Since 2015 marks the 95th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, I have been examining the topic of extending the right to vote to women. While investigating the regional perspective, I recalled the work of Helen Tierney, professor emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin (UW). …
For Resisting Pennsylvania Liquor Agents, Sheriff Mogle Receives Gold Badge
Despite the ups and downs of the “Pennsylvania Liquor Border War,” Sheriff Thomas Mogle stood his ground, corralling Keystone State Law Enforcement Officials who dared cross the Mason-Dixon Line while resisting calls from Annapolis to cease the skirmishes. With the bitterness increasing and the disruptions in Maryland trade growing, the Sheriff sternly warned trespassing officials…
Citizens Kept Informed About Lincoln Assassination, In the Age of Instant Communications
On April 15, 1865, residents of Cecil County awoke to alarming news about the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. On that Saturday, as the darkness of Friday night faded and people prepared to celebrate Easter, residents started to go about their early spring business. However, as they peacefully slept, the telegraph wires across the nation crackled…
Border War Flares Up Over Cheap Maryland Booze
All’s quiet on the western front, the sheriff reports during the border war with the Pennsylvania Liquor Board. source: Cecil Whig, Dec. 31, 1969 Bitter border disputes have sometimes erupted between Maryland and Pennsylvania. The first kicked off in the late 1600s when the boundary between the two colonies was unclear. That led to a…
An Orphanage on a Chesapeake City Hilltop Once Took Care of Dependent Children
On an overcast Friday afternoon in mid-October, as rain was spreading into Cecil County, I paused on the top of “Sister’s Hill” in North Chesapeake City, contemplating the history of an orphanage that for much of the 20th century took care of dependent children. Here is what I have been able to dig up thus…
General Jones and the Suffragists Occupy Cecil County
After a more than 60 year struggle to give women the right to vote, things were coming to a head during the second decade of the 20th century. The suffragists had won battles in a number of states, and were slowly converting indecisive politicians. But to keep pressure on the holdouts, the more radical activists descended on…
In Historic Election in Rising Sun, Women Vote for the First Time in Cecil County
In an era when women across the nation crusaded to gain voting rights, Rising Sun led the way locally in 1916, allowing ladies to cast ballots in a county election for the first time in Cecil’s history, the Midland Journal reported. The question facing taxpayers heading to the polls was whether the town board could refinance…
Remembering a Rising Sun Sailor Lost on the USS Maine
The USS Maine steamed from Key West, Florida to Havana on January 24, 1898, arriving in the Cuban harbor the next day. Orders took her there as the United States wanted to show the flag and protect interest since a struggle for independence from Spain was rippling across the country, resulting in the spread of…
The 1960s, a Decade of Protest — the Local Perspective
Because of Cecil’s advantageous location on the northeast corridor, the county sometimes came in contact with protest movements. Mostly they were sign-waving college age students passing through, on their way to demonstrate in Washington D.C., New York, or some other place of assembly where their anti-establishment passions would be heard. During the tumultuous 1960s and…
Taking a Stand for Equal Treatment on the Mason Dixon Line in 1904
Nearly sixty years before Freedom Riders started a campaign to open restaurants, motels, bars, and other public places to all travelers on Route 40, Cecil County found itself in the middle of another Civil Rights divide. The Maryland Legislature decided the State needed a Jim Crow law in 1904 that required steamship lines and railroads…