Thousands of old postcards and photos will be offered by dealers.
Singerly Volunteer Fire Company, of Elkton MD, will present their twenty-seventh annual “Paper Americana Show” on Saturday January 25, 2014 from 10 AM to 4 PM.
The show will feature over thirty dealers from several states who are offering for sale, antique books, postcards, newspapers, art prints, advertising & regional collectibles, photographs, and general ephemera.
The Singerly Fire Hall is located at 300 Newark Avenue Elkton, MD, near the intersection of Routes 213 and 279. From I-95 take Exit# 109 (Rt. 279 Newark, DE/ Elkton, MD) interchange toward Elkton approx. 3 miles on right.
Admission is $3.00 per person ($2.00 with this ad) – children under
12 admitted free of charge. Refreshments will be available by the Singerly Fire Company Ladies Auxiliary. For additional information contact ayersj@zoominternet.net or call 410-398-7735 or
Time:Open for refreshments at 6:30. Speaker program begins at 7:00 pm.
Location: Havre de Grace City Hall, corner of Juniata St. and Pennington Ave.Program: “Locating Historic House Sites within the Boundaries of the Fair Hill Natural Resources Management Area of Cecil County.” by Emily Kilby.
Abstract/Preview: In this presentation, Miss Kilby will present the results of her investigation into the historic ruins to be seen on and around the Fair Hill Natural Resources Management Area. Miss Kilby says, “One of the earliest settled areas in Maryland, a good portion of Cecil County’s Fourth District was part of 7,000 acres of property purchased by William du Pont between 1925 and 1965 to create a cattle breeding and fox hunting estate. Whether by intent or accident, he had reassembled most of New Munster, a land grant made by Lord Baltimore to Edwin O’ Dwire and others in 1683.”
Join us to hear and learn how Miss Kilby’s “…casual curiosity about…a springhouse sitting in the middle of a wooded lot initiated a project that led bit by bit,…to reconstructing the documented history of this forgotten community that thrived for over two centuries.”
Crumbling stone walls in the Fair Hill Natural Resources Management Area
This afternoon at the Historical Society of Cecil County, Emily Kilby talked about mysteries, puzzles, and other wonderments from the past for the monthly winter lecture. In the program, “Reconstructing 100 Ruins,” the retired magazine editor explained how clusters of crumbling stone ruins and other physical surviving evidence from centuries ago got her attention as she strolled the Fair Hill Natural Resources Management Area. Curious about the narrative behind these old artifacts, Emily asked questions, but there were few answers.
The more she wondered about these bygone curiosities, the more convinced Emily became that she needed to look into the matter. So the writer took a systematic, scholarly approach, an in-depth exploration of a previously unstudied subject in a scenic region of Cecil County. Emily spent many weeks pouring over original, largely untapped source materials, such as old pictures, maps, court documents, census registers, and family papers, and these provided original insights, slowly revealing lost histories of abandoned properties within the Fair Hill Natural Resources Management area.
In this lively program attended by 50 people, she talked about the sparks that raised her interest, the chase for evidence from long ago, and the investigative methods that provided the evidence to piece together the puzzle of 100 ruins at Fair Hill. The audience was engaged, and once the formal remarks wrapped up they had plenty of questions for the researcher.
Thank you, Emily Kilby, for an outstanding program.
The winter series takes place on the first Saturday of each month and on February 1, 2014, Syl Woolford will talk about Early Black Methodist on Delmarva.
Emily Kilby using the Cecil County records at the Historical Society.
January 3, 2014 — An overnight snow storm dumped 6.5-inches of snow on Elkton and early this Friday morning the town was beginning to dig out.
Wrights A.M.E. Church on Booth Street in Elkton.A fast Acela has just zipped past the quiet Elkton station, leaving behind a cloud of snow.The doughboy and the Elkton Armory.One of Elkton’s historic buildings, Holly Hall, faces another winter.
The nine seniors that stepped forward and received their diplomas on June 8, 1964 at the George Washington Carver High School were the last class to graduate from the school. On hand helping Principal Charles W. Caldwell and the staff at the commencement were Dr. Percy V. Williams, supervisor of pupil services with the Maryland Department of Education, and Walter J. Finn, assistant superintendent of Cecil County Schools.
Members of the final class were: Edward Eugene Townley, class treasurer; Genevieve Yvonne Jones, class secretary; Bryant Thomas Wilson; Carolyn Ann Clark, Class President; Robert Henry Henson Jr., class vice-president; Barbara Ann Banks; William Sylvester Calm; Dorothy Marie Water; and Robert Marion Owens.
Principal Caldwell also retired that year after serving Cecil County 35 years.
Sources: Cecil Whig and Cecil Democrat
Members of the final class to graduate from George Washington Carver High School received their diplomas on June 8, 1964. There were nine members of the group: Edward Eugene Townley, class treasurer; Genevieve Yvonne Jones, class secretary; Bryant Thomas Wilson; Carolyn Ann Clark, Class President; Robert Henry Henson Jr., class vice-president; Barbara Ann Banks; William Sylvester Calm; Dorothy Marie Water; and Robert Marion Owens.
Principal Charles W. Caldwell retired at the end of the school year.Principal Charles W. Caldwell signs diplomas.
Morris Rannels, Superintendent of Cecil County Schools, 1952-1960
It is always exciting to obtain fresh perspectives and insights on Cecil County’s past, something that is often provided when scholars take a serious, fresh look at our history. These thorough investigations, requiring months of intensive digging into original documents and a critical evaluation of the sources, are valuable as 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.
A Washington College graduate, Kyle Dixon, is one of those researchers bringing a scholar’s fresh eye to an unstudied subject, Cecil County School integration. Seniors at the Eastern Shore college are required to fulfill a senior capstone obligation by conducting a substantial investigation and write a thesis on the subject.
As an American Studies major, he launched a study that sought to piece together the story of the integration of public schools in Cecil County. His Senior Thesis, Standing in the Schoolhouse Door: The Desegregation of Public Schools in Cecil County, Maryland, 1954 – 1965was just approved by the American Studies department and has been added to the Eva M. Muse Library at the Historical Society of Cecil County.
His investigation began at the Historical Society as he reviewed the literature on the subject, read newspapers from the era, and studied old school records. Kyle moved on from that initial survey to visit McDaniel College, which has the papers of Morris Rannels, the county’s superintendent of schools, 1952-1960. He continued the inquiry by examining the record of the Board of Education at the Cecil County Public Schools Carver Leadership Center, visiting the Maryland Archives, and reviewing sources at the Enoch Pratt Library.
After the historic Supreme Court ruling of Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka, which ruled that legally sanctioned racial segregation in the public schools was a violation of the Constitution’s promise of equal protection, officials throughout the United States struggled with implementation of desegregation. In Cecil County that matter was more urgent because the county had a major military base, and the attempted admission of African-American students resulted in an immediate test of federal policies. In the local system racial segregation was the norm, but the military was fully integrated, in accordance with a policy enacted by President Harry Truman and carried on by the Eisenhower’s Secretary of Defense, Charles E. Wilson.
When students headed back to the classroom in September 1954, seven African-American children of navy personnel were denied entry into the Bainbridge Elementary School when they were met at the door by Superintendent Morris Rannels and Principal Mildred Balling. The administrators instructed the youngsters to report to the “Port Deposit Colored School.”
This early incident involving a facility on federal property resulted in a suit against the Cecil County Board of Education in 1954, and started the county on the long-winding, eleven year trip toward racial equality in public schools. The Board of Education, at first, instructed professional and legal staff to resist integration. But as time went on mounting public and judicial pressures, involving the Eisenhower Administration, Department of Navy, the NAACP, the U.S. Attorney General, the press, Maryland Department of Education, and the involved families, increased.
An article on the NAACP’s suit against the Cecil County School in the January 11, 1955, Baltimore Afro-American.
After a federal judge refused to dismiss the civil suit, charging local officials with violating the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the parties agreed to settle the matter out of court, according to the Afro-American. When the school doors opened next year, it was an integrated facility for Navy personnel. Eventually the Board voted to fully integrate one school, Bainbridge Elementary, and slowly begin the process of opening all facilities to African-American students through a plan of optional integration.
Under the “freedom of choice” system, families could request that their children attend another school. In August 1957, five students made history when the Board of Education approved transfer of Diane Elizabeth Hobday and Janie Mae from George Washington Carver High School to Perryville High; Robert Thomas and David Tipton Hobday from “Port Deposit Colored Elementary School” to Bainbridge Elementary; and Marie Dante Sewell from George Washington Carver Elementary to Chesapeake City Elementary. These are the first documented transfers under the optional system.
Another student made history in June 1960. Bernard Purdie graduated from Elkton High, becoming the first African American to receive a diploma from an all-white high school.
But the end of separate, overlapping districts for whites and blacks was near by the mid-1960s. During George Washington Carver High’s 37th commencement exercise on June 8, 1964, nine seniors stepped forward to receive diplomas. The class of 1964 was last the last one to graduate from Carver as the next autumn African-American teenagers attended the nearest high school. The elementary school in the same building continued for one more year.
Cecil County School integration was completed, fully, in 1965. That year, the Board of Education voted to close the last two segregated schools, Levi J. Coppin in Cecilton and Carver Elementary in Elkton. Youngsters formerly attending classes there reported to the nearest facility in their area when the doors opened in the autumn.
Kyle is also a volunteer at the Historical Society of Cecil County, where he serves as the social media editor, looking out for the county’s history beat on Facebook and Twitter.
Kyle Dixon stands in front of the Bishop Levi J. Coppin School, which opened in 1952. It was Built for African-Americans in the Cecilton area. Dr. Thomas G. Pullen, the State Superintendent of Schools, and Mrs. Helen Harris, the principal, spoke at the dedication. It was one of the last two segregated schools in the county before Cecil County School Integration.
The list of schools and teachers for Cecil County in 1921.
Just before Christmas, I paused for a few minutes in the quiet Union Bethel Cemetery in Cecilton. A chilling December breeze gently swept over this old burial ground, and as I gazed at monuments for soldiers, ministers, teachers, mothers, fathers, working people, and children, one particularly caught my attention. It was a regulation tombstone issued to soldiers by the United States Government, and etched permanently into this memorial was the name George Douglass, Co., E., 24th United States Colored Infantry.
I paused for a few moments to remember this man’s service in a long-ago war. While I lingered, nothing in this tranquil spot—noise, automobiles, or people—distracted me as I thought about this young soldier’s era. Curious about the private’s service to the country, I decided I would get some information after Christmas.
Part of the enlistment papers for Private Douglass of the USCT
On February 23, 1865, George Douglass, the 19-year-old from Cecil County, volunteered to enlist in Co. E of the 24th regiment in Philadelphia, PA. After putting his mark, an X, on the muster forms, he was transferred to Camp William Penn. According to the enlistment papers, for serving the nation for one year, he was entitled to a $100 bounty.
Emily Kilby examines colonial era road books at the Historical Society.
As a new year gets underway, the Historical Society of Cecil County’s winter speakers series continues on January 4, 2014, when Emily Kilby talks about “Reconstructing 100 Ruins.”
Several years ago the retired magazine editor’s curiosity was aroused by clusters of crumbling stone ruins and walls in the Fair Hill Nature Resources Management Area. What was their story? Who were the people living here? What sorts of lives did residents of this corner of northeastern Maryland live before the small settlements vanished and the public roads and commercial establishments serving them disappeared. The more she wondered about these historical curiosities the more convinced she became that she needed to look into this matter.
So the writer took a systematic, scholarly approach, an in-depth exploration of a previously unstudied subject in a scenic region of Cecil County. Emily spent many weeks pouring over original, largely untapped sources materials, such as old pictures, maps, court documents, census registers, and family papers, and these provided original insights, revealing the lost histories of abandoned properties within the Fair Hill Natural Resources Management area.
Join Emily Kilby on January 4, at 2:00 p.m. at the Historical Society of Cecil County, 135 E. Main St., in Elkton for this free program that brings Fair Hill’s 19th and early 20th century world black to life. As she presents her findings about home-sites, industries, and families whose traces remain hidden in the park, the writer will also share stories about the conventional and serendipitous research methods she used to discover the histories of some 100 forgotten properties.
The old entrance to the Hydroelectric Plant at the Conowingo Dam is decorated for the holidays.
As the day slipped quickly away and twilight settled on Cecil County on this busy last weekend before Christmas, the lights of the Conowingo Dam flickered to life. In contrast to the frenzied day of last-minute shopping in downtowns and malls, the scene on the Susquehanna was quiet and settled this Saturday evening at this old river crossing. Reflecting from the lake, a colorful array of lights glowed softly in the gathering darkness as people settled in for the longest night of the year. The northwestern crossing from Cecil to Harford counties has always been an important one and earlier bridges made way for the Conowingo Dam, which opened in 1928.
The lights of the Conowingo Dam and passing automobiles softly illuminate the gathering darkness of the longest night of the year.The nearby historical marker for Conowingo.
Port Deposit, Dec. 21, 2013 — Soon after twilight on this weekend before Christmas, the firefighters at Cecil County’s oldest company, Water Witch, had Station 7 sparkling with holiday lights.
