Calvert is one of the most interesting villages in Cecil County, its history extending far back time. Originally known as Brick Meeting House, it stands on land granted by William Penn. Once the Mason-Dixon Line settled the boundary dispute between Maryland and Pennsylvania it was firmly established that the community was in Maryland. Because it was midway on the old Baltimore-Philadelphia Pike, Brick Meeting was frequently visited by travelers.
Sometime between 1878 to 1880, the post office requested that the village drop the name Brick Meeting and it became known as Calvert.
The post office in Calvert closed on Aug. 31, 1908. James C. Crothers served as a postmaster during the period when the station was known as Calvert. This postcard is from around 1908
In 1893, the North East newspaper, the Cecil Star,
reported that Calvert was a busy little village. It supported two
stores, a blacksmith and wheelwright shop, two hotels, and two grist
mills. The population of the village was 125 and the postmaster was J.
E. Crothers, who also kept a general store. The other merchant was John
P. Simpers.
Dates From Calvert’s Past
* In 1847 James Trimble gave the land to create Rosebank Cemetery, which was the name of his farm.
* In 1890, Trinity African Methodist Episcopal Church leased 1/2 acre
of ground for 99-years from the England family and erected a house of
worship.
* The foundation for the new M.E. Church at Calvert be be called Rosebank Methodist Episcopal Church was being commenced the week of May 20, 1891 and the church was dedicated on Oct. 25, 1891. The Church was dedicated in the presence of a large congregation and ministers of both the Methodist and Presbyterian Churches of the vicinity. Rev. George E. Reed, the president of Dickinson College preached the dedicatory sermon. In the evening a handsome silver communion service was presented by the Calvert W.C.T.U. through Mrs. J. R. Milligan of Zion . (Oxford Press).
The Calvert Agricultural High School opened on Nov. 5, 1906.
* In 1908 the post office discontinued the post office at Calvert, the rural route having replaced the village post office.
After the Calvert Agricultural High School burned to the ground in Feb. 1936, the Board of Education announced plans for a new school on the site. It was going to contain ten rooms for both the elementary and high school and cost about $70,000. An annex would have an auditorium for school and community. There were also rooms for general science, manual training, and domestic science. Colonial architecture would be used, for the brick building with a slate roof. (Oxford Press, Feb. 26, 1936)
* In 1958, the school was changed over to an elementary school and pupils from the upper grades were bused to Rising Sun.
Rising Sun Outhouse, an article by Ed Okonowicz — At a lot of places on Mischief Night, teenagers playfully soap car windows and toss corn at neighbors’ homes. But years ago, according to one long-time resident, during Halloween week in peaceful Rising Sun, “All hell would break loose.”
To hear Cecil County old-timers tell it, the shenanigans started around the turn of the last century in the early 1900s. Townsfolk used to head out into the countryside and pickup farm machinery, porch furniture, rocking chairs, corn husks and loads of manure. Then they’d dump it all right smack dab beneath the town’s lone traffic light in front of the National Bank of Rising Sun.
As years passed the practice changed a bit. Town residents would wait by their front windows for the late Mischief Night or early Halloween morning arrival of one or more outhouses. That’s right, private-outdoor toilets. For decades, unidentified pranksters delivered these stolen structures with a dependability that would put most Federal Express couriers to shame.
Some say the tradition, from assorted purloined goods to old-fashioned Johnnys On the Spot, began in the 1920s. In olden days when there were lots of outhouses available, teenage boys would haul them into Center Square up to five nights in a row. In later years, the mysterious events occurred on October 30 or the 31st or both.
Ask area elders if they were involved in this rite of passage
and you’ll get a wink, a sly grin or a boastful and heavily embellished tall
tale. But hazy historical records cannot
negate the fact that outhouses appeared each autumn with regularity and the
stories associated with this wacky custom could fill a fair sized ledger.
One year the town drunk used one of the outhouses as a bathroom, while it was sitting under the traffic light. One fella had one fall on him as he was trying to move it, and another unlucky soul slipped and fell headfirst into the sewage pit while trying to shake an outhouse loose of its foundation. A cagey farmed locked himself inside his privy and allowed the boys to carry it all the way into town. When they deposited the structure its owner stepped out, displayed his shotgun, and said, “All rights boys, let’s take it back.”
The autumnal adventure got so far under the skin of one mayor that he hired an off-duty Wilmington (Some say Baltimore) detective to end the matter. The challenge inflamed the local boys who flattened the strangers’ car tires and ran the hired gun out of town.
During some years, police gave the phantom perpetrators and their pilfered privy a light-flashing escorted, as residents and out-of-towners lined the streets holding cameras to capture the scene. More recently, however, town officials and law enforcement personnel decided things were getting a bit out of hand, and they established curfews to discourage the practice. According to former Mayor Judy Cox, as the area became more congested and traffic increased, the event became a safety concern. The arrival of modern plumbing also reduced the availability of outdoor toilets, as the lack of interest contributed to the demise of the distinctive small-town custom.
Today an outhouse appears intermittently in late October, placed by an individual or small group to commemorate the quirky custom. But those in the know say it’s a pale reminder of the practice’s heyday, when farm implements, porch furniture, and yes, a purloined privy or two, would be piled “sky high in Rising Sun’s town square.
Are there ghosts at the modern, Cecil County Detention Center?
The tiny
peninsula that formed where the Little Elk Creek and the Big Elk Creek meet southwest
of Elkton is
an interesting geographical
and historical site. The land near the convergence of the two streams attracted the attention of
the Cecil County government, which decided to build a new detention center on
the marshy wetlands in the early 1980s.
Some folks, however, believed the location had been a
popular site for centuries. A group of area archaeologists arranged to make
exploratory digs before construction began to determine if the long held belief
that an Indian village had been located there was correct.
When members of the Northeast Chapter of the
Archaeological Society of Maryland and the staff of Mid-Atlantic Archaeological
Research did excavations on the thirteen-acre site, what they found was
interesting. Their efforts uncovered hundreds of pieces of American Indian
pottery, more than one hundred arrowheads, and, about four feet below the
surface, a skeleton in a grave. The human bones were sent to the Smithsonian
Institution, which returned a report dating the remains to be from about AD
1400.
Encouraged by their success, the archaeological team
continued its efforts and found more gravesites. Their locations were logged
in, noted, and left undisturbed.
Their exploration verified that
the small peninsula had been the site of a large Indian village and burial
ground. Even hundreds of years ago the convergence of the two creeks was
recognized as being a good location to establish a settlement, for it was easier
than other open spaces to defend, and the water routes encouraged accessibility
and trade. Also, years later in the early 1800s, the area was the site of Fort
Hollingsworth, which served as both a trading post for settlers and a military
outpost for the Maryland militia. After the archaeological procedures were
completed and documentation recorded, construction on the new jail began.
Indian Ghosts at the Jail
In the summer of 1984, the Cecil County Detention Center, operated by the Cecil County Sheriff’s Office, wasofficially opened. It was common knowledge that the prison was built in the vicinityof an Indian burial ground. In fact, for some time the main wing of the newbuilding had a display of arrowheads and Indian tools and pottery found in thearea.
In the last few months before the
prison was ready to accept its first occupants, correctional staff were
assigned to stay overnight to maintain security and keep the curious away.
Jane, who has worked for the
sheriff’s office, heard stories from night shift workers who said they were
bothered by unexplained footsteps, saw lights go on and off, and heard howling
sounds that seemed to be rushing through the halls of the empty center. It was
during the early days at the new facility, when the prison population was well
below its 128-person capacity, that Jane learned of a very unusual experience.
With only about eighty-five prisoners, each inmate was able to have his own four- by eight-foot cell. Mike, a small-time criminal serving time for a light offense, was assigned during the day to out=of-cell duty cleaning offices. “This guy was no wimp,” Jane said, thinking back on the incident. “He was in his mid-twenties, used to associate with bikers, and he was a big guy, six foot and two hundred pounds. He came into the office and looked scared. I said, ‘What’s wrong, Mike?”‘
She said that he looked around,
as if he wanted to make sure no one could hear him. “You’re not going to
believe this,” he told Jane, and then went on to explain.
After the usual 11 P.M. lockdown
the night before, Mike said he fell asleep and was awakened in the wee hours of
the morning. While his eyes adjusted to the dark, he noticed that he couldn’t
move his arms. They were pinned down, tight against his body, by the hands of
an Indian chief who was straddling the prisoner’s body and pressing down hard
against him.
“Mike said the Indian was
wearing a bonnet full of feathers and war paint,” Jane said. “He
tried to move and wrestled with the spirit, and said he ended up struggling
with the ghost for most of the night, until daylight. He said there never was
any talk between them. But he was really afraid, to the point that he asked to
be moved into a different cell with another guy. He said he felt better at
night with someone else around.”
Jane said Mike never saw the
Indian again, and no one else admitted to seeing the warrior either. It was so
real to him,” she said. “When people say, ‘He looks like he’s seen a
ghost!’ that was the case, here. He was so pale, and it was obvious that he had
a rough night. was hard, really something, for him to admit what happened. He
wasn’t the kind that wanted anybody to think he was afraid. I don’t think he
ever went into that cell again. It didn’t bother him to walk by it during the
day, but at night, he wouldn’t go near it.”
The Elk River
Not far from the prison, Oldfield Point Road runs along the Elk Kiver. Until recently, it was a quiet, unnoticed area of the county, a bit off the beaten path-visited by boat people in the summer and home to only a few year-round residents who lived in small cottages by the water’s edge. Now, passersby can see growing areas of residential development as more commuters discover the scenic setting and the calming, picturesque views of the nearby Elk River/
What rests nearby or even beneath
some of the newer properties is questionable. Residents of certain homes in the
area have reported seeing circles of fire and hearing chanting in the late
evenings. No logical explanation has been found. Rumors and hearsay, however,
suggest that the answer may be that some home sites are located uncomfortably
close to more undiscovered Indian burial grounds. It’s not an impossibility.
Reprinted with permission of the author; From Opening the Vestibule, Aug. 1996
Sam Goldwater of Elkton has been named as the new Chair of the National Fire Heritage Center Board of Trustees. The National Fire Heritage Center is the nation’s archive for historic documents, and other perishables related to fire protection. These perishables include
Art and artifacts
Audio
Books
Charts and graphs
Documents
Maps
Photography
Reports
Video
The non-profit Center based in Emmitsburg, Maryland, at the National Fire Academy, named Goldwater as Chair on October 8th after the National Firefighter Memorial Weekend held in Emmitsburg. Thousands of firefighters from all 50 states attended the Memorial Weekend to commemorate the passing of nearly 100 firefighters who died in the line of duty in 2017. Senior staff members from the National Fire Academy, FEMA, and Fire Service Dignitaries were on hand to celebrate the retirement of several Board Members and Trustees, and the installation of new Board Members and Trustees.
The Singerly Fire Company Member, and former Cecil Whig staffer, is a graduate of Elkton High School (’73), Cecil Community College (now Cecil College, ’75), and the University of Maryland (’77). Goldwater is a former staffer of the International Fire Service Training Association-where he served on their Board, and is currently the Vice President of Business Development for the KFT Fire Trainer Company, a worldwide producer of fire training facilities. Sam is also a member of the College Park Volunteer Fire Department and the Society of Fire Protection Engineers.
According to Bill Killen, former Director of Navy Fire Protection and President of the National Fire Heritage Center, “Goldwater brings a unique set of skills and knowledge base which will strengthen the organization, allowing us to meet the new challenges of the future.”
Sam Goldwater Named Chair of the National Fire Heritage Center
In far northwestern Cecil County, two miles below the Mason Dixon Line, a small free African-American Community, Mount Zoar, was settled in the middle of the 19th century. The village included about a dozen homes, a church, a school, and a cemetery.
It thrived for generations, and today some traces of this once resilient hamlet remain. These include an AME Church, which was built around 1870, replacing an earlier house of worship that was in the area by 1859. Plus, there is a 19th-century frame schoolhouse with a projected entrance and bell tower. The “school is one of the more unusual of its type in the entire county,” a Maryland Historical Trust report noted.
Through this region passed “the mysterious underground railway, which carries to the north so many fugitives from labor. Here is a stopping place for those noiseless invisible trains . . .,” the newspaper added (Cecil Whig, March 26, 1859). Also, the paper noted that there was “a dense population of free negroes in this part of the country,” near the Susquehanna River and the Canal.
One of the residents of Mt. Zoar was John Berry, Jr who purchased a large parcel of this land. He died in July 1879 at the age of 66, the Cecil Whig noted on July 26, 1869. He owned 75 acres of land, and the editor commented on the challenges in this era for a Black man to own that amount of good land in an “intelligent neighborhood.” It was accumulated by his own labor and this was difficult for “a colored American citizen, the Cecil Whig wrote on March 2, 1878. Mr. Berry had been instrumental in establishing the school and much more in the area.
Mount Zoar is a community that needs much more research, but for now, we wanted to share these notes about the surviving traces from another time.
North East Fire Company Fireman’s death laid to heart, the Morning news reported. (Dec. 9, 1963)
The name of a fallen North East Fire Company firefighter who died in the line of duty 55 years ago will be added to the Maryland Fire Rescue Services Memorial Wall of Honor during ceremonies in June 2019. Stewart W. Godwin, 56, died on Dec. 8, 1963, after collapsing at the scene of the plane crash at the edge of Elkton.
When Pan Am Flight 214 went down just before 9 p.m. that Sunday, a general alarm went out for all available ambulances. The North East Fire Company responded, and while they searched the debris field for survivors, Mr. Godwin, a crewmember of the North East unit, suddenly collapsed about 1:30 a.m. into the arms of Andrew Scarborough, another North East member, the News Journal reported. He had been a member of the fire company for 18 months, according to the newspaper.
Pan Am Flight 214 was in a holding pattern above Cecil County, awaiting clearance to land in Philadelphia when it was struck by lightning. George Hollenbaugh, Vice President of the North East Fire Company, developed the nomination for the company, working to ensure that this fallen Cecil County firefighter will be remembered.
Stewart W. Godwin (2nd from left) responded to the Elkton plane crash on the North East Ambulance. (Cecil Whig, 1962)
As the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project and the Reginald Lewis Museum are holding a day of remembrance, reflection and reckoning on Oct. 13, 2018, we are resharing some 2007 research we did on Cecil County lynchings. This statewide conference is “meant to address our collective state history of white racial terrorism against African Americans.” the Museum notes, and part of that process involves creating a registry that lists all the murders.
Back in 2007, we researched these tragedies after attending a community discussion on this subject in Kent County where it was suggested that we take a closer look at the surviving traces of evidence from the past to see if these dark chapters had bypassed our communities or if there had been “a long silence” as often happened. Local works of history — books and 20th-century newspaper columns — were silent on this matter, seeming to indicate that Cecil County escaped this dark chapter in the nation’s past. As Professor Ifill, the author at the Kent County meeting suggested, we took a deeper look at the meager surviving traces of the past to see if the accepted interpretations stood a more thorough examination and study.
We identified two incidents through a closer examination of the original newspapers published in that era:
On the evening of July 27, 1872, three African-American men were brought before the Magistrate Bell in Warwick on the charge of firing a dwelling near Sassafras. During the hearing, it was ordered that John Jones, Robert T. Handy and a young person named Thomas were to be committed to the Cecil County Jail for further investigation. Special Constable Merritt put the three men in his carriage (two were manacled and one was riding free) for the journey to the county seat. As they passed through a woods near Pivot Bridge (near Bethel Cemetery outside Chesapeake City), a group of men “in disguise” surrounded the carriage and took the prisoners. Hours later, when Sheriff Thomas and Deputy White arrived from Elkton, they found one of the men “strung up by a rope around his neck to the limb of a hickory tree,” according to the Delawarean. No trace of the other two men was found.
In September 1861, a young African-American named Frederick “belonging to Capt. M. C. Pearce” of Elkton was charged with rape. in Sassafras Neck. After a mob formed in Cecilton, the Cecil Democrat, reported that he was “taken to a tree in the vicinity of the act and hung. (Cecil Democrat, 1861)”
For these two murders, there were a few meager surviving clues, but some stories handed down through the generations and oral traditions report that there were a few more. We will keep searching for some sources related to these Cecil County lynchings to see if there is documentary evidence to support these oral traditions.
Lynch Law in Cecil County. Part of an article from the Baltimore Sun: Source: Baltimore Sun, July 30, 1872
Labor Day became a federal holiday in 1894. This occasion to honor the contributions of the working person to the nation, also quickly became a day of relaxation and enjoyment, as the warm days of the summer season quickly drew to a close. All over Cecil County Labor Day was a time to relax, enjoy picnics, watch local ballgames, and honor working people.
The idea of having this federal holiday took a little getting used to. When September 5, 1898 rolled around, it might have been just a plain old Monday, except that the banks were closed and many people didn’t seem to realize just why they were closed (Cecil Whig, Sept. 10, 1898). “All day long depositors strolled up the steps of the bank, stopped, and seemed surprised when they found the door closed. They gathered in small groups and discussed the matter, and when they were told that it was Labor Day they went away shaking their heads and trying to call why Labor Day was instituted,” the paper noted (Cecil Whig, Sept. 10, 1898).
Port Herman, however, wasn’t going to miss a summer holiday. The year before the Great War (1916) disrupted life, a grand Labor Day observance, including the American Mechanics raising a flag and conducting a patriotic program at the new school. It had been enlarged to accommodate the increasing population of the area. After the celebration, everyone marched over to the church where a lawn party was held. The day included special speakers, patriotic songs by school children, and an inspection of the school, which had been greatly enlarged and improved to take care of the increasing population of the section. After the celebration, everyone marched to the church where the ladies of the church held a lawn party that afternoon and evening. Lunch and refreshments were on sale for the benefit of the new church (Cecil Whig, Sept. 2, 1916
In Port Deposit in 1894, people availed themselves of the pleasure of a trip to Happy Valley on Labor Day, for a celebration under the auspices of the Iron Molders Union of Port Deposit.
For more on Labor Day in Cecil County see
On Labor Day, Remembering Those Who Died Building the Conowingo Dam
CONOWINGO – Sept 1, 2018 – Over the Labor Day Weekend, St. Patrick’s Chapel marked the beginning of a yearlong celebration of the 200th anniversary of the chapel. In addition to mass, activities included a presentation on the history of the church, tours to discuss the renovation and restoration, and refreshments.
Irish Catholic immigrants who came to the area to build the canal on the Lower Susquehanna River and work in related industries, built the church, Dr. Bill Pare told the overflow audience, as he opened the day’s activities with a history presentation.
The Rev. Roger Smith, a priest from St. Ignatius Church in Hickory (Harford County), purchased a half acre plot from Daniel Glackin for a church and a burial ground, the Dialog reported. The first religious services were held that year. “The congregation consisted mostly of Irish immigrants working in the lumbering operations bordering the Susquehanna River and the canals on both sides of the Susquehanna.
On this Saturday, the sanctuary, which seats about 100 people, quickly filled, but there was additional room under a large tent outside where a live video feed streamed the mass to the overflow crowd.
St. Patrick’s Historical Association was created in 2004 to preserve and restore the quiet little church in remote northwestern Cecil County, a short distance below the Mason Dixon Line.
We were delighted to see the fine work the St. Patrick’s Historical Society is doing to preserve Cecil County’s heritage. Check out the organization’s website and Facebook page for more information on upcoming activities.
Thank you St. Patrick’s for a fine event and for the warm hospitality you extended to everyone. It was a great event.
“St. Patrick’s is the second oldest Catholic Church in Cecil County. The oldest is the Shrine of St. Francis Xavier in Warwick, dedicated in 1797,” the Dialog reported.
For an album of photos from the Saturday event marking the start of the bicentennial year, see this picuture album from Cecil County History on Facebook .
To attract more visitors, industry and residents to the area, the Cecil County Chamber of Commerce issued an attractive booklet touting the advantageous of the county. The Chamber remarked “We have endeavored in the following pages to illustrate, both graphically and verbally, the advantages and facilities that have contributed to make Cecil County the prosperous and contented community that it is, and which should be of fundamental importance to the prospective settler.” The booklet was issued around 1927.
Around 1927, the Cecil County Chamber of Commerce issued this booklet.
