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Officer’s 1910 Sacrifice Being Remembered by Philadelphia PD; Searching for Relatives of the Rowlandsville Man

Chief Inspector James Tiano of the Philadelphia Police Department and his staff are trying to locate the relatives of Officer George Barnett, who was shot and killed in the line of duty on Nov. 28, 1910. A plaque-dedication honoring his sacrifice is set for July 22 at 42nd and Pine streets, West Philadelphia, where he died. Anyone with information about any family members is asked to call Inspector Tiano at 215-685- 3655.

Policeman Barnett was shot and killed while attempting to question a suspicious man he suspected of being involved in a burglary. The officer, who was in plainclothes, approached the man and told him to take his hands out of his pockets. As the man complied he suddenly produced a revolver and shot the officer. Despite being mortally wounded, the policeman returned fire and shot and killed the suspect.

The Philadelphia Police Department has developed the following information: George’s death certificate lists his parents as George and Annie. When George’s son Harry registered for the draft during World War I, he reported that his father was born in Rowlandsville. The 1870 census lists a family group in “Rowland ville” that is probably his family — a year before he was born: George Barnett, 32, laborer, born Penna; Ann Barnett, 27, keeping house, born Penna; Mary Barnett, 5, born Maryland; and William Barnett, 1, born Maryland

There were several Barnett families in the vicinity of Rowlandsville and we lose trace of the above-listed family after 1870.

Officer George Barnett’s death certificate lists his name as “George Mc. Barnett.” Plaque dedication information:

Police Officer George Barnett #2118
EOW: 11-28-1910
Location: 42nd and Pine Streets, 18th District
Click here for more information
SPONSOR: Detective Gary Capuano, SWDD
Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 11:00am
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Chautauqua 2009 Coming to Cecil County July 10, 11 & 12

Chautauqua 2009 – “Rights & Reformers” – July 10, 2009

When:4 pm – 6 pm

Where: Perryville Outlet Center, Heather Lane, Perryville, MD

Description: Performers bring important historical personalities and their accomplishments to life, in live, free, summer presentations. This year’s theme is “Rights and Reformers”. On Friday the 10th, listen to Woody Guthrie celebrate the life of working people in his songs, poetry and prose. On Saturday the 11th, hear how Jackie Robinson dealt with being the first black player in major league baseball. And on Sunday the 12th, see how Eleanor Roosevelt changed both our nation and the world through her commitment to social activism.

chautaqua

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Cecil Observer — Elkton jet crash of 1963 in the news again due to missing plane

From Cecil Observer —

While the search continues for an AirFrance jetliner carrying more than 200 people that disappeared over the Atlantic this week, the possible role of lightning in that tragedy recalls a similar air disaster in the skies over Cecil County.

On a December night in 1963, the sky lit up when a fireball exploded over Elkton. Calls poured in to Rosemary Culley, dispatcher for emergency services in Cecil County in the days before 9-1-1. No one knew exactly what had occurred, only that something was terribly wrong. Soon enough, however, it became clear that a jet plane had disintegrated high above Cecil County.

Article Continues on Cecil Observer

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On Memorial Day 1947, Eastern Airlines Flight 605 Crashed Near Port Deposit

Sixty-two years ago on a gorgeous Memorial Day, a DC-4 with 53 people on board suddenly plunged from the sky into thick woods outside Port Deposit, MD. With about an hour of daylight remaining, Eastern Airlines Flight 605 departed La Guardia on time for its scheduled trip to Miami.

As the southbound craft neared the Susquehanna River, Bainbridge, and Port Deposit coming into view, everything seemed perfectly normal on this serene afternoon. A DC-3 with a group of Civil Aeronautics Board Investigators (CAB) trailed about three miles behind Flight 605. They, too, were enjoying the afternoon as the sunlight faded. They were returning from probing the crash of another DC-4 at La Guardia the day before.

With the tranquil scene and the daylight fading, the CAB staffers were taking in the view. But suddenly, they were jolted out of this peaceful tranquility by the frightening action of the craft just ahead of them. It was streaking earthward in a vertical dive. Losing altitude quickly, the plane kept dropping, and it appeared that no attempt was being made to pull it out of the steep, rapid, out-of-control descent.

Then there was a puff of white smoke, a flash of orange, and a billowing cloud of smoke. After circling the scene, the federal men landed at Aberdeen Proving Ground and commanded ground transportation to the scene to start another fatal investigation. Everyone on board had died in the terrible explosion.

Fire companies from Perryville, Port Deposit (Water Witch) and Havre De Grace, along with police officers and men from the Bainbridge Naval Training Center, rushed to the scene, but they could do nothing. The crash occurred in a dense, thicket of woods and vines near the north end of Principio roads, not too far from Bainbridge.

Chief Walker of the Havre De Grace Police Department was the first officer to reach the scene according to the Havre de Grace Record. Hurriedly covering the few miles from town to the scene, he told the Record that he was guided to the area by a plane that kept circling above the area. It was later determined this was the craft carrying the CAB officials from the accident at La Guardia which also took a huge toll of lives. “I left officers Bullock and Himes to drive to the scene of the accident while I made my way through the woods on foot. I’ll never forget the horror of that first glimpse I received when I entered the clearing . . . The tangled wreckage of the airliner was a blazing inferno and I realized that all of the passengers must surely be dead.”

According to Aviation Week, the accident was tagged as a mystery. No evidence was found on the structural cause of the crash, and in those days, recording devices were not yet in use. This is one of the few “for reasons unknown” crashes in the history of U.S. air accidents and the investigation still has experts puzzled all these decades later.

Here is a link to the CAB report.

Eastern Airlines Flight 605
Emergency response personnel working at the scene of the 1947 Port Deposit plane crash  (Source:  Baltmore News American Photo)
port deposit plane crash
A topo map shows the approximate location of the plane crash on Winch Road.

Here is the CAB report, which was issued the following year. 

The CAB issued its report the following year and here’s a link to that archived document.

The Civil Aeronautics Board issued its report and findings following the plane crash. Here’s a PDF of the report. This report is from the Department of Transportation Special Collections Library. Registration is required but it is a free service and it gives you access to many of the accident investigation reports.

port-deposit-plane-crashDownload
For more on plane crashes in Cecil County See

Memorial Erected on hillside where plane crash occured

On a Rain-Swept Sunday, Memorial to Victims of Eastern Airlines Plane Crash Near Port Deposit Dedicated

Memorial Remembers Victims of Pan American Plane Crash in Elkton

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The Polk Directory: The Village of Pilot in 1908-09

For many of the 19th and 20th century directories that provided travelers, business people, and others with needed information about distant places were published. The ones called gazetteers (geographical dictionaries) described towns, villages, counties, rivers and other natural features. Depending on the amount of content in one of these interesting works, you may find information on the population, the types of businesses and institutions in the community, the different religious denominations, and public works in the area.

State directories usually contained much more information for these publications were similar to the city directories that started getting published once telephones became common place. The names of all the merchants, farmers, manufacturers, mechanics and officials in a community, as well as a full description of the town, village or hamlet are usually found.  To give you some idea of the matter contained in these directories, I scanned a part of a page from the R. L. Polk & Co’s Peninsula Director of the Eastern Shore of Maryland for 1908 -09

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Pilot

This entry is for the village of Pilot, located in northwestern Cecil County, near Conowingo and Bald Friar. Twenty-five miles from Elkton and nine miles from Rising Sun, the directory reported that Pilot had a population of 200 people. It also had a dressmaker, grocer, blacksmith, and a couple of carpenters and poultrymen. The directory also lists the farmers in the area.

pilot
This Pilot postcard was mailed from the Conowingo Post Office in 1912 (personal collection).

The pilot business directory

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Video on Robert F. Kennedy’s Funeral Train

On the 40th anniversary of the passage of RFK’s Funeral train down the northeast corridor, through Cecil County, we posted a piece on some recollections of that sad day as many Cecil Countains stood along the tracks to honor the fallen leader.  A few days ago, a documentary producer reported that they are looking for people that were there that summer day.   That caused us to go over to You Tube where there’s a video showing some of the scenes on that day in 1968 and we thought readers of this blog might enjoy seeing this excellent piece of video work.

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Cecil Observer: Spanish Flu Epedemic Killed More Than 150 in Cecil County

The newest area blogger, the Cecil County Observer, has published an interesting historical piece on the an earlier flu Epedemic in Cecil County.  We’re clipping the introduction here.  Click on the link at the bottom of this post to go to the full piece.

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Flu fears are beginning to subside in Cecil County and surrounding areas as the so-called H1N1 virus or “swine flu” shows itself to be less deadly than when it surfaced in Mexico.

Yet flu remains something to take seriously, officials warn, especially when the historical record indicates that the world is overdue for a dangerous pandemic. The Spanish flu that struck worldwide in 1918-19 is often cited as the deadliest outbreak of the disease in modern times. An estimated 20 million to 50 million people died of the flu or complications such as pneumonia.

Even rural Cecil County was affected, with Spanish flu hitting hardest in the fall of 1918 into early 1919. All told, the Spanish flu or the pneumonia that was a secondary infection killed 157 Cecil County residents.

According to an article by Greg Birney in the Fall 2003 Cecil Historical Journal, Spanish flu became so rampant that the Cecil County Board of Health ordered all public gatherings suspended. Schools around the county, including West Nottingham Academy, were closed. Nearby Delaware College (now the University of Delaware) was turned into a hospital, according to Birney, with 135 cases of flu among the 425 students. (Interestingly, several cases of the most recent flu were reported at UD.)

Article Continues on Cecil Observer

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Witnesses to Robert Kennedy Funeral Train Sought by Delaware County Newspapers

Our news aggregator grabbed this interesting piece of regional news published by the Delaware County Times.  An HBO producer is looking for witnesses to the passage of Robert Kennedy’s Funeral Train through this region.  We are sure that many of our citizens recall that June day in 1968 as the train passed sadly through here as members of the Kennedy family acknowledged tthe people along the track paying their respects.  We wrote an earlier blog pieces on that also so our readers may find that of interest.

Witnesses to history sought – The Delaware County Daily Times : Serving Delaware County, PA(DelcoTimes.com)

Here’s the link to the video producers site:  http://www.iseverybodyalright.com/

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Bringing the Train on Down the Line in Western Cecil

liberty-grove1
Eight train a day stopped at the tiny Liberty Grove Station in 1918

The Oxford Area Transit Service, a nonprofit group, is working to restore rail service between Philadelphia and Perryville on the old Philadelphia and Baltimore Central Railroad, which once served towns and villages in northwestern Cecil County. The public transportation advocates say that “with the influx of people connected to BRAC” this move would provide a much needed transportation enhancement, the Cecil Whig reported in a story earlier this week. If the service was restored the thousands of new resident expected to arrive in the area as part of the base realignment could use this corridor to ease the traffic burdens that some forecast will occur in the area.

Members of the nonprofit are planning to present their proposal to the Colora Civic Association, which is meeting Monday evening at 7:30 p.m. the Mount Pleasant United Methodist Church. This line, which runs through some of the most scenic landscape in the county, has a fascinating history. Several public transportation advocates, including Elkton  Mayor Joseph Fisona, are working to restore mass transit to various stations in the county.

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The Octoraro Station

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Former Cecil County Author Jack D. Hunter will be remembered for classic war Novel, “The Blue Max”

David Healey, an author specializing in historical fiction and Chesapeake Bay regional history has provided us with a piece on  the passing of the author of “the Blue Max,” Jack Hunter.  He also maintains “David’s Blog” and he has allowed us to publish this piece here on Someone Noticed, as well.  Thanks David.

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by David Healey

“He took the Fokker to three thousand meters, nearly breathless with the speed of the climb. The long flat rays of the sun were deep gold, and the earth was a mosaic of sharply contrasted yellows and purples. The rich, sweet exhaust mixture coming back from the engine was, in the high coolness, an ambrosia …”

That’s a description in the 1964 novel “The Blue Max” of future German ace Bruno Stachel taking his first flight in a Fokker D-7 over the battlefields of Europe during World War I. That war, the descriptions, even the biplane are very real – it’s Stachel who is the stuff of fiction, but certainly a memorable character.

He came from the mind of Jack D. Hunter, a former Cecil County resident whose novel featuring Stachel became a 20th Century Fox movie. Local residents and visitors to Chesapeake City may be familiar with The Blue Max bed and breakfast at the corner of Bohemia Avenue and Second Street. The impressive, three-story structure was so named by Jack and Tommie Hunter, who renovated the building and opened a shop there in the 1970s. The Hunters later lived in Chesapeake Isle overlooking the water.

Sadly, Jack passed away this week in St. Augustine, Fla., where he moved around 1980. According to the Associated Press, he was 87 and had served during World War II as an espionage agent behind German lines.

I never met Jack in person, but I got to know him through phone calls and e-mails over the years, starting back when I was researching him for a series called “Cecil County’s Most Famous.” Of course, I had read his wonderful novel years before (and seen the movie starring George Peppard, James Mason and Ursula Andress – can you say hubba hubba!)

Jack had a lifelong enthusiasm for writing fiction – he continued to publish novels with major publishers into his eighties and kept a blog on writing- but his passion later in life was painting. He captured on canvas many of the dogfight scenes he imagined and that surely inspired “The Blue Max,” “The Tin Cravat,” “The Blood Order” and other novels. It almost doesn’t seem fair that such a gifted writer would also be blessed with a gift for painting. But that was Jack Hunter for you, a multi-talented individual.

The last time I talked with Jack was right around when the film “Flyboys” came out. (The film starred James Franco as an American pilot who joined the Lafayette Squadron to fight for France.) I told him it was high time for a remake of “The Blue Max” – and Jack agreed. He said there had been some talk about that happening.

Compared to “Flyboys,” his WWI story is far grittier and focused in its conflict between the ambitious Stachel and the aristocratic Wilhelm Von Klugermann. With today’s superior special effects, the original film would adapt well to a new version. If we’re lucky, we’ll see it hit the screen someday. Until then, we’ll always have “The Blue Max.” The novel is a finely told story and the film is a classic war movie.

Jack Hunter was surely one of “Cecil County’s Most Famous” and we’re lucky that some small part of his legacy lives on with the name of “The Blue Max” in Chesapeake City.