
On this Friday afternoon in late January snow started falling on the frozen Scotchman Creek around 3:00 p.m. It quickly started covering surfaces as the area has been shivering under frigid conditions for a few days. But all around Hacks Point, all was quiet as big fluffy white flakes came down for a period as the clipper zipped across the northern Chesapeake Bay.
Snow begins to fall on the frozen Scotchman Creek
The siren at Station 9 didn’t interrupt the tranquility of the winter afternoon in this water front community as the service of firefighters and medics at Hacks Point Fire Company weren’t needed.
Although the snow came down in large bursts at times, the clipper soon moved out of the area, but the ground, parking lot and old burial grounds at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church was quickly covered.
Elkton, Jan. 16, 2012 — Star-Spangled Archaeology: Commemorating the War of 1812 Through Maritime Archaeology, a recently added lecture, will wrap up the inaugural year of the Society’s Winter Speakers Series. Taking place on Saturday, April 13th at 2:00, the speaker, State Underwater Archaeologist Susan Langley, is sponsored by the Maryland Humanities Council and the Maryland War of 1812 Commission.
The waters of the Chesapeake conceal many hidden treasures, and Dr. Langley will help us dive into the subject of those submerged cultural resources. She describes the fascinating process of researching and excavating these artifacts while investigating the sites of maritime battles. Over the years, her staff has worked on the Elk River a few times, exploring sunken War of 1812 mysteries. During one investigation in 1999, the researchers found a ship wreck site at the scene of a Cecil County skirmish at Frenchtown.
During the 1999 study, the Historical Society worked with the asst. state underwater archeaologist Steve Bilikci as he and two graduate students studied the Elk River. Cecil Whig – 1999.
