See updated Post, November 22, 1963:  Remembering the Fallen:  Three Cecil County Firefighters Made the Ultimate Sacrifice

Although a lot of time has passed since two members of the county’s fire service fell in the line of duty, it’s important to remember them.  Perhaps someday a memorial can be created to honor those fire, rescue and EMS providers who lost their lives in the line of duty.

Richard L. Loller, 37  – On May 18, 1956, the Chesapeake City Fire Company responded to an urgent call to assist Galena with a fire at the Kent Oil Company.  While battling the dangerous blaze with companies from throughout the area, several explosions rocked the tank farm, the final one coming about 8:30 that Friday morning.  That last death-dealing explosion of a 6,000 gallon tank filled with gasoline sent part of the huge vessel soaring through the air.  Flying debris killed two firefighters and the extreme heat from the flash burned a dozen or more people close to the scene.  Richard  L. Loller, 37, of Chesapeake City and Robert Harry Brice, 24, of Betterton were killed after being hit by limbs falling from a tree.

Steward W. Godwin, 56 — On a Sunday in December 1963, as lightning periodically illuminated the cold rainy night, five airliners flew in a holding pattern above Cecil County, awaiting clearance to land in Philadelphia.  Just before 9 p.m. Pam American Airways Flight 214, carrying 81 passengers and crew was struck by lightning and exploded.  A general alarm was sounded for all available ambulances.  From the North East Fire Company, a unit rushed toward the cornfield just east of Elkton.  On that dark stormy Sunday night, as fire company search lights illuminated the field, emergency responders searched the scene, looking for survivors.  About 1:30 a.m. Steward W. Godwin, 56, of North East suddenly collapsed into the arms of Andrew Scarborough, another North East member, the News Journal reported.  He passed away at Union Hospital, the death being attributed to a heart attack.  He had been a member of the fire company for 18 months, according to the newspaper.

It’s important to make sure their sacrifice isn’t forgotten.   If there are other fallen fighters who made the ultimate sacrifice, let us know so we can add their names to the list.  Perhaps someday there can be a Cecil County memorial, a place to carve their names in granite as a permanent memorial to their service as they protected the people of Cecil County.

Posts Related to the Plane Crash

Pan Am Flight 214 – Update

Pan American Airways Crash Worst Disaster in Cecil County History

The annual volunteer firemen’s carnivals were popular summer events in Cecil County years ago.  Each summer, as the event moved from town to town, large crowds would turn out for an evening of fun and entertainment.  These two photos show the Singerly Fire Company carnival sometime in the 1950s.

 

Members of the USNTC, Bainbridge Fire Department line up in front of the firehouse (Station 12) in the late 1970s.

Event Details

First Lines:  How to Get Started Writing Your Story (and Publishing Your Work)Wednesday, March 16^th at 7pm

Elkton Central Library

301 Newark Ave., Elkton MD  21921

In this workshop and discussion, local author David Healey will share ideas on how to get started on your creative writing project – whether it’s a novel, short story, children’s book or memoir. Also, David will discuss the first steps toward sharing your work with the world and the many avenues toward publishing. He is the author of three novels and two non-fiction books and will describe his experiences working with agents, editors, and publishers large and small.

Registration is required.   To register, please stop by the library, visit our website at www.cecil.ebranch.info, or call 410-996-5600, ext. 481.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the Historical Society of Cecil County explored a captivating period in Elkton’s history during a weekend talk by Mike Dixon.   While the nation faced the bleak days of the Great Depression, business thrived in Elkton for the “honeymoon express” arrived many times each day, and Elkton became the elopement capital of the east.

Its reputation as a place to go for quick marriages started about 1913, and for several decades, the place hummed because of the marriage industry.  From just over 100 services a year at the turn of the 1900s, the county seat was soon working overtime.  The parsons were doing “one marriage every 15 minutes,” which wasn’t “bad for a town of something like 3,000 people,” the News American reported in 1920. The ministers were cranking out some 12,000 newlyweds a year by the mid-1930s as the town in the northern corner of Maryland became America’s Gretna Green.

To accommodate the heavy trade, “marrying parsons set up parlors along the main streets, and competition for brides and grooms was intense during the mill’s heyday.  Each time a train, the Honeymoon Express, arrived at the depot, the cabbies greeted arriving couples.  Not much was required to get hitched in Elkton in those days.  Twelve minutes and a few dollars were all you needed, the Baltimore newspaper reported. Although even the 12 minutes wasn’t altogether necessary. But the dollars were the reporter observed.  Today, the Little Wedding Chapel on Main Street is Elkton’s sole remaining chapel, but several prospective brides and grooms still flock here each week for quick marriages.

It was a fast-paced talk that explored how and why the wedding racket developed in an unassuming Maryland town.  It included many funny stories about the marrying syndicate, its leaders, and the taxi cab drivers.  We also examined how the marrying preachers caused an international incident involving the Iranian government.

NORTH EAST, Md. – In recognition of the 2011 Black History Month theme of “African Americans and the Civil War,” Eric F. Mease will conduct a free presentation about African Americans from Cecil County who fought in the Civil War at 11:30 a.m. Feb. 23, in Room 106 of the Technology Center on Cecil College’s North East campus.

Since his first visit to Colonial Williamsburg with his parents in the summer of 1962, Mease has had an interest in United States history. He earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Penn State University, a paralegal certificate from the University of Delaware, and a master’s in liberal studies from UD. His master’s thesis, “Black Civil War Patriots of Cecil County, Maryland,” reported on the African-American veterans of the Civil War who were related to Cecil County.

Mease began his career in broadcast journalism in Williamsport, Pa. and then moved to a station in Wilmington, Del. Since 1990, he has been a paralegal with the DuPont Company specializing in intellectual property litigation. Mease is a member of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Historic Elk Landing Foundation, and Historical Society of Cecil County.

For more information, contact Laney Hoxter at 410-287-1043 or lhoxter@cecil.edu.

Photographs of Elkton Police Chiefs line a wall at the town police station.  Starting with the first, George M. Potts (1908-1935), there are images of many of the departments 20th century commanders. 

But before the officer appointed to maintain law and order carried the rank of chief, the town lawman was known as the bailiff.   During lulls in police work, these hard-working public servants took care of the streets, impounded animals, served as the lamplighter, and collected taxes.  Some tasks, such as lamplighter and tax collector, varied over time, but a primary responsibility was keeping the peace and he was required to prowl the streets in a blue coat, brass buttons, and badge.

On the prowl for old photos and information on earlier leaders of the police department, we recently received a picture of George Collison Biddle.  When he received his first appointment in 1896, his salary for 12-months was $500.  The rookie officer had worked for the Singerly Pulp Mill and lived on East High Street.

Shortly after being sworn in, the Elkton officer received a call for backup from Sheriff Mackey.  Several men were on a train refusing to pay so the sheriff called on every available lawman in the area for help with the free riders.  In addition to the bailiff, that included Deputy McAllister.  When the train pulled in one of the men jumped from the cars and started running up the railroad tracks.  “But Elkton’s new officer was not to be outrun and soon the clutches of the law were upon the victim,“ a newspaper reported.  The Mayor and Commissioners also had street work waiting for the bailiff, so when he wasn’t carting drunks off to jail in a wheelbarrow he worked to fix up the streets.   He was “starting out well as an officer,” the Cecil Democrat noted.  “May he not grow weary in well doing.”

To the consternation and dismay of Elkton troublemakers, the town council provided him with a bicycle in 1900 so he could more effectively whirl through the streets and alleys on his patrols.  When thanksgiving rolled around that year, a local newspaper noted that “Officer Biddle was in good cheer “as he was thankful that the town council had armed him with a unit that allowed him to spin from point to point on his rounds.” 

George Biddle served as Elkton’s thin blue line until 1903 when he successfully ran for sheriff.  The last execution in Cecil County took place during Sheriff Biddle’s term, when John M. Simpers was hanged on October 20, 1905.   In that era, the sheriff could only serve one term.

The 67-year-old Cecil County lawman passed away on April 26, 1929.  He’d been born in 1861. 

After years of arguing over whether the Sheriff’s department should have county-supplied police cars, the agency finally started patrolling in official vehicles in 1968.  In opposition to the plan, one commissioner said that if we give cars to those deputies, they’ll just go out and ride all over the county.  Others argued it would cost too much money to provide four squad cars.  Those people said the system that paid officers ten-cents a mile to use their own transportation was adequate.

Year after year, the commissioners would never agree that it was less costly to provide county owned autos or that having a visible law enforcement presence prowling the roads was a good idea.  As things stalled with the commissioners refusing to allocate funds in the budget, the state delegation finally got involved, passing legislation requiring the county to purchase vehicles.

For the first time in the history of the agency, Sheriff Thomas H. Mogle, Jr., and his four full-time deputies drove county supplied police vehicles  in 1968.  It was none too soon for the small law enforcement agency, but at least they were catching up with other departments such as Elkton, Newark, North East, Chesapeake City and others.  Those small municipalities  started purchasing police vehicles for their lawmen as early as the 1920s.  The squad cars were fully equipped with a police radio, official markings, lights, and a siren.

Having caught up with other law enforcement agencies in one area, Sheriff Mogle set out to help improve the underfunded and understaffed agency’s manpower.  He’d inherited a department with four full-time deputies to maintain law and order, oversee the jail, answer police calls, serve court papers, and provide courtroom security.  The Sheriff argued that the force should be doubled to eight-men, but that argument went around and around.  So the state delegation once again stepped in to resolve things, passing legislation that increased the size of the force.

At Wright’s African Methodist Episcopal Church, a standing-room only crowd gathered early this Monday morning to celebrate the life and legacy of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.  This was the 21^st annual celebration, the Cecil County observance having been started by Commissioner Charles Givens and Robert Davis to honor the civil rights leader locally.  Rousing music from the church choir started the morning service as members of the congregation came forward to offer reflections on Dr. King’s legacy.  By the time the Rev. Brian Thomas came forward on pulpit, the enthusiastic audience was completely engaged in service and the minister’s inspiring, “Are We There Yet?”   A lively choir, great hospitality, and a powerful message from the Rev. Thomas are things we’ve learned to look forward to each year, as we pause to reflect and honor Dr. King on his birthday.