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An upcoming program called The Civil War…Three Years with the Big Elk Rangers will be presented at the Cecil County Public Library on Tuesday, January 26 at 7:00 p.m.  Sean Protas, a Civil War re-enactor, will portray David Lilley of the local Big Elk Rangers.

While you have your snow shovel out this winter, think about digging up a little history with the Historical Society of Cecil County’s winter programs.  You can start digging at 9 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 16 by uncovering your roots with a program entitled “Getting Started With Your Family history:  An Introduction to Genealogy.” 

This three-hour workshop will introduce you to the basics of genealogical research.  You will learn about the online resources available to you , as well as the records at our local historical society and the National Archives in Washington, D.C.  The Society has access to records and databases you might not know about.

This workshop is intended for everyone even if you don’t have Cecil County family roots.  The workshop is free for members of the Society and is $5 for non-members.  The program will be held at the historical Society at 135 E. Main Street, Elkton.

Here’s a link to a Democracy Now interview about StoryCorps, the national organization focusing on collecting the stories of everyday people.  The informative clip includes some interesting sample recordings of people, such as a couple of Memphis Sanitation Department workers.  They were there in 1968 when Martin Luther King came to the TN city to help striking workers.  Another one is a very personal account of an aging World War II combat veteran and memories from the Battle of the Bulge that still haunt him.

There are plenty of other pieces, and the project they’re working on, creating a collection of oral histories from ordinary citizens and everyday life, is valuable.  These accounts are exactly the kinds of pieces I enjoy doing as I travel around collecting stories from telephone operators, police officers, firefighters, utility workers, office clerks, healthcare workers and such.  From these many fascinating sources, come some of the best insights and they reveal a part of our past that is often missed by the history books.

Check on link below to go to the the story. 

StoryCorps: National Social History Project Records Ordinary People Telling Their Stories

Maryland’s War of 1812 history isn’t just about major battles, military commanders, political leaders and the powerful. It is also about a time of great fright on the shores of the Chesapeake for everyday people as enemy soldiers terrorized the region, “firing private property and robbing hen houses.” With the 200th anniversary of this conflict approaching we’re fortunate that many unpublished accounts by regular citizens have been passed down in diaries, letters, and journals. These firsthand, eyewitness tales, while filling in gaps in our understanding of the past, also give us a different vantage point for viewing the trying events of 200 years ago when cries of the British are coming rang out in the middle of the night.  Since the Chesapeake region is getting ready for the Bicentennial, I will periodically share the stories of some of these ordinary people.

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When a British raiding party stormed Frenchtown during the War of 1812 an African-American woman, as brave as any man in the Cecil Militia, exhibited a great deal of gumption as hundreds of Royal Marines plundered the hamlet.  Twenty-year-old Hetty Boulden, the slave who risked her life shielding Elkton, was the property of Frisby Henderson.  She, along with five other servants, lived with the master’s family at White Hall, a fine mansion on the banks of the river just north of the village.  Frenchtown was a place of some importance during this time for it was the transfer point on the great travel and freight route between Philadelphia and Baltimore.

Hetty gave an account of the pillaging of the upper Elk to a reporter from the Cecil Whig when she was 70 years old.  On a morning in April 1813 the lookouts at a small fortification protecting the area shouted “they’re coming, they’re coming” as the Royal Marines rowed into view.  Easily overrunning the small battery on the shoreline, the enemy proceeded to plunder and burn the wharf, fishery, warehouses, goods and vessels lying at anchor.

One company was ordered to advance to Elkton, a distance of about three miles.  Passing up the shoreline they stopped at the door of White Hall, where Mr. Henderson told them that the barges wouldn’t be able to reach the place by way of the creek. So an officer ordered Hetty to show the Royal Marines the way by land. Although she was terribly frightened, the enemy commander assured her that she wouldn’t be hurt. For her assistance in escorting them to the town they intended to loot, the militiary-man said he would give her “more money than she could carry.”

The approaching invaders created a big scare in Elkton.  Roads to the north were filled with women and children carrying bundles of every description while the men rallied to the nation’s defense and Hetty escorted the English through unfamiliar territory.  She could have easily and more safely marched the enemy up the direct road to town but instead she fooled the contingent, taking them to Cedar Point, opposite Fort Hollingsworth.

As they stood at the edge of the Big Elk Creek, directly in front of the garrison protection the county seat, the Cecil Militia poured shot into the enemy.  That was about noon and Hetty recalled that they took no cannon with them, only their muskets. The swearing soldiers, having been caused to blunder into range of local defenses, concluded they had better go back.  But they said they would torch everything.

Returning to White Hall she heard them threaten to hang Mr. Henderson before his own door for deceiving them.  Several of the barges approached Elkton by another route, going up the river. Militia there also fired upon the British and obstacles in the water halted the advance. The enemy, having neither grape nor canister shot with them, could do no harm so they rowed back down the river, the Americans firing away at them all the time.

Their primary objective achieved, the destruction of the military stores, warehouses, and vessels, the British sailed back down the river. It was now the turn for Havre de Grace. Hetty Bouilden recalled seeing the smoke from the burning town. She lived well into the second half of the 19th century. When the aging African-American granted the interview she was residing with Dr. R. C. Carter of Cherry Hill.

Click here to read updated post with additional information

The tradition for kicking off the Christmas Season in Cecil County is the annual lighting of the “Holly Tree by-the-tracks.” The Baltimore & Ohio held the first public ceremony in 1948 when thousands of people gathered to ring in the season as lights from thousands of colorful  bulbs on the evergreen softly illuminated the Jackson, MD hillside. For many years the company dispatched a special train from Mount Royal Station to Jackson for the occasion. After 1971, the tree was dark for a time until a group of volunteers started making sure the tree festively blazed for the holiday season.

There’s an an old 33 1/3 long playing record that captures the magic of the 1954 lighting ceremony, including carols by the B & O Glee Club and the B & O Women’s Music Choir. That old vinyl, a long unheard broadcast, has sat silently on a shelf, but I recently digitized the audio in order to hear the snap, crackle and pop of the vinyl recording, as another a lost sound poured from the speakers. Musical selections directed by Dr. James Allan Dash, a narration by the master of ceremonies Walter Linthicum, gasps of delight and loud applause, and much more poured from the speakers.  Click here to listen to a sample of the evening’s program.

Also enjoy this slide show containing tree lighting photos.

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In the winter of 1975, when a light snow blanketed Elkton, Officers Jeff MacKenzie and Ralph Newton are on the day watch.  It appears they brought the snowman to police headquarters for booking.    

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As the mercury rose and fell each day and rain-drenched Cecil County every so often one person carefully observed the changing Elkton weather. That gentleman, H. Wirt Bouchelle, trudged out to the backyard of his home at 6 p.m. each evening to check the temperature, note the day’s highs and lows, and read the rain gauge.

The summer day he launched his nearly fifty-year career as a volunteer observer for the National Weather Service was an unusually comfortable one by Chesapeake Bay standards. The thermometer climbed to a comfortable 77 degrees while overnight it fell to 66 degrees on July 22, 1927. There was no precipitation.

Almost Fifty years later on November 30, 1976, the aging weather observer dutifully took his last observation. That chilly autumn day, the temperature never climbed above freezing, the mercy just hitting thirty degrees. Overnight it fell to a frigid 12 degrees, but at least it didn’t snow.

Over the year’s he recorded the weather extremes here.  The highest temperature was 106 degrees on July 10, 1936, and the lowest was 14 below zero on Feb. 9, 1934. The largest amount of precipitation, 6.05-inches, was dumped on Elkton on June 27, 1938.  On January 30, 1966, he noted the record for snowfall, 20-inches.

Born near Mechanics Valley, he moved to Elkton in 1908 to become a rural letter carrier. He delivered mail by horse and buggy that year.  In 1915, he was appointed the assistant postmaster and served in that capacity until he retired in 1968. At the suggestion of County Extension Agent Tom Bartilson, he began making those backyard weather observations in 1927, giving us a valuable historical record of day-to-day conditions in Cecil County. He died at the age of 90 on July 19, 1979.

In 1890, the National Weather Observer Cooperative Program was established. The National Weather Service had thousands of volunteers recording daily information, which was mailed to a central office.

His daily observations, including the handwritten worksheets, are available through NOAA. It is something I use as a research source while writing articles. Click here to reach the database.  The database contains plenty of other data reporting stations, which are helpful too.

Local veteran Joseph Lofthouse was a radioman and paratrooper for the 502nd regiment and participated in such major events as D-Day, Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge, and the occupation of Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest.  Hear his first hand experiences of an extradordinary time and events that changed the work at the Elkton Central Library on Tuesday, Nov. 3rd at 7:00 p.m.