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.
Singerly Firefighters Jim Sample (left) and Claude “Zeke” Cornett take a break while fighting a blaze at George’s Restaurant in Elkton sometime in the 1960s.
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
The Singerly Fire Company Line Officers in front of the snorkel at station 13 in 1971. (L to R) John C. Cooke, Chief, Claude Cornett, Randolph Hague, L. Hampton Scott, Buddy Carroll, and Larry Storke; John Turnbull in the middle; and in the last row, Rodney Founds, and Richard Robinson.
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
A Thanksgiving Postcard, circa 1907
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.
A Thanksgiving postcard, circa 1907
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
The Aug 6, 1863 proclamation was issued by Gov Andrew of Massachusetts and President Abraham Lincoln for Thanksgiving Day on Aug. 6, 1863. (Source: Historic New England via Digital Commonwealth. Lincoln’s First Thanksgiving Proclamation | Historic New England
Endnotes
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/ [↩]
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.
A Lincoln campaign poster. The party was a combination of Republicans and War Democrats (Source: Library of Congress)
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 36th 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.”
The election of 1864 in Cecil County showing the winner’s majority by district. (Source: The official returns via cecilcountyhistory.com)
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 4th 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
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[↩]
“Cecil County Official.” Cecl Whig, Nov. 12, 1864[↩]
“The Battle of Fair Hill, The Great Copperhead Charge.” Cecil Whig, Nov. 12, 1864[↩]
“The Battle of Fair Hill, The Great Copperhead Charge.” Cecil Whig, Nov. 12, 1864[↩]
As the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project works to advance the cause of reconciliation in the state by documenting the history of racial terror lynching, the group has supported the development of blogs for the county coalitions.
Here is the link to The Cecil County Lynching Memorial page. The Committee is working to memorialize the victims of this terrible era in the County. The page is used to keep the community informed about research, plans, and activities.
You can navigate to the new page by clicking the “County Pages” tab above, or by clicking County Pages
The blog for the Cecil County Committee of the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project.
Carter’s Mill School, also known as the eight-sided school was built in 1820 by Robert Carter at Carter’s Bank. The stone place of learning was replaced in 1886 by a two-room frame building located on the west side of Singerly Road at Andora. William Spratt built the Andora School for $275
It is uncertain when the octagonal school building was lost. When the Cecil Whig visited the location in 1971 all that remained were some building stones. Mrs. Leonard Spratt informed the reporter that she had lived in the area for 30 years and the school was gone when they moved to the area.
A 1914 postcard of the old octagonal school at Carter’s Mill
One African-American boy the son of Gyp Valentine, an employee at Carter’s Mill attended classes at the octagonal school.
As for why an eight-sided structure, the History Center provides some insight: “The philosophy of octagonal-shaped school buildings can be traced to a Quaker tradition brought over from the old country. The concept is based on the idea that an octagon shape was conducive to a better learning environment because the instructor could be placed in a prominent position within the space and be the focus of the students.
It was also beneficial because the octagonal shape provided more square feet of inside space than either a rectangle or a square. Ventilation and lighting were also pertinent issues of the times, and an architectural structure with eight sides allowed for an opening in all sides of the building.
The building’s thick walls helped it to retain heat during the cold months, which also helped provide insulation against the heat in the warm weather.”
RESEARCH TIP — CECIL COUNTY DEATH CERTIFICATES AVAILABLE ONLINE — Here is some exciting news for historians and genealogists from the Maryland State Archives. The State has started digitizing Maryland death certificates. The first batch for the counties is now online. This batch runs from 1898 to 1910, but more will be added in the future.
Previously access to these records required a visit to Annapolis, where the certificates were available on the desktop computer workstations in the reading room. This is great news.
Here is an example, the Cecil County Death Certificate for Charles E. Queck. The 19-year-old baker was from Chesapeake City. The primary cause of death was typhoid fever, and he died on July 10, 1898.
The Board of Education purchased land for this building from Jesse & Rachel Hevelow for $10 in 1950, and the brick schoolhouse for African-Americans opened in 1952. Dr. Thomas G. Pullen, State Superintendent of Schools, and Mrs. Helen Harris, principal, spoke at the dedication that May. Once the modern facility opened, the former community schoolhouse across the street was sold to a Middletown Realtor for $2,000.
Coppin closed following integration in 1965 and there were a number of plans for the building, including use as a detachment for the state police. However, the Cecil Whig reported in 1971 that the school had been empty and boarded up since integration. It went on for other uses in time as the annex for the elementary school and as the local center for Head Start.
Briefly known as the “Cecilton Colored School,” the Board dedicated it as the Bishop Levi J. Coppin School, at the request of the PTA. The church leader had been born in 1848 in Fredericktown and went on to serve as an editor, educator, missionary and the 30th bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
The Levi Coppin School sometime in the late 1950s. (Source: Cecil County Board of Education Collection at the Historical Society of Cecil County)After the schools were integrated, Mrs. Helen Harris became the principal of Elkton Elementary School. She retired in 1972 (Source: Cecil Whig, June 21, 1972)
CECILTON – September 2, 2020 – The demolition plan for the Bishop Levi Coppin School in Cecilton is being reassessed as a “post-review discovery” under section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, according to the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD). Some months earlier, a determination had been made that the demolition of this African-American landmark would not adversely impact the community.
But with the clock ticking advocates heard that it was going to be razed so they stepped forward to provide significant information that hadn’t been discovered when the first 106 review was completed. Some of these new insights came from former students at Levi Coppin, while other evidence of important traces of earlier times came from a thesis, and a Google search that located blog posts, and articles published in the Cecil Whig in recent years.
For the moment the demolition is on hold in light of extra evidence of significance offered through petitions, letters, and the web as the State has opened the process to review the original determination. One of the steps in reconsidering the original declaration took place this afternoon in a former classroom at 233 Bohemia Avenue as people interested in making remarks about the adverse effect and potential mitigation of the proposed demolition offered comments for consideration and the public record.
On hot, sweltering summer days in the years before electric refrigerators, the iceman was a welcome sight in Cecil County towns. Plowing through dusty streets on a wagon, people could hear the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves, as the deliveryman approached.
Making his way slowly along the street, the deliveryman stopped at virtually every household, dropping off cakes of ice to homemakers. The rattle of the tongs and the rumble of the wagon called out to children. They would gather around as the driver chopped off an order, hoping for a small frozen chip.
This precious commodity had been harvested months earlier. Once crews cut blocks of it from frozen waterways, workers packed the product in sawdust, storing it away in icehouses. There it waited for the coming Maryland summer.
As winter eventually warmed into spring, the thermometer climbing ever higher folks began calling for the cooling product. And at the top of the Chesapeake, the season for the iceman was soon in full swing
Deliveries to houses, restaurants, hotels, and taverns were what those lazy, hazy days of July and August called for. After each stop, the quickly melting blocks were stored away in iceboxes. Today, of course, we go to the freezer to grab a cube or two. However, in this age long-ago age, these cooling cubs were not readily available.
This made the annual ice harvest an important cash crop, turning some area waterways into seasonal factories. So, what is the history of this once scarce product in Cecil County?
A shortage of ice had been a ‘”customary complaint” in Elkton during warm weather for years, the Cecil Whig remarked in 1866. Yet there was a “good omen” for a stock company, an ice company, had been formed to supply “the summer luxury.”
On hot summer days that year, an ice wagon traveled Elkton streets. In succeeding years, as the time approached when people required ice the company would announce it had plenty stored way if the winter had produced a strong extended freeze. From then on, the ice harvest was quite an enterprise in the county seat.
Demand for the product of summer must have been good. In 1867, the distributor had a “city style” ice wagon built, its bell-laden horses traversing the town. Elkton was rapidly putting on “city-airs,” the Whig’s editor stated.
The commodity depended on mother nature, and sometimes even 19th-century winters were just not cold enough. Dealers having exhausted the home supply by June 1876 had to make other arrangements so Joseph McNeal imported a fine quantity of the summer item from suppliers in Boston. It arrived in town on the railroad, no doubt having been heavily wrapped in sawdust and sacks.
Nine years later, as spring weather approached, icehouses and no ice, so the anxious dealers hoped for a cold snap. Commenting on the lack of the commodity, the Whig observed: Ice nowadays has become a necessity, and a failure to secure a home supply would greatly increase its cost as to rink it as a luxury among poor people.
Harvesting on the Susquehanna was a major commercial operation. There, when winters were cold enough, the America Ice Company cut river ice with horse-drawn saws, hauling huge blocks of it to large icehouses. The enterprise harvesting winter’s product on the river employed 50 to 100 men and many horses, the Cecil Whig reported. From then, until the arrival of warm weather, winter’s natural refrigerant stayed stored away in insulated structures at the edge of Perryville. At just the right time, it was shipped to Baltimore dealers.
Elkton received its first shipment of manufactured ice in January 1890. That winter, good ice making weather failed to arrive, and dealers exhausted their supplies. To satisfy the local market, one distributor, George Booth, purchased a ton of “artificial ice” in Wilmington, the Whig informed readers.
Viewing the approach of warm weather in 1909, consumers were anxious. While ice dealers had failed to secure a supply of natural ice, they had no reason to worry for the enterprise of Davis & Vinsinger had solved the problem. At the corner of Delaware Ave. and Howard Street in Elkton, they built an artificial ice plant and soon were making deliveries around town.
The Elkton Supply Company Ice Truck (Photo Credit: The Rhoades Collection at the Historical Society of Cecil County)
Henry Metz recalls that in 1926 when the Elkton Supply Company acquired the ice business from Newton-Mitchell Company, the successor of Davis and Vinsinger, delivery was by horse and wagon. Elkton Supply maintained two routes, which were driven by Edward Fleming and Charles Baader, he notes. Sometime after this trucks become standard equipment. And the once familiar sight of ice wagons passed from the Elkton scene.
Fresh ice had to be bought every day, and the shallow drip pan underneath the icebox had to be emptied, recalled Helen Keene Warburton. In the era before World War II, Warburton remembers ice being delivered. Each day, except Sunday, he “dropped off a 25- pound block of ice.”
Out in the country, it was a different story. Living on a farm north of Chesapeake City, Betty Eliason remembers her father, Frank Hutton, going to town each Saturday to buy a 100- pound block. “We had to make it last since that is all we had for the week.”
Home refrigerators eventually started plugging everyone into year-round ice. As the popularity of this appliance caught on, especially considering the ease with which it froze the water, the market for home delivery melted away in Cecil County.
Pardon the excessive capitalization, but killing myths is tough work. When serving as the Cecil Historical Journal editor for Historical Society of Cecil County (HSCC), I had the opportunity to employ facts to slay a few local history myths. But one of those myths has returned. The myth: Confederate General William Whann Mackall was born in Cecil County, according to Wikipedia, some genealogical papers at the HSCC, and an obituary in the Cecil Democrat, 22 August 1891, which was used by the genealogist who compiled the HSCC’s William Whann Mackall-Aminta Sorrell Family Group Record. At one time, even the state’s historical marker at Wilna proclaimed the site was the general’s birthplace. But the state replaced that marker with a significant rewording that identifies Wilna as his boyhood home instead. I will explain what led to the state making the change.
Confederate General William Whann Mackall was not born in Cecil County. He did, however, grow up in the county. I presented this fact a little over a decade ago, with documentation, but the correction needs to be reasserted once again–so I repeat, the general was born in Washington, D. C. and grew up in Cecil County.
While serving as the volunteer editor of the Cecil County Historical Journal from 2000 to 2008, I decided to research and write an article on Cecil County’s lone Civil War general, but I bumped into a problem. Sometimes historians will repeat generally accepted information conveniently at hand without further investigation. Using material at the historical society, it would have been easy to write that Mackall was born in Cecil County. But I have a Civil War book at home, The Civil War Dictionary, by Mark Mayo Boatner III, published in 1959, and the entry on Mackall had D. C. for his birthplace. Historians, confronted by glaring contradictions in the historical record, cannot simply pick the fact they like best or they think would most please their readers. I had to investigate further before I could declare where Mackall was born. Preparing my research for the article I had planned to write for the Journal took two tracks. One track, my primary interest, focused on investigating Mackall’s military record and writing an article about his military career. The secondary track focused on discovering Mackall’s actual birthplace, and if evidence pointed to Washington, D. C., then I would want to know approximately when he came to Cecil County, and the circumstances that brought his family here.
At the conclusion of my two-track investigation, I published the main article: Cecil County’s Civil War General,Cecil Historical Journal, Volume 7, Number 1, Spring 2007, pages 2-10. Eighteen resources were used and cited. The HSCC holds reference copies of the Journal and could provide scanned copies of the article on request.
One paragraph in that article mentioned that Benjamin Mackall, William’s father, moved to Cecil County when William was around 6 years old. I wrote a separate piece detailing the evidence that William was born in Georgetown, Washington, D. C. and more fully explained the circumstances that brought William’s parents to Cecil County. This smaller separate article was published on the historical society website (it was eventually removed) and elsewhere, but I do not recall where. Unfortunately, my original Word files for both articles became corrupted.
Fortunately, my efforts did make a difference. My research convinced the state to change the historical marker at Wilna. I had previously written an article on Principio for the Journal, and the state had requested I suggest a script for a new historical marker they were placing there. I took the opportunity to ask the state commission if they would change the sign at Wilna if I sent evidence that it was his boyhood home but not his birthplace. I shared the documentation and research findings with the Maryland Historical Trust and the Maryland State Highway Administration. The state accepted the research and replaced the sign at Wilna. The marker no longer claims Wilna was Mackall’s birthplace, but instead identifies the site as “his boyhood home.” And as they say, the rest was history; that is until recently, when the error resurfaced. After all that detective work, including a trip to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Though the original article about Mackall’s boyhood home disappeared, I kept copies of the documents I used and was able to reconstruct much of it for this blog post.
The Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army from its Organization, September 29, 1789 to March 2, 1903, Washington: Government Printing office, 1903, compiled by Francis Bernard Heitman, has “Born in D. C.” for his entry on Mackall. Among the sources I used to compile the history of Mackall’s military service were two documents verifying Mackall’s birthplace as Washington, D. C. I had obtained copies of Mackall’s military records from the National Archives. These official records were detailed and spanned his military service in the United States Army and the Confederate Army. On one form, the blank for “born in” was filled in with the cursive abbreviation D. C. This was likely the same record Heitman used for his Mackall entry.
Register of appointments for William Whann Mackall
An online search revealed that General Mackall’s letters, part of a dairy written during military service, genealogical and biographical material, and other personal papers were housed at the University of North Carolina, as part of the Southern Historical Collection at Chapel Hill. A perfect opportunity for a road trip. The papers provided a rich source of information about Mackall’s life, his military experiences, and his reflections on those experiences. The Manuscript Collection Survey, an introduction or overview about the Mackall papers, stated that the papers were deposited by his grandson, W. W. Mackall, of Washington, D. C. and that William Whann Mackall (1817-1891) was “born in Georgetown.” Separate research established that the Mackalls and their allied families were prominent in the Washington, D.C. region. Benjamin Mackall, William’s father, came to Cecil County in the early 1820s and he left the County by the 1840s, briefly returning to Georgetown before moving to the family estate, Langley, in Fairfax County, Virginia, not far from Georgetown. The estate shared its name with the nearby town, Langley, Virginia.
Approximately when did William’s parents come to Cecil County?
A search through Cecil County equity records at the courthouse (the records now located at the Maryland Archives and available online), family records and genealogies, and At the Head of the Bay: A Cultural and Architectural, History of Cecil County, compiled by the Cecil County Historical Trust, Inc. and Mills of Cecil County, John McGrain’s survey of historic mills in the county (reference copy available at the HSCC) presented enough information to form a reasonable conclusion about the circumstances that brought the Mackalls from Georgetown, Washington, D. C. to Cecil County, Md.
The family came to Cecil County after January 1817, after William was born in D. C. They had settled in Cecil County by January 1822; that was the month William’s brother, Richard, was born at Wilna, according to At the Head of the Bay. I had not noticed the date of Richard’s birth at Wilna when I wrote the Journal article in 2007, when I estimated William was about six when brought to Cecil County. If I had noticed, I would have estimated a slightly younger age. William was born 18 January 1817. Richard was born 14 January 1822, when William was four days away from his fifth birthday.
What brought the Mackalls from Georgetown, Washington D. C. to Cecil County?
Research revealed that family ties and economic opportunity brought Benjamin Mackall and his family from Georgetown to Cecil County. The family files at the HSCC, filled with genealogical records and copies of legal documents like wills, plus some separate research of additional resources showed a close relationship among three families. Not wanting to get too entangled in all the familial details, I searched just deep enough to get a general sense of the relationships as they pertain to the question, and I made some reasonable assumptions about the family and the land at Wilna. The Mackall, Moffitt (variation: Maffitt), and Whann families, in Georgetown, Washington, D. C. and in Cecil County, Maryland, were allied by marriage. William Whann, a Georgetown banker and his wife, Jane (Moffitt) Whann, originally came from Cecil County. Their daughter, Anna Maria, married Benjamin Mackall, William Whann Mackall’s father. According to At the Head of the Bay’sentry on Wilna Mill, the mill was established around 1740 by Richard Mackall on Little Elk Creek for producing flour (I did not search for the specific family link). On November 30, 1821, Sarah Maffitt purchased “Mill, Land, and Plantation” from the Elkton Bank of Maryland. The deed describes what appears to be Wilna (Cecil County equity record JS 19, pages 124-126; a previous description for the same land is in equity record JS 13, 124-126). About a month and a half later, January 14, 1822, Anna Maria (Whann) Mackall gave birth to William’s brother Richard at Wilna. Anna Maria’s mother, Jane (Moffett/Maffitt) Whann and Sarah Maffett were sisters. Ownership of the land would later pass to either another sister, Sally Maffett, or a related namesake. As noted, sorting out all the relationships could become more entangling than necessary for this inquiry.
John McGrain, a Baltimore County historian, did an extensive survey of the historic mills in Cecil County, and left a copy of The Mills of Cecil County at the HSCC. In his survey he states that Benjamin Mackall owed the mill. I did not find documentation to support ownership, and the land purchased by Sarah Maffitt includes the mill. But I did find documentation that Benjamin operated the mill, likely through a business arrangement with his wife’s aunt.
In May 1823, Benjamin Mackall, William’s father, purchased a collection of items, mostly household goods:
“One feather bed, bedstead and bedding, two tables one tea stand, four barrels, five yards of carpet, one shop board [Historically: “A counter or table on which a tradesman’s business is transacted or goods are displayed for sale.” OED online], one looking glass, two pots, one [D]utch oven, one set knives and forks, one set of cups and saucers, one tub, one bucket, one hog, two crocks, two jugs, two pitchers, one press iron, three chairs, two dishes, two plates, one breadbasket, one axe, one spinning wheel, three kegs, six tea spoons, one truck [At that time, and in this context, a truck would have been “A wheeled vehicle for carrying heavy weights ; variously applied.” OED online], one chest, one pot rack, two tea pots, one set razors” (JS 21, 35).
Two later entries in the county equity records clarify that those items were for spending long work days at the mill.
April 26, 1824 – Benjamin F. Mackall sold Parcel Hollingsworth, “three thousand and five hundred bushels of wheat now stored and in the keeping of Henry [Bennett or Barnett]; also one thousand bushesnow in the mill where the said Mackall resides; twenty five hundred bushels of wheat, now stored and in the keeping of William Hewitt, also one hundred barrels of flour in the mill where the said Mackall resides.” [emphasis added] (JS 22, 52-53).
September 24, 1825 – Benjamin purchased the indenture of Enos Woods for a period of 5 years to serve as a miller apprentice to learn the mill trade (JS 23, 200).
Other significant dates to conclude General William Whann Mackall’s relationship to Cecil County.
In 1826, William’s mother died; William was nine years old. In 1834, William ended his residency in Cecil County to attend the U. S. Military Academy at West Point and begin his military career. On January 13, 1844, William Whann Mackall and his brothers, Henry and Richard, purchased the estate from Sally Maffitt. (equity record GMC 5, 368-370). It is possible that Sally Maffitt became especially significant to William after the death of his mother; William would later name his second daughter Sally Maffitt Mackall.
William served in the Mexican War, and during that time he sent letters to his father, who had briefly returned to Washington, D. C. On September 10, 1846, a Cecil County equity record identified Benjamin as a resident of Fairfax County, Virginia, likely at his estate, named Langley, which shared the name with the nearby town. William would inherit Langley after the Civil War. Benjamin had traveled back to Cecil from Fairfax, Virginia, that September to buy three children from Jane C. Mitchell.
The entry for the sale of the children was stark, but not uncommon:
Sam aged about ten years Slave for life
Henry aged about eight years Slave for life
Newton aged about five years Slave for life
[GMC 11, page 294-295].
December 19, 1848 – Major William Mackall and his wife sell their share of the land they purchased in 1844 to Henry C. Mackall. Two justices of the peace in Washington, D. C. affirm the sale and it was recorded in Cecil County, RCH 2, 207-208. Except for the possibility of family visits, William’s ties to Cecil County have ended.
For More on Milt’s scholarship, see this blog post.
