Window on Cecil County's Past

The Cecil County Fair, which opened for the first time on Oct. 13, 1880, in Elkton, was organized in a whirlwind of activity.  In just a quarter of a year, organizers accomplished daunting tasks such as acquiring fairgrounds and preparing the property to receive thousands of visitors. 

Once Cecil’s agriculturalist incorporated the Cecil County Agricultural Society earlier in 1880, the first order was to raise money, so the managers sold stock valued at $10 a share.  Organizers put the shares at this low value so that every tenant farmer in the county could have a voice in the management of the society, newspapers reported.

Encouraging farmers to support the agricultural society, one newspaper remarked that, “the entertainment that will be awakened among our farmers and the information that will be acquired by the comparison of stock, agricultural products, and methods and experience must constitute a value that can be measured in dollars and cents.” 

Once the Society raised sufficient money, the organizers purchased 27-acres of land owned by A. G. Tuite on Elkton’s northern edge, right next to the railroad depot (Railroad Avenue today).  This expansive parcel stretched along the west side of North Street from the north of Railroad Avenue to part of what is now Elkton Heights. 

It was a most convenient location, only 300 yards from the Railroad Station.  Visitors in the cars weren’t required to seek conveyance to the grounds.  Proceeding at what must have seemed like a dizzying pace, the ground was promptly broken as fences, a race track and structures were built.  One of the most notable exhibit buildings, Mitchell Memorial Hall, opened for the fifth season in 1884.

After that, in early autumn, thousands of people poured into the fairgrounds at Elkton.  In 1887, the Morning News reported that over 14,000 people were admitted at the gates to see the exhibits, examine the agricultural products, look at new farming equipment, listen to talkative politicians, enjoy the delicacies of the food concessions, and attend the races.

After over a long run of successful years, criticism of racing and gambling at the fair started growing.   “A county fair should not be made a place where young people may be tempted into so ruinous a vice as gambling.  Whatever may be said of pool selling as a feature of horse racing, certainly there is no connection between the legitimate purpose of a county fair and such gambling layouts as those which have trapped the unwary at Elkton (News Journal Sep 13 1895).  About this time the state legislature starting threatening “race-track gamblers and outlaw race tracks with laws to prevent gambling (Philadelphia Times, Feb. 28, 1898).

The last fair, the nineteenth one, took place in September 1898.  Up to almost the last minute the following year, people eagerly anticipated the big annual event so it was a  “great surprise” when it was declared off on Sept. 27, 1899.  “The lack of interest by the people of Cecil County compelled the managers to take action and announce to the public that the Elkton Fair” was a thing of the past (Morning News, Sept. 28, 1899).  The Whig remarked, “The immediate cause of discontinuing the annual exhibitions was the general public’s lack of interest in them,” The Cecil Whig reported on Feb. 10, 1900.  When the Society tallied up the balance sheet, the assets were $6,928 while the liabilities were $17,708.

A broader perspective on why the fair ceased to be a drawing card was delivered by the Evening Journal on Oct,. 6, 1900.  The “Elkton Fair starved to death, although sustained artificially by a time by the men who conducted a nest of outlawed race tracks and used the fair grounds at intervals for gambling and racing purposes.”    

Cecil County Fair Starved to Death

The Cecil County Fairgrounds was sold under the auctioneer’s hammer at the courthouse door on Feb. 6, 1900 to satisfy a mortgage held by the Mutual Building Association.  The real estate included 27 acres of land, a half-mile racing track, a grandstand with seating for 1,200,  judges’ stand, Mitchell Hall, and cattle and other shedding, were sold on Feb. 6.

 “The passing of the Cecil County Fair, which years past has attracted thousands of people together annually, is to be much regretted by the residents of Cecil County,” reported the Middletown Transcript .  “The grounds were adapted for fair purposes, situated along the railroad.  Here annually gathered together people from all parts of Cecil County and from Chester County, Pennsylvania and from Delaware.  The people of the county were proud of their fair, which was at one time was considered second to none in this part of the country (Feb. 17, 1900).

George R. Ash, the editor of the Cecil Democrat, acquired the property for $8,400, less than one-third of the original cost (The Times, Philadelphia, Feb. 07, 1900).  The editor sold the old fairground to the Elkton Improvement Company for $10,000 in June 1900.  This Company was established to convert the property into building lots.   

 As a new century moved along memory of this annual happening started fading into the twilight.

For additional photos of the Cecil County Fair in Elkton, see this post on the Cecil County History Facebook page.

CECIL COUNTY AND THE MOON LANDING — For anyone old enough July 20, 1969, is one of those days that is permanently etched into memory. On that Sunday, the United States landed on the moon.

A few days earlier on July 16 when the three Americans rocketed from this planet in a small capsule destined for the moon people took notice since Cecil County had a strong connection to the nation’s space program.

The Elkton Division of the Thiokol Chemical Corporation had contributed greatly to the mission. Thiokol motors had been used in every manned space flight beginning with the Mercury series in May 1961 and when Apollo 11 launched for its flight a number of Elkton division motors were onboard, playing a vital role in the mission, the Cecil Whig reported.

Then when Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. became the first men to land on the moon there was great excitement. It was almost as if everyone in Cecil County was watching as people fixated on living room television sets.

“We will remember” is how the Cecil Democrat’s Columnist George Prettyman headlined his weekly column, Rural Ramblings.

He goes on to capture the moment for us: “Even though it happened right before our eyes, even though we heard their voices, even though the whole historic episode happened as it was planned to happen to the most minute detail, there was an air of unreality about it all. It was as though the TV set was dreaming, and we were observing a fantasy far too miraculous to be true…”

“When that heavily-booted foot came dramatically into view as Astronaut Neil Armstrong made his careful descent from the spacecraft, a feeling of exultation, subdued somewhat by the accompanying chill of awe, came over us; and we gasped in wonderment, as did millions of other viewers, for then it became a certainty that a man would be setting foot upon the moon. In a moment, the first human footprint was implanted upon the dusty surface of the moon,” Prettyman continued. “The scene was somewhat eerie. . . . . .”

As we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the historic moon landing, we are sharing some of the local coverage of this epic moment as covered by county’s two local newspapers, the Cecil Whig and the Cecil Democrat. Cecil County and the moon Landing had a strong connection.

For a complete history of the moon landing see this article on history.com

For more images, see this album on our Cecil County History on FB page.

In the center of the county seat, the Elkton, Doughboy Monument honors the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military.

After some discussion about creating a memorial, the project moved rapidly forward, and residents contributed $10,000 toward the proposal. Joseph H Sloan, an Elkton firm, contracted with the Rutland Marble Company of Rutland, Vermont, to produce the approved design.

On November 11, 1921, the mothers of soldiers who died in the war unveiled the While Vermont Marble monument at the courthouse yard in Elkton. The stonecutter had permanently chiseled 17 names into the fine piece of durable marble, names of young soldiers who did not return home (Cecil Democrat).

The inscription reads: “This monument is erected by the people of Cecil County in grateful recognition of the services of the men and women of this county who, on land or at sea served their country in the World War – 1914 – 1918 – and in special remembrance of the men of this county who in that war, “Laid down their lives that others might live.”

On each side of the statue of an American soldier at parade rest are paneled slabs inscribed with the names of the men who made the ultimate sacrifice.

The Elkton Doughboy Monument was moved from its original placement, the northeast corner of North and Main streets, to its present location at the armory in 1941, when the original courthouse was torn down and the property was turned over to the Town of Elkton.

Also, See

For additional photos of the Doughboy Memorial, see Seventeen Names Chiseled in Stone on the Cecil County History Facebook Page.

NOTES & SOURCES

* Cecil Whig

* Midland Journal

* Cecil Democrat.

The Library of Congress has made the first two newspapers available online at www.chroniclingamerica.loc.gov. which provides free, open access. There you are able to do text searches and see the original pages

On the Fourth of July 1919, Cecil County celebrated Independence Day in a grand style.  The largest event took place in Elkton as thousands of people saluted the soldiers and sailors who had served in World War I.  They were welcomed home with a rousing reception on that particularly glorious Fourth of July 100-years-ago.

Never had Elkton been so “lavishly and artistically decorated,” proclaimed the Cecil County News as the Maryland Colors blended gracefully with the red, white, and blue.    Nearly every residence, store and public building in town was decorated in gala attire.

Leading the parade, the Navy Academy Band was followed by Harlan (Wilmington), Principio and Elkton bands.  The men returning from France formed the first division, and the colored soldiers headed by a colored band from Chester, PA followed.  Next came, horsemen, red cross units, and floats.    

The Cecil Democrat wrote:

The poor old dilapidated Civil War vets had a place of honor, just behind the young heroes of the nation.  Yes, we shared the glory of that day with the heroes of grand old Cecil.  The Spanish American War veteran heroes were in line, and of whom we are as proud as any other. . . . And the colored heroes were in line.  Yes heroes because they went every step of the way with their white comrades and did battle fierce for the very same old uncle and flag that we all so proudly love.”   

At noon the soldiers, sailors, marines, and nurses enjoyed a delightful feast at the Armory.  The colored troops were served at Providence Hall. 

Festivities continued throughout the afternoon and evening.  The bands gave a concert and politicians delivered speeches.  Over at the ballfield, the Elkton and Pennsylvania Railroad teams turned out for a game despite the intense heat.  At the end of the ninth inning, the score was tied, three to three.  However, when the visitors refused to go on the umpire awarded the game to Eklton. 

Around 6:00 p.m. more things to eat were handed out, followed by a public reception and dance in the Armory and Providence Hall.   

A most pleasing thing, the Cecil County News thought was the banning of automobiles from the line of march.  The result was that the immense throng of people who visited Elkton was able to view the parade in comfort and safety. 

The only thing marring the pleasure of the day was the memory of those who laid down their lives in the war, the News added.  A large draped canvas on the courthouse yard bore the list of names of those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

This Fourth of July in Cecil County was one to remember

For more photos on the Fourth of July 1919 in Cecil County, see this post on Cecil County History on Facebook.

For more on the history of the Armory, see this blog post

These July days are an excellent time for enjoying that smooth and creamy summer treat, ice cream. That is especially true on hot, steamy Eastern Shore days like we are currently experiencing, as few pleasures are as comforting and cooling as a double scoop of the frozen dessert.

Ice cream has been the quintessential way to offset the summer’s heat for a long time –  so long, in fact, that it has a history as long as that of our country.  Ice cream was already a delicacy in the 1700s when the 13 original Colonies formed the United States.  George Washington served it at Mount Vernon.  When James Madison was elected president, his wife, Dolly, served the frozen dessert at the inaugural.

Back then, the frozen treat was complicated to make and preserve and procuring the necessary ingredients could be a problem.  One of the earliest problems was freezing the cream mixture when it was warm outside.  Then someone discovered that mixing salt with ice made a substance much colder, so the ice cream freezer was invented.  The first ones were called pot freezers.  The cream, sugar, and other ingredients were beaten by hand.  The mixture was then shaken up and down in a pan of salted ice until it was frozen.

Ice Cream in Cecil County

In the nation’s early years, the fashionable dessert was a luxury confined to the wealthy.  Martha Ogle Forman, who resided at a sizable Cecil County plantation on the Sassafras River, Rose Hill, wrote in her diary that she served “a large silver goblet of ice cream ornamented with a half-blown moss rose . . . .” at a dinner party on June 1, 1819.

In 1843, the hand-cranked ice cream churn, a device something like a butter churn, was invented.  The ice cream mixture was poured into a metal container set inside a salted ice tub.  A hand crank revolved inside the metal can, keeping the mixture in constant motion as it froze.  With this device, ice cream was more easily made. 

William J. Jones, a prominent 19^th-century lawyer, provided the first written account of ice cream being served in Elkton, around 1834:  “ . . . I have eaten ice cream of many flavors made by the most celebrated confectioners, but never any that compared with what I ate at Mr. Jones’s store on the Fourth of July fifty-one or two years ago, when I and another boy scraped up six cents and bought a fippenny bit plate with two spoons in it.  It was flavored with lemon; vanilla had not yet been imported into Elkton.”

Whether “Ellios Jones” or “John Stymus,” a baker, first sold ice cream in Elkton was an open question, Mr. Jones wrote in Elkton in the 1830s.

Ice Cream Season in Elkton

In succeeding years, ice cream lovers here eagerly awaited the warm season so they could again have the simple pleasure of tasting the cold treat.  One particularly hot June day in 1848, Editor H. Vanderford, Jr., of the Cecil Democrat, was in his office, “panting for a little fresh air,” as he plotted the “overthrow of the Whigs.”  As he poured over his exchanges (other newspapers), a smiling girl entered with a large vessel “filled to the brim with the most luscious ice cream.”  Editor Vanderford said that for at least a half-hour, as “he worked on the cream,” he thought no more of the Whigs, the “barnburners (a splinter group of Democrats),” or other such things.

The transition from the “season of coal stoves to the tropical heat,” which often put one in the “melting mood,” provoked a longing for the cold, sweet treat.  There is “nothing more refreshing in hot weather than a glass of delicious ice cream,” Editor Palmer C. Ricketts informed Cecil Whig readers in 1852.  He wondered who would engage in Elkton’s summer confectionary business that season.

He did not wait long for the answer.  Mr. J.  E. Brown soon came to the Whig office with “a glass a piece for all hands, and two for the Devil (printers’ assistant).”  Editor Ricketts heartily approved of the treat, saying he had always found Elkton’s ice cream superior to the same article in the cities.

A Business Opportunity for Elkton

The editor remarked that there was a business opportunity in Elkton: “An ice cream saloon, nicely furnished and with proper accommodations, would be a profitable enterprise.  The best arrangement . . . is a garden well supplied with trees and tables just large enough for two persons scattered about here and there among the trees and shrubbery.  We have seen such a place in a village, and though it offered a charming opportunity for a tete a tete.” 

Mr. Ellis Jones opened a spacious air parlor, which the newspaper predicted, would be a “most popular resort for ladies and gentlemen these warm evenings,” soon after the Whig made its suggestion.

With the thermometer often pushing 100 degrees during the scorching summer of 1853,  Editor Vanderford did not know how he would stand the heat were it not for the nearby Crouch’s Ice Cream Saloon.  A plate of vanilla was just the thing to keep him from “wilting into his boots.  There was no pleasanter place to “lower one’s temperature during the scorching weather than at Crouch’s,” he wrote.

For the delicacy of the warm season of 1859, luscious and tempting ice cream could be found at Mrs. C. H. Hall’s confectionery shop, nearly opposite the Elkton courthouse.  It was served “fresh and nice from the diary of Mr. J. B. Booth.” 

Ice Cream Industry After the Civil War

Later in the 19^th century, the ice cream industry blossomed as the dairy product became more readily available.  But in the years before the Civil War, when one of the few chances to cool off during scorching weather was to stroll over to the meadow by the Big Elk Creek and hopefully catch a puff of air, perhaps nothing said summer more than the churning of ice cream.  It sure said it to Cecil County’s two newspaper editors, Mr. Ricketts and Mr. Vanderford, for they always looked forward to testifying to the quality of the season’s first “manufactured” batch.

Each year hundreds of graduating seniors receive high school diplomas in Cecil County. However, in June 1964, when nine students at George Washington Carver School in Elkton stepped forward to receive degrees, it was a particularly historic moment for it marked the end of segregated high schools in Cecil County. At the commencement five boys and four girls walked proudly across the stage, receiving well-deserved diplomas from Principal Charles Caldwell. The final graduating class was made up of Edward Townley, Genevieve Jones, Bryant Wilson, Carolyn Clark, Robert Henson, Barbara Banks, William Calm, Dorothy Waters and Robert Owens. After all these years students at that school still glowingly recall experiences and some of the people who helped them meet the challenges.

While the old high school is long gone, 66-year-old Clifford Jones’ memories are as indelible as the ink on his diploma. For the class of 1960 graduate, there was the feeling of accomplishment at getting his diploma, but the friendships developed during those times in a tight-knit school are important too. “We did not have a football team, but we competed in track and basketball. Our team was in the regional playoffs, and we went to Hyattsville to play there. On the track we were good, and we got to compete in Chestertown and other places.” Despite being out of school for almost a half-century, Cliff remembers the teachers who influenced his life and the lessons they instilled in him. “Mrs. Bessicks, my first-grade teacher, I can never forget for she was a pillar in the community and her husband taught music. Mrs. Fitzgerald taught English. Our teachers were dedicated and set high standards. All of them lived right here in Elkton and we saw them in church on Sunday and wherever else we want. Mr. Caldwell, the principal, was fantastic but he was strict. If I got in trouble in school, he would spank me and then call my mommy.”  Cliff went on to say that when he got home his mother, Margaret Coursey, would be waiting and he would get another spanking. He also recalled that Mr. Caldwell helped him get his first job at Merrey’s Candy Store at the corner of High Street and North Street.

Graduating in 1953 Fletcher White brought his yearbook to show us. He too echoes Cliff’s observations as we recently walked around the property, while the two men recalled many good times. Fletcher’s father built houses too and we had a chance to see some of his work as Fletcher recalled working on the school building.

It has been over 40 years since students filled the classrooms and wandered the halls of the Board of Education’s administrative offices on Booth Street (the former high school).  Nonetheless, many pleasant memories of that quick, fleeting journey through the halls of George Washington Carver are still alive after the passage of decades.  Life’s journey there brought many valuable experiences, lessons, and knowledge to young scholars, as well as life-long recollections and friendships. We enjoyed spending a pleasant couple of hours with Cliff and Fletcher as they shared memories from decades ago.

See Also

Undergraduate Thesis Examines the Desegregation of Public Schools in Cecil County, 1954-1965

The George Washington Carver Class of 1961

Notes

The information from this article is from an interview we did in 2007 with Clifford and Fletcher. Clifford passed away on Oct. 7, 2018. We always enjoyed our chats with Clifford over the years as we often talked about the past. He was an engaging storyteller, had many fascinating life experiences, and always had something interesting to share.

The Freedom Riders started incursions into the sharply segregated deep South to confront Jim Crow laws in 1961. For the campaign, young people boarded buses heading into states where they tested a Supreme Court ruling declaring that separate interstate travel facilities were unconstitutional. But this era of protest also involved visits to northeastern Maryland as hospitals, restaurants, bars, theaters, motels, and other public places were segregated.

Cecil’s central location on the main route between Washington, D.C., and New York put it on the forefront of this protest movement. Along Route 40 and Route 1, restaurants and gas stations also denied service to African diplomats and subjected them to the same Jim Crow humiliations as African Americans.

At the height of the Cold War, this worried the Kennedy administration as it undercut efforts of the “Free World” to win friends in emerging nations. Since an all-out effort was required to assure a friendly and dignified reception for diplomats so the nation’s foreign policy wouldn’t be damaged, the White House created a special protocol section in the State Department. Detailed to smooth out domestic public policy wrinkles the Soviet bloc leveraged to its advantage, the agency pressured roadside restaurants and gas stations to serve African diplomats.

A Cold War Problem on Route 40

From his summer White House in Hyannis Port, Mass President Kennedy made a personal appeal to end discrimination, the Baltimore Sun reported. “In a telegram to a luncheon meeting of Harford and Cecil County community leaders, the president called for voluntary cooperation for an immediate end to segregation.” Other federal officials appealed for support from some 200 prominent citizens of the two counties in stamping out incidents of racial discrimination, particularly against African diplomats.

After many places cooperated by serving diplomats, an enterprising reporter from the Baltimore Afro-American caused a stir. Posing as a diplomat, he dressed in traditional African garb while stopping at businesses along the highway. In disguise, he was warmly greeted and photographed, but service was refused when the journalist returned as an everyday person. Many felt this was unjust since some citizens of the United States were denied equal treatment.

All of this sparked the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to piggyback on the federal desegregation efforts in Maryland. When attempts to change things stalled in the legislature, CORE launched a Route 40 campaign. Four African Americans were jailed after refusing to leave the Bar H Chuck House in North East on Sept. 5, 1961. After being booked at the Cecil County Jail, the “sit-downers” staged a hunger strike.¹,²,³

After thirteen days of fasting, they were sent to sent to Crownsville State Hospital for a mental evaluation. As quickly as possible, the prisoners received a thorough mental examination, and “to nobody’s surprise, they were found to be completely sane, so the next day they were booked back into the Cecil County Jail ⁴. Shortly after that, the court suspended their $50 fines and they were quietly released.

Months later in November 1961, the promise of a massive Freedom Ride along the corridor prompted about half the restaurants (35) on the dual highway to begin serving everyone and CORE called off the ride. But they promised to check on thing soon.

In December 1961, some 700 freedom riders rolled up and down the road in northeastern Maryland, demonstrating at 40 segregated restaurants. The only violence of the day occurred when one newspaper editor punched his rival for photographing him arguing with a protestor,” the Baltimore Sun reported. “Riders, restaurants owners and police got along with one another much better than that generally.” The ride had been ordered to fulfill a pledge to hit every segregated restaurant on Route 40 between Baltimore and Delaware. Two arrests were made at one restaurant in North East and another place in that town tried to avoid the protestors by charging $4 an hour for parking.⁵

Freedom Riders on Route 40

Summing up the situation on Route 40, the Afro American wrote: “This situation concerning segregation in Maryland is one in which the President is concerned, our allies are concerned, and Dick Gregory is concerned. About the only person who doesn’t seem too concerned is our dear Governor Tawes.⁶

Keeping the pressure on Governor Tawes and the legislature to continue moving forward, the Freedom Riders returned a few more times. In 1962 five protestors were arrested for trespassing at Rose’s Dinner in Elkton.

In March 1963, Governor Tawes signed into law a public accommodation law, making Maryland the first state south of the Mason-Dixon Line to ban discrimination in restaurants and hotels. The law became effective after the 1964 election.

In Conowingo, two African students from the Union of South Africa were arrested for trespassing at a Tavern on U.S. 1. While public accommodation laws had been passed, the Cecil County Sheriff said the place was a tavern and thus it didn’t fall under State or Federal public accommodation laws. Eventually, the charges were quietly dropped, once the State Department got involved. A few months later the Sheriff received a call to the same place and arrested three African-Americans from Lincoln University. “Sheriff Startt said he didn’t know what was in the federal Civil Right Act. I work under State Law and I only know the state law,” the Baltimore Sun wrote.

While some incidents occurred after the law became effective in 1964 discrimination was no longer legally tolerated in Maryland restaurants and motels and the campaigns moved elsewhere in Maryland and the nation. After the public accommodations laws passed there were Freedom Riders on Route 40, but they were usually passing through such as when groups from the north came through for the march on Washington.

Notes & Sources

Endnotes

1. The Reporter, Trouble on Route 40 by Anthony J. Lukas, Oct. 26, 1961 (New York[↩]
2. Afro American, One Way to Get in a Mental Hospital, by James D. Williams Sept. 30, 1961 (Baltimore[↩]
3. Cecil Democrat, Refuse to Enter Pleas, Sept. 09, 1961[↩]
4. Afro American, 1961[↩]
5. Cecil Democrat, Demonstrations Set on Rt. 40, (Elkton), Dec. 5, 1962[↩]
6. Life Magazine, The Anger That Inflamed Route 40, Dec. 8, 1961[↩]

George Potts was appointed to a two-year term as bailiff in June 1908. The salary for the man who constituted the entire police force was $50 per month and the council had an assignment ready for him when he took office. The Town had erected large signs warning of the eight M.P.H. speed limit for automobiles and it wanted the bailiff to enforce the law in the town of 2,487 residents. Within days, Bailiff Potts arrested his first speeder when he detained a Baltimorean who was fined one-dollar and court cost.

In 1923, the charter and the ordinances updated responsibilities for the bailiff. He was required to “devote his entire time to the duties of his office,” and to wear a “blue uniform and suitable badge of office” when on duty. Specific responsibilities were:

• Preserve order within the town;
• Keep a constant oversight of the streets, pavements, gutters, sewers, ditches, lights and property of the town;
• Patrol the town at least once each twenty-four hours and see that the ordinances were observed;
• Superintend all work upon the streets;
• Report nuisances to the Board;
• Act as a messenger at all town meetings; and
• Impound any horses, cattle swine, or geese found at large.⁴

The 1920s, a time of prosperity in the United States, were a period of improvement for Elkton law enforcement. The size of the force doubled when a full-time night officer (O. P. Humes) was added in 1928, at a salary of $50 per month. The chief still called the bailiff for one more year received $60 a month. About the same time, the Town purchased guns, belts, and uniforms for the men. As another mark of progress, the Town installed its first traffic light to regulate the flow of vehicles at two main arteries, Bridge and Main streets.

Some four months after the Great Stock Market Crash, the Town purchased its first patrol car, a Ford Phaeton from Warren W. Boulden (1930). The vehicle, complete with a bumper and spare tire, cost $493.40. A local newspaper, the Cecil Democrat, criticized the purchase: “. . . although the Elkton Police may be short in number, they are now long on equipment. A year or more ago they were furnished with impressive looking revolvers and Sam Browne belts, and now an automobile in which to dash around. Certainly, Chicago racketeers and gangsters should steer clear of Elkton.” As the essentials of a modern police department slowly emerged, the bailiff was regularly called Chief Potts by Elkton’s press corps. Nonetheless, not until 1929 did Elkton town minutes routinely confer the title of the chief to Potts, though he had functioned as the lead law enforcement official since obtaining his first appointment in 1908 when James F. Powers was president of the Council.

Elkton’s First Police Chief

Law enforcement activities were typical for a rural Eastern Shore community, in the decades leading up to World War II. For example, in 1929, while national, state and county lawmen occupied themselves with chasing “rumrunners” and “bootleggers,” Chief Potts arrested two young men in connection with the theft of money from the Express Office. One of them had a revolver hidden under his shirt. A few years later in 1932, four burglars, one of them armed with an automatic pistol, had a shootout with Chief Potts’ night officer. During that incident, Patrolman Randolph discovered a grocery store burglary in progress. When he commanded the culprits to come out, he was greeted by a volley of shots. Randolph emptied his service revolver at them, but the men vanished in the darkness. Within days, Chief Potts had the four culprits in custody, without incident.

Eight years before Chief Potts’ appointment, the first automobile punctuated the quiet of an Elkton day, and thereafter traffic enforcement matters would increasingly occupy the tiny police department. For example, one summer Sunday in 1918, a vehicle sped through town. When the bailiff held up his hand to stop it, the lady passenger waved and kept going. Potts reached a telephone in time to have Deputy Sheriff Seth detain the car when it reached the jail.  At the hearing, the owner, a Miss Winwood, was asked why she did not stop when signaled and she answered she thought the “handsome officer was flirting.” The “bailiff blushed modestly,” an Elkton paper reported.

Vehicle accidents started jarring the county seat during the second decade of the 20^th century. The first time it happened in 1917, the dreadful squeal of ripping metal coming from the Bridge Street railroad-crossing cut through an early summer evening. Four people (the Simmons family and their hired hand, George Foster) had been wiped out when a fast express train collided with their vehicle. This was the town’s first automobile fatality. Some fourteen months later, Elkton had its first pedestrian fatality involving an automobile. This occurred when a six-year-old, Gladys R. Vandergrift, was struck by a car.

During lulls in police work, the daily routine was occupied with public works tasks. Three days after taking office, he had a force of workmen out “dressing up the streets,” according to one newspaper. When the Commissioners were anxious to complete filling the marsh south of Main Street in 1925, the Board announced that anyone having coal, ashes, or other suitable materials should notify Bailiff Potts and he would have it removed. At a board meeting in February 1930, he was instructed to place a pipe for a driveway on the building lot of David Frazer on E. Main Street. Such were the typical day-to-day maintenance tasks of the bailiff.

The dark days of the Great Depression were a time of fiscal restraint for municipal government in Maryland. Council announced in June 1933 salary reductions of 10 percent across the board for all employees. Chief Potts’ salary, however, was reduced from $1,560 to $1,456, almost 7 per cent.

Chief George Potts Retires

Chief Potts retired in 1935, after having served the town for 27-years. The announcement first appeared in county newspapers in April when he notified the Town Council that he would not be a candidate for another term.” At the first meeting of the Board of Commissioners in June, Chief Potts was praised “for having served the town faithfully for 26 years [sic]” and he was presented with his equipment. His salary that year remained at  $1,456.     That last fiscal year, the town devoted $2,867 to law enforcement (almost 10 percent of its expenditures).

The departure of this tireless public servant was a time for a change. Jacob T. Biddle was hired to replace the chief. Biddle and the other officer, David J. Randolph, were to alternate between day and night work and they had identical authority. With Chief Potts’ retirement, the town also hired its first superintendent of Public  Works.  That official, Russell M. George, took charge of all “town work,” in addition to his previously held duty of Water Plant Superintendent. He had 10 to 25 men engaged in town activities, working for him according to newspapers.

The period after his retirement was an unsettled time for the small force. Just when it seemed a smooth transition might have taken place, the Department was involved in an international incident. On November 27, 1935, the highest-ranking diplomat from Persia (Iran) and his wife, who were traveling through Elkton in an automobile, were stopped for speeding. When the ambassador protested that his diplomatic immunity was being violated, he was forcefully handcuffed and taken to the Elkton jail by Officer Jacob Biddle. The Roosevelt Administration and Governor Harry Nice made public apologies on behalf of the United States government, but somehow the incident kept snowballing. In 1936, the minister was recalled to Persia. Furthermore, neither town officer was made Chief. At various times in the next decade, the Superintendent of Public supervised the police, President Henry H. Mitchell assumed responsibility, and an officer, W. Coudon Reynolds, carried the title.

Chief George Potts, 74, died in September 1940. Newspapers noted that he had filled his position with the town “most efficiently for about 28 years.” At the time of his passing, the Town Council attended the funeral in body and Mayor Henry H. Mitchell issued the following statement:

The Town of Elkton and the whole community, has just lost one of its most conscientious and respected citizens. I feel a deep sense of personal loss in Chief Potts’ death, and I am grateful for his friendship. He embodied every quality of honesty and integrity, and in the years he served the town, night and day, heedless of long hours of hardship and fatigue, he discharged with unfailing loyalty.

See Also

Elkton’s Early Police Chiefs

The Carter’s Mill School, an octagonal school was also known as the eight-sided schoolhouse was built in 1820 by Robert Carter at Carter’s Bank. The stone schoolhouse 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..

One African-American boy the son of Gibson 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.”

Notes and Sources
* Cecil County Maryland Public Schools, 1850-1958 by Ernest Howard 1970_

* Cecil Whig , Stones Only Marker to Forgotten School, March 17, 1971

* The History Center, Eight Square Schoolhouse Historyhttps://thehistorycenter.net/educa…/eight-square-schoolhouse

* Cecil Whig, Looking Back, Sept. 29, 1979

For nearly three centuries, Cecil County’s destitute, elderly, sick, and mentally ill, as well as other cast-asides from society who couldn’t make it on their own, found help at the county almshouse poorhouse. Today, this institution, on the road between Childs and Cherry Hill, is home to Mt. Aviat Academy. However, until the 1950s, it served as the place where local government cared for the less fortunate, with nowhere else to turn.

Before the advent of social security, Medicaid, and homeless shelters, this was the safety net for indigent men, women, and children. In the taxpayer-funded residence, paupers were housed, fed, and buried. Those that were able worked the farm to help raise crops and livestock for the residents. For many of these forgotten people, their final resting places were across the road in the Potter’s Field, the county cemetery.

The Maryland Legislature directed the commissioners in each county to create an almshouse in 1768. For a while, Cecil used some temporary arrangements. But in 1788, the county purchased about 174 acres, on Childs Road, from Henry Hollingsworth. Within a few years, a dormitory for the unfortunate was built on the farm.

The annual report for 1855 provided some details on the operation of the almshouse. Seventy-one inmates lived there at the farm and aided in producing wheat, corn, oats, potatoes, turnips, pork, and beef. Most of the products from the farm were consumed on the premises, but the commissioners made $125 in excess product sold to the public.

The County’s last public execution occurred at the almshouse. Large, disruptive crowds typically showed up to watch hangmen do their work. As a result, Sheriff Boulden moved this execution outside of Elkton. On the appointed morning, December 5, 1879, the county seat was astir as a mile-long line of carriages made the trip from Elkton to Cherry Hill with the condemned man, Medford Waters. According to the Cecil Democrat, a crowd of nearly fifteen hundred assembled at the paupers’ burial ground to watch the man forfeit his life on the gallows for murder.

An Execution at the Poorhouse

The sheriff had a squad of the local militia, the Groome Guard, escort the group on the trip. When the procession reached the gallows, the sheriff, accompanied by the prisoner and Deputies Janney and Cooling, ascended the platform. Following some prayers, the entire crowd joined in singing a hymn. At 11:35 A.M., the executioner severed the cord and the drop fell. At the next meeting of the Trustees of the Poor, the trustees voted never again to allow an execution at the poorhouse. The next hanging occurred inside the walls of the jail on North Street.

By the 1880s, Cecil County was searching for a more cost-effective way to meet the needs of the mentally ill. Some ended up at the jail in Elkton. Others wound up at the poorhouse. The most acute patients went to “insane asylums” around the region. Considering the growing number of people needing institutionalization at distant facilities, the expense for the county was becoming a burden. Consequentially, the commissioners decided to build the Cecil County Insane Asylum.

After examining other institutions around the region, the commissioners approved the erection of a substantial three-story brick building on the grounds of the county almshouse. The $5,942 contract was awarded to C. A. Walt & Son of Westminster. The asylum had apartments for thirty-one inpatients. The structure was across the road from the poorhouse, near the Potter’s Field.

One day in August 1887, thirteen patients scattered around the state were brought to their new home. Sheriff Robert Mackey, helped by ex-Sheriff Wm. Boulden, went to Frederick to get three people confined there. Elkton’s bailiff, Mr. King, and poorhouse trustee, E. W. Janney, took the train to Baltimore to pick up patients from Spring Grove, Monevien, and Mount Hope. All of them were brought to Singerly Station on the B & O Railroad and taken, from there, to the new asylum in carriages without incident.

According to Dr. William Lee, the Secretary to the State Board of Lunacy, the new institution was a “credit to the county.” He suggested it would be well to take patients from other areas at the expense of those locations since there was plenty of capacity.

By 1893, two counties supported “hospitals for the insane, independent of the almshouses,” according to Maryland, its Resources, Industries and Institutions. Allegany County’s Sylvan Retreat, near Cumberland, had sixty inmates. The Cecil County Insane Asylum in Cherry Hill had twenty-seven inmates.

When the American Medico-Psychological Association, the forerunner of the American Psychiatric Association, met in Baltimore in 1897, Elkton’s Dr. C. M. Ellis, the president of the state medical association, addressed the group. This is an era “of renewed interest in the general welfare of our insane,” he remarked. He noted that much needed to be done as our “almshouses and jails are still tenanted by the idiotic and distraught… Some effort is being made to awaken the state’s conscience to its further duty toward those of the insane who are deprived of the opportunity for betterment in wards of well-equipped hospitals,” The Baltimore Sun reported. “Every insane man, woman, or child whatever their condition… should be entitled to certain minimum provisions within the confines of hospitals or asylums sustained by the state for their care or their cure.” 

Gradually, the state assumed responsibility for providing inpatient mental health. In May 1915, the Eastern Shore Hospital for the care of the insane opened in Cambridge. That month, twenty-six patients took the long ride to Dorchester County, where they were admitted into the new institution. A few months earlier, nine African-American residents of Cecil’s asylum were transferred to the “state hospital for the colored insane at Crownsville, Md.,” the Cecil Democrat reported. The county’s insane asylum was torn down, in 1935, when C. B. Van den Huevel was paid $50.25 to remove it.

The poorhouse, once a refuge for those with nowhere else to turn, survived well into the twentieth century. However, in 1940, Governor Herbert R. O’Connor decided it was time to close these institutions.

Cecil County Almshouse Sold

In 1952, the 175-acre county farm and almshouse went up on the auction block, marking an end in Cecil County to one method of caring for indigent people. This ended one of the oldest county institutions and closed one of the few remaining almshouses in the state. It was purchased by Daniel Bathon for $36,200. Bathon donated the property to the Oblate Sisters of St. Francis de Sales, which opened a school.

Soon, weeds and vegetation took over the abandoned paupers’ field where perhaps two hundred people, destitute, insane, vagrant, criminal or transient, were buried. John Beers, who had grown up in the neighborhood, launched a project to have the cemetery cleaned and marked with a marble monument.

The job of memorializing those unknown persons who rest there, many having spent their final days inside the poorhouse, and commemorating the burial plot was completed in 1968. The marble stone read, “Potter’s Field, 1776 – 1950, may their soul’s rest in peace.” Today, the sisters bury members of the order in the graveyard.

By the mid-1950s, the days of the county poorhouse had ended due to the modernization of social services, advances in treating the mentally ill and the social safety nets provided by various governmental programs. Only the small cemetery with many nameless graves and the exhibit maintained by the Oblate Sisters of St. Francis de Sales remind the twenty-first-century citizen of the many people who lived and died there. —CSM

“In Potters Field” — a Poem 

We will bury them in potters’ field, the criminals and the unknown.I hear the B & O Freight train coming in on the siding and see the hoboes heading for a warm night’s sleep in the county home.

On my way to the little schoolhouse by the tracks, I count them one and all.

We will give them coffee for the road for I know they will not return. We have had a burial in potters’ field today; he was found floating in the Bay.

When his widow arrives from New York she will identify him as her own, for he was a millionaire without a home.

I see my brother Lawrence Beers passing on the freight, for this was his line of duty for the B & O.

—Johnny “Cash” Beers