The Cecil County Courthouse in Elkton, sometime prior to its modernization in 1886.
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 18th-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.
Elkton purchased the Rodgers Fire Engine from the Vigilant Fire Company of Baltimore in 1859 Photo Credit: Jim Eder
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.
Elkton’s first hand-pumper at a parade around 1902. The fire engine was purchased in Philadelphia. Source: Singerly Fire Company Museum
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.
Jackson Janes an African American Civil War Soldier from Cedar Hill in Cecil County.
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.
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 19th, 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 6th 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.
Massachusetts Militia passing through Baltimore on April 19, 1861 Source: Engraving of F. F. Walker (1861) Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baltimore_Riot_1861.jpg
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 8th 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 27th. He quartered his men in and around the various railroad buildings of town, and his headquarters was at the ticket office.
“The Philadelphia Fort on Wheels”, the P.W. & B.’s armored railroad car was built to help protect the line in northeastern Maryland. Source: Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, May 18, 1861, online at Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frank_Leslie%27s_Illustrated_Newspaper_-_18610518_-_p1_-_Railroad_Battery.png#filehistory
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.
Birds Eye View of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and the District of Columbia the Seat of War, 1861, (Source Library of Congress, https://bit.ly/3LLTyZf
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.
For 365 days in 1864 a small diary penned by John Price, the Superintendent of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, provides a unique and enthralling view of Chesapeake City as that troubled year gradually passed by. With the Civil War dragging on, as Union and Confederate armies confronted each other in a deadly, epic struggle, Price hovered over his tiny journal to chronicle the dark, troubling times as the country and an inland waterway village at the top of the Delmarva Peninsula faced fears and tribulations. His accounts of personal moments, the challenges of operating the waterway, and shattering national events provide a one-of-a-kind narrative portrait, a window to the past.
A Civil War era diary kept by the manager of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.
Often the manager of the C & D concerned himself with the routines of daily life and the weather, but regularly disturbing war and political news demanded the diarist’s attention. Since the founding of the nation blue laws prohibited working on Sundays, a day for attending church, resting and reflecting, but with fighting raging the United States Government couldn’t be hindered by such morals. Aghast townspeople watched, government tugs, light boats, and barges pass through the canal one Sabbath in April to “accompany Burnside’s expedition.” “Piping times these, Uncle Sam violating the sanctity of the Sabbath and teaching men so. Sad to contemplate such necessity.”
A Delaware Civil War recruiting poster . Source: Delaware Public Archives.
On Independence Day, generally a time of raucous celebration and enjoyment in a watermen’s town, the diarist found sadness. “Congress having repealed the commutation clause in the conscription law, every able-bodied man between the ages of 18 & 45 is liable to be drafted. The case is a despicable one, and will make great confusion and much skedaddling.” AS a result of the law’s change, men could no longer provide substitutes or pay fees to avoid service. A clerk, son, and son-in-law went off to escape the draft, he wrote. “Grants men are being killed off making ample room in the army for a hundred thousand greenhorns who prefer staying at home to going to the front as fodder for Lee’s sharpshooters.”
While conscription resulted in “dark days,” the worries for the man superintending work on an important military inland waterway were just getting started. Shortly after returning from church on Sunday, July 10, an urgent telegram arrived. Mr. Gray, the corporation’s lawyer, wanted to know if a tug could be equipped with a cannon. General Jubal Early’s Confederate Troops were marching on Maryland. Price came up with a suitable vessel as fear spread. As Wednesday passed into Thursday, word arrived that the “rebels were advancing” on Chesapeake City, a town of about 1,000 people. On that sleepless night, a second message arrived, confirming that enemy troops were on their way. That caused great alarm and some house furnishings, clothing and such were removed to the safety of the countryside.
But at sunrise Chesapeake City was safe. “Breathing free on learning that reports of last night in relation to the visitation on the part of the rebels were fabrications. Thank God. The canal is uninsured.” Another report before noon caused Price to order the noisy steam-pump at the lock shut-down “ so that everything at the waterworks might be quite to escape the observation of the rebels. Slowly the old, noisy waterwheel ground to a halt and all was silent on the western end of the waterway. Eight and a half-hours later the enemy hadn’t arrived, so the wheel started pumping water again and commerce resumed. Later, he received news that the invaders had retreated back across the Potomac.
As summer turned to fall, Price began expressing worries about a free election. When the Baltimore steamer landed 20 soldiers in Chesapeake City, he supposed they were there to intimidate voters. When citizens went to the polls to vote on the new Maryland State Constitution, one he called “bogus,” he noted how Republicans were exercising every possibility to disenfranchise Democrats. Election-day passed off “comparatively quiet, only one or two fights,” as he cast his ballot for George McClellan.
Reading Price’s diary is like taking a trip back in time. It is possible to see the Civil War era in one small but important Maryland town as Price reflects on a nation, a state and his community in the uncertain depths of wartime. Throughout the struggle the canal was an important transportation route, carrying urgently needed men and supplies as the conflict ebbed and flowed on distant battlefields. As he finished this chronicle on New Year’s Eve, the great conflict was nearing its end, but Richmond still stood and Abraham Lincoln was in the White House.
On those brittle, browning pages penned so long ago, he paused each day to record important observations in a small pocket diary bound in brown leather and stained from the passing of centuries. This day-by-day chronicle of happenings for 1864, tells the modern readers about life on the canal during the war between the north and the south.
The C & D Canal Pumphouse a few years after the Civil War (1867). source: personal collection
Article originally published in Maryland Life, March 2013
“Standing in the Schoolhouse Door: The Desegregation of Public Schools in Cecil County, Maryland – 1954-1965” is a Washington College thesis (2013) by Kyle Dixon, B.A.. The thesis analyzes social and political factors, which led to the desegreation of public schools in Cecil County, MD.
The first printing press to ever rest on Cecil County soil came here 195 years ago. In that era, long before steam locomotives chugged along on rails or telegraphs tapped out lightning-fast messages, a young newspaper editor from Lancaster, Pa., named John McCord arrived in Elkton. He was also a printer since in those days the two jobs often overlapped.
For the entrepreneurial, yet inexperienced scribe, the task of getting his press moved here must have been a challenging undertaking. Although the record is silent as to precisely how he transported the heavy equipment, he probably loaded it carefully aboard a wagon for a bumpy journey over dusty country roads.
However, he went about it, the editor put the first edition of the Elkton Press in the hands of patrons the day after Cecil County celebrated the 47th anniversary of American independence in July 1823. McCord assisted by James Andrews and Samuel Stanbaugh, rolled up their sleeves and got ink on their hands as they toiled throughout the long summer publication day on the hand press.
An issue of the Elkton Press, Cecil County’s first newspaper. From the collection of the Historical Society. The Society has a number of scattered issues of this publication in its collection.
Putting ink on paper is simpler today with laser printers, computers and desktop publishing software, but it was a complicated matter at the top of the 19th century. Each word had to be laboriously set by hand and each letter plucked from the cases of type. As the composition man worked, he placed individual blocks of words in a special frame until the entire page was laid out.
Each frame was mounted on the press, and an absorbent ball dipped in ink was rubbed on the type form. A helper laid a clean sheet of paper on the device, and by tugging on a lever, created an impression by causing a metal plate to press the paper onto the inked form.
Once one side was completed the type for the other side of the paper was set. Eventually the weekly four-page edition was ready to make its way into the hands of readers, who paid an annual subscription price of $2. McCord wrote that advertisements not exceeding a square could be conspicuously insert three times for $1.
After that July day so long ago, handbills, calendars, cards, stationery, legal forms and a variety of other printed matter started rolling off those clanking presses. But newspapers came floating out as well, spreading information to a waiting audience.
Perhaps to serve a wider audience, its name was lengthened to the Elkton Press and Cecil County Advertiser for a few years, starting in 1829. Although ownership changed a few times, the weekly last untiled 1832. That year, shortly after the presidential election race between Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay, the compositor set type for the last time.
An astounding number of publications followed. Newspapers blossomed in Chesapeake City, Elkton, North East, Perryville, Port Deposit and Rising Sun, as others rushed to serve readers. Over the course of centuries, the county has had over 40 different titles, often with many changes in ownership, format and titles.
You could say that McCord, Andrews and Stanbaugh pioneered the evolution of periodicals in Cecil County. Arriving in Elkton with a hand press and a font of type, these men were directly responsible for this county’s information age. Long before folks worried about young men marching away to the Civil War, the efforts of those publishing pioneers from Lancaster introduced home-based media that brought information to homes, farms and businesses.
Over 40 newspaper titles were published in Cecil County. This is the Jackson Picket Guard from Sept. 10, 1856 from the collection of the American Antiquarian Society. The Society has a number of rare, early newspapers titles from Cecil County.
The Jackson Picket Guard, an Elkton Newspaper. From the collection of the American Antiquarian Society. The Society has a number of rare, Cecil County titles in its collection.
An undated aerial view of the Triumph Explosives Industries planet located on the northwestern side of Elkton in the area of Trijmp Industrial Park along Blue Ball Road (private collection)
As this Memorial Day — the time to honor those who died in the military while serving our country — draws to a close, we also want to remember another group who made the ultimate sacrifice defending our nation. These were Women Ordnance Workers (WOW) and men employed at Triumph and other defense jobs in Elkton.
On the home front, they carried out dangerous assignments, producing munitions needed to win the war.
People frequently talk about the big 1943 explosion at the munitions plants, but there were others, and a census or registry of civilian defense workers has never been compiled. It was perilous, and while non-fatal explosions occurred with some regularity, a few were lethal.
Following what was described as Maryland’s worst munitions plant explosion in 1943, the Morning News wrote in an Editorial (May 5, 1943), “There is a little which can be said that will console the families who have lost one or more members as a result of this disaster. Yet, if they stop to reflect, they do have the comfort of knowing that their sons and daughters gave their lives just as surely and in a no less patriotic way than if they had died on the field of battle. They too were soldiers in the great cause to which America had dedicated itself and to the success of which it had pledged all its human and material resources.”
According to our preliminary findings, at least twenty-two members of this group died in Elkton.
Feb. 21, 1940 – Before the United States formally entered the war, two men lost their lives, and fourteen other employees were injured in an explosion, which wrecked two buildings and damaged others at the Triumph Fusee and Fireworks Company plant. The plant employed approximately 500 people. For some time, the company had been chiefly engaged in the manufacture of airplane flares and other pyrotechnic equipment on Government contracts. Sheriff David J. Randolph and Deputy Ralph W. Robinson rushed to the plant as soon as they heard the explosion after calling for state police assistance. Only one ambulance was available in Elkton, and it carried several of the injured to the hospital
Edward Knief, 38, Newark DE – died instantly.
Charles Willard Gatchell, 32 of North East, died at Union Hospital
July 24, 1942 – Victor Vardaro, 37, of Bear, died at Union Hospital the day after he received burns while closing the door to the power grinding room at Vardaro Fireworks Manufacturing Plant. Vardaro was the plant manager, which was owned by his father, Alexander.
Victor Vardaro, 37, Bear, DE
May 5, 1943 — The state’s worst fireworks-munitions plant explosion killed fifteen workers and injured about 60 more. A series of blasts were followed by fires that destroyed two plant buildings and spread to three other Triumph Explosives, Inc structures.
The explosion occurred in a building that was used to manufacture tracer bullets. Seconds later an adjoining building blew up. Fire companies from five communities aided plant firemen in battling the flames. Later, a fire broke out in a canteen filled with employees, resulting in many injuries.
The plant hospital was quickly filled, along with a 25-bed Civil Defense Emergency Hospital setup on the grounds, but the more seriously injured were rushed to Union Hospital. Throughout the night medical personnel performed life-saving procedures. Later, Bodies were taken to the Pippin Funeral Home on East Main Street. Hundreds stood silently “outside under the old trees, which line the street,” as people entered the undertaking parlor to try to identify the dead.
Benjamin F. Pepper, President of the company, appealed to the corporation’s 13,000 employees to return to work immediately. “We will do everything in our power to prevent any similar accident and to fight on with you harder than ever before,” was printed on red, white and blue signs posted in surrounding communities.
After a seventeen-hour shutdown, thousands of workers “hushed and grim-faced, slowly filed through the guard gates at Trumph Explosive. ending the seventeen-hour shutdown that followed the incident, the Evening Sun reported (May 5, 1943)
May 5, 1943 –
Willie Craddock, South Boston, VA.
Mauhee Nediffer, Allentown Hills, WV.
Susan Nolli, Eynon, PA
Charles Millman, Camden, DE
Della Truman, Cedar Grove, WV
Ellis Simmons, Elkton
Iva Young Ward, W.V
Wilson Warner, Elkton
Mrs. Hurley Galmore, Coatesville, PA
Christine Erby, Raleigh NC
Jake Peatross, Danville, VA
Gilbert Poore, Warwick, MD.
Harry Rias, Dover, DE
Chester Whaley, Wilmington, DE
Ivy Young, Ward, WV.
June 21, 1943 – Three men died in a flash fire at Triumph. They were dumping defective waste material in what is known as a fire pit when an incident occurred.
William Nelson Kellum, Carpenters Point
Samuel Perkins, Still Pond
William Smith, 37, North East
Sept. 6, 1943 – An explosion of undetermined origin wrecked a small building at Triumph Explosive plant about noon an 18-year-old.
Lester Billings, 18, Wilkesboro, NC
The registry probably represents an undercount as the primary sources for this preliminary registry are city and local newspapers, and the papers may not have covered isolated incidents. We plan to continue adding information to this summary and will share it as we develop it.
After four CSX freight cars plummeted off the Susquehanna River Bridge Friday night during the late winter nor’easter, we had questions about whether anything similar had ever happened there before.
At least one similar accident occurred. On September 23, 1908, the railroad bridge crashed into the river. The Baltimore Sun said: “With a splitting roar, like a park of artillery in action [part of] a loaded coal train sank through the great Baltimore and Ohio bridge between Perryville and Havre de Grace, plunging into the Susquehanna River below,” the Baltimore Sun reported.
A locomotive and four cars passed over safely, while six cars remained on the portion of the bridge that survived the collapse. But, 12 cars went down 100 feet into the river along with a 377-foot span of the bridge weighing thousands of tons.
“Due almost to a miracle” no lives were lost, and only one man – Watchman William Wilson — was injured. Wilson was standing on the bridge and when the crash came, he went down with the debris, landing on the eastern bank of the river. When rescuers reached him they were overjoyed to find that the timber was scarcely touching him. He was taken out of the mass of twisted timbers without any difficulty and carried home to Havre de Grace.
“It was almost a miracle too, that one of the fast express trains did not go down instead of the freight. The New York and St. Louise Express had rushed safely across the bridge shortly before the coal train chugged onto the span. About 6:30 a.m. the heavily laden New York and St. Louis express, running on limited time from New York blew for the bridge. A few moments before the coal train on the other side had been given orders to hold up for the limited.
Once the fast express rushed pass, Freight Engineer Patrick Lynne of Baltimore pushed onto the bridge. Just as the engine and lead cars safely rolled off onto Harford County soil, the engineer heard a series of terrifying roars and felt a mighty jerk on the engine. “He looked back to see through the fog the whole bridge over the eastern channel giving way.”
Conductor McCullough was standing on the top of the caboose when he heard a noise like the explosion of dynamite cartridges, and through the fog he saw most of the train disappear into the river and a great yawning gap in the bridge. He leaped onto the bridge and hurting his ankle.
The crash was easily heard in Perryville and Havre de Grace, and people men rushed to the scene from every direction. “Like wildfire, the news spread – the bridge is down. The Baltimore and Ohio bridge is at the bottom of the Susquehanna with a train on top of it. The excitement in Havre de Grace and Perryville was intense, for in the fog it was difficult to tell just what had happened.”
In 1907, the American Bridge Company and Eyre-Shoamerk Company started renovating the structure, and timber falsework was used to shore up sections of the bridge under construction, allowing construction to proceed with minimal traffic disruption.
“A coal car derailed on the bridge and struck a mobile crane” according to Wikipedia. “The crane collapsed, bringing down the eastern channel truss, which sank in deep water.”
March Lecture Sponsored by the Archeological Society of the Northern Chesapeake Date: Wednesday, March 14, 2018 Time: Light refreshments at 6:30 pm, program at 7:00 pm, followed by a short Chapter meeting. Location: Historical Society of Cecil County, 135 E. Main St., Elkton, MD.
Program: “An Early Pottery at Saint Mary Anne’s – A Cemetery Discovery of No Grave Concern”. Jim Kotersky and Dan Coates.
Abstract/Preview: Clay-rich Cecil County, MD, attracted a number of potters and fire brick makers during the 19th century. One site in North East located between the church structure at St. Mary Anne’s and the North East River was home to kilns burning both pots and bricks. The predominate potter, J. B. Magee, hailed from Canada, but left his finger prints in clay along a trail from Vermont to Virginia. With a focus on his decade-long tenure in North East, discussion will include clay sources, pottery types and “pott-house” operations. Not only will some examples of his decorated stoneware be on display, but artifacts from a recent site unearthing will provide a better understanding of his wares and kiln stacking techniques.
The first printing press to ever rest on Cecil County soil came here 195 years ago. In that era, long before steam locomotives chugged along on rails or telegraphs tapped out lightning-fast messages, a young newspaper editor from Lancaster, Pa., named John McCord arrived in Elkton. He was also a printer since in those days the two jobs often overlapped.
For the entrepreneurial, yet inexperienced scribe, the task of getting his press moved here must have been a challenging undertaking. Although the record is silent as to precisely how he transported the heavy equipment, he probably loaded it carefully aboard a wagon for a bumpy journey over dusty country roads.
However, he went about it, the editor put the first edition of the Elkton Press in the hands of patrons the day after Cecil County celebrated the 47th anniversary of American independence in July 1823. McCord assisted by James Andrews and Samuel Stanbaugh, rolled up their sleeves and got ink on their hands as they toiled throughout the long summer publication day on the hand press.
Putting ink on paper is simpler today with laser printers, computers and desktop publishing software, but it was a complicated matter at the top of the 19th century. Each word had to be laboriously set by hand and each letter plucked from the cases of type. As the composition man worked, he placed individual blocks of words in a special frame until the entire page was laid out.
Each frame was mounted on the press, and an absorbent ball dipped in ink was rubbed on the type form. A helper laid a clean sheet of paper on the device, and by tugging on a lever, created an impression by causing a metal plate to press the paper onto the inked form.
Once one side was completed the type for the other side of the paper was set. Eventually the weekly four-page edition was ready to make its way into the hands of readers, who paid an annual subscription price of $2. McCord wrote that advertisements not exceeding a square could be conspicuously insert three times for $1.
After that July day so long ago, handbills, calendars, cards, stationery, legal forms and a variety of other printed matter started rolling off those clanking presses. But newspapers came floating out as well, spreading information to a waiting audience.
Perhaps to serve a wider audience, its name was lengthened to the Elkton Press and Cecil County Advertiser for a few years, starting in 1829. Although ownership changed a few times, the weekly last untiled 1832. That year, shortly after the presidential election race between Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay, the compositor set type for the last time.
An astounding number of publications followed. Newspapers blossomed in Chesapeake City, Elkton, North East, Perryville, Port Deposit and Rising Sun, as others rushed to serve readers. Over the course of centuries, the county has had over 40 different titles, often with many changes in ownership, format and titles.
You could say that McCord, Andrews and Stanbaugh pioneered the evolution of periodicals in Cecil County. Arriving in Elkton with a hand press and a font of type, these men were directly responsible for this county’s information age. Long before folks worried about young men marching away to the Civil War, the efforts of those publishing pioneers from Lancaster introduced home-based media that brought information to homes, farms and businesses.
