Window on Cecil County's Past

Last week, the soaring mercury made it hot, humid, and miserable around Cecil County. These sweltering conditions cause many people to scurry off to the shore, mountains, a pool, or theatre – anywhere to escape the steamy tropical days.  For an extended period this month, the daytime temperatures hovered just shy of the 100-degree mark. …

Today Cecil County is divided into nine minor political subdivisions called election districts (EDs). But in the earliest times, the equivalent intra-county areas were known as hundreds. Hundreds in Cecil County Having its origin in Saxon history, the name was derived from the concept of having a territory that could provide a hundred men to…

As we endure the oppressive heat of July, we’ve been examining the old ice dealers of Cecil County. Following our earlier posts on this subject, a reader asked how Howard’s Pond on East Main Street at the Big Elk Creek got its name. Here’s a little more information on this. Jacob A. Howard decided to…

As the nation marked the 78th anniversary of D-Day on June 6, we paged through newspapers and listened to broadcasts to see how Cecil County stayed informed as allied troops fought on the beaches of Normandy. Those critical late spring days in 1944 marked the start of the campaign to liberate Western Europe from Nazi…

In the middle third of the 20th century, many Cecil County towns had theaters. One of those enjoyable places was the “Cecil,” the Cecilton theatre, where nightly shows (except Sundays) were offered in air-conditioned comfort on a beautiful, wide-screen. The theater had been built as a school, but the property became surplus property once the…

Someone recently asked us about the old hotel in Warwick, and we promised to share some information about the Gillespie House. In the 19th century, Warwick was a lively place with several merchants taking care of the trade from nearby Cecil County farms. One of those businesses was Samuel Gillespie’s Hotel. In 1868, the Middletown…

Cecil County once had many thriving villages, each 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 hummed with enterprising commercial activity the way they did…

Harford Community College is offering a talk and continuing education course on the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. It involves three sessions starting on May 5, 2022, at 1:30 p.m.. The first is a classroom lecture and that is followed by two field trips to towns along the C & D Canal. The course is presented…