On this rain-swept Sunday afternoon, about 30 people gathered to formally dedicate a memorial to the 53 people who died in 1947 when Eastern Airlines Flight 605 plummeted into a Cecil County woods. The crowd assembled on a Principio Road hillside near Jackson Park Road, including a passenger’s son, a sailor who rushed to the…
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Tome Student Helps Society Make Expanded Yearbook Collection Available to Patrons
For years the Society has worked to build a large collection of yearbooks as these volumes, which call up memories from decades ago, make valuable research resources for individuals working on a family or local history project. Cover-to-cover there are portraits of each student, plenty of anecdotes, brief essays, highlighting specific memories, advertising, photos of…
Elkton Historic District Commission Advises Town the Regulations are too Restrictive for the County Seat
Concerns about enforcement of Elkton’s historic district ordinance were put on the table for the Mayor and Commissioners at the monthly workshop. The matter came up as the last item of business on an unusually long three-hour session jammed with developers bringing up other extremely technical regulatory issues related to a Planned Unit Development (PUD)…
At Fire Station That’s Served Elkton for 40-Years Expansion is Underway
The expansion of Singerly Fire Company’s main fire station on Newark Avenue in Elkton is moving right along. At the station that has has served the community for forty years, demands on the facility have grown since 1971 so the enlarged structure will have eight fire appartus bays facing Newark Avenue. Singerly responds to fire and EMS calls out of…
Team Digitizes Centuries Old Funeral Home Records, From One of the Two Undertaking Establishments in Cherry Hill
Two Historical Society of Cecil County volunteers, Billie Todd and Evelyn Wekke, are pouring over aging business ledgers from the Grant Funeral Home of Cherry Hill. Scanning the old, yellowing pages they meticulously extract information on deaths from the undertaker’s account books, cataloging information about the people whom W. J. Grant and son buried, including names,…
Escaping a 1969 Cecil County Heat Wave
The scorching summer heat has made outdoor activities nearlyunbearable for a few days now, and people are coping with the tropical conditions in a variety of ways. Late this Saturday afternoon, families’ crowded tables at Betterton Beach, enjoying outdoor picnics while hopefully catching a cooling breeze from the Chesapeake Bay. Elsewhere people outside quickly scattered…
Dr. Koterski, Author of Book on Potters & Firebrick Makers of Cecil County, to Sign Books on Aug 5 in Elkton
Dr. James R. Koterski, the author of Potters and Firebrick Makers of Cecil County Maryland & Nearby, 1750 – 1950, will be at the Palette and Page, 120 E. Main Street, Elkton, from 5 to 8 p.m. on Aug. 5, 2011, to sign books. Click here for additional information on the Aug. 5th activities. Here is some additional information on…
Panaromic Artists Sweep Through Area Producing Maps of Elkton, Havre de Grace and Rising Sun in 1907
Bird’s Eye View maps, popular from the 1860s until about 1920, depict places as if they were viewed from above at an angle. Using direct observation and some imagination, artists working for a number of companies specializing in these panoramic products visited towns to sketch out the place. The sketches, which were sold to local…
Cecil County Public Library at the Cecil County Fair, July 22-30
July 16, 2011 — The Cecil County Public Library will have a booth at the Fair, located in the building next to the midway and carnival rides, open every weekday evening from 5-8pm, and 1-8pm on Saturdays and Sunday the 24th. All booth visitors will be able to take a free book and play a guessing…
Memorial Recalling Tragic Eastern Airlines Flight 606 Crash Outside Port Deposit Erected
Sixty-four years after Eastern Airlines Flight 605 crashed outside Port Deposit, taking 53 lives on Memorial Day 1947, a monument has been erected at the place where the plane hit a Cecil County hillside. Jeanette Nesbit Hillyer, 89, whose father was one of the first to respond to the terrible accident, arranged to have the memorial placed…