The Philadelphia Afro-American newspaper (Reginal F. Lewis Museum)
Independent African American newspapers have traditionally been important information outlets for the Black community. As people lived under the oppression of Jim Crow, fought for equality, and sought unbiased reporting, these enterprises printed news and opinions that mainstream media ignored or slanted.
Maryland readers had the Afro-American and the Afro-American Ledger, both Baltimore papers telling stories from their subscribers’ perspectives. Correspondents filled their pages with uplifting coverage of social happenings and events while the editors campaigned against the issues of the age. The editions contained news that readers couldn’t find in the mainstream press.–and contributing writers from Cecil County penned columns for the city publications.
In 1903, a new minister in Elkton, the Rev. Joseph Gwynn, arrived in Elkton to serve the Elkton A.U.M.P. Church. Rev Gwynn decided Cecil County needed an African American newspaper to serve the “interest of the colored people of Elkton.” As a result, he launched and edited a weekly, “The Problem.”
The first number appeared in homes in Cecil County at the start of January 1903. While copies have not survived the passage of over a century. Hopefully, someone will discover an issue of this African American newspaper in an attic someday.
The minister was born in Baltimore on May 27, 1872, and died on June 18, 1958.
ELKTON — May 5, 2023 — As the weather cleared after a series of rainy days, a crowd gathered on this enjoyable spring evening in front of Rev. Duke’s Log House. They assembled for a celebration–the Historical Society of Cecil County’s rededication of the reverend’s old home and to dedicate a bench that recognized the Stanley family.
The Rev. Duke Log House awaits the formal rededication on May 5, 2023
Built about 1800, the house, a witness to the passing of centuries, needed critical structural work. So the Society hired Joe Wey of Wey Timberframes to dismantle the frame, save elements when possible, and rebuild the house. As a result, this old relic will survive for many more generations. The Society marked the occasion with this rededication.
The original structure stood on Bow Street until 1970. But as demolition was planned when Union Hospital expanded, the Society acted to save the Reverend Duke Log House–a contractor hauled it across town to a lot behind the Historical Society on E. Main St.
During the program, Bert Jicha, a Methodist minister stationed in Crisfield, appeared as Reverend Duke. Performing the role of Duke, he engaged the crowd of about 70 people with a lively talk.
The heritage group also dedicated a bench to the Stanley family, long-time community leaders, and volunteers at the Society. Former Mayor John Stanley served as the president of the Society when the home of the Society saved it from the wrecking ball in 1970. His son Phil, who passed away in 2022, worked on the structure as a volunteer to prepare it for stabilization in 1970. Debbie had served the Society as a trustee and treasurer for many decades.
Bald Friar, a hamlet at the edge of the Susquehanna River a few miles north of Conowingo, had a ferry that allowed colonial travelers to cross the waterway. In 1877, it was connected to the larger world by the railroad’s arrival.
The Bald Friar Railroad Sation (Source: Southern Lancaster County Historical Society)
The Columbia and Port Deposit Railroad stretched up the eastern side of the Susquehanna River, serving villages on the river’s edge. One of those hamlets, Bald Friar, was merely a flag stop–you had to signal the train if you wanted to climb onboard. In 1916, four passenger trains a day stopped if flagged. This Columbia and Port Deposit Railroad station passed out of existence when the contractor finished the Conowingo Dam. As water filled Conowingo Lake, it washed over settlements at the river’s edge. By 1928 Bald Friar was no longer listed on the railroad timetable.
In a few more years, the railroad completely discontinued local passenger service on this road. As for the six people posing for the picture, their identity has been lost to the passage of time.
The Southern Lancaster County Historical Society is located south of Quarryville on Route 222. The society has strong resources for those studying and researching Southern Lancaster County and nearby areas, such as the hamlets just over the state line in northwestern Cecil County. They also have wonderful, eager volunteers helping curious people dig into the past. Their website is www.southernlancasterhistory.org.
We have found some previously untapped local information by doing research there. You may want to check them out, too, as they also have informative public programming and work hard to open up access to the past.
A 1916 timetable for the Columbia and Port Deposit Railroad shows Bald Friar as a flag stop (personal collection)
During the canal era at the top of the 19th century, the little river town of Conowingo prospered, but after the canal closed, the place declined. In this period, some 40 or 50 years earlier, it had done brisk business, and several sawmills were at work, the Cecil Whig reported in 1870. But these memories were fading.
However, in the summer of 1870, the people looked forward to the arrival of the Columbia and Port Deposit Railroad to revive things. The Midland Journal reported that the workmen were within sight of the village by July. The company had selected a location for a station in town, and this coupled with the bridge crossing the Susquehanna River, would cause things to pick up it was suggested
A postcard of the old Conowingo Railroad Station, circa 1912 (personal collection)
The railroad soon arrived in the village and, by 1877, connected places along the river from Columbia, PA, to Port Deposit. Conowingo became a bustling station on the line up the east side of the Susquehanna River.
By 1925, with talk about the hydroelectric plant growing, the village had become famous because of the impending construction project, newspapers suggested. It had “thirty or forty old structures, stores, and dwellings on the east bank of the river, stretching along the Baltimore pike about three miles below the Mason Dixon Line,” the Cecil Democrat remarked.
Soon the railroad, which had given the isolated place an outlet to the world, would disappear under the water of Conowingo Lake. Somewhere between one- to two thousand men were working on relocating track to higher ground. In connection with the construction of the elevated railroad, it was necessary to build “a viaduct over the Octoraro Creek, three-fourths of a mile long.” several new concrete bridges and dig tunnels through solid rock.
Seven new passenger stations were also constructed to replace the old ones.
The new Columbia and Port Deposit Railroad opened on Sunday, October 8, 1927, at 8:01 a.m., the Havre de Grace Republican noted. It was fifty or more feet higher, stretching approximately 15 miles from Port Deposit to Peach Bottom. In January 1928, the Midland Journal pointed out that Conowingo, as a railroad stop, would pass out of existence on January 31, “after which date the station at the end of the bridge over the crest of the new dam on in the Cecil County side, will be known as Cromley’s Mountain.
Somehow that new name didn’t stick despite the company’s declaration for later timetables listed the depot at the east end of the dam as Conowingo. The old town and its station were gone, covered by water impounded behind the dam.
CHESAPEAKE CITY — Feb. 26, 2022 — As the Russian invasion of Ukraine enters its fourth day, we stopped by a hilltop south of Chesapeake City as the fading light of this final Saturday in February gave way to evening.
This is an area where the Ukrainian community in northeastern Maryland had its beginnings so as Americans join in solidarity, worrying about the safety of people in Europe as the conflict escalates, we paused here for a few moments to reflect on the unsettling news for the Ukrainian community and the world. It had hit too close to family and friends of many in the Chesapeake City area.
St. Basil’s Ukrainian Church in Chesapeake City on Feb. 26, 2022
These industrious, hard-working people established their homes in northeastern Maryland on the field, woods, and farmland alongside the C & D Canal and imported their traditions to the community. This strong culture and heritage remain in this corner of the State today.
Around 1911, Bishop Soter Stephen Ortynsky of Philadelphia announced plans for a convent and orphanage at Chesapeake City and purchased 700 acres of land to encourage settlement of emigrants from Ukraine, according to “Ukrainians in Maryland.”
As the population grew, religious services were held in homes, but on Aug. 26, 1918, Paul Wasylczuk donated land for the church. With Rev. Basil Petriwsky in charge, “the carpenters, Alex Korchak, John Hrabec, Michael Breza, and Alex Hotra, assisted by every available parish hand,” erected the church, the place of worship opening about 1920. For years, priests visited from other parishes, but in 1930 Father Stephan Chehansky was appointed to reside in the parish.
In addition to working their parcels, many men worked for the Corps of Engineers on the C&D Canal expansion in the 1920s.
St. Basil’s Ukrainian Catholic Church continues to serve as the spiritual and cultural center for the Ukrainian community in this area today.
“St. Basil’s Parish has furnished two priests and two sisters to the Ukrainian Catholic Church: Bishop Basil Losten, Rev. Stephen Hotra, Sister Barnarda (Anna Arkatin) and Sister Tharcillia (Sophie Arkatin)
Sources:
Historical information from the Ukrainians of Maryland by Stephen Basarab, Paul Fenchak, Wolodmyr C. Sushko (1986)
Ukrainians of Greater Philadelphia by Alexander Lushnycky, Ph.D. (2007)
When Cecil County appointed a female peace officer in 1961, she became the first woman to perform police duties here. This commission prompted attention from the regional press, and after the county clerk swore in Odette “Skip” Scrivanich, a Baltimore reporter in search of a story, came looking for the “lady constable.”
The newspaperman asked at the courthouse where he could find her and a county commissioner said, “She’s down at Red Point, but don’t fool with her. She’s tough.” When the man visited Red Point Beach, the clerk at the general store informed him that the constable was teaching physical education in Baltimore at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland. Returning to Baltimore, he finally caught up with her at the college gymnasium.
Cecil County Constable Odetta Scrivanich
After telling the journalist that she had been a physical education instructor at various high schools in Baltimore before coming to Notre Dame, she remarked that there ought to be more teachers who are police officers and more police officers who are teachers. “You have a tone that’s medium firm. Then there’s a full stare, a one-half stare, or a glance, all techniques in maintaining discipline,” she explained. “A police officer can use them successfully.”
When the law enforcement officer was on her beat, Red Point, she was at “the beck and call of everybody all the time,” she explained. I’m called out at 3 o’clock in the morning to stop a fight between campers, quite a beach party, or take care of people who are drunk and disorderly. She said of teenage rumbles: “If I can get rid of the adults and the big brave men who think they can take care of things, then I’m all right. I can’t depend on belligerence and strength. I try to talk the adults into running along. Then I talk to the boys, and it usually works.”
Of course, the calls happened at night when she was trying to sleep, Skip observed. “Once, I was called out to find a prowler some ladies said was about. In the dark of night, I faced a woods, made a clickity-clack with my revolver, and shouted, ” Come out with your hands up. No one came out.”
Constable Servinanich said that if she ever had to shoot, she’d use her rifle as she had pinpoint accuracy. She reported that she had won several championships on the Penn State Rifle Team. “I keep building a reputation by practicing at galleries and carnivals. I let everybody know I’m still in practice.”
“Once, a boat almost ran down some people. I started spreading the word around that if that guy came back, I’d shoot a hole in him where it would do the best. I took the rifle down to the beach and stood in front of everybody. Word spreads fast. He didn’t come back.”
She emphasized that she had never had to use her revolver or rifle and very little of her judo, which she learned from an ex-marine at Johns Hopkins University.
At Red Point, she mostly had vacationers, which she summed up this way: “When people go on vacation, they’re out to have a ball and leave their common sense at home.
Constables
For much of the 20th century, constables augmented the Cecil County Sheriff’s Office. The sheriff in Elkton had three or four deputies in 1960 to run the jail 24 hours a day, provide court security, serve warrants, and answer police calls. Thus constables were appointed in various places throughout the county to provide a local police presence and take care of law enforcement matters in their local area. In the 19th century, the system had been much stronger–each election district had constables appointed to serve that area. But that more formal system when the constables did much of the policing work in the outlying areas was starting to fade in the 1960s. Constables were official law enforcement officers and had policing powers, having been appointed to maintain peace and order. Skip was the law at Red Point Beach.
Source: The Constable is a Woman and an Expert with the Rifle, Evening Sun, May 24, 1961
Rusty Brandon, night house supervisor at Union Hospital (Source: Rusty)
Rusty Brandon managed the overnight shift at Union Hospital for forty-five years. Her all-night routine started in 1953 when she assumed responsibility for supervising healthcare services for the Elkton Hospital on the late shift.
Arriving a little before the 11 pm staff clocked in, Rusty received a report from the evening supervisor. Then she made phone calls to fill staffing shortages, examined patient charts, and checked for special instructions from the administrator and director of nursing—all things to be taken care of immediately as those long nights got underway.
After Nurse Brandon finished the preliminaries, she made rounds to ensure that exterior doors were locked and visited nurses’ stations to confer on any medical issues that might come.
Babies and emergencies came at all hours of the day and night. So as the lone house supervisor, she covered unstaffed units such as labor and delivery and the operating room. If something came up, she was more or less on her own. Also, all admissions went through Rusty.
By 11 pm in those early decades, clinical specialties and support services—radiology, lab, and housekeeping—clocked out before midnight. While struggling with all these duties, the work was often interrupted if someone buzzed to get in at the loading dock, as Rusty was the only circulating person in the facility.
On these minute-by-minute shifts, nothing was routine, as the house nurse also provided coverage in the “accident ward.” Every so often in the wee hours of the night, the buzzer at the locked emergency entrance chimed as someone needed urgent medical help. The ringing heard throughout the hushed hospital sent Nurse Brandon rushing to the first floor to let in a suffering person. Then, she got to work as an emergency room nurse since the staff member for this unit clocked out at 11 pm.
Also serving as the Elkton ambulance dispatcher, she answered the phone when someone needed emergency transport. While passing through silent corridors to monitor operations, the emergency phone occasionally rang, the jarring jingle interrupting the pre-dawn calm that had settled over the hospital.
After getting the address and finding out about the urgent situation, Rusty glanced at a Singerly Fire Company duty roster. This list provided the names of the Singerly volunteers on call for that month, first responders such as Jack Jamison, Speck Slaughter, and Henry Schaffer.
After Rusty dialed the crew, Singerly took it from there, so she returned to the floors. That was until the first responders radioed in to say that the ambulance would arrive in a few minutes.
That message caused Rusty to rush down and unlock the accident ward to receive the incoming patient. Once the sick or injured person arrived, she triaged the patient, deciding if the case needed a doctor immediately. The 1947 University of Maryland School of Nursing graduate handled care until doctors arrived for morning rounds. If the patient required a physician immediately, she called the on-duty practitioner at home and waited while she cared for the serious cases.
After providing emergency care, it was back to making rounds or running to do this or that—perhaps a delivery person was at the loading dock. Or Dr. Hsu arrived early and was at the main entrance waiting to get in. Doors had to be locked and unlocked, and in the years before, there was a security guard, she doubled in that role.
Finally, with the first light of day, it was time to get the morning report ready and hand the multifaceted job over to a cluster of people as they clocked in: charge nurses, supervisors, administrators, medical technicians, operating room staff, central supply personnel, custodians, and clerks.
Nothing was routine on those lonely overnight tours—the needs changed hour by hour, and Rusty handled whatever happened. And she was on her own, waiting for the dawn and that cadre of dayshift supervisory and operational staff.
After forty-five years in this responsible and demanding job of taking care of the healthcare of Cecil Countians during the overnight hours at Union Hospital, Rusty finished the final stint in 1998. A lot had changed since the young nurse, a few years out of school, began her career: doctors and nurses staffed specialty departments around the clock; helicopters rushed trauma patients to shock trauma; and security guards and support staff relieved the night supervisor of those chores.
Although technology, pharmacology, specialization, and Union Hospital changed, there was one reassuring, consistent element to inpatient care in Cecil County. It was Nurse Brandon. Over a career that spanned five decades, Rusty Brandon had worked under four directors of nursing and became a fixture in Union Hospital and Cecil County. The variety of tasks the nursing supervisor had to master was enormous in those early decades.
In November 1906, the Oblate Fathers of St. Francis de Sales announced that the religious order had purchased the Edward Taylor Farm at Childs for $9,000. Formerly the Dunott farm, it comprised about 210 acres.1
A 1910 postcard of Soyhieres Hill, Childs. This Oblates’ Novitiate opened in 1907
Plans for the seminary called for the construction of substantial buildings devoted to religious instruction, the Midland Journal reported. The first building was to be a three-story, brick or concrete structure, including a chapel, living room, dining room, dormitories, and other necessary quarters to accommodate about 40 students.
The project was the outcome of efforts by the Rev. Peter P. Arnd of the Immaculate Conception Church in Elkton.
On June 8, 1907, the Cecil Whig reported that about fifty students and professors from “The College of Oblate Fathers, Wilmington” visited their new home on the seminary farm at Childs Station. They would take up quarters here permanently on the 20th of June 1907 2
The Rt. Rev. John J. Monaghan dedicated the “Novitiate of the Oblate Fathers of St. Francis de Sales on Oct 6, 1907. 3
A woman stands on Milestone 15 on the Mason-Dixon Line. It is just east of Goat Hill. (Paul Hoffman Photo, in the collection of the Maryland Center for History & Culture)
More than a century and a half after Mason and Dixon drew the boundary line separating Pennsylvania and Maryland, the question about the location of the border got entangled in a federal prohibition case. The wrangling started after Deputy Sheriff Joseph Short and Federal Dry Agent John M. Spicer raided a moonshine plant near Goat Hill northwest of Rising Sun in October 1928.1
The British surveyors had settled the dispute for the Penn and Calvert families in 1768. Nonetheless, in the roaring ‘20s, the uncertainty of whether Archie Akers produced rum north or south of the state line vexed officials.
The raiding officers charged Akers with manufacturing alcohol, a violation of the federal Volstead Act. However, when he appeared in court in Baltimore, legal wrangling arose over the timeworn geographical question. Did the alleged crime happen in Pennsylvania or Maryland? Who had jurisdiction?2
Those were the legal uncertainties that puzzled the court. Akers was unsure, the Baltimore Sun noted. He knew he resided in Cecil County because he paid taxes there, “But there was the tradition that the line ran close to his domicile,” Akers testified. But how close was not certain.3
As lawyers and the judge mulled over frustrating legalities, they hit upon a solution—order the U.S. Government to resurvey that part of the line. That would settle the controversy, making it plain which court had jurisdiction.
When the men re-ran the line south of Goat Hill for the court, “Pennsylvania won—or lost—by a margin of a couple of hundred yards,” the survey showed. Moreover, this “disclosed that a certain deputy sheriff of Maryland transgressed his jurisdiction when he aided prohibition officers in entrapping the man,” the Sun .wrote.
While taking precise measurements, the men noticed an old British quarried stone, Milestone No. 16, one of the originals placed by Mason and Dixon in 1766. It was in an isolated hilly area north of Ridge Road, at the south edge of the 440-foot high Goat Hill, a summit in Chester County that descends into Maryland.4,5
Having settled the peculiar legal dispute, officials transferred the case to the Philadelphia District of the Federal Court, according to William Childs Purnell, assistant United States District Attorney. If the shooting affray had not complicated the case against Akers, he could have tried it in Maryland as the federal Volstead act permitted presentments in any jurisdiction, he explained.
But when Akers held the raiding officers at bay for some time with his repeating rifle, that complicated the prohibition case as both incidents occurred entirely on the Pennsylvania side, the redrawing of the line showed.
Goat Hill is shown on the U.S. Geographical Survey Topo Map (2019)
CHARLESTOWN – NOV. 25, 2022 – Friday, as a rainy, gray morning gave way to the warming sunshine of a late autumn day, they laid Robert (Bob) Earl Phillips to rest at St. John’s United Methodist Church Cemetery, where family, friends, town leaders, and the fire company gathered to bid farewell. Born on March 6, 1922, when Warren G. Harding was president, the popular 100-year-old civic leader passed away on November 21, 1922.
Growing up in Mechanics Valley, he attended high school in North East where he met Rebecca E. Cooper. After they married in 1943, the couple made their home in Charlestown. Bob Touched many lives as he and his wife, Rebecca, who passed away in 2018, embraced various causes and interests.
In 2016, Bob Phillips sits on a bench the town installed to recognize his contributions to the community.
Fire Company Founding Member
After flames damaged two houses in January 1948, he helped establish the Charlestown Fire Company. Engines from North East and Perryville had to travel a distance to answer the alarms, so the community wanted first responders stationed in the town.
Back in 2014, we interviewed Bob Phillips and Pete Williams, another charter member, about these challenges for the Volunteer Trumpet, the newsletter of the Maryland State Firemen’s Association. They recalled that volunteers turned out to erect a single bay station and raise money to start the company. Bob was a master craftsman, so his practical skills were used as carpenters, masons, concrete finishers, and electricians purchased the materials, laid the foundation, put up the walls, and finished the interior of Station 5.
Building the Charlestown Firehouse in 1948 (Photo Credit: Charlestown Fire Company)
The firefighters purchased a second-hand engine, a chain-driven 1927 Mack, from the Brooklyn Fire Department (MD). The Kennedyville Fire Company now owns it. In those early years, Elizabeth McMullen took emergency phone calls at her home as a radio network hadn’t been established, they recalled. At all hours of the day and night, if an emergency call came in, she answered the phone and ran to the station to ring the alarm. Throughout his life, Bob maintained his membership in the Charlestown Fire Company and was one of the last surviving charter members.
Community Leader
The centenarian was also active in the town’s government and about every other aspect of civic life. Besides serving as President of the Board of Commissioners for several years in the 1950s, he held posts on the election board, historic preservation district, and many other committees. The couple worshiped at St. John’s United Methodist Church, where Bob served on the Board of Trustees. He was a life member of Masonic Lodge 48, the Historical Society of Cecil County, Colonial Charlestown, and many other groups.
Toward the end of the funeral service, The Rev. Mary Brown asked mourners if anyone wanted to offer a few reflections. Former Town Commission President Steven Vandervort stepped forward. He noted that whenever he faced a vexing problem, the path forward being unclear, he talked with the former elected leader. Mr. Phillips helped him clarify the options and solutions as Bob would say, oh, this is how we handled it years ago. His advice was helpful as Bob, one of the town’s strongest advocates, was a positive, practical, solution-oriented mentor who understood the backstory of the challenges the municipality faced.
Internment was with fire department honors at the Charlestown Cemetery.
On this day, our thoughts turned to the delightful afternoons when we spent an hour or two in Charlestown talking about the community and the town’s past. Bob Phillips and Becky were wonderful people. Every community should have a Becky and Bob. They had the best interest of Charlestown and Cecil County in mind in everything they did. They cared deeply for the community, and their contributions will be remembered.
For additional photos of our visits with Bob and Becky, click this link.
