Window on Cecil County's Past

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.

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.

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.

ELKTON, Oct. 31, 1965 — On a morning when most people eagerly looked forward to the playfulness and pranks of Halloween, the day got off to a frightening jolt. In the pre-dawn darkness, as a Pennsylvania Railroad Train rumbled through Elkton, 41 of the 118 freight cars derailed at the edge of Hollingsworth Manor. Some were tank cars filled with toxic chemicals and liquid propane.

Suddenly, The Sunday tranquility in the county seat was jarred by the noise of the train wreck, the explosion sending huge flames and dangerous smoke into the sky.

While Elkton Fire Chief Slaughter mobilized his forces and requested aid from as far away as Wilmington and Aberdeen, an enormous explosion sent a towering mushroom-type fireball into the sky.  Soon 100 firefighters were on hand, struggling to contain the spreading flames.

At about 7 a.m. the chief ordered an urgent, mandatory evacuation for parts of western Elkton.  The Sunday morning DJ working the early shift at WSER took to the airwaves, broadcasting the urgent alert as National Guardsmen went door to door to ensure residents departed immediately.

By 1 p.m. Singerly Fire Company had the train wreck under control, but the fires continued to burn throughout the night. A spokesperson from the railroad said, “it was the worst wreck he had seen in the last 20 years because of the location and the danger from the burning cars, which were filled with poisons and liquid petroleum gas.”

For More Information

For additional photos of the 1965 Elkton train wreck, see this album on Facebook.

Singerly Fire Chief Speck Slaughter Commanded Major Incidents

As the Vietnam War escalated in 1965, President Lyndon Baines Johnson more than doubled the number of inductions as the Army needed more young men. To enable local selective service boards to meet this new quota, President Johnson signed an order on Aug. 26, 1965, that modified selective service requirements at midnight.¹

One of the amended regulations made any man getting married after that eligible for the draft on the same basis as a single man. Broadcasters carried the unwelcome news about the loss of the often-used exemption or deferment precisely at 5 pm that evening.²

This set off alarm bells for Baby Boomers as more young men faced the prospect of going to Vietnam or immediately seeking a way to avoid the conscription call. Only a few hours remained to dodge the draft since men between the ages of 19 and 26 who got married later than midnight would be just as liable to the call as single men.

The answer was Elkton’s well-known marriage mill, many thought. So as the clock ticked all too quickly toward midnight on that Thursday night the phone at the Elkton Police Department started ringing incessantly. Within the first hour, the police fielded dozens of local calls and over 25 long-distance calls from anxious young men wanting to come here to get hitched immediately.³

A London paper, The Guardian, picked up on the sudden buzz in the historic, old colonial town. They said, “Those love calls were eventually turned over to the man who runs the fire alarm system at the police station.” They had called the marriage bureau, but the courthouse closed about the time the airwaves carried the newsflash so the only government agency answering the phone at that hour was the police department and the dispatcher at fire headquarters handled those calls for the two officers patrolling the streets.

Not wanting to waste precious time, many more headed hastily toward the county seat in Northeastern Maryland. Also, an hour or two before midnight, a charter plane with a couple aboard landed at Lovett’s Airfield, at the edge of town. No one had told the couple that instant marriages in Maryland had slipped away long before these young people were born, the Sun reported.⁴

“This true story . . . is proof of the power of legend and late moves,” the Baltimore paper editorialized. “The old Elkton marriage mill was modified by a 48-hour waiting law in 1938 and hasn’t been itself since; yet last year 8,000 couples nearly all from out of state got spliced in Elkton, whose name always seems to be popping up on reruns of romantic comedies of the thirties. What one wonders, did these bemused children think of as they took off again? Elkton had turned out to be a fable . . . Trailing clouds of disillusion they set out for more hospitable climes in search of a marriage mill, and arrived, we trust, too late to leap from the frying pan into the fire.”

They didn’t know that a change in Maryland law ended the town’s quickie marriages business years ago or as the London paper remarked, Elkton had “lately been polishing up its image.”

Still, the disillusioned hope to avoid Vietnam. It was only four o’clock in Chicago, three pm in Denver, and two o’clock in California. In Las Vegas, the marriage chapels were besieged with business, other papers noted.

1. U.S. Draft Call Double, United Press International, July 28, 1965[↩]
2. Marrying to Avoid Draft, ABC News, Feb. 1, 2001[↩]
3. Alistar Cooke, “Speedy Matrimony the Better Part of Valor,” The Guardian, Aug. 28, 1965[↩]
4. “Still it calls,” The Baltimore Sun, Aug. 28, 1965[↩]

Elkton was the place for quickie weddings for much of the twentieth century as eloping couples rushed here for hasty ceremonies. The town’s marrying parsons worked overtime to accommodate the trade, performing over 16,000 marriages one year in the 1930s. While officiating day and night, some turned their homes into 24-hour chapels.

This highly profitable nuptial business created a hum and bustle for Elkton as the “honeymoon express” delivered cupid’s hurried business to the Train Station. The license bureau, marrying ministers, cab drivers, runners, and everybody else concerned with assisting cupid worked to please the eloping couples.

This colorful story of the matrimonial business where everything was made easy for those wanting to tie the knot in Elkton is presented in a captivating talk by Historian Mike Dixon at the Cecil County Public Library on Tuesday, October 4, 2022, @ 6 p.m. Click this link to go the library registration form for the program of Elkton weddings.

As part of our occasional series on historic structures in Cecil County, we visited one on Main Street in Elkton, the former Cecil County Public Library Building, which has watched over Main Street for centuries.

The town’s Main Street has a strong cluster of 18th and 19th-century structures and 135 E. Main Street is one of them. The former bank building continues to bustle with activity as the county’s hub for arts and culture.

The building reflects three historic periods of construction, according to the Maryland Historic Trust. It was built in the second quarter of the 19th century to accommodate a bank and cashier’s quarters. The Cecil Whig reported that the building on East Main Street had been constructed by “General James Sewell for, and occupied by a branch of the old Bank of Maryland¹.” The first floor had a large front banking area, with an interior office/meeting room behind the lobby, and a thick masonry vault for safe storage of money and valuables. The upper floor provided residential space for the cashier.

Later in the 19th century, The National Bank of Elkton operated out of here beginning around 1873. The cashier, Charles B. Finley, and his family resided in the living quarters on the second floor. The new owners replaced the gabled roof with a mansard roof and other exterior alterations were made to the rectangular structure.²

The third period of construction occurred in the twentieth century. In 1922 the National Bank of Elkton moved to North Street, after occupying the structure since 1873.

Shortly after that, it became a private home when Henry H. Mitchell acquired it in 1925. The long-term mayor of the town resided in the home until his death in 1955. During Mayor Mitchell’s ownership, the southeast porch was enclosed and a decorative stone wall was constructed along the front sidewalk.

The Friends of the Library of Cecil County purchased it from the Mitchell estate so it could serve as the library headquarters following the mayor’s death. Ernest A. Howard, a benefactor of the Historical Society, made a significant donation to the Friends so they could acquire the building and he stipulated that the owner had to provide a home to the Historical Society.³

Four years after that, a two-story wing was constructed on the north and west sides of the building through the generosity of Mr. Howard. The Library made several significant changes and when the library relocated to Newark Avenue around 1987 the space was turned over to nonprofits.

Today 135 E. Main Street serves as the hub for arts and culture in Cecil County. The Historical Society, Arts Council, and Land Trust are headquartered here.

For additional photos of 135 E. Main Street, see this album on Facebook.

1. Cecil Whig, Sept. 3, 1892[↩]
2. Maryland Historical Trust, Historic Inventory Report. 135 E. Main Street, Elkton
   https\://mht.maryland.gov/secure/medusa/PDF/Cecil/CE-1355.pdf[↩]
3. Parts of Elkton in 1918 as I Remember It by F. Rodney Frazer, published in 1989 by the Historical Society[↩]

As George Reynolds prepares to turn 100 years old in September 2022, he discussed growing up in Cecil County on a farm, his life, and the passage of the twentieth century in this interview/ Before World War II he worked on the Broadland Farm for Hoagland Gates. The interview took place on March 31, 2022. This is part one of a two-part series.

As automobile travel became common in the first half of the twentieth century, Sandy A. Tamargo, the owner of Sandy’s Shows, a traveling circus, opened a permanent roadside tourist attraction on Route 7 between Elkton and North East. Known as the Philadelphia Road, it was designated Route 40 before the dual highway opened before World War II.

For years, the family — Sandy, along with brothers Lawrence and Jake – traveled the East Coast, bringing thrills and entertainment to towns. But Sandy and Jake gave up the demanding life of a traveling showman just before the Great Depression, according to Billboard Magazine.

Sandy opened Circus Park in the early 1930s — it quickly became a popular tourist stop for motorists cruising along Philadelphia Road. Circus animals, performing acts, and a popular restaurant, tavern, and dance hall had just about everything a tourist attraction needed. Plus, Sandy offered boxing matches that pulled in large crowds.

To entice more customers, he added an attraction in 1936, an Indian village. The “Elk River Reservation” offered daily ceremonial and lifestyle programs, including native musicians, age-old warrior songs, tribal dancing, archery contests, and “other things to enthrall the visitor whether he be a child or adult,” reported The Cecil County Star that year.

As his plan to deliver “the Wild West’s most mysterious and captivating element – full-blooded American Indians – to the East Coast” moved along, newspapermen kept eager readers informed of the progress on the “building of authentic wigwams and teepees.” Tamargo reported that his village would only house “full-blooded American Indians.” By July 1936, an Elkton newspaper reported that thousands had visited Circus Park.

A few months after it opened, local papers remarked that Alfred Tamargo, the owner’s son, had been appointed the “superintendent of the reservation, succeeding Col. Rex. M. Ingham, who had been called back to Washington by the Indian Affairs Department.

The paper noted that Mr. Tamargo will reside in a cabin within the reservation and will see that the Indians are well cared for in their new home. The Native American performers were brought to the area from reservations in Minnesota, but by June 1940, there was only one resident for the season, Princess Lone Star.

These roadside attractions were common on America’s highways before World War II, but they soon fell victim to World War II and changing American interests in the 1950s. Cecil County’s unique roadside attractions, the Elk River Indian Reservation and Circus Park, closed in the early 1940s.

For more photos, see this album —Circus Park, a Roadside Attraction near North East, on Facebook.

John F. (Jack) Johnson was one of North East’s longest-serving mayors, leading the small municipality through most of the 1970s. He managed a frugal, cost-efficient operation — An old 1871 lock up served as his town hall, police station and library.

When the Cecil Whig once remarked that the town didn’t have a budget (Oct. 28, 1970), the feisty, outspoken mayor said: “Whenever we need to fix something or build something new to improve the town, we always have the money.” Recently a flagpole went up on North Main Street to greet the public, he added.

Under Johnson, the town had two full-time policemen, Roy Wilson, the chief, and Leroy Biggers patrolman (1970), a town secretary, and a maintenance worker.

One of his special interests was the town waterworks so in addition to being mayor he also served as the town water commissioner and did much of the work himself. When talking about the work he was capable of doing in order to maintain the system, he remarked: “most engineers bother me.” He had learned to be an expert mechanic from his father, on-the-job training, and his keen insight into mechanical matters.

When the county became interested in the town’s water plant because officials wanted to establish a countywide system, things often got heated. “I’d dynamite that (filtration plant) before I’d let them f!$%? have it,” Johnson told the Evening Journal (April 5, 1972). “I believe you would,” an acquaintance of Johnson’s put in, only half in jest.”`

The voters returned him to the office for 6 terms starting in 1965. But after twelve years in office, the people decided it was time for a change in 1977, and Bill Ball was elected to lead the municipality.

For Additional photos of North East Under Mayor Jack Johnson see this album on Facebook

Mayor Jack Johnson of North East (Source: Cecil Whig, Sept. 22, 1976)

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After sadly hearing that Daniel H. “Skip” Mahan, Jr.  76, passed away on August 17, 2022, we reflected on some of the public safety leader’s accomplishments.  Throughout his adult life, as a deputy sheriff, state trooper, police chief, firefighter, and emergency manager, Skip served the community on the frontline. Along the way, he marked several firsts, modernizing agencies and establishing new initiatives. 

As a teen, his career started with the Delaware fire service, and that was followed by a tour of duty in the Marine Corps.  But as soon as his military obligations were completed, he joined the ranks at the Cecil County Sheriff’s Office.  Then in 1968, the 20-something enlisted with the Maryland State Police.  On the state force, his responsibilities grew and as a corporal, he commanded the newly established resident trooper program. 

This was when the sheriff’s office was stretched thin so the county commissioners established the program in 1976, contracting with the state to provide 4-troopers to supplement county police patrols. The State Police selected Corporal Mahan to establish the patrol and supervise the force, which eventually grew to 10 troopers. 

In 1980, the first director of Civil Defense, John J. Ward, Jr. retired after serving as the local official responsible for planning for a nuclear attack for 29 years.  Mr. Ward established the office in 1950, but after overseeing the county’s response to the Cuban MIssile Crisis, Three Mile Island, and much more, the 80-year-old retired in October 1979.  Following a search for the agency’s second governor-appointed leader, the county commissioners recommended Skip, and Governor Hughes appointed him to the post.   

It was at a time when civil defense across the nation was undergoing many changes – shifting away from a sole focus on programs designed to reduce civilian deaths from a nuclear attack. Skip assumed leadership of an agency that had an 8-person communications staff to handle emergency calls and a secretary to assist the director. Other staff members were volunteers. But Three Mile Island and the changing nature of risks placed a greater emphasis on natural disasters, chemical emergencies, and transportation accidents.

The News Journal picked up on that theme as Mahan worked to bring emergency management into a new era. when a reporter wrote: 

If someone asked Daniel H. Skip Mahan to describe in a word what has been happening with Cecil County Civil Defense since he became its director a month ago, he probably would say change.  The Civil Defense office in the basement of the county courthouse just isn’t what it used to be.  Gone is John. J. Ward, Jr. the county’s first civil defense director, who served from the office’s creation in 1950 until his retirement in June at the age of 80.  . . . Gone are old civil defense emergency plans, currently being reviewed and updated.  All have been replaced in the new Mahan Civil defense office, the agency that coordinates response to county emergencies.

Following Skip’s 1985 resignation from the agency that became Cecil County Emergency Services, he held several other public safety leadership posts including the Director of the Cecil County Detention Center.  From 2000 to 2003, he was the Elkton Police Chief.  Later, he held positions with state emergency services and the National Guard.

Throughout Daniel H “Skip” Mahan, Jr’s productive life, he continued serving in the volunteer fire service. He was past president of the North East Fire Company, and an officer with the Perryville Fire Company, all while also holding leadership positions with the Maryland State Firemen’s Association . 

Skip contributed to greatly modernizing public safety in Cecil County and he will be missed.