Window on Cecil County's Past

A recent NBC News piece about a small town of under 1,000 people having a hometown radio station serving the rural community reminded us of when Elkton had a full-service outlet, WSER.  With the station providing original daily programming for Cecil County, the broadcasters talked to the community.   DJs played the hits and chatted up area happenings, a reporter had local news, and programming highlighted local people, things, and sports.  

Elkton’s radio station, took to the airwaves on Thursday, Aug. 22, 1963, at noon.  As the transmitter came to life with regular programming for Cecil County, listeners heard a special opening ceremony. County and town officials were on hand, and the Rev. Howard O. Van Sice, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Elkton, gave the invocation.

For some 40 years from the studio on Maloney Road, it was Cecil County’s daytime spot on the dial, the airwaves filled with conversation about Cecil County in between the hits of the day.  The station was a central part of the county.

On snowy days, families immediately turned on WSER to hear if the schools were closed.  And the all too eager students jammed the phone lines at the station, calling to ask if the overworked morning crew had heard anything yet.  On those snowy sunrises, the early morning announcer knew he had his work cut out for him as he would often remind students not to jam the lines so the Board of Education could reach the station.  The announcement would hit the airwaves as soon as it was received, he assured young listeners.

Sometimes news bulletins interrupted the daily routine. For many here, the first they head that President Kennedy had been shot down in Dallas came from the network flash on WSER.  On that November 22, 1963, the mid-day disc jockey worked the turntable playing the hits of ’63 when the network flash interrupted his entertaining routine.  Once the first flash got everyone’s attention, listeners huddled near receivers at home, work, and in cars to hear the latest.  As the hours unfolded, the network kept up a steady stream of bulletins and flashes.  Soon afterward, the station informed its advertisers that all commercial spots were being pulled for a few days as the nation entered a period of mourning. 

A few weeks later on Dec. 8, 1963, Pan American Airlines Flight 214 crashed in Elkton, 81-people perishing when the big jet exploded high in the sky over the town.   The tragedy occurred around 9 p.m. on Sunday night.  When the station signed on the air at sunrise Monday morning Elkton’s radio station kept local listeners informed as the painful recovery process got underway with the first light of day, the work continuing over several days.

On October 31, 1965, Chief Edgar Slaughter of the Singerly Fire Company ordered an urgent, mandatory evacuation of parts of western Elkton, after a train carrying hazardous material wrecked in town.  The announcer working the Sunday morning shift at WSER interrupted the regular church programming which aired in that time slot, taking to the airwaves to broadcast emergency information to residents of west Elkton as National Guardsmen, police officers and firefighters went door-to-door to make sure people dearted immediately.

For many Cecil Countians, it was their spot on the dial in the daytime and It was all focused on Cecil County.

In late 1999, a Delaware-based religious group, Faith City Church, purchased the station from First Philadelphia Properties. Around this time it started simulcasting a remote feed, according to Wikipedia. Thus local programming was discontinued. The station changed its call letters to WXHL on Feb. 15, 2002.

As we travel around, from Pilottown to Fredericktown and every place in between, we often encounter old landmarks and historic buildings in Cecil County that grab our attention for numerous reasons. Sometimes it’s the end of the line for an aged, neglected building, its days dwindling quickly as a wrecking crew gets to work.  Other times, there is a sign alongside the road announcing that a faded historic home is being restored to something akin to its former state.  But frequently it’s simply the uniqueness of the structure – architectural features or social history – that make us curious about the place that has survived the passage of centuries.

As naturally curious types, whatever it is we often stop to look at the landmarks of yesteryear that dot our northeastern Maryland landscape during our little history chases as we contemplate the passage of time at places that provide direct links to the past.  As we ramble about we will share a few notes about our adventures in a special series on old structures.  Many will be humble old buildings from another era in the countryside, but some posts will focus on the architectural treasures around the county.    All have stories to tell.

We will begin this series in an upcoming post as we focus on an old structure on Main Street in Elkton, the former Cecil County Public Library Building, which has watched over Main Streets since the first half of the 19^th century. 

Here’s a link to our first post about 135 E. Main Street, the old bank building in Elkton.

Also see – The Gilpin Building Anchors Downtown Elkton

ELKTON, Sept. 9, 2019 – On this Monday in late summer, first responders, friends, and family gathered to say goodbye to N. Keith Sinclair.  The sixty-four-year-old, passed away suddenly Wednesday morning (Sept 4), while preparing to report for a duty shift at the Cecil County Department of Emergency Services.  Keith was a 911 dispatcher, a position he held for 43-years. 

For all of his adult life, Keith volunteered with county fire departments and worked in communications for Emergency Services.  As a teenager, he joined the ranks of the Singerly Fire Company as soon as he was sixteen.  Starting in May 1971, he worked his way up the ranks, becoming certified as an Emergency Medical Technician and serving as Elkton’s Ambulance Director.  Later, he joined the Chesapeake City Volunteer Fire Company.

In 1978, he was a member of the first Cecil County class of what was then known as paramedics.   In those formative years for Emergency Medical Services, the first ALS providers were known as paramedics as training, and additional levels of certification were some years in the future.  That first class composed entirely of Singerly members had been taught by Frank Muller, Paramedic Instructor. 

In 1976, he took a full-time job as a dispatcher at fire headquarters.   In the mid-1970s, one dispatcher worked a shift, juggling calls and handling radio traffic for police and fire departments while also maintaining handwritten records of the activities.  Dispatcher Sinclair grew with the job, as 911 came in, computers replaced paper logs, and the call volume increased dramatically.  Now a full team of call takers, dispatchers, and supervisors provide the first contact someone has in time of an emergency.

Dispatcher Sinclair, a professional in every way, was a highly respected public safety colleague.  He kept his officers safe on the streets, kept up with changing times, and was that calm, reassuring voice thousands of people heard when they needed help the most.  From the first call he took in 1973 to the last one he handled a few days ago, he was a caring public servant.  That could be seen today as tears were shed and people sorrowfully hugged each other on this sad, sad Monday in late summer.    

Following services at Hicks Home for Funerals, police fire vehicles, paramedic units, and fire trucks led family and friends in a processional motorcade to the graveside service at Gilpin Manor.  At Gilpin Manor the clouds gave way and the sky cleared as the mournful sounds of the bagpipe faded off into the distance while uniformed first responders carried the casket from the old North East Fire engine.  In the final moments of the graveside service, the sound of a dispatcher broke the silence with the final call for Dispatcher Sinclair. 

Keith Sinclair dedicated his life to emergency services and to serving the people of Cecil County.  The friend, colleague, and public servant will be missed.

See album for additional photos from the funeral service for Keith Sinclair. (under construction)

One of the highlights of August for many people living in Cecil County in the decades around the turn of the twentieth century was the annual Woodlawn Camp Meeting.

For two weeks in the heat and humidity of summer, many families vacationed there, escaping the chores of farm life, socializing, and listening to worship services.

Established by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1871, the encampment continued for more than 42 years, annually drawing people to the cool shade of the grove. It was located on what is now called Camp Meeting Ground Road near Woodlawn on a 15-acre grove of tall timbers, which was purchased from F. Marion Rawlings and Theodore J. Vanneman.

There were two long avenues of tents extending on either side of the wooden tabernacle, where a pavilion for preachers and benches were located. While most campers resided in tents there were a few frame structures, such as the boarding tent and ice cream and confectionery stand.

The local Methodist ministers took charge of the camp, and it was their duty to provide preaching talent throughout the week. From morning to evening, there was preaching, praising, and fellowship. Of course, there was an active choir, supplemented by a fiddle and a coronet. “The old hymns of the church were sung lustily and with great fervor,” the Cecil Democrat reported.

The camp meeting also played an important social role. The young people met to promenade up and down the avenues on those hot, sticky August nights. Hopefully, they caught a gentle breeze as they stopped at the picture gallery for photographs or at the ice cream stand for refreshments.

Many of the campers resided in tents, but there were two frame cottages. The boarding tent, and ice cream and confectionery stand were also frame. The boarding tent was under the managed of “Uncle Al Boyd,” a former baggage master on the railroad and a former sheriff. The camp bell called camp goers for meals and meetings and the “never failing pump” was a popular spot.

With the arrival of the automobile and the accessibility of attractions at greater distances, camp days waned. The annual camp meeting went out style in Cecil County in 1913. The ground was sold by receivers in 1915.

For additional photos visit our Woodlawn Camp Meeting photo album on Facebook.

* * * * * *

Sources & Notes

* The Historical Marker Database — Woodlawn Camp Meeting https://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=24111

* At the Head of the Bay: A Cultural & Architectural History of Cecil County

* Period articles in the Cecil Democrat and the Cecil Whig.

Thomas H. Mogle., Jr. served as the sheriff of Cecil County from 1966 to 1970.  When he was elected to the top law enforcement post in 1966, he assumed charge of an agency that was critically under resourced.  Although the small force consisted of four deputies and no county provided police cars, he put an emphasis on professionalizing his command.      

 The Cecil Democrat published a 1967 piece about what was needed to move the agency forward.  In this nearly 50-year-old chat with the Sheriff, he sketched out the minimum needs.

The Department required at least 55 personnel to handle its functions, including answering complaints, patrolling, serving papers, providing court security, and maintaining the jail,  Mogle noted. That force included 27 road officers, with one assigned to each of the nine election districts, around-the-clock as a patrol beat.  “They would answer complaints and could do a great deal to prevent crime.”

Eight men should staff the 100-year old jail so two deputies would be on duty.  “There are just not enough people in this office.  When four phones ring and the office is full of prisoners being brought in, one man behind the desk can’t handle it all.  We need a turnkey and someone on the radio and telephone.”

Judiciary related duties for the Circuit Court and the magistrates required eight men to handle courts and serve papers.  There was also clerical support.

One of his problems was hiring and keeping qualified personnel.  A deputy in 1967 made $1.50 an hour ($4,000 a year) while a clerk for a magistrate received $2.00 an hour.  The Sheriff estimated annual starting pay should be between $6,000 and $7,000.

When the reporter asked if an annual budget of $279,000 for staffing wasn’t rather high, the former Maryland State Trooper remarked, “it isn’t cheap but nothing worthwhile is going to be free.”  He also noted that there were other costs, as there should be county owned cars and 13 were required.

Harford County had 24 men in their Sheriffs’ Department and county owned vehicles, he noted.  They have “police running out of their ears; they have police departments in Bel Air, Aberdeen, and Havre de Grace, they have the state police, and they still hire 24 men for a county-wide police force.”

“Of course the county would be getting a lot better service in return for the expenditures.  With a force similar to the one outlined we could almost wipe out crime in this county,” the sheriff suggested. When asked what he felt his chances of getting some of the men and equipment were, especially in light of the new economy moves the commissioners were making, he said:  “Neither I nor the next six Sheriffs in this county will ever see this.”

He concluded that he wouldn’t run again unless drastic changes were made for the “betterment of the people and the police force.  I thought I could help the county.  I didn’t realize what the situation was in this office, I couldn’t. . . . ”

Continuing to remark about the situation, he said, “There was nothing here when I came, not even a flag.  I’ve ordered a flag and pole now.  It will cost $55 and if the county refuses to pay for it I will.”

Samuel du Pont wrote the paper to support the “overworked sheriff and his underpaid, overworked men” the next week.  “Imagine, just five men to cover the entire county, with its hundreds of roads and hundreds of square miles!  This doesn’t mean five men per shift, but five men altogether.  Now, start figuring three shifts a day.  You want around-the-clock police protection don’t you?  There are two few men and too much work — and then we have the gall to criticize our sheriff and his deputies!  We don’t even provide our men with official cars, as most other counties do.  We’ll soon be expecting them to shake tambourines on street corners for contributions, like the Salvation Army folks.  We have refused the sheriff sufficient manpower.”

Mogle accomplish one objective the next year.  After lengthy political wrangling between the county commissioners and the Sheriff, the Department entered the automobile age on July 1, 1968, when four marked police cruisers went in service.  For the first time in the history deputies drove official vehicles.  The county’s small law enforcement staff was catching up with Elkton, North East, Port Deposit, and Rising Sun, places that had long since provided police transportation.

Sheriff Thomas Mogle died on Oct. 23, 2008

See Also by Sheriff Thomas Mogle

Border Wars Flare up Over Cheap Maryland Booze

For resisting invading Pennsylvania Liquor Agents, Sheriff Thomas Mogle Given Gold Badge

Throughout the summer in the early 20th century, a showboat, a huge, scow-like wooden craft plying the Chesapeake Bay, called at Cecil County’s waterfront towns. Its arrival in Chesapeake City, Elkton, Fredericktown, North East, and Port Deposit brought great joy to the towns.

Once the tug had cautiously piloted the floating theatre up the river or the shallow twisting Big Elk Creek, the craft was moored at the town wharf. The arrival of the James Adams Floating Theatre in communities up and down the Bay was an exciting time as the show was about to begin. Each night during the stay, except Sunday, the curtain went up for a different play, as the cast kicked up their heels, and the performers and musicians entertained ticket-holders with a different show.

Before it moored at the community wharf posters prominently announced the gala week, handbills were distributed, and the county newspapers gave the upcoming entertainment plenty of play. The troupe was always ready when curtain time came as the performers had repeated these plays in water communities all around the Chesapeake. The crew, actors, actresses, and musicians traveled with the boat during the season, so there was plenty of time to rehearse.

After a week in port, the barge made the slow trip back the creek or rivers, heading toward the Bay, as it moved along on its annual circuit, and soon the activities were repeated at some other shore town. In the autumn, as the season turned, the floating theatre began to drift south toward Elizabeth City, N.C., where it normally spent the winter.

But, residents in the waterfront towns in Cecil County knew that sometime next summer the eagerly anticipated cry, “Here comes the showboat” would ring out again, as the tug pulling the floating scow steamed approached. And once again, they would look forward to a show to remember as the troupe’s acting, signing, and dancing entertained them.

The Adams Floating Theatre was launched around 1913/14 and it lasted until around the late 1930s.

For additional Cecil County pictures of the Adam’s Floating Theatre, see this photo album Facebook.

In the decades before the Civil War, Cecil County had a few free black communities.  One, Snow Hill, was situated just north of the Port Deposit town limits on the hillside along Route 222, which was known in earlier times as Cedar Hill.  On this steep grade overlooking the Susquehanna River, free black merchants and laborers established a thriving community as early as 1847.

A team of archaeologists from the Maryland Historical Trust investigated this African-American community in 1982, while completing a comprehensive cultural resources survey of the Bainbridge Naval Training Center, as the federal government prepared to sell the former base.  As archaeologists sifted through this tough rocky patch of soil in 1982 evidence, artifactual and archival, emerged indicating that it was a free black community.  The study noted that “46 lots on Snow Hill . . . were leased to free blacks from 1840 to 1900,” according to the Cecil Whig.  “The lots were owned by whites and leased to blacks under 99-year renewable lease agreements,” the Trust reported. 

The largest landholder in Snow from the mid-1800s was Ann Archer and her heirs.  Thomas Ringgold was identified as a resident of the community.  The site once was part of tracts known in colonial times as “Lucky Mistake” and “Mount Ararat.”   The archaeological investigation turned up 19^th-century artifacts and foundations of several buildings, surviving remnants of this antebellum free black community in Cecil County.

Martenet’s Map of 1858 identified Snow Hill as a colored community and shows eight residents and one church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church.  The Atlas of Cecil County (1877) show the Colored Methodist Church, some 20 homes and 46 lots. 

For additional maps, see this post on Cecil County History on Facebook

Also See

Mt. Zoar, an African American Community Near Conowngo

Griffith AUMP and Cedar HIll

There isn’t much remaining at Frenchtown these days to remind anyone that this place was a bustling commercial spot.  But it once was on the maps of the newly formed nation as boats, wagons, carriages, and trains brought people and freight to this little Chesapeake Bay port.  The reminders of this activity largely faded away around the middle of the 19^th century. 

But the beautiful old mansion house or tavern was a survivor.  When Frenchtown was put to the torch during the British attack during the War of 1812 it was not touched.  Then as the transportation revolution disrupted the order of things as the canal and railroad bypassed the hamlet, this sturdy old building remained, ready to make a run through a large part of the 20^th century. 

Built around 1800 as a mansion house it was on the estate of Frisby Henderson, a large landowner in the area.  The two and a half story English brick building had 17 rooms with fireplaces on each floor, and elegant interior molding and finish. 

The mansion became a public inn at some point as traffic on the main route between Baltimore and Philadelphia grew. Travelers stopping at the village included Andrew Jackson, Davy Crockett, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, Sam Houston, Louis Napoleon, Stonewall Jackson, and an Indian delegation, which included Chief Black Hawk.   

Lorenzo Alagia bought the property around 1944 from the estate of a Philadelphia theater owner.  At that time, the land once occupied by Frenchtown was part of a 300-acre asparagus farm and the tavern, a private dwelling, the Baltimore Sun reported in 1969.

The Algias ran the tavern as a business until a devastating fire swept through the inn on Nov. 21, 1957.  The business never reopened as the flames heavily damaged it.  As Singerly Fire Company battled the flames a wall caved in, injuring two Singerly firefighters, Bob McKeown and Harry Hammond.

Then in June 1964, the unoccupied remains were hit agan by fire, totally leveling the empty structure.  While it had survived the British attack and the burning of the village, the 167year-old tavern had been totally removed from the shoreline as the second fire finished the destruction. 

Frenchtown was never more than a village with its tavern, wharf, warehouses, stables, and a few dwelling, but it experienced more than its share of notable events.  And the old tavern was a central part of the story, hosting, the great and the near-great over the centuries.

Much more research needs to be done on the Frenchtown Tavern and this little corner of Cecil County, to fully develop the story.

See Also

Relics of What Came Before: Old Family Burial Grounds

If you drive down Frenchtown Road these days, you will find it hard to believe that a bustling village once existed where this ancient land meets the Elk River. Steamers came teeming up to its wharf, driving the narrow river into a cauldron of waves and whistling locomotives flew along its shoreline with its loads of human freight, reported the Cecil Whig more than 150 years ago.

Today the quiet county road south of Elkton makes a straight line for the river, past open fields once grazed by cattle, neat modern homes, a centuries-old burial ground and then, at its end the flourishing overgrowth of woods and vegetation.  In the thicket there, just past where the land becomes private property, the water of the Elk River emerges quickly.

The commercial point that grew up in this vicinity two centuries ago was, for decades, a prominent place.  However, it would have remained a quiet setting if it hadn’t been for its location on the western end of a short portage route across the top of Delmarva.

After the Revolutionary War, the popularity of the route for passengers and freight grew.  A regular line of vessels began sailing from Baltimore to Frenchtown.  As boats churned their way to the port, it established itself as a busy relay point on the main line of travel between Philadelphia and Baltimore.  Statesmen and the traveling public came journeying through.

Teamsters driving freight wagons and men cracking the whips on horses pulling stagecoaches gathered at water’s edge as sailing boats docked.  The large volume of traffic eventually led to the building of a turnpike across the narrow neck of the peninsula.

War of 1812

For all of its arresting history, there is none more thrilling than the high-drama that took place there during the War of 1812.  On the morning of April 29, 1813, 150 British Marines roared toward the small village.  A group of anxious defenders awaited the attack as enemy barges loaded with invaders bore down on a hastily erected, poorly equipped fort.

As cannonballs flew through spring air, the marines stormed ashore, forcing the defenders to retreat.  A fishery, warehouses, goods, and vessels lying at anchor were plundered and burned, reported the National Intelligencer.

The era for steam transportation arrived early on this shoreline.  Barely two months after the enemy attack, the first steamboat to float on the bay, the Chesapeake, started plying the route between Baltimore and the village, according to the History of Cecil County.

At the end of the 1820s, new technologies and increasing travel led to the incorporation of a pioneer railroad company, the New Castle and Frenchtown.  One of the first lines in the nation, it was first to penetrate the fields and woods of Delmarva.

Canals and better rails caused the village to fade.  With the completion in 1837 of a rail line through Elkton, one that didn’t require steamboat connections on each waterway, business on the Frenchtown route started declining.  By 1858, stagecoaches, wagons, rail cars, and steamers no longer converged here, crowding down to the old shoreline.

The trackbed had been abandoned by 1858, and the county turned it into a “common neighborhood road,” the Whig wrote.  As the affairs and tools of men changed, it dwindled down to a quiet spot, a place that by that year only had a country hotel, a house for people to use as an untroubled retreat away from the noise and dust of busy life.

With that, the remains of one of the earliest railroads in the country started disappearing.  As the Civil War tore the nation apart, carpenters tore down the old railroad depot.  It had some time ago ceased to be of any use and was “standing only as a monument of the former importance and greatness of Frenchtown,” the Cecil Whig observed in 1863.  Soon, only the road’s desolate banks and a bridge existed as evidence of the enterprise.

These are some of the highlights of a place that is saturated with the past.  Of course, there were happenings before this time.  French Acadians settled there in the years before the American Revolution, according to old records.  Patents of land at the top of the 1700s make mention of the place, but all of that is a subject for another day.

History Isn’t a Stranger at Frenchtown

Off in the thick overgrowth of bushes and trees, a place where the bright sunshine of a spring day has trouble penetrating, are the remains of some of the area’s early settlers.  Here and there a few rays of sunshine make it through the thick foliage, revealing gravestones of people who lived during great periods of America’s past.

All is quiet at Frenchtown right now.  The only thing disturbing the idyllic scene, where history is not a stranger, are faint songs of birds and the occasional drone of a car or a distant motorboat. But that once was not the case.  Angry men cried out in alarm, and cannonballs tore through the spring air, in defense of the shoreline.  The shriek of the steam whistle disturbed the tranquility of woods and fields.  And the locomotive, carrying its human freight chugged along its specially built path

Also of Interest

Relics of What Came Before: Old Family Burial Grounds; from a Window on Cecil County’s Past

$700-M Mixed-Use Project Aims to Transform Elkton, the Cecil Whig. An article about development of land south of Elkton, including Frenchtown.