Window on Cecil County's Past

ELKTON, May 7, 2021 – On this Friday in early May, family, friends, police officers, firefighters, and public officials gathered at Hicks Home for Funerals to say a final goodbye to Deputy Chief Larry Coleman Storke.  Born on December 14, 1941, the 79-year-old public servant passed away on Thursday, April 29, 2021.

Coming of age in the shadows of the Greatest Generation, the veterans from World War II, Larry had a strong sense of heritage, duty, sacrifice in the service of others, so he joined the Singerly Fire Company as soon as he was old enough.  Starting on the force as a probationary member on May 5, 1958, the teenager steadily rose through the fire service ranks.  Ten months later, the rookie firefighter was promoted to Assistant Pipeman, working under Chief Pipeman Jack Jamison.  Moreover, as he marked his first anniversary on the force, he advanced to the rank of full membership in Singerly. 

Throughout his adult life, some sixty-three years, Larry continued with the service, committing much of his life’s work to protect the people of Elkton and Cecil County.

In the late 1960s, he started volunteering in law enforcement, becoming an Elkton Police Department Auxiliary Officer.  Within a few years, he commanded the volunteer officer’s corps, serving as Lieutenant.  In time Chief McIntire placed Larry on the payroll as a part-time patrolman, filling in when one of the regular officers was off duty, or a situation called for extra staffing.

 After he stepped away from police work, he started volunteering in what was then called Civil Defense.  As that Cold War Agency focused on protecting Cecil County from a nuclear attack evolved into today’s Dept. of Emergency Services, Larry grew professionally along with the division.  This was at a time when first responders started answering alarms for a growing number of dangerous chemical incidents, and Larry was well-prepared to bring his talents and experience to that challenge.  Before joining Emergency Services, he worked as the Senior Safety Coordinator at Thiokol, so he leveraged that hands-on knowledge in rocket propulsion to move the county forward by modernizing the agency’s approach to hazmat calls.    This new complex field required specialized training, equipment, and response units. As a member of the full-time career staff, Deputy Director of Emergency Services Storke established and supervised the county’s first hazmat team. 

In the volunteer fire service, he held many fire line command and administrative leadership positions.  He was the President of the Cecil County Firemen’s Association for many years, and he chaired the committee to create the Volunteer Length of Service Award Program (VLSOAP). This vital program supports volunteers today.

Larry commanded operations as a Deputy Chief on the fire ground while also serving on the Board of Directors.  Moreover, as the decades slipped quickly by, the now veteran firefighter never stopped training.  In 1959, he was in the first Maryland Fire Service Extension Basic Fire Training Course in Cecil County, a significant advancement as what would become the Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute at the University of Maryland brought systematic, organized training to the state.

Chief Storke taught many of us in the next generation that was coming on in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s the ropes in fire suppression as we started riding the backstep of an engine and grabbing hoses to rush inside burning buildings for the first time. As a junior officer, assistant chief, and deputy chief, he was often at the side of the young firefighters, passing along the practical skills of a veteran firefighter to a new group of recruits. Larry’s strong, supportive leadership style strengthened the emerging generation that was coming on, many of whom would become fire service leaders.

Chief Storke, an innovator, helped modernize the Cecil County Fire Service.  In addition to being tapped by Cecil County Government to spearhead hazmat, the forward-thinking leader always encouraged implementing modern practices and the advanced training that developed after World War II.   As an example, he led the way to modernize rescue services, and under his committee leadership, Singerly purchased the county’s first specialized, heavy-duty rescue unit.

In addition to rushing to take charge of all types of emergencies for most of his adult life, Larry also served the fire company in administrative and financial posts.  Judy was active in the auxiliary, and Larry was usually found working in the kitchen with the ladies as they served meals or worked some other fundraisers. 

Leaving a long-lasting legacy of public service and commitment to the community, pursuits he stuck with since starting as a teen, Larry Coleman Storke had a central role in protecting the community for over sixty years.  He is remembered as a dedicated public servant, a great leader, a friend, and a mentor. 

His lasting impact and dedication to the community will not be forgotten.  Those of us who served under and later alongside Larry have many fond memories, and he will be missed.

On the final ride to the cemetery, the funeral procession passed under the crossed ladders at Station 13 as firefighters standing at attention on the firehouse ramp paid their final respects.  Earlier at the funeral home the final radio call for Chief Storke went out on the emergency services radio.

Larry Storke was laid to rest at the Cherry Hill United Methodist Church Cemetery

For more on Larry Store

See the Facebook album, Saying a Final Goodbye to Chief Larry Storke

See the video, Remembering Chief Larry Coleman Storke

Once common in Maryland. Blue Laws, also known as Sunday Laws were designed to ban many activities on Sunday, according to Wikipedia. But some of these ancient restrictions were still hanging on in the Laws of Maryland when the new Elkton Drive-in Theatre at the edge of town ran afoul of the Maryland restriction in 1950.

As the spring darkness settled on Cecil County on May 14, and the big screen flickered to life, Cecil County Sheriff Elwood Boyd and his deputies moved in to close the Sunday show down. Sheriff Boyd also arrested Nathan Rosen of Baltimore, the owner of the drive-in, which had held its gala, grand opening two nights before on Friday, May 12.

In a hearing before Trial Magistrate James Weinroth, Rosen’s counsel, Attorney E. D. E. Rollins, declared that no admission was charged so the rule prohibiting performances at “Opera Houses” didn’t apply to drive-ins. The Sunday evening show was free, a benefit performance for volunteers from the fire company, Union Hospital, Community Chest and other charitable groups as they took up collections during the performance. Counsel also pointed out that movies were open in Elkton, but the Magistrate said that resulted from a local referendum four years ago and Rosen’s drive-in was not in the Elkton Town Limits.

Near the close of the hearing, Mr. Rollins demanded that if the State was going to prosecute the owner of the drive-in, then States Attorney Henry L. Constable was obligated to close all restaurants with television sets, ballparks, and bathing beaches that were open on Sunday.

Magistrate Weinroth ordered the case held over for the September Grand Jury.

RISING SUN, January 26, 1983 — People who thought trains had disappeared from the Octoraro Branch Railroad years ago were surprised when 30 freight cars rattled on down the line from Chester County one Wednesday in January 1983. After slipping into Cecil County and clanging past the old Sylmar Freight House, the cars rolled past farms fields and woods, while making a run for Rising Sun.

People stopped to watch as the first train in over a decade scurried through crossings and past former stations on the branch line. One surprised man said it was doing about 30 miles an hour when it passed his house, according to the Cecil Whig.

This unscheduled run kicked off when the cars became decoupled from a locomotive working over the line in Chester County. After that, the cars rolled backward for about a mile before coming to rest at a bridge on Stevens Road outside of Rising Sun. “There were about 15 cars on each side of an old railroad bridge when the impromptu express stopped,” Frank D. Ragan, President of the County Commissioners told the newspaper. Although the “train had no predetermined destination Ragan had no doubt that it would have arrived on schedule if it had.

”Freight service along the line had almost disappeared from the line by the late 1960s. The Pennsylvania Railroad abandoned the Octoraro Branch of south Colora in 1961 but had hopes of keeping the line open to that Cecil County village. But after Hurricane Agnes washed out sections of the track in June 1972, the railroad abandoned all service south of the Pennsylvania State Line. Thus, this was probably the last train to Rising Sun, albeit unplanned and scheduled. The bridge at Stevens Road was removed by the county in 1987.

For more photo album about the Octoraro Railroad see this album on Facebook.

ELKTON — Since we started researching the pandemic of 1918 two-years ago, we have spent many hours online and in archives studying death certificates, undertaker registers, and health department reports. After examining the curated sources for an area, we visit the cemeteries while collecting additional information and remembering those who perished in that perilous time when there was no vaccine to protect people from the virus.

Thus, on a dark, dreary day at the start of spring, while strolling through the Immaculate Conception Parish Cemetery in Elkton searching for victims, we paused at the headstone for Nurse Rose Cecilia Suter. The twenty-nine-year-old healthcare provider graduated from the Union Hospital School of nursing in 1916. With a diploma in hand, the healthcare professional soon took a job at the Kelly Institute, a Baltimore hospital.

While caring for infected patients there, she became an influenza victim. Rose Suter died on Dec 7, 1918. Her mother, six brothers, and a half-brother survived her. About a quarter of the United States population caught the virus, 675,000 died, and life expectancy dropped by 12-years. With no vaccine to protect against the pathogen, people were urged to isolate, quarantine, practice good personal hygiene, and limit social interaction. That was all they had.

For more on the the pandemic of 1918, see the Delmarva Spanish Flu Archive.

After sadly hearing that Mary A. Maloney-Wilson, 96, passed away on Dec. 16, 2020, we recalled some of the popular Cecil County leader’s accomplishments.  As a business leader, elected official, and trailblazer, there were several firsts.

The times were changing here as the 1960s slowly gave way to the 1970s.  Although a Board of Commissioners had governed the county for almost three hundred years, the elected leaders had always been men.  However, that changed in 1970 when voters elected Mary to the Board.  With experience in the business world, the owner of B. B. Martin Outdoor Advertising & Four Corners Tavern became a modernizing force in local government, providing leadership that helped guide the county through a period of rapid change and significant growth.

Bringing local government into a new era, Mary Maloney and the two other board members, Joseph Biggs & Walt Mason, established the Department of Public Works and implemented a modern planning department to deal with the growth that was spilling into this corner of Maryland.

According to Cecil College, when she took office in 1970 for her first term, she became the first woman to serve as a county commissioner in Maryland.  When the voters returned the well-liked official for a second term, she was elected president of the three-member commission that headed local government.

In 1980, Governor Harry A. Hughes appointed her to the Cecil Community College Board of Trustees, as it was known then.  She served there for twenty-four years.

Mary, a thorough, caring leader, was deeply engaged in the community.  She could put anyone at ease as they attended board meetings or discussed business of importance to them.

Mary Maloney was a Cecil County trailblazer.  Fifty years after women first voted in Cecil County she had been elected to its top leadership position.    

ELKTON, Nov. 23, 2020– On this sad day, Singerly Fire Company mourned the loss of one of their own, Ambulance Chief Claude “Zeke” Cornett.  With fire service and military honors, the 92-year-old World War  II-era veteran was laid to rest at Gilpin Manor Memorial Park.   

Born in 1928, Zeke joined Singerly as a probationary member in 1964, the rookie quickly advancing through the ranks to lieutenant. But as a young first responder, he gravitated toward emergency medical services.  This was long before specialization of disciplines became the norm, and for three years (1967 – 1969) he led the ambulance division. There the chief provided foundational leadership that started the early modernization of EMS, which was just beginning in nearby cities.  This strong advocacy for incorporating new methods and advancing the discipline was instrumental in the ambulance division’s early specialization, building a footing for the progress continued once his work was done. 

Chief Cornett was a hands-on leader.  When the siren blared out with a single blast in Elkton fifty or sixty years ago, the Cornett Television Truck would hurriedly rush up to the firehouse, Zeke jumping into the ambulance while rushing to help someone at one of their most needy moments.   

The veteran first responder taught Singerly’s next generation the ropes too as these teenagers started working their way through the ranks, riding the ambulance and the backstep of the engine.  He was often at their side, passing along practical skills of the old hand, things he developed by taking advanced courses with the Baltimore City Fire Department when teaching beyond an American Red Cross Course was hard to come by.

A new, impressionable group of rookie firefighters, listened and learned as he passed along classroom techniques picked up at the Baltimore Fire Academy, things such as the new life-saving practices of cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Of course, there was also the practical applied wisdom acquired from working the runs. 

For many of us in the next generation seeking to become skilled practitioners, he was a strong, supportive mentor helping us learn the ropes as the tools and methods of emergency medical services came out of a more simple era of grab and run.  Furthermore, he encouraged us to continue to advance our capabilities as more opportunities became available.

On the final ride to the cemetery, the funeral procession passed his old fire station. There the crossed ladders of aerial units from Singerly and Cecilton supported a large American flag flapping in the breeze of a Monday in late November.  The crossed ladders, a final goodbye to a member of the fire service, are an old symbol for honoring a deceased firefighter. 

On this late autumn day, many of these memories came flooding back as we recalled the dedicated community leader, businessman, and fire service innovator.   

For a full photo album on remembering Claude Zeke Cornett, see this Facebook album

At the height of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln designated Aug 6, 1863, as a national day for “Thanksgiving, Praise, and Prayer” for the Union Army’s recent successes.  This early proclamation set a precedent for America’s national holiday, and the observance soon settled on the final Thursday in November with communities across the north turning their attention to observing the day.¹

In Elkton, on that Thursday in August, businesses suspended operations, the Cecil Whig noted.   At the Methodist Episcopal Church, the congregation heard Rev. Curtis preach a sermon of thanks for the occasion.  However, the Presbyterian and Episcopal churches had no services — the ministers were absent.

“The divines who minister in those churches being afflicted with ‘Secesh” generally” found it convenient to be absent when thanks in a public manner were recommended to be offered for triumphs of the “national army over thieves, pirates, and traitors,” the editor remarked.  Nonetheless, those churches were made to contribute in a measure as their bells rang out merrily, joyfully praising the “Giver of All good by some of our union boys.”

Some of Elkton’s young folks, escaped the heat of the day, going down the Elk River on a fishing excursion.

Once the President settled on a regular holiday of Thanksgiving, he and Governor Bradford invited the first observance on Nov 26, 1863.  The Whig hoped that all the churches would have services on that last Thursday and take up a collection to benefit the nation’s defenders.  However, “the majority of the ministers of the Episcopal and Presbyterian churches in the county” were so disloyal that they always found “petty excuses” to evade the observances of the day set apart by the President.”

The editor expected nothing better of them, he remarked. Perhaps, he hoped, “the loyal men and women of the denominations cursed with rebel ministers – ministers in the service of the Devil and Jeff Davis . . .” would adopt some method of responding on this national holiday to the appeal.²

In November 1864, the newspaper reported that “this New England Sunday was observed in our town by services in most churches and good dinners after church.  A show of suspending business was made and the stores semi-closed, according to the Whig.³

Endnotes

1. Avey, Tori. “Thanksgiving, Lincoln and Pumpkin Pudding.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 15 Nov. 2012, www.pbs.org/food/the-history-kitchen/thanksgiving-lincoln-and-pumpkin-pudding/ [↩]
2.  “Things About Town,” Cecil Whig, Aug 8, 1863[↩]
3. “Thanksgiving Day in Elkton,” Cecil Whig, Nov 26, 1864[↩]

When Cecil Countians headed to polling places on Nov 8, 1864, to cast ballots in the presidential election, tensions were high.  The country had suffered through three long years of brutal Civil War fighting and many people had grown tired of the continuing bloodshed.  

On Election Day, people confronted a sobering decision as this lack of decisive progress had given rise to a war opposition group, Peace Democrats.  Derisively known as Cooperheads, they wanted peace at any cost.  This faction nominated George B. McClellan, former commander of the Army of the Potomac, to challenge the incumbent, President Abraham Lincoln.

As the conflict continued, faith in the sixteenth president declined as bitter political winds battered the nation.  Consequently, many Republicans argued that the country should delay the election for four years until it was “tranquilized and restored to its normal condition.” However, the sixteenth president pushed ahead, refusing to suspend balloting.

Democrats complained that the president was trying to steal the election with his “bayonet vote” while also suppressing suffrage.  They were referring to the fact that many soldiers were deployed on the frontlines, so Maryland joined other states in passing a law that allowed mail-in voting for the first time. ¹

Moreover, Nevada became the 36^th state days before the election because Congress thought it might give Lincoln an electoral edge.  Statehood had been rushed as it ensured three electoral votes for the incumbent and added to the Republican congressional majorities.  Nevada became a state just a week before the election because Congress thought it might give Lincoln an electoral edge. 

On Election Day, Lincoln won the national race in a landslide.  In Cecil, the president carried the county by winning 54-percent of the 3,278 votes cast².  That is except for Fair Hill, where officials tossed the votes out.  In this district where the Peace Democrats had a stronghold, a chaotic scene occurred on that Tuesday, the Cecil Whig reported.  As men showed up at the polling place, loyal Republican men challenged their registrations with the election judges, presenting evidence sufficient to cause officials to disenfranchise twenty or more men for disloyalty.”³

Things progressed reasonably despite the challenges in Fair Hill, with no more than a few curses and threats, being made until 2 o’clock.  However, at that hour, David Scott came before the judges to challenge a Cooperhead’s loyalty, and while an official swore him, the crowd led by a fellow named Mackey forced open the door, the Whig reported.  “Mackey seized the witness by the throat amid the yelling ‘at the abolitionist’ but in the melee, Scott slipped through their hand and escaped so they fell upon F. G. Parke.”  Having no military force to protect them and the violent mob threatening the lives of the witnesses the Judges closed the polls and refused to proceed with the election.”⁴

Judge McCauley simply wrote in his diary that “there was a riot at Fair Hill polls and the election closed at 2 o’clock.⁵

When the officials counted the returns, the Cooperheads “found they had put their foot in it.”  In place of submitting to law and allowing the judges to determine who were entitled to vote and who were not, they took the law into their own hands and broke up the election,” the Republican newspaper explained.  “They would still have had a majority of more than a hundred if the Fair Hill Poll had they not caused the poll to prematurely close, and the county would have gone for McClellan.”

Before the Civil War, the Elkton newspaper dubbed the Fair Hill District the “Gibraltar of Democracy,” as Democrats controlled politics there.  However, that changed during the Civil War as the Copperheads “took out letters of administration to settle up the affairs of that [Democratic] party and transfer its effect to Jeff Davis.  Now the editor thought of Fair Hill as the South Carolina of Cecil County as the “success of the southern confederacy was intensely popular in the district. 

The Cecil Democrats version of events was that the election judges gave an additional turn of the screw, rejecting many votes. If it had been a full and fair vote, McClellan would have had the majority of two to three hundred votes in Cecil County.  The fourth district was not counted at all and the votes which had been polled up to 2 o’clock were thrown out.  Moreover, across the county, over one hundred Democratic voters were rejected by the judges.⁶

Both Elkton newspapers agreed that but for the premature closing of the polls in the 4^th district, a place where “Little Mac” was popular, the county would have given a majority to McClellan.  In concluding its assessment of the Fair Hill situation, the Whig added “they preferred voting for Jeff Davis to any other man for our next president, but since they were not allowed to cast their ballots for jeff, they intended to bestow them upon Mac. 

On Nov 9th after all the returns had been received, Cecil County diarist, Judge McCauley wrote that Lincoln had carried the nation with a large majority. an “indicator that the Union will be preserved and the rebellion put down.”⁷.

Endnotes

1. Nina Strochlic, “How Mail-in Voting Began on Civil War Battlefields,” National Geographic, August 14, 2020, |PAGE|, accessed October 20, 2020, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/08/how-mail-in-voting-began-on-civil-war-battlefields[↩]
2. “Cecil County Official.” Cecl Whig, Nov. 12, 1864[↩]
3. “The Battle of Fair Hill, The Great Copperhead Charge.” Cecil Whig, Nov. 12, 1864[↩]
4. “The Battle of Fair Hill, The Great Copperhead Charge.” Cecil Whig, Nov. 12, 1864[↩]
5. James McCauley. Diary, Nov. 8, 1864[↩]
6. “Cecil County Election.” Cecil Democrat, Nov.12, 1864[↩]
7. James McCauley, Diary, Nov. 9, 1864[↩]