Builder of the Gilpin Falls Covered Bridge, Joseph G. Johnson
Cecil County got its money’s worth out of the bridge crossing the North East Creek, about a mile north of Bay View. Built at the top of the 1860s to give farmers and residents of that area access to North East, the old covered bridge has stood the test of time, struggling against floods, centuries of aging, and a lack of concern about the preservation of the past.
Since the area was growing as the nation edged toward the Civil War, a span across the waterway was important to improve travel and commerce in the area. So the commissioners advertised for a contractor to build one across the creek. After the work was completed the public treasury handed over $2,000. That valued Cecil County relic, spanning time and the stream, still survives in the 21st century.
The master bridge builder who undertook the project was Joseph George Johnson. A widely known contractor, he was born in Cecil County in 1830. During his lifetime he built Elkton’s first water works and a number of stations for the Western Maryland Railroad. In 1860, when the county commissioners advertised to build a covered bridge at Gilpin Falls, he won the contract. In the later years of his life, he went to Baltimore where he managed the Walbrook Coal and Supply Company.
The county awarded at least three additional contracts to Johnson. In June 1860, he was hired to build the Reynolds Bridge in the northeastern part of the county at a cost of $450. in 1865 the contract for building the bridge at Mitchell’s Mill in Elkton was awarded for $3,460; and finally in August 1867 he built a bridge over Principio Creek at Whitaker’s Furnace for $2,950.
Although he died at his home in Baltimore in September 1900, the work of this master bridge builder, having stood the test of time, still stands as one of the few remaining covered bridges in Maryland, a state that once had many of them spanning streams and rivers.
Stony Run Covered Bridge, one of many in the area during the early 1900s.
An iron truss bridge on Blue Ball Road near Childs is available for purchase from the Maryland Highway Administration. Constructed in 1932 by Roanoke Iron and Bridge Works the bridge is about 27 feet wide. Click on the link below to go to the full story at WBAL Radio.
Thousands of old postcards and photos will be offered by dealers.
The popular Paper Americana show returns to Singerly Fire Company on January 30. For the 23rd year, the show will bring over thirty dealers from several states to Elkton to offer for sale antique books, postcards, newspapers, art prints, advertising & regional collectibles, photographs, and general ephemera. Singerly Fire Hall is located at the intersection of Rt. 279 and Rt. 213. Admission is $3.00 per person ($2.00 if you bring a copy of this posting) – children under 12 years admitted free of charge. Hours are 10: a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Food provided by the Ladies Auxiliary.
The staff at the Havre de Grace Maritime Museum is hosting the first annual Museums of the Upper Bay Conference on Jan. 23 & 24, 2010. The conference features valuable topics that address pressing issues face by many small museums, historic sites, and historical societies. Topics to be discussed during the two-day program include, historic building preservation, collections management, documenting community history, museum advocacy, developing partnerships and much more. Congratulations to the Havre de Grace Maritime Museum for making such an excellent opportunity available locally for students, volunteers and museum staff. The workshop costs $50.00. See the brochure below for details.
Readers of this blog should find a an excellent virtual exhibit of digitized images of the Chesapeake City area of interest. Go to the recently redesigned and relaunched canal town web site by clicking here. Lee Collins, a Chesapeake City Town Commissioner, curates the display, which contains a large array of outstanding historical photos. Thanks Lee for making this fine collection of interesting materials readily available.
Maryland’s Upper Bay Salutes the new Star-Spangled Banner NHT with Cake and Holiday CheerOver 40 individuals and organizations celebrated and enjoyed an exquisitely-iced sheet cake showcasing the Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail logo during the Head of the Bay Star-Spangled 200 Conference earlier this month. The dessert event, held at the National-Register listed Principio Furnace in Elkton, Maryland, was a highlight of the day-long conference, third in a series of six sponsored by the Maryland War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission to encourage local residents, organizations and governments to share their War of 1812 history and collaborate on planning and events related to the Bicentennial of the War of 1812 in 2012-2015. The Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail, a 290-mile land and water trail designated by Congress in 2008 to commemorate the Chesapeake Campaign of the War of 1812 in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia, will preserve and interpret the causes, events and outcomes of the Chesapeake Campaign of the War of 1812, and, as a National Historic Trail, encourage recreation, preservation, education, and interpretation along the Trail at sites and places that provide an opportunity to reflect on this little-known time period in our nation’s history.
The conference series is just one illustration of how work already underway by the State of Maryland benefits the National Park Service as it develops a Trail comprehensive management plan. The plan, when completed in 2011, will identify the management priorities and actions to be undertaken by the NPS and its government, non-profit and private partners, which own the sites, parks, waterways, roads, and access points that comprise the Trail. The plan will incorporate the requirements for the proposed designation of the Trail’s land segments as a National Scenic Byway. The Maryland War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission has identified and begun prioritizing education, interpretation, infrastructure, and programming priorities, to be implemented through Scenic Byway funding and the Commission’s fundraising initiatives.
An upcoming program called The Civil War…Three Years with the Big Elk Rangers will be presented at the Cecil County Public Library on Tuesday, January 26 at 7:00 p.m. Sean Protas, a Civil War re-enactor, will portray David Lilley of the local Big Elk Rangers.
While you have your snow shovel out this winter, think about digging up a little history with the Historical Society of Cecil County’s winter programs. You can start digging at 9 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 16 by uncovering your roots with a program entitled “Getting Started With Your Family history: An Introduction to Genealogy.”
This three-hour workshop will introduce you to the basics of genealogical research. You will learn about the online resources available to you , as well as the records at our local historical society and the National Archives in Washington, D.C. The Society has access to records and databases you might not know about.
This workshop is intended for everyone even if you don’t have Cecil County family roots. The workshop is free for members of the Society and is $5 for non-members. The program will be held at the historical Society at 135 E. Main Street, Elkton.
Here’s a link to a Democracy Now interview about StoryCorps, the national organization focusing on collecting the stories of everyday people. The informative clip includes some interesting sample recordings of people, such as a couple of Memphis Sanitation Department workers. They were there in 1968 when Martin Luther King came to the TN city to help striking workers. Another one is a very personal account of an aging World War II combat veteran and memories from the Battle of the Bulge that still haunt him.
There are plenty of other pieces, and the project they’re working on, creating a collection of oral histories from ordinary citizens and everyday life, is valuable. These accounts are exactly the kinds of pieces I enjoy doing as I travel around collecting stories from telephone operators, police officers, firefighters, utility workers, office clerks, healthcare workers and such. From these many fascinating sources, come some of the best insights and they reveal a part of our past that is often missed by the history books.
Maryland’s War of 1812 history isn’t just about major battles, military commanders, political leaders and the powerful. It is also about a time of great fright on the shores of the Chesapeake for everyday people as enemy soldiers terrorized the region, “firing private property and robbing hen houses.” With the 200th anniversary of this conflict approaching we’re fortunate that many unpublished accounts by regular citizens have been passed down in diaries, letters, and journals. These firsthand, eyewitness tales, while filling in gaps in our understanding of the past, also give us a different vantage point for viewing the trying events of 200 years ago when cries of the British are coming rang out in the middle of the night. Since the Chesapeake region is getting ready for the Bicentennial, I will periodically share the stories of some of these ordinary people.
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1858 Map of the Upper Elk River
When a British raiding party stormed Frenchtown during the War of 1812 an African-American woman, as brave as any man in the Cecil Militia, exhibited a great deal of gumption as hundreds of Royal Marines plundered the hamlet. Twenty-year-old Hetty Boulden, the slave who risked her life shielding Elkton, was the property of Frisby Henderson. She, along with five other servants, lived with the master’s family at White Hall, a fine mansion on the banks of the river just north of the village. Frenchtown was a place of some importance during this time for it was the transfer point on the great travel and freight route between Philadelphia and Baltimore.
Hetty gave an account of the pillaging of the upper Elk to a reporter from the Cecil Whig when she was 70 years old. On a morning in April 1813 the lookouts at a small fortification protecting the area shouted “they’re coming, they’re coming” as the Royal Marines rowed into view. Easily overrunning the small battery on the shoreline, the enemy proceeded to plunder and burn the wharf, fishery, warehouses, goods and vessels lying at anchor.
One company was ordered to advance to Elkton, a distance of about three miles. Passing up the shoreline they stopped at the door of White Hall, where Mr. Henderson told them that the barges wouldn’t be able to reach the place by way of the creek. So an officer ordered Hetty to show the Royal Marines the way by land. Although she was terribly frightened, the enemy commander assured her that she wouldn’t be hurt. For her assistance in escorting them to the town they intended to loot, the militiary-man said he would give her “more money than she could carry.”
The approaching invaders created a big scare in Elkton. Roads to the north were filled with women and children carrying bundles of every description while the men rallied to the nation’s defense and Hetty escorted the English through unfamiliar territory. She could have easily and more safely marched the enemy up the direct road to town but instead she fooled the contingent, taking them to Cedar Point, opposite Fort Hollingsworth.
As they stood at the edge of the Big Elk Creek, directly in front of the garrison protection the county seat, the Cecil Militia poured shot into the enemy. That was about noon and Hetty recalled that they took no cannon with them, only their muskets. The swearing soldiers, having been caused to blunder into range of local defenses, concluded they had better go back. But they said they would torch everything.
Built about 1800, the Frenchtown Tavern survived the attack, but was destroyed by fire in the 1960s
Returning to White Hall she heard them threaten to hang Mr. Henderson before his own door for deceiving them. Several of the barges approached Elkton by another route, going up the river. Militia there also fired upon the British and obstacles in the water halted the advance. The enemy, having neither grape nor canister shot with them, could do no harm so they rowed back down the river, the Americans firing away at them all the time.
Their primary objective achieved, the destruction of the military stores, warehouses, and vessels, the British sailed back down the river. It was now the turn for Havre de Grace. Hetty Bouilden recalled seeing the smoke from the burning town. She lived well into the second half of the 19th century. When the aging African-American granted the interview she was residing with Dr. R. C. Carter of Cherry Hill.
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