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Affordable Housing Group to Present Plans for 140 Year Old Jail in Downtown Elkton

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.

As a snow falls on the old jail on a cold winter night in February 2010, a few inside lights burn brightly and an sign on the main entrance lets people know the building is for sale.

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Cecil County’s Last Civil War Soldier Passed Away 75 Years After Conflict Ended

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.

Henry Jackson
Henry Jackson, the last surviving Civil War Soldier in Cecil County
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The Smithsonian’s Journey Stories Coming to Cecil County July 13

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.

The partners are working to bring an exciting slate of local programming to coincide with the exhibit. Opening night is sure to excite with The Melting Pot, a showcase of local restaurants sampling the foods of our different heritages.Both the Arts Council and the Historical Society will host their own exhibitions celebrating local journey stories. The Arts Council is looking for artists wishing to show their works offering a glimpse of their own journeys, whether they be a tale of immigration, a move across country, or even an exciting vacation. The Arts Council would like artists to also showcase an artifact representative of their travels alongside their work. The Historical Society’s exhibit will focus on local stories of movement, immigration and transportation images.

The Library is planning to host a different program at each of their branch locations. So far, a lecture and performance in honor of Cecil County’s own Ola Belle Reed is planned, as are programs featuring how transportation shaped the growth of Cecil County, the tourism draws of Circus Park and White Crystal Beach, and Cecil County’s role in the Underground Railroad. For children there is a Summer Reading Program, “Dream Big,” and an Ellis Island trunk featuring the kind of items immigrants would bring with them to the new country. Teenagers may want to participate in the development of an Oral History project recording local personal journey stories.Programs are still in development and dates are getting set. Whether you have your own “Journey Story” to tell, or want to hear and learn of others, be looking out for the upcoming calendar of events of “Journey Stories” programs.

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Cecil County’s World War II Generation Remembered in Oral History Project

From the Historical Society of Cecil County

In honor of the 68th 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 29th 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.”

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Keep Up With Cecil County History on Twitter

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 21st 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

 

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Archaeologist Search For War of 1812 Fort at Elk Landing

Elk Landing
Maryland history straight ahead. Signs for Elk Landing, Fort Hollingsworth and the Maryland Archaeological Society Field-School mark the spot, along with one tossed in for the Cecil County Airpark.

Dozens of people from the Archeological Society of Maryland were at Elk Landing on this beautiful Sunday afternoon working to dig up new clues about Fort Hollingsworth and the pre-historic period at a strip of land located at the confluence of the Big and Little Elk creeks.  The former farm and Chesapeake Bay port bustled with activity as professional and avocational investigators carefully scrapped, swept and sifted the soil with small trowels, brushes and other hand-tools looking for the smallest fragments of evidence that might shed light on the past.  Under the careful supervision of professionals working with the Maryland Historical Trust, lots of people from all around the state were busy with these types of tasks, acquiring first-hand experience during the 41st annual Tyler Bastian Field Session.  The enthusiasts, which numbered near one hundred people in total during the school, had been at it for over a week.

Archeaologist George Reynolds
George Reynolds the dean of Cecil County’s archaeologist has been conducted studies in the county since the 1950s. He opened this year’s annual field-school last weekend with a talk about exploring the Landing and the area in the first study 30 years ago.

A fortification was put up here to protect Elkton from a British attack during the War of 1812 and this is a central focus of this year’s investigation.  To help with spotting places for careful examination, ground penetrating radar had been used weeks earlier.  The students today were digging at those prime spots, in particular working a long trench where they carefully eyed changes in the soil strata while sifting for relic fragments long buried deeply in the ground.  Elsewhere there were clusters of students from Towson State University out in the old plow fields looking for pre-historic Native American artifacts.

In a period of over thirty years, the old farm soil has yielded many secrets as a number of digs have been done here.  Investigators have found material culture from pre-historic people, aboriginal burial grounds, bottles, arrowheads, cannonballs, plenty of 19th-century relics, and lots more.  A formal report on this latest dig should be released by September, according to the principal investigator, Dr. James Gibb and the President of the Northeastern Maryland Archaeological Society. Dan Coates.

We’ll look forward to hearing that report from the Archeological Society as the soil at the Landing still contains many secrets.

Archaeology at Elk Landing
Two members of the Maryland Archaeological Society carefully sift the soil, looking for clues about Fort Hollingsworth, the War of 1812 redoubt.
Maryland Archaeological Society.
Four archaeologists work in a trench searching for evidence related to the War of 1812 fort.
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After Decades of Legal Wrangling Elkton Marriage Mill Started Grinding a Little Slower

The Elkton marrying parsons and their employers, the taxi syndicate, were miserable in the autumn of 1938. These entrepreneurs fretted that Maryland voters might halt “weddings without waiting.” 

The threat came just as things boomed for the cabbies, as their chief interest was the wedding business.  At one company, the Rev. C. M. Cope worked days while the Rev. J. T. Baker pulled overnights, officiating at 1,118 marriages in Sept. 1938.  These two captured half the services.  But the Rev. Edward Minor, 81, whose church ordered him to cease uniting couples, arranged for the Rev. P. K. Lambert to do his work at the altar.  Mr. Lambert did 461.  A 48-hour waiting period had been passed by the legislature in 1937, but petitions opposing the delay brought the question to the voters.

The waiting period, “aimed squarely at the marriage racket in Elkton,” passed overwhelmingly.  When the Evening Sun visited the town just before the “famous marriage mart” breathed its last in December 1938, the paper wrote that a “melancholy calm” had descended upon the border town of 3,600.  Ordinary residents were glad to see “Dan Cupid’s trade in the chute to oblivion.  Only the ministers and the business people who have profited from the marriage mill were sore.”

Having been briefly put out of business one of the “matrimonial magnates,” an operation with four autos for hire and Rev. Edward Minor officiating at the altar, moved to Alexandria, VA.  The Rev. Cope planned to retire to New Carolina, while Pastor Baker advised that this wasn’t his only job as he preached at churches.  “I’m going on and preach and bury the dead and visit the sick just the same as always.”

Although it would seem that the principal business of Elkton, elopements, was a thing of the past, the taxi companies still found growth opportunities for Cupid’s affairs in Elkton as couples continued dashing across the state line.  They found several legal or questionable ways to eliminate the wait.  With a court order, the restriction could be lifted, say in the case of “expectant motherhood.”  Such aid to hasty marriages was credited with thirty percent of the licenses issued in 1940.  Another reason for getting a rushed ceremony was the call-up for military service.

The year before the waiting period became effective (1937), 16,054 Elkton marriage licenses were issued.  The total slumped in 1939 to 4,532, but once the “solicitors” hit upon “good and sufficient cause,” it jumped up again to nearly double what it was in 1939.  There were 8,526, the Sun reported.  The volume started growing again and Elkton did about 14,000 marriages in 1942.

Once the war was over, another challenge emerged for the syndicate.  The State wanted to allow the Clerk of the Court to perform civil ceremonies but financial interests hired lobbyists to fight that effort in Annapolis.  They held things off for a while in Annapolis.  But finally, in 1964, E. Day Moore, a retired postal worker and court clerk, started performing ceremonies in the courthouse.   The marriage mill was starting to grind a lot slower in Elkton as the waiting period was now being strictly enforced, and while there were still marrying parlors in Elkton, the couple had options.

rev Edward minor Elkton marriage mill
Rev. Edward Minor, the number one marrying minister in Elkton (Life Magazine)
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West Nottingham honors man who fought for kidnapped girls

From Souther Chester County Weeklies

The West Nottingham Historical Commission in concert with Chester County Facilities and Parks paid homage to Joseph Miller, a man who was murdered while attempting to rescue two sisters who had been kidnapped by a slave catcher in the mid-1800s.
Descendants of both Miller and the two girls gathered at the Union United Methodist Church near Fremont, where Miller is buried, on Saturday to discuss the details and legacy of Miller’s rescue.
Miller was a white farmer in the township, and he had working for him a young, free black girl named Rachel Parker, who was 16. Rachel’s family had lived in West Nottingham for several generations and was known around the area.
In 1851, a freelance slave catcher from Elkton, Md., who was allegedly in need of money, kidnapped Rachel from the Miller farm, just as he had done months earlier to Rachel’s younger sister, Elizabeth, 10, at the Donnelly farm down the road.

article continues on Southern Chester County Weeklies

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Wright’s A.M.E Has Been a Part of Elkton’s History Since the 19th century

On a spring day in the middle of May, Wright’s A.M.E. Church, an old Elkton house of worship, looks good as storm clouds break and the sun begins to shine on the sanctuary.  It has been a part of Elkton’s history since the early 1880s.  It was dedicated in May 1882 by Bishop Layman and Presiding Elder J. H. Handy, according to the Cecil Whig. Rev. Collett was the local minister.   Click here for a web page on Wright’s history.

wrights AME Church Elkton

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Archeological Society of Maryland Field School Opens at Elk Landing This Weekend

Archaeologists complete test digs at Elk Landing in preparation for Tyler Bastian Field Session in Maryland Archeology.

Press Release — Historic Elk Landing Foundation———————-

One hundred and ninety nine years ago musket and cannon fire erupted from Fort Hollingsworth at the confluence of the Big and Little Elk Creeks. That skirmish between members of the Cecil Militia and British Marines and sailors kept Elkton from being burned.

The invading British and the Militia occupants of the fort are long gone, but what ever happened to Fort Hollingsworth? Does anything remain of that earthen fort? Members of the Northern Chesapeake Archaeological Society think they know and will attempt to locate Fort Hollingsworth and any artifacts its defenders may have left behind during this year’s archaeological field school to be held at Historic Elk Landing beginning on May 25th and running through June 4th.

article continues on The Elk Landing Appeal