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George Reynolds Honored For Digging the Past

George Reynolds
George Reynolds addresses the Historical Society.

At the 81st annual meeting of the Historical Society of Cecil County, a packed house was on hand as Cecil’s heritage keepers presented George Reynolds with the Ernest A. Howard Award. This prestigious honor is given to individuals who have made a significant contribution to the preservation of the county’s historic resources and have faced huge challenges in trying to protect the built environment, preserve folkways, or save scarce relics.

Soon after George returned home from Navy duty in the Pacific during World War II, he became interested in regional Indian culture and archeology. That curiosity soon turned into a lifetime pursuit involving 60 years of extensive fact-finding, searching for artifacts that showed how people lived in the past.  In the coming decade, the young combat veteran helped organize the Archaeological Society of Maryland and start the first local chapter.

When the state began talking about building an expressway across northeastern Maryland in the early 1960s, the proposal alarmed George. It wasn’t that he was against moving ahead, as he has always been a forward-looking person. He worried that once construction on the massive highway got underway, the big earth-moving machines, cutting a 300-foot wide path across Harford and Cecil counties, would destroy all evidence of prehistoric civilizations buried in the soil long before the European contact period.

So the Northeastern Chapter of the Archaeological Society of Maryland, led by George, set out to ensure the corridor was documented before progress obliterated all traces of earlier inhabitants.  This involved building support with transportation planners, state officials, politicians, and residents, as well as raising money to support the project. George was successful, for he raised $500 from private sources, and with the help of a matching $500 grant from the governor, the group hired a Temple University professor to help them investigate the route.

This experience pointed out the need for the state to have an archaeologist. “We started a fight for a Maryland position,” George remarked. “It took two years of working with our delegates and senators, but we succeeded.” Tyler Bastain became Maryland’s first state archaeologist in 1964, as George served in leadership positions with the Archaeological Society of Maryland

There were plenty of other advocacy projects as his work was just beginning. In 1976, he helped organize the Elk Creek Preservation Society and was its president for the first ten years. The preservationist was involved similarly when the Cecil Historical Trust was formed and worked on the most current book on county history, “The Head of the Bay.”

The World War II sailor remarked on his strong passion for the past. “I went into Hiroshima, where they dropped the Atomic Bomb. We were riding on a Japanese truck as the ground was too radioactive to walk. The things I saw on that first observation round by the U.S. Navy were so unsettling. . . . I was uncertain about what the future held for the world, so I immersed myself in studying the past.”

George’s interest never diminished. Over the decades, he’s been involved in all of the major digs in the county, including the one at Elk Landing when the county detention center was being built. A Native-American burial site was discovered there. He has helped reveal much of what had been lost to centuries of time by being an advocate for archaeology and history in Cecil County. He also worked on the frontline, out there digging and studying the secrets of the soil.

The award is named after Ernest A. Howard, who was especially instrumental in helping build the strong Historical Society of 1,000 members, which serves the county today. Born in Childs in 1885, this organization’s benefactor was deeply involved in the successful revival of the nonprofit in the 1950s. He worked tirelessly to preserve local heritage and restored several old churches and buildings. In 1955, he was a central figure in establishing a modern headquarters for the Cecil County library and donated a wing to the library to provide a home for the Historical Society. Howard passed away in 1973.

George Reynolds, the energetic 90-year-old, becomes the fourth recipient of this honor.

David Healey awards george reynolds
Society President David Healey presents award to George Reynolds
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Observance at North East United Methodist Church to remember devastating blaze from a century ago

The North East United Methodist Church was destroyed by a massive fire in May of 1911, the blaze threatening to engulf the entire town.  In the middle of the night, the pastor was awakened by crackling and a glow and when he looked out his window he noticed flames spreading through a nearby dwelling.

North East faced a terrorizing sight that night over a hundred years ago as swiftly spreading flames hoped from structure to structure.  Soon the largest building in North East, the church, was in flames as residents tried to stand their ground.  Buckets in hand, feeling the hot flames of the fire consuming the doomed structures, they flung pail after pail of water onto  the inferno while the mayor telegraphed to nearby towns with fire departments, urgently asking for help.

This coming weekend (Nov. 16 – 18), the church is hosting a number of activities that recall this difficult time in the congregation’s history.  There will be activities stretching over the entire weekend, with things getting underway Friday evening as the Historical Society helps with part of the observance.   At 6:00 p.m. the church will host a homemade soup supper with bread and desert and at 7:00 p.m. historian Mike Dixon will present a program about the 1911 fire and its impact on the community.    Sunday will be a day for special services.

Church officials are inviting the public, and especially past members, to join events over the weekend.

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Bullfrog, A Lost Cecil County Village

In several areas of the county, there are places that were once thriving little hamlets but are now barely wide spots in the road.  They might have a house or two, or perhaps a business to distract the modern traveler, while in their heyday they thrived.   Once their reason for prosperity vanished, the passage of time slowly eroded away traces of the community.  The story of a vibrant past was lost to the ages as memories faded and a new generation came on.

One of those spots, Bullfrog, is about midway between Elkton and Chesapeake City.  When the New Castle and Frenchtown Railroad passed through, it boomed.  The name came about during the building of the railroad, according to the Cecil Democrat.   “Probably a jolly Irishman, one of the workmen, noticing the great number of frogs that sported in the suburbs and the almost human cry of ‘more rum!’ announced to his comrades that the village thereafter should be known as the Bull Frog,” the paper speculated.  Farmers, workers, and others for miles around were well supplied by a store, wheelwright, weaver, blacksmith, and cobbler.  Workmen were always employed and there were six or eight dwellings.

Bullfrog Declines

Most of the buildings were in decay, except the home of ex-sheriff Denney, and the town was about to disappear by 1879, the Democrat added. Another paper, the Cecil Whig, remarked that “the frog began to hop away about the close of the [Civil] war.”  First, one establishment closed up and then another; family after the family moved and the buildings began to disappear.

“The smith’s anvil became silent, and the merry tap of the cobbler’s hammer ceased.  The large storehouse began to crumble and fall away . . . and a silence like death now broods over the once busy scene.  … The frog indeed has hoped away,” the Whig added in 1881.

“If the spirits of some of the old heroes, who a generation ago gathered at the store to see the locomotive of the New Castle and Frenchtown Railroad go by and drink corn whiskey, eat gingerbread, and flight chickens before going home could awaken and gaze at the present desolation of this once lively spot, they would turn from the scene with sorrow and return to their graves in sadness.,” said the Whig.

Bullfrog on the New Castle and Frenchtown Railroad
It’s a busy day in Bullfrog as cars rush by on the Augustine Herman Highway (Route 213).

bullfrog on the New Castle and Frenchtown Railroad
The Frog still has one business, Sarge’s Market, and a few homes still exist in the spot, but hardly anyone knows it by its former name.

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Historical Society’s Winter Speakers Series Continues With Vietnam Mailbag, a USCT Living History Program and More

The speaker’s series for the 2012-13 seasons continues at the Historical Society of Cecil County with original programs designed to have popular appeal, introduce new research, or provide practical, how-to instruction.  The talks take place on the first Saturday of each month at 2;00 p.m. at the Cecil County History and Genealogy Library at 135 E. Main Street in Elkton.

Here are the programs for the remainder of the season:

Dec. 1, 2012 — A Living History Program  – Private Elbert of the United States Colored Troops  — This living history presentation by Willis Phelps, Jr. portrays Private James H. Elbert of the United States Colored Troops (USCT).   The Civil War soldier will share the story of African-Americans rallying to the colors as they fought for freedom.  If you haven’t seen the performance before, you won’t want to miss this lively program.

Jan 5, 2013 —  The Mason Dixon Line:  Stories Behind a Geographic Boundary – On the 250th anniversary of the start of the line that was designed to settle the boundaries for Pennsylvania and Maryland, the Society sponsors this talk by historian Mike Dixon.  It examines the stories behind the line.

Feb 2, 2013 – Vietnam Mailbag:  Voices From the War — During the peak years of the Vietnam at conflict, from May 1968 through December 1972, a young reporter, Nancy E. Lynch, relayed the hopes and fears, the joy and the tears, of hundreds of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines from the region through the Vietnam Mailbag column she wrote in the Wilmington Morning News.  Nancy kept all those letters, and the pictures sent with many of them.   For this program Nancy reopens the Vietnam Mailbag, giving a new generation a fresh look at the first-person accounts of troops in the combat zone. In Vietnam Mailbag: Voices From the War, 1968-1972, she tells the story of troops at war — through the letters they wrote to her a generation ago and through a series of moving interviews with veterans who now share their views on how the Vietnam experience shaped their lives.

March 2, 2013 – Stealing Freedom Along the Mason Dixon Line – This talk by historian Milt Diggins examines the story of Thomas McCreary, an opportunist making whatever profit he could from the institution of slavery.  Working out of Elkton, he was a slave-catcher who was active around the time the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed.

All talks are designed to be informative and enjoyable while concentrating on fresh, broadly engaging topics or subjects that help with their research.

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Elkton Police Oral History Project Gets Underway

Officer Hines checks out a broken window at the Elkton Junior High School in June 1963; Sources; Cecil Democrat

A few weeks ago, with the encouragement of Willis May, we stated working on the Elkton Police Oral History Project with a large group of retired Elkton Police Officers. The purpose is to carefully document the story of the force in the 1960s and 1970s.

As the preliminaries move along, we have spent a little time digging through aging old newspapers, in order to acquire supporting documentary data. That will help supplement the interviews as we get into gear to work on the recordings. Over time we will create a body of documented material around the time Chief Thomas N. McIntire, Jr. provided leadership to modernize the department, easing it out of the World War II era of policing.

Once we complete the oral history interviews and accumulate the material, we will make those resources available to the public for research and will hold a public reception to open this new resource to interested parties. That will provide a great chance to again get as many of the officers back together as possible and invite the public to a forum where everyone can mingle, talk about those days, and socialize.

Meanwhile, we will periodically share progress reports and some of the photos we cone across. Her are a few from today.

Chief Thomas N. McIntire, Jr., in 1964

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Elkton Police Officers Get Together — Share Stories of Nearly a Half-Century

Deputy du Pont at the Sheriff’s Office. He got his start on the Elkton force. From the Baltimore Sun – 1969

This afternoon, at the Elkton Diner, a group of retired Elkton police officers got together for an informal, long overdue reunion. Amidst smiles, waves, handshakes, and tales of long ago, the sense of camaraderie was obvious as they reminisced about the passage of nearly fifty years. And just as if it were yesterday, the professional bond, the friendship, and the shared sense of duty in serving and protecting the community were still there, too.

Oh, sure, some of those war stories from long ago haven’t suffered from many recitations.  But there were also conversations about the era when the professionalization of policing got its start in Cecil County, as these men each had a direct hand in that.  Two of them graduated from the first Maryland Police Training Commission Academy back in 1968, a time when formal schooling for officers was a novel, fresh concept.

That was the idea of getting them back together since the Historical Society is interested in developing bodies of oral history materials related to local occupations.  So with the help and encouragement of Detective Willis R. May, one of the first academy graduates, the project around the work of the Elkton Police Department from forty to fifty years ago is taking shape.

Chief McIntire caught the Watergate Bug at the town’s Halloween parade about 1975.

Chief Thomas N. McIntire was the elder statesman and former commanding officer of the group. He got his start on the crime beat in 1951 as a patrolman when the department had one car, no radios, calls came in on the phone hanging from a utility pole, and the pay was $1.25 an hour. Sworn in as chief in 1962 as the town pushed to modernize the force, the chief hired every one of these men. Over the years, he guided the department into the modern era.

In the seniority cluster were also Marshall Purner and Sheriff Sam Du Pont. Purner, following stints in the armed services and the Louisville, Kentucky PD, came home to work as chief in North East in 1957. He joined the county seat’s force in 1966. Sheriff Du Pont started in Elkton around that time, too, and moved on to be elected as the county’s chief lawman in 1970. He was the other academy graduate in 1968.

The youngsters in the group included Ernie Beck and Willis R. May, who joined the department as young twenty-somethings in the second half of the 1960s.  Joseph Zurolo, Duane Pease, and Rick Blake were sworn in as patrolmen a little later, in the early 1970s.

On this gray, chilly Tuesday afternoon mid-way through autumn, as the weather broadcasters talked about some overnight snow, old friends who had not seen each other in decades exchanged many stories.  After a few hours of reminiscing, they slowly started bundling up to exit into the cool November air as some mixed precipitation dampened the day.  But these premature reminders about the cold season ahead didn’t affect this group as plans were put together to formally assemble a first-person narrative about these times.  Only a couple of officers weren’t able to make it today.

At the Historical Society, we are going to work on getting a solid body of oral history materials together that captures their experience serving and protecting the community during the period when the criminal justice system evolved to deal with the challenges of that troubling decade, the 1960s.  We’ll keep you updated as this initiative moves along.

Front: Joe Zurolo, Chief McIntire, Rick Blake; Back : Ernie Beck, Marshall Purner, Duane Pease, Willis May, Sam du Pont.

Willis May, Joe Zurolo, Rick Blake

Ernie Beck and Sam du Pont

Duane Pease and Marshall Purner

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Mt. Harmon Program: The Architecture of Taste: Building & Cooking in 18th Century Kitchens

The Architecture of Taste: Building and Cooking in Eighteenth Century Kitchens

           Thursday, November 8, 6:30 pm, Mount Harmon Plantation      

 Author and professor Michael Olmert will be speaking about the architecture of 18th-century kitchens and outbuildings, including among other structures the newly restored kitchen that served the 40 workers at the Anderson Armoury and Tin-Shop at Colonial Williamsburg.  It’s an amazing building…with a second hearth on the second floor!

 Michael Olmert

Olmert holds an MA and PhD in English literature and for the last 26 years has been teaching at the University of Maryland, where he lectures on Medieval Studies, Shakespeare, 17th and 18th Century Studies, and Modern British Drama.

He is also an active television, film, and print writer, with five books, three plays, two feature films, an IMAX film, over 90 TV documentaries, three Primetime Emmys, and some 200 magazine articles, reviews, and essays to his credit.  He has also published ten articles in refereed learned journals.

His latest book is on the architecture and cultural history of the eighteenth-century backyard.  Called Kitchens, Smokehouses, and Privies: Outbuildings and the Architecture of Daily Life in the Eighteenth Century Mid-Atlantic, it was published by Cornell University Press in 2009.  It is based on extensive research in Maryland and Virginia, especially at Colonial Williamsburg.  Olmert also wrote the Official Guidebook to Colonial Williamsburg (1985), on the most-studied 18th Century town in the world.

~ Light refreshments will be served ~

Program Costs: $5

FOMH Members Free

Space limited, RSVP early

Pre-registration requested

Contact info@mountharmon.org; or call 410-275-8819.

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Memorial Remembers Victims of Pan American Plane Crash in Elkton

pan american memorial elkton
The Elkton Plane Crash Memorial.  Source:  Singerly Fire Company Museum

On a terrible night in 1963, eighty-one people aboard a doomed aircraft, Pan American Airways Flight 214, perished when the plane exploded and plunged into a cornfield at the edge of Elkton.  The fiery blast in the stormy Maryland sky caused the plane to break up in flight.  The first arriving emergency responder, Lt. Don Hash of the Maryland State Police, observed that the only sizeable recognizable piece of jetliner was a section of fuselage with about eight or ten window frames.

On that cold, rainy December evening, as lighting periodically illuminated the cornfield, a county firefighter also died in the line of duty.  When the general alarm went out for all available ambulances, Steward W. Godwin, 56, responded on the North East Volunteer Fire Company unit.  While searching for survivors about 1:30 that morning, he suddenly collapsed into the arms of Andrew Scarborough, another North East member, the News Journal reported.

Pan am flight 214 memorial
The Pan American Flight 214 Crash Memorial in Elkton: (Source: Singerly Fire Company Museum)

This horrifying aircraft disaster, the worst in Maryland history, is something that is seared into the collective memory of the community.  The generation residing here in 1963 will never forget the unusual December thunderstorm and how the fiery blast in the stormy sky suddenly illuminated the town, momentarily turning December darkness into daylight.  Fear, anxiety, and concern swept across the unnerved community as emergency units rushed toward the cornfield, hoping to aid the injured.  But it was soon apparent that the accident wasn’t survivable. 

A granite memorial was dedicated at the crash site in 1994.  It is located near the main impact point on Delancy Road, in a grassy center strip of Wheelhouse Drive, the entrance to Turnquist, a development that sprang up years afterward.

There is one other memorial to plane crash victims in the county.  Dedicated in 2011, it was placed where the plane hit a hillside, taking 53 lives on Memorial Day 1947.

The first police officer to arrive, Lt. Don Hash, Maryland State Police, recalled that the only sizeable recognizable piece of jetliner was a section of fuselage with about eight or ten window frames. (Source:  Photo published in the Baltimore Sun, Dec. 9, 1963, via the Singerly Fire Company Museum)
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Private Elbert of the USCT Shares Stories of Civil War Struggles During Living History Program Dec. 1.

Private Elbert of the USCT talks to a class at Wilmington University.

The Historical Society of Cecil County’s 2012-13 speakers series continues on Dec. 1 with a Civil War living history program.  Private James H. Elbert of the United States Colored Troops (USCT) will share stories about African-Americans rallying to the colors to fight for freedom.  The free program takes place at the Society’s Genealogy and local history library at 135 E. Main Street in Elkton at 2 p.m.

Accounts of the war and the struggles of the USCT will be told through the eyes of the 24-year-old who enlisted in Sept. 1863.  The soldier fought in many battles before being wounded at Petersburg, VA and he lost 300 comrades in the Battle of Olustee, Florida.

Willis Phelps, Jr. , a living history interpreter at Fort Delaware,  portrays the soldier, a member of Co. C 8th, USCT.  If you haven’t seen the performance before, you won’t want to miss this lively engagement that is coming to Cecil County for the first time.   In addition to his popular work at Fort Delaware, Phelps does programs for the Delaware Humanities Forum and has lectured at local universities.

Eric Mease, a scholar-practitioner, will facilitate a question and answer session following the performance.  As a graduate student at the University of Delaware, he launched a two year investigation for his master’s thesis that pieced together the story of UCT troops in Cecil County.

Beginning in the middle of fall and stretching through the cold months of winter, the Society hosts lively, engaging speakers on topics ranging from practical research methods to fresh lectures that have broad appeal.  The programs take place on the first Saturday of each month at 2:00 p.m. at the Society’s library at 135 E. Main Street in Elkton.  All talks are designed to be informative and enjoyable while concentrating on new, broadly engaging topics.

Private Wesley’s grave at Griffith A.U.M.P Cemetery

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Tales the Tombstones Whisper, A Talk Saturday at the Historical Society.

This Saturday (Nov. 3rd) at 9 a.m. the HIstorical Society will host a free talk called Tales the Tombstones Whisper.   The hour-long program by historian Mike Dixon examines cemeteries as a link to our past.  The careful study of old burial grounds often provides insights into local history and genealogy.  Anyone who is curious about old graveyards or involved in searching out family or local history will find this engaging program to be of interest.  The talk takes place at the Society’s genealogy library at 135 E. Main Street in Elkton.