Window on Cecil County's Past

In 1929, President Herbert Hoover’s administration started searching for a location for a summer White House. President Calvin Coolidge had recommended Mount Weather, near Bluemont, Va. But Herbert Hoover wanted an area accessible by both car and the presidential yacht. He also favored a place where good fishing and other outdoor recreation could be enjoyed….

One of the most interesting and architecturally distinctive buildings in Elkton’s old business district was the Cecil Whig Building. It was located at 125 North Street, next to PNC Bank. The newspaper, established on Aug. 7, 1841, by Palmer Ricketts, was originally published out of a log cabin. As the weekly grew, it needed more…

Cecil County once had many thriving villages, most with a cluster of homes, a few shopkeepers and tradesmen, a schoolhouse, a physician, and almost everything one needed for daily life. While most of these places continued into the 21st century as residential communities, they no longer bustle with enterprising activity the way they did in…

On May 25, 2023, WITF’s Scott Lamar visited the Mason-Dixon Line to learn about the history of one of the most famous boundaries in America with historian Mike Dixon. The boundary line between Pennsylvania and Maryland was disputed as early as the 1680s. An English team – Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon – surveyed the…

At the turn of the twentieth century, the blacksmith trade thrived in Cecil County. Smithies, their dark, dingy shops cluttered with tools, were found in every town and many villages where they worked away at forges, shoeing horses, repairing farm implements, and shaping metal. The clang of their hammer striking red-hot metal on an anvil…

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…

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…

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 Columbia and Port Deposit Railroad stretched up the eastern side of the Susquehanna…

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…

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…