GENERAL WILLIAM WHANN MACKALL WAS NOT BORN IN CECIL COUNTY. WILNA WAS HIS BOYHOOD HOME, BUT NOT HIS BIRTHPLACE. A guest column by Milt Diggins Pardon the excessive capitalization, but killing myths is tough work. When serving as the Cecil Historical Journal editor for the Historical Society of Cecil County (HSCC), I had the opportunity…
Remembering Cecil Whig Editor Don Herring
ELKTON, May 20, 2018 — We were saddened to hear that Don Herring passed away on May 12, 2018, at the age of 87. A journalist of the first order, he was associated with the profession throughout his entire adult life, including over 30-years in Cecil County. He took over as the managing editor of…
Cecil County’s Oldest Firehouse
Many times each day, sirens blare out in Cecil County as volunteers dash straight for a nearby firehouse. Within minutes, emergency vehicles, sirens screaming and lights flashing, rush out of a station en route to a blazing inferno, a serious accident, or some other emergency. This scene has been happening here for centuries. Many times,…
Pharmacists and Drug Store Clerks Were Essential When the Spanish Flu Hit
As the Spanish Flu caused death and havoc across Cecil County in 1918, essential workers toiled away day and night, struggling to alleviate the suffering. In this troop of people delivering critical services, doctors and nurses stood on the front line. Alongside these bedside caregivers, the druggists played an equally essential role as the virus…
Guest Editorial: Cecilton’s Levi Coppin School Should be Saved
A Public Letter to Cecilton Town Officials — A Guest Column April 26, 2020 Dear Cecilton Town Officials: I am writing to you to strongly urge you not to demolish the historical Levi Coppin School. While scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed on Sunday, I was surprised to read about the town’s newest project to build…
Nurses were the Heroes of the Day When Spanish Flu Hit
During the first seventeen years of the 20th century, Cecil Countians lived tranquil lives, far removed from growing tensions in Europe and the terrible devastation of a deadly pandemic. However, one group of young ladies preparing to become healthcare professionals at the end of the horse and buggy era in medicine, had their careers minted…
Public Health Officer Led County’s Fight Against the Spanish Flu
When the Spanish Influenza appeared in Cecil County in the autumn of 1918, the man on the frontline of the battle here was Dr. H. Arthur Cantwell. The young clinician, an alumnus of the Jacob Tome Institute, graduated from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1906. After interning at the University Hospital and…
Women Were the Caregivers During the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918
When the Spanish Flu of 1918 spread from the battlefields of Europe to North America, it struck swiftly with its devastating sweep across the nation. Since treatments, vaccines, and antibiotics didn’t exist, the lethal contagion quickly overwhelmed the early 20th-century healthcare system. To aggravate matters, the Great War had thinned the ranks of medical clinicians,…
Not the First Time Cecil County was Shut Down
This isn’t the first time that Cecil County has been shut down by a pandemic. In the autumn of 1918, a deadly virus, the so-called Spanish Flu, swept across the nation. As this grim situation unfolded 102-years ago, many public health officials advised that the spread of the disease called for drastic action, a general…
Cecil Grappled With the Spanish Influenza of 1918
One-hundred-two years ago, a mysterious killer, the so-called Spanish Influenza, came calling in Cecil County Reports of the outbreak in northeastern Maryland first trickled in from Aberdeen Proving Ground in the middle of September 1918 as the virus took a deadly toll. Within weeks, the flu exploded locally, as the sickness got a firm grip…