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.
Nurse Rose C. Suiter’s headstone at Immaculate Conception Cemetery in Elkton
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.
The Cecil County Commissioners meet at the county courthouse some in the early 1970s. (L to R) Mary Maloney, Joseph Biggs, and Walton Mason. (Source: Jim Cheeseman Collection of Cecil Whig photos at the Historical Society of Cecil County
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.
