Category: Uncategorized

Location: Chesapeake City Branch Library 2527 Augustine Herman Hwy Chesapeake City, MD 21915
For more on the Ukrainian community in Chesapeake City see this post on the orphanage

Native Cecil Countian, Bernard Purdie, will share his musical journey story. Mr. Purdie was the first African American to enroll at Elkton Public High School. He then went on to an internationally renowned music career and is the world’s most recorded drummer, having worked with such music greats as Aretha Franklin, Miles Davis and B.B. King. Mr. Purdie will share his stories and his music during this one-of-a-kind evening.

The Historic and Architectural Review Committee meeting scheduled for Wednesday, June 27, 2012 has been cancelled due to a lack of a quorum.  The meeting will be rescheduled for early July, the Town of Elkton announced.  We’ll update readers once a new date is announced.

A non-profit affordable housing group was on the agenda to discuss plans for the old 1870s Cecil County Jail.  Click here for more information on that project.

A non-profit affordable housing group, the Home Partnership, Inc., is interested in purchasing the old 1870s Cecil County Jail from the county for $400,000.  The developer wants to transform the building into 50 affordable apartments for seniors in downtown Elkton, the Cecl Whig recently reported.A reprsentative of the group will appear before the town’s Historic District Review Board on June 27th at 6: p.m., to discuss concept plans for the 1.12 acre pracel.  This zoning board is charged with protecting Elkton’s architectural and cultural resources.  At that time, the developer will probably present his plans for developing the 50 apartment unit structure at 214 North Street.

When it was built in 1871, the sheriff’s home and jail was hailed as a state-of-the-art monument to law and order, a credit to the county. Considering that it replaced “a so-called jail” where notorious types were “chained to the floor,” it probably wasn’t hard to make that claim.  For those who ran afoul of the law there were 20 cells at the new prison, surely enough to “accommodate any demand that Cecil county culprits,” could place on it, said the Whig.  Sheriff Thomas, the first official to turn the key and swing open the wide heavy grated iron door, let in his “house guests.”

In the years to come, those cells would have their own stories to tell and the jailhouse walls would stand as silent witnesses to more than a few tragic scenes.  Out in the old jail yard, more than one man would draw his final breath while at the end of the hangman’s noose.   One early spring day in 1912, as the county felt the first tentative nudge of the approaching season’s warmth, a cold-blooded shooting in the outer yard snuffed out the young life of a Cecil County Sheriff. The incident took place when Sheriff J. Myron Miller attempted to take a pistol away from a trustee who had refused to obey an order.

Somehow the place managed to outlive its usefulness to the county in a mere 128 years, so a modern detention center started sprouting out of a corn field at the edge of town early in the 1980s. Then in January 1984, in a secret nighttime operation, Sheriff John F. DeWitt moved inmates from the jail to Landing Lane.

One era had ended but another one might be getting underway for a structure that has been on the market since 2009.  The Elkton Historic and Architectural Review Board will get to weigh in on this matter at its public meeting in June.

The last direct link to an important period in Cecil County’s past was lost when 93-year-old Henry Jackson died at his home outside Perryville on a cold November day in 1939.  As a teenager he ran away from home to serve in the Civil War, enlisting in the Union Army for three years with Snow’s Battery.  After surviving the horror of Antietam and other engagements, he was discharged in 1864.

During a long life, the soldier who was growing old watched the ranks of his comrades, men who knew the madness of that time, thin.  By the early 1930s, there were just a few old soldiers around Cecil who recalled frightened, brave boys in blue hastily forming ranks to march into harms way.  The first-hand memories of those years, a time that called for the best from comrades, were rapidly fading as were the sad thoughts about comrades that fell on bloody, distant battlefields.  Seventy five years after the bloody war staggered to a close, Private Jackson was laid to rest, the last local survivor of that unforgettable time.

This information about Henry Jackson comes from the Mahoney Civil War Inventory of county soldiers and the newspaper files at the Historical Society.  In the 1960s, the Mahoney file established a register of men from Cecil County who fought in the war.

Cecil County Arts Council, The Historical Society of Cecil County and the Cecil County Library are partnering to host a national Smithsonian Exhibit, Journey Stories, from July 13 -August 24, 2012. The Maryland Humanities Council has chosen the Arts Council as one of f…ive sites to host Journey Stories, which will travel throughout Maryland until January 2013, through a partnership between the MHC and the Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street Program.

Journey Stories explores tales of how we, and our ancestors came to America. American history is filled with stories of people leaving behind everything – families and possessions – to reach a new life in another state, across the continent, or even across an ocean. The stories are diverse and focused on immigration, migration, innovation, and freedom. Journey Stories uses engaging images, audio, and artifacts, to tell the individual stories that illustrate the critical roles travel and movement have played in building our diverse American society.

From the Historical Society of Cecil County

In honor of the 68^th Anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy during World War II, the Historical Society is making the full text of the 2005 publication “Cecil’s Soldiers: Stories from the World War II Generation” available online. With support from the Maryland Humanities Council, the Society worked with historian Jenifer Dolde, who conducted two dozen oral histories with veterans, munitions workers, and medical personnel from Cecil County.

The central story follows the men of Company E of the Maryland National Guard, which met at the Elkton Armory and was federalized following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. While some of the men went on to serve as paratroopers and specialists, a core group battled their way from Normandy to St. Lo to Brest and finally to Bremen at the end of the war. Along the way, four of the original group were killed and many others wounded. Through it all, this “good bunch of boys” remained close and stayed close after the war.

Growing up in Cecil County and serving together in the National Guard forged Company E into a tight unit that distinguished itself within the 29^th Division. “I had my hard knocks when I was a kid, I think that’s the case of most of us at that time,” said Joe Lofthouse. “That’s the kind of men I fought with, I’d die for.”

The Historical Society of Cecil County started tweeting last week as part of an initiative to tap into a cluster of additional social media outlets.  Twitter, a micro-blogging platform, allows the volunteer group to send out brief notes up to 140 characters in length at any time.  This, coupled with our other new media outlets, including the web, blog, YouTube and Facebook, allows the county’s herritage keeper to efficiently communicate with a broader audience.

If you’re interested in Cecil’s past follow them on Twitter for quick heritage updates about research resources, our collection, old photos, and local history news.  In the digital age, this web 2.0 product makes it easier than ever for heritage organizations to communicate broadly and distribute content far beyond the walls of the institution.

The Society has been at the forefront of adopting new media technologies for sharing information since the mid-1990s.  It was a spring day in 1996, back when the Internet was new and a less critical part of everyday life, that they created a presence for Cecil County history on the net. Beginning with that first generation site sixteen years ago, virtual visitors have been able to read articles from the newsletter, find information about the Society, and send e-mail queries on genealogy and local history. Over time, their virtual home, which is open around-the-clock, has grown as they’ve added more digital content. Five years ago the Society started blogging and four years ago the group joined Facebook, as ways to reach broader audiences directly with heritage news.

In the months and years ahead their goal is to deliver even more information through web 2.0 products as the social media editor, Kyle Dixon, works Cecil’s history beat.  In addition they have some great plans for digitization and podcasts.  Be sure to follow us them Twitter and Facebook as their volunteers turn to today’s technology to deliver the past.

Serving as the county’s heritage keepers is something this group has been doing for over 80 years now, especially as they care for the largest collection of county research materials available in any repository.  Now the group is adding additional 21^st century methods to make materials available to a wider audience.

Website:  www.cecilhistory.org

Cecil County History Blog:  www.cecilhistory.org/blog

Facebook:  www.facebook.com/historicalsocietyofcecilcounty

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/cecilhistory