Maryland-Delaware Line, Between Glasgow and Elkton — By June 1941, the final segment of the “Philadelphia Road,” the new dual highway designated as Route 40, was completed. All along the 47-mile road, from Baltimore to the Mason Dixon Line, portions of the highway had opened as work was completed.
Route 40 in Elkton just west of the Delaware State Line
But with the completion of this final part, a modern dual system road
now extended from the limit of Wilmington to the entrance of Baltimore,
so it was time for a formal dedication ceremony. That important event
took place at the State Line between Elkton and Glasgow on June 26,
1941.
The governors of Maryland and Delaware, Herbert R. O’Conor
and Walter W. Bacon., cut the ribbon signaling that the Maryland part of
the highway was joining the Delaware link. As high ranking officials
of both states and a crowd of almost 100 people looked on Governor
O’Conor split the orange and black ribbon, representing the colors of
Maryland. A portion of it was given to Governor Bacon so it could be
placed in the Delaware Public Archives.
The project had cost $7,300,000. The Maryland governor emphasized the importance of the 47-mile highway link in national defense. Construction of this modern, fast-route converted the old single lane Philadelphia Road into an expansive double traffic artery, the Wilmington News Journal reported.
After the ceremony, officials attended races at Delaware Park. Governor’s Day was being observed.
In May 1944, the Philadelphia Road was rededicated as the Pulaski Highway. “The dual highway was given the name of the Polish patriot and friend of Revolutionary America at the 1943 session of the General Assembly,” the Baltimore Sun noted.
Governor Walter W. Bacon of Delaware and Governor Hebert O’Conor of Maryland meet at the ribbon stretched across Route 40.
Source: Journal Every Evening, Wilmington, DE., June 26, 1941
John Randel, Jr’s advertisement for 500 men not addicted to profanity or intemperance — to whom liberal wages will be given. Source: Wilmingtonian and Delaware Register, Jan. 27, 1825
As preparations got underway early in 1824 to start building the C & D Canal, John Randel, Jr., the engineer who received the contract to construct the eastern half of the waterway advertised in Wilmington newspapers for 300 carts with horses and 500 men not addicted to profanity or intemperance. He promised to pay liberal wages, and by June, work hands, many of whom were Irish, labored tirelessly with pickaxes, shovels, wheelbarrows, and carts removing the dirt and obstacles on the route.
Workers received tokens as payment for their arduous, muscle straining work related to moving earth between the waters of the Chesapeake and Delaware. Occasionally, these small copper tokens about the size of penny show up here and there.
A token used to pay workers on the C & D Canal by contractor Randel. These are occasionally found in places along or near the C & D Canal.
The National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form reports that there was a bank in mechanics row at Glasgow, and Francis A. Cooch in Little Know History of Delaware and Environs refers to Randel’s bank being located there.
By Sept of 1825, company reports show that in the field on the eastern end Randel employed a workforce of 700 men and 154 teams of horses. Randel’s work on the canal was terminated that autumn and other contractors picked up the work.
Sources of Information
* The National Waterway: A History of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal 1769 – 1985 by Ralph D. Gray, (1989)
* The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, 150th Anniversary, 1829 – 1929 by Edward J. Ludwig, III (1979)
ST. AUGUSTINE SCHOOL — A quiet country intersection south of Chesapeake City once hummed with activity during the school year. But today, only an occasional passing vehicle interrupts the sounds of nature in an area surrounded by horse farms and fields.
A school was built here by John Conrey, who received a contract of $488 from the Cecil County School Board on Nov. 13, 1880. The structure was sold to Myrtle B. Wilson on Nov. 14, 1923, for $300. On April 26, 1966, the Teachers Association of Cecil County erected a marker on the old building, designating it as a typical rural one-room schoolhouse in the county. Some time afterward, the structure was lost, but a new historical marker was placed here to mark the location.
Teachers at St. Augustine School included: Addie C. Ford (1876); Clara McCoy (1881); Arrie A. Duhamell (1894); Evelyn Kibler; Helen Larzalere (1899); Ethel Vinyard (1901); Eva S. Dean (1902); Stella N. Bishop (1901); Katie Loveless (1917) and Ada Davis
A roadside marker for the St. Augustine School south of Chesapeake City.
The old St. Augustine School
Photo Source: Cecil County Maryland Public Schools, 1850 – 1958 by Ernest A. Howard (1970); published the Cecil County Classroom Teachers Association
Notes Information from Cecil County Maryland Public Schools, 1850 – 1958 by Ernest A. Howard (1970); published the Cecil County Classroom Teachers Association.
Additional Information.
For additional information, see our photo album of pictures from the school on the Cecil County History on the Facebook page.
Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon arrived in Philadelphia to begin surveying the Mason Dixon Line on Nov. 15, 1763. Two hundred years later on Nov. 14, 1963, President John F. Kennedy, Governor Elbert N. Carvel, and Governor Millard F. Tawes stood on a platform situated on the historic line. The president and many other officials were on the state line to dedicate the Northeastern Expressway and the Delaware Turnpike.
After Mr. Kennedy and others made remarks to the warm, welcoming crowd of about 2,000 people, the president, flanked by the governors of Maryland and Delaware, walked down a wooden walkway and snipped a symbolic ribbon opening the Interstate. They then moved along the planks to a place where a 600-pound replica of a Mason and Dixon Marker had been placed in the median strip. There they unveiled the maker, which had on one side of the stone the coat of arms of the Baltimore Family and on the Delaware side the coat of arms for the Penn Family. It was limestone and had been carved in Milford.
President Kennedy and the governors of Maryland and Delaware dedicate a replica Mason Dixon Marker on state line during the opening of I-95
During the first fifteen years of the 20th century, most
Cecil Countians lived tranquil lives, far
removed from growing tensions in distant Europe and the terrible impact of
deadly epidemics. However, one group of young ladies preparing to
become healthcare professionals at the end of the horse and buggy era would
soon learn about these disturbing things.
In 1908, Union Hospital opened and a Canadian nurse, Maida
Campbell, became the superintendent. The
trained medical professional managed all facilities, while also supervising a
small staff of aides and orderlies. By
1911, it was decided to establish a nursing school to supply more skilled
caregivers.
Young, unmarried women twenty to thirty years old with one year of
high school could apply for admission to the inaugural classes. Once accepted into the three-year
program that led to a nursing diploma, students received lectures, practical
experience, and room and board, along with a monthly stipend of $5. There was no charge for tuition as
the ladies exchanged their labor for the clinical experience.
The first six students enrolled in October 1911, and three years
later the Cecil County News observed that an “event in local history” had taken
place in June 1914, when the first class of credentialed nurses graduated.
At the ceremony, Alice Denver, Stella Graves, Mary King, and Georgia May Miller proudly dressed in white
uniforms, received the coveted Union Hospital caps and diplomas while standing
on the stage of the Elkton Opera House.
Young women to learn nursing in the training school of Union Hospital. — Maida G. Campbell
However, for several of these
people, troubling, distant matters would
have a dramatic impact on their lives. About
the time they graduated, war was
spreading across Europe, and in 1917 the United States entered the conflict,
fighting alongside European Allies. Of
course, with the casualty rate growing
nurses were needed to staff battlefield hospitals in France. Some from Union Hospital responded,
caring for fallen soldiers on distant fronts.
World War I
One was Miss Campbell. In 1918, the superintendent resigned, enlisting as a nurse in Canada’s Military Hospital Service. The year before, she received word that her brother, who was a member of the Canadian troops, was killed in a battle and a second brother had a leg amputated. Alice Denver also answered the call. She had taken a position at the Rockefeller Institute in New York after graduating. However, in 1918 Miss Denver volunteered for war duty in France, nursing wounded and sick soldiers. She returned safely home in May 1919.
Pupils of the first year for the school of nursing. Published in the in the Union Hospital Annual Report in 1912. source: personal collection
Stella Graves’ life took a different path. She married Dr. Victor L. Glover in
1914 and they resided in Inwood W. VA., where the physician practiced medicine. She died on Nov. 14, 1917, of
tuberculosis, a disease she contracted while assisting the physician. The 1918 annual report of Union
Hospital noted that two graduates had died “of disease contracted in their
professional work.” Research hasn’t identified the other person yet.
First nursing class graduates. L to R: Mary King, Alice Denver (photo above), Stella Graves, Georgia Miller. Source: Union Hospital: Celebrating the first 100 years.
With the passing decades, the memory of field hospitals, trench
warfare, mustard gas, and rumbling artillery on the French Countryside, as well
as dangerous epidemics, grew a little dimmer, although the world had changed in
startling ways. Surely, the remaining two members of the class
of 1914 never forgot their colleagues and friends. As young ladies growing into
adulthood in a gentler time, they collectively faced the challenges of becoming
degreed nurses in a newly emerging profession, but they also confronted grave,
new risks. Some of them gave
their lives in the service of others.
The Union Hospital of Cecil County, a postcard circa 1914. Source: personal collection.
Union Hospital School of Nursing
For additonal photos of the nurses check out our album on Facebook album on Cecil County History
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.
