Window on Cecil County's Past

In the aftermath of World War II in Europe, the world faced an enormous humanitarian crisis.  Millions of people had been made homeless by the terrible conflict that had ripped the continent apart.  While the struggle’s end neared, President Franklin D. Roosevelt worked to establish the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, an international agency to plan and coordinated relief of victims of the war, and after the war was over Congress wrangled with the problem.  After strong and forceful involvement by President Harry Truman, the reluctant lawmakers managed to pass the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, which authorized the admission of 200,000 European displaced persons (DP) for permanent residence.

The DPs coming to the United States had to have a sponsor and a place to live before their arrival.  The first 813 refugees arrived in New York on Oct. 21. 1948.  Over the next twelve months, some of the DPs came to Cecil County to start a new life.  One of those was the family of Walter Mudryk, 38.  The Germans had taken him prisoner during the War.   His families prosperous Ukraine farm had been seized, some family members were put to death, and others served as forced laborers for the Germans.

Norman Fell sponsored this family in Cecil County, and they arrived here on January 21, 1949, to work on his farm near Calvert.  They departed from Munich for the United States, and after arriving by steamer in New York, they were sent to Baltimore on the railroad.  Mr. Fell met them at the Fifth Regiment Armory in Baltimore, where hundreds of refugees waited to meet their sponsors.

Out of this terrible conflict, their homeland destroyed, Walter Mudryk, 38, Nina, 25, his wife, and their two-year-year-old son Victor settled down on the Norman Fell Farm to start a new life in Calvert.  Sponsors in Queenstown and Virginia had also hosted some family members.

Source:   The Maryland News Courier, May 6, 1949:  Russian D.P.’s Now at Work on Calvert Farm.

Before the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal became a sea-level canal for ocean-going vessels, there were at least six lighthouses along the 14-mile route between the waters of the Delaware River and the Chesapeake Bay.  Navigation aids, these beacons of light, warned tugs, barges, schooners, sloops, and steamboats, that they were approaching a bridge, lock, or some other hazard along the waterway. The thirty-foot wooden towers were fitted with red oil lamps.  Lighthouse tenders hoisted the lamps up into the lantern room of the light to signal vessels of the approaching obstacle.

The Army Corps of Engineers completed widening and deepening the canal in 1927, discontinuing the familiar lighthouses that had stood guard along the waterway. The Army Corps of Engineers Museum in Chesapeake City has a full-scale replica of the original Bethel Bridge Lighthouse. The replica was donated by the Chesapeake City Lions Club in 1966.

Tomorrow (Aug 7) is National Lighthouse Day so we are resharing a post on a Cecil County lighthouse. On this date in 1789, Congress approved an act for the establishment and support of lighthouses, becaons, buoys, and public piers. According to the American Lighthouse Foundation is a day “to celebrate lighthouses and the commitment and service of those who tended America’s lights for generations.”

The Turkey Point Lighthouse in Elk Neck, Cecil County, was built in 1833. It sits on a 100 foot bluff at the tip of the Peninsula bordered by the North East and Elk rivers. C. W. “Harry” Salter was appointed the keeper of the Light in 1922.

CHESAPEAKE CITY DRY — On Aug. 17, 1914, someone passing through the canal in Chesapeake City penned a brief message on the back of this postcard. The traveler wrote: “passed through at noon.  All sober.  Dry town. . . .” Postmarked in Chesapeake City, the message was mailed to William Mauer, Norristown, PA.

In the decades before prohibition, Maryland had a patchwork of wet and dry counties and communities. State laws permitted local referendums on the question, and if enough local voters had an aversion to alcohol, sales could be banned in the municipality, district, or county. The divisive issue appeared on the ballot regularly, giving the citizens plenty of opportunities to soberly reconsider the matter of wet or dry.

For more on temperance and prohibition see

Beer Is Back They Shouted as They Raised a Glass to Prohibition’s Death Knell

One of Cecil County’s most colorful personalities, Rodeo Earl Smith, “a gun-slingin’, troublemakin’ goat-keepin’ bachelor,” lived at the King Ranch on Route 40 outside Perryville for decades.  Labeling himself Cecil County’s most famous resident, he also described himself as the “cussin’est, kissin’est cowboy who ever lived,” Robin Brown reported in the Morning News on May 4, 1980.

A rodeo rider, Hollywood stuntman, boxing and wrestling promoter, television and radio personality, amusement park owner and who knows what else, he began his entertainment career as a young man in the earliest years of the 20^th century, performing as an expert rider and roper in Wild West Shows.

“As movies became popular, he started performing stunts in the early Hollywood shows. For 20 years, he operated the Morton Park Pool in Delaware County, an amusement park outside Philadelphia, and when he retired around 1952, he purchased the 200-acre Silver King Ranch on U.S. Route 40 in Perryville.”

Wherever the aging Earl Smith went as he traveled around the county, people he met knew they were in for a special treat as he shared his exciting tales of the old west, early Hollywood days, the famous people he worked with, and his adventures.

He was known for toting pistols as he went about his day.  In the Middletown Centennial Parade in 1961, on a mule-drawn covered wagon, he had his six shooters pointed up in the air as performed along the route.  Everyone thought the bullets were blanks until one shot downed a live power line, and the startled Earl inadvertently pulled off another shot as he looked down to see what was happening.  According to Charlie Biggs, a local barber, that last shot nicked one of the mules pulling the wagon, and it tumbled down the street.

A couple of years later, President Kennedy came to town to dedicate I-95.  Old Earl was there, but the Secret Service ensured he wasn’t carrying his Colt 45 pistols that day in 1963, and they kept an eye on the “old range rider” during the president’s appearance on the state line. 

 As he aged, he couldn’t stay at home quietly with his memories and mementos.  He traveled about the county with his goats and dogs, looking to rope passersby into a conversation as he never tired of talking about himself.  One summer around 1970, Governor Marvin Mandel was whisked through the county on a campaign tour.  While the governor visited the county commissioners, he roped Mandel into listening to him praise the county commissioners, the Nixon Administration. At the same time, he also shared often told tales of his exploits.  “A campaign aide eventually intervened to Mandel’s apparent relief,” the News Journal reported.

He was a great friend of local law enforcement and newspaper reporters.  Whenever he came in the front door at the Cecil Whig, Editor Don Herring recalled there was often a rush to get out the back door for the young reporter that Earl caught up with would have to listen to stories for hours. 

In the late 1960s, Elkton’s AM Radio Station, WSER, started a midday news and talk show.  Whenever the DJ hosting the show heard that familiar voice on the line, he knew he wouldn’t have to worry about filling the broadcast hour.  Earl used that as his platform to talk about politics, what needed to be done in the nation, the fading memories of the old west, and his accomplishments.

“On the eve of his 86th Birthday, the Cecil Whig said he was a “hale and hearty octogenarian” who once earned a “living by physical strength, daring skill, a flair for entertaining, and plenty of good old American guts.” When the feisty old cowboy with the goatee and handlebar mustache died in 1980 at the age of 89, the newspaper said: “One of Cecil County’s most colorful personalities” has passed away. Born January 17, 1891, he was buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.”  He had been born in Stoughton, Mass on Jan. 17, 1891.

For additional photos of Rodeo Earl click here

Elkton — A late 1950s or early 1960s view of the “town hall and the shopping center of this bustling county seat of Cecil County.” The YMCA, the police department, and the town hall occupy the building that is now the headquarters of the Elkton Alliance. In the background is the J. J. Newberry Company.

The postcard was mailed to Mrs. Ralph Terrell, https://www.cecilcountyhistory.com Lester Ave., Findlay, Ohio. The message reads: “Sept – 1 – 1967. We were married here Sept. 1, 1917, on our way to Williamsburg Va., Asheville, NC, and area. Say hello to Hazel and Elva – see yo next summer – love. Fred & Ireen.”

One April afternoon in 1859, townspeople in Elkton were startled when it appeared that a general alarm fire was raging inside the venerable old seat of justice in Cecil County.  The rumbling carriage wheels of the hand-drawn pumper being hurriedly pulled toward the courthouse and the clattering of rushing feet drew curious citizens to the scene of the excitement.  Outside the tallest building in town, all the community’s firefighting apparatus, two hand-pumpers, were being furiously worked by crews of strong men who played steady streams of water on the 18^th-century edifice.  As the crowd swelled, people wondered what was going on as shouts, cheers, and “stentorian vociferations from the fire company” periodically went up while streams soaked the building.

THE RODGERS

This chaotic scene started after the Schooner Iglehort, on its weekly run up the Bay from Baltimore, docked with a precious cargo.  It was a modern addition to the firefighting force, a suction engine which could pull water from a stream or pond without needing a bucket brigade to keep it supplied.  Manufactured by John Rodgers, the Elkton volunteers purchased it used from that Vigilant Fire Company of Baltimore for $450.

 

What a grand day it was for the smoke-eaters as they proudly marched through the streets with the new pumper.  After parading it around for a while, the young men decided to demonstrate its power at the highest structure in Elkton, the courthouse.  Hooking up the suction engine to a cistern, the men, pumping for everything they were worth, squirted water through a simple brass nozzle that shot a stream over the steeple of the place that was often known for high-drama of its own.

About the time they’d successfully pumped that powerful stream some veteran firemen decided a little friendly competition was in order from the machine that had successfully defended Elkton during many a hard-fought fight with flames.   They hastily ran out the “Waterwitch,” pulling that veteran engine down to the courthouse.  Manning the pumper, ten men exerted hard on its levers while a bucket brigade kept water flowing.  It threw a stream higher than the newfangled contraption, despite its advanced age and the lack of suction.

A reporter from the Cecil Democrat described the scene as the competition heated up:  “The boys at the new machine, full of pluck again rallied, and this time did better when it was their turn to cheer.  The old engine was again put to work, the excitement all the time rising when up went her water ten or fifteen feet higher than before, beating the new engine fairly and decidedly.”

The Old Hydraulion

That elder piece of apparatus came to the Elkton in 1827 at a cost of $700.  Technically called a hydraulion because it carried its own hose reel mounted on top, it had been the pride of the firemen of Elkton for over thirty years.  James Sellers, a Philadelphia mechanic, built it for one of the volunteer fire companies in that city, where it served for nine years before it the Eastern Shore town purchased it.

“For a time it was feared it would result seriously” the reporter observed, but it subsided and “all relapsed into good humor again.”  People now knew that the next time that fearful cry of “Fire! Fire! Fire!” came in the deep of night those old heroes of many a brave fight would stand as their defense.  Although the midnight clanging of the courthouse bell still struck fear in the hearts of slumbering residents, the volunteers were equipped to meet the threat.

 

Although these relics from the past haven’t rushed to a blaze in centuries, they are carefully cared for by the town’s modern organization, the Singerly Fire Company.  In the early 1990s, as the volunteers prepared to celebrate 100 years of service, the Hydraulion and the Suction Engines were refurbished by a master Amish wagon maker, Christian Petersheim of the Nickle Mine Coach Shop.

 

It’s always exciting to obtain fresh perspectives and insights on the county’s past when scholars take a serious look at our history. These thorough investigations, requiring months of intensive digging into original documents and a critical evaluation of the primary sources, are valuable — they focus on specific research questions and use the highest principles of historical inquiry and analysis to piece together an understanding of things that came before us.

Eric Mease is one of those bringing a scholar’s fresh eye to an unstudied subject in Cecil County.  As a University of Delaware graduate student, he launched an investigation two years ago that sought to piece together the story of the United States Colored Troops from this area.  His Master of Arts thesis, Black Civil War Patriots of Cecil County, Maryland, was approved by the University’s history department. 

His investigation began at the Historical Society as he reviewed the literature on a few things that had been done earlier, such as a 1960s register of Civil War-era African-American Troops from the county.  Eric moved on from that baseline to visit cemeteries to verify his information and to add new patriots to his list.  He continued by talking to families, visiting archives, studying wills and legal records, and using newspapers.  Also, he poured over old newspapers, studied slave tax records and manumissions, and extracted data from census registers.  Through all of this, he was able to piece together this far-reaching story for the first time.   Sources he investigated indicated that 200 and 400 African-Americans from Cecil County volunteered during the Civil War.  His fieldwork specifically developed information on about 200 of these men.

This valuable research title, “Black Civil War Patriots of Cecil County, Maryland,” is an open-sourced thesis available at UDspace at the University of Delaware. 

:

Intense excitement prevailed throughout Cecil County 138 years ago this week as Union soldiers tried to reinforce Washington City. Just a week after Southern forces fired on Fort Sumter, and launched the Civil War, the Union’s capital was cut off when rebel sympathizers attacked troops moving through Baltimore.  The railroad north of the city – a vital link to the rest of the Union—was shut down.  As troops poured in from the North, Cecil County founds itself to be a vital military crossroads in helping to save the Union.

At a time when news generally traveled slowly, countians found they could hardly keep pace with the shocking news, it being hard to sort out what was exaggerated and unfounded.   On April 19^th, 1861 at an early hour coaches of two special trains carrying troops rolled through Elkton, North East, and Perryville on the Philadelphia, Wilmington,  and Baltimore (P.W. & B.) Railroad.  These troops, members of the 6^th Massachusetts, were en route to Washington to protect the federal capital from the threatened attack of Jeff Davis, the Cecil Whig informed readers.

This unit was among the first to answer President Abraham Lincoln’s call for volunteers to put down the rebellion.  The 6th Massachusetts and other units traveling not too far behind were critical for the protection of the District of Columbia from southern forces just across the Potomac River from the capital.

As Cecil stirred to life on Saturday, April 20th stories whirled about that and the large mob with a Confederate State flag had attacked the troops as they passed through Baltimore.   “Many of this mob was armed and several of the troops were shot” was the story heard in the northeasternmost County of Maryland.

To prevent more northern invaders from coming into the city some reports had it that the P.W. & B. Railroad Bridges into Baltimore had been burned.  Telegraph communications with Baltimore and Washington had been lost — that much was known.

In the next few days as the nation’s daily newspapers published accounts of the fight in Baltimore between the troops and the mob county residents learned that much of what they had heard was true.   “A terrible scene is now going on in Pratt Street” is what an early dispatch in the New York Times said. “Civil War has commenced” exclaimed a bulletin in the Chicago Tribune, reporting the bloody street clash.

Troops Secure the Railroad & Canal

So as the nation stood on the edge of a bloody Civil War, Cecil County found itself astride a critical military line between Philadelphia and Baltimore, one that was important to the survival of the United States government.  On this vital rail link federal troops could be conveyed to Perryville — and no further.  Below the Susquehanna, a squad of city policemen and the Baltimore City Guard burned railroad bridges.  A state of near-anarchy occupied Maryland’s largest city.  However, railroad officials still controlled the line between Philadelphia and Perryville.

Two additional regiments of troops stalled on the tracks North of Baltimore as the mob clashed with soldiers: the 8^th Massachusetts reached the Maryland-Delaware boundary while the seventh New York was stuck in Philadelphia

General Benjamin Butler, the officer in charge of the Massachusetts unit, ordered his command to proceed to the mouth the Susquehanna River.  At Perryville militiaman commandeered the railroad steam ferryboat, Maryland, ordering it to sail for Annapolis.  On the Philadelphia waterfront, the government seized all the propeller steamers that could pass through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.  These commandeered vessels sailed down the Delaware River and passed through the canal, Capt. Phillip Reybold recalled in 1906.     After exiting the C & D, the steamers hurried for Annapolis with the troops onboard or to Perryville to pick up waiting companies.  Once units arrived in Annapolis they secured a railroad line to Washington eventually becoming the first outside aid to arrive in the district since the Baltimore disturbance.

Meanwhile, federal troops took immediate steps to guard its “main military road.”  Strict martial law prevailed all along the route, and a garrison at Perryville was assigned to Perryville to defend the key port.  At every little bridge along the line, a New York Times reporter wrote, the glitter of sentinels bayonets could be seen in the moonlight.  Until Pennsylvania aid arrived county volunteers came out to guard the road.  After receiving a dispatch from Wilmington, Elkton citizens secured the railroad bridge near town.  These local sentinels held their post until relieved in the night by volunteers (soldiers) from Philadelphia.

A correspondent from North East told the Whig that a volunteer military company had organized there and measures were being taken to have the stars and stripes hoisted at most of the prominent points of the village.

Major Thomas West Sherman’s “battery of flying artillery from the regular army” set up camp in Elkton on April 24th, joining Pennsylvania volunteers already at the Depot.  Other companies quartered at North East, Charlestown, and Newark kept a vigilant patrol.

Another means of reinforcing the District of Columbia was right here, too.  Soon more troops and stores rushed southward from Philadelphia through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. To protect the critical waterway a detachment of troops was sent down from Elkton.

By now the streets of Elkton presented a lively appearance. “At all hours of the day, “Uncle Sam’s men in bright uniforms . . . pass to and fro.”    Each night at 8:50 p.m., the bugle from Sherman’s camp “called the straggling soldiers in.”

Still, the need for troops in the nation’s capital was great, the fear being that the federal city would be “ringed  by rebellion.”  So more union troops begin concentrating on the East Bank of the Susquehanna awaiting orders.

Perryville during the Civil War

All once Perryville, a place with “two hotels, two little stores, a shoemaker’s shop and the post office,” said the New York Times, had become a place of a immense importance on the great military road of the North.  Colonel C. P. dare commanded the military Depot with troops arriving daily.   Col. Dare had “1600 Pennsylvania volunteers at Perryville in five good sized propellors of the Ericsson Line with steam up,” the New York Times said in its issue of April 27^th.   He quartered his men in and around the various railroad buildings of town, and his headquarters was at the ticket office.

Batteries of guns at Perryville commanded the River and Bay and protected Havre de Grace, the New York Times noted on May 4th. The Times war correspondent, with the aid of a fisherman’s skiff, crossed the Susquehanna to view Havre de Grace.  It was a better military position than Perryville, he thought, but the occupation of Perryville was a military necessity. The west bank of the River would be occupied soon enough.

On the upper end of the Susquehanna, concern existed over the Conowingo Bridge, for it could serve as an important link between Maryland and the North. A Harford County militia unit received orders to blow up the bridge “if it were found necessary to prevent Pennsylvania troops from crossing,” an old citizen of Harford County recalled at a meeting of that County Historical Society in 1886.  Maryland secessionists, a rumor had it we’re going to go to rob the town bank in nearby Oxford, Pennsylvania. Borough officials Telegraphed Philadelphia for assistance, the public ledger reported.

Finally, with President Lincoln’s troops tightening the grip on Maryland and thousands of blue-coated soldiers pouring into Washington, it was time to reopen the rail line. On May 13th, General Butler moved his troops into Baltimore.  He placed cannon on Federal Hill, a place that controlled the harbor and much of the city.

Next, the government secured the P. W. and B. through Harford County.  Regiments from Perryville  occupied Havre de Grace.  Soldiers then moved to towns on down the line,  guarding important points and structures.  Less than a month had passed since Cecil County had been stunned by the rapidity with which it had found itself on the road to war.  Years of bloody conflict lay ahead, but the County had done its part as a vital and loyal crossroads to save the union capital.

For Additional Information on the Civil War Between Philadelphia and Baltimore

See “This Trying Hour,” The Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad in the Civil War by Scott L. Mingus, Sr., and Robert L. Williams.

Civil War Days on the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, Window on Cecil County’s Past