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Veteran Spotlight

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Ira H. Buhrman

“Lost at Sea”

by Richard D. L. Fulton

Ira Harrison Buhrman was born on November 10, 1887, in Foxville (Frederick County), to parents Harvey Meade Buhrman, a farmer, and Theresa Need Buhrman. Buhrman had eight brothers and sisters (two apparently having died at birth).

Buhrman resided in Foxville until his death and was, at one point, employed as a laborer in a local lumber mill. 

The (Frederick) News reported on February 10, 1942, that Buhrman had enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in July 1918, and served one enlistment in Hawaii. The newspaper reported that he became a member of the 13th Regiment, which was then employed in Europe as part of the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I. 

He subsequently was attached to Company D of the 15th Separate Battalion until the signing of the Armistice in November 1918.  Buhrman remained with the Marine Corps at Marine Base Quantico until discharged. It was reported that, after having been discharged from the Marine Corps, he was involved in the construction of Camp Ritchie (perhaps due to his former employment in the lumber industry).

The (Frederick) News also reported that Buhrman was an award-winning marksman, having been awarded a number of medals for sharpshooting and marksmanship while serving in the Marine Corps.

By the time World War II broke out, Buhrman, at 53 years of age, was too old to serve, so he opted to sign up with the Merchant Marines (officially known as the United States Merchant Navy), and, thus, on October 8, 1941, ended up as a member of the crew of the fuel tanker India Arrow, owned by the Socony-Vacuum Oil Company. 

He served as a ship’s wiper, which entailed cleaning the engine compartment and machinery, as well as other jobs that were assigned by the ship’s engineers.

On February 4, 1942, the India Arrow was making its way from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Carteret, New Jersey, with a load of 88,369 gallons of diesel fuel. The ship was unarmed and unescorted.

The India Arrow was struck by a torpedo fired by a German submarine (subsequently identified as the German submarine U-103) when the tanker was only about 20 miles southeast of Cape May. Russpickett.com reported that the German submarine “then surfaced and fired seven shells from her deck gun (at the stricken tanker) at two-minute intervals, from a distance of 250 yards into the bow section, which remained above water as the stern was sinking.”

The Frederick Post reported on February 11, 1942, that Buhrman may have been in the engine room when the tanker was hit by the torpedo ”just aft of the engine room,” further noting that only two or three of the occupants in the engine room had escaped that portion of the ship. Buhrman was initially listed as missing.

The vast majority of officers and the crew of the India Arrow had actually survived the attack, except for two that were killed outright, when the submarine shelled the ship. However, 18 of the officers and crew drowned when their lifeboat sank. Ultimately, as the result, eight officers and twenty of the crew were lost in the attack on the India Arrow, while only one officer and eleven of the crew survived.

Between January and August in 1942, German submarines sank more than a dozen ships off the New Jersey Coast, and even more off the coasts of other Mid-Atlantic states, according to whyy.org.

The (Frederick) News reported that Buhrman was the first Frederick County resident to have been killed in World War II. He was posthumously awarded the Merchant Marine Medal and the Combat Bar with Star. The Combat Bar was awarded to Merchant Marines who were onboard a ship that was attacked by an enemy. A star was added if the recipient was also forced to abandon the ship (or was killed in the attack).

Buhrman was a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars as the result of his service during WWI.  According to wikitree.com, in the wake of his mother’s death in 1947, “his name was added to her headstone in Mount Bethel Cemetery in Garfield as a memorial, since his remains were never recovered.

Ira H. Buhrman Source: findagrave.com and Wings Across America

India Arrow

Source: City of Little Rock, LR Parks & Recreation

Anyone who might know a Veteran or is a Veteran, who would like to share their experiences in the military for publication in The Catoctin Banner, is invited to contact the columnist at richardfulton@earthlink.net. Thank you.

Upon Combs’ death from congestive heart failure (according to The Washington Post) at age 92, his memorial service was held at the Myers-Durboraw Funeral Home in Emmitsburg. He was interred in the Emmitsburg Memorial Cemetery.

The day creagerstown Burned

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by James Rada, Jr.

Early in the morning of June 2, 1914, a fire started in the engine room of the Monocacy Valley Creamery in Creagerstown. No reason was given as to just what happened, but the fire was soon out of control.

“The flames quickly communicated from one building to the other and made an almost clean sweep on both sides of the street,” the Catoctin Clarion reported.

The town hall burned. The B.F. Bell house, blacksmith shop, ice house, and buggy shed succumbed to the flames. Both hotels—the Valley Hotel, run by C. L. Valentine, and H. Jefferson Krise’s hotel—burned. Barn Freeze’s house and barbershop were lost. The Ogle store and the millinery store were lost.

“One house after the other fell prey to the flames and with great difficulty furniture and other personal effects were saved,” the Frederick News reported. In all, a dozen homes were lost and others found themselves without roofs.

Residents hurried to remove their homes of furnishings, clothing, and other goods, and take them out of reach of the fire.

People from other towns rushed to Creagerstown to help, but it was impossible to check the flames. The day was warm, and the heat from the fire was intense.

“As soon as word was received at Thurmont that help was needed, men began answering the call. Mr. Lester Birely with Mayor Root and several others with buckets and axes left in an automobile,” the Clarion reported. They also brought ladders so people could climb onto roofs to soak them and hinder the fire’s spread.

County Commissioner Stevens, who owned the town hall building in Creagerstown, was in Frederick when he heard about the fire. He rushed to Creagerstown in his car so quickly that the top blew off of it. He later offered a reward for its return.

Park W. T. Loy, chief of the Independent Hose Company in Frederick, had fire equipment loaded onto the Thurmont trolley. Then, he called the town hall in Thurmont and asked that the townspeople build a trestle to offload the heavy equipment when it reached the town and make arrangements for horses to pull the equipment to Creagerstown. He also called someone in Creagerstown and told them that the townspeople needed to dam up the small stream running near the town so that the fire equipment could use the water to fight the fire.

There were no major injuries fighting the fire, although there were some close calls. Gordon Troxell was burned around his eyes, and M. L. Creager was on a roof fighting a fire when it trapped him. He had to jump to another roof to escape.

“It looked as if the whole town would be wiped off the map,” the News reported.

Driven by wind, the fire eventually reached the Lutheran Church, but then winds died down before the fire caught the church on fire. The flames were brought under control around 1:30 p.m.

Meanwhile, the Thurmont trolley with the Independent Hose Company equipment aboard, jumped the rail at Isanogle’s switch. By the time the trolley was back on the tracks and the equipment reached Thurmont, the flames were already under control.

Coming into the town, the Clarion reported, “Furniture, bedclothes, wearing apparel and everything used about a home could be seen lying along the streets and in the field to the west of the fire, an armful from one house thrown on a pile from some other home.”

The loss was immense. With so many homes and businesses burned, the town of 200 residents was virtually gone. The only remaining homes were those where Calvin Ogle, Marion Warner, Allen Yingling, and Mrs. and Dr. Devilbiss lived on the west side of the street, and the homes of John M. Ahalt, Harry Lohr, William Speak, and Blanche and Core Stull on the east side of the street.

The loss was estimated to be around $70,000 (about $2 million in today’s dollars).

A postcard image that shows the aftermath of the Creagerstown Fire.

Looking Back

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Frederick County’s Golden Immigrants

by James Rada, Jr.

Note: This is part three of a series about goldfish farming in Frederick County.

In the early 1900s, goldfish farming produced a major cash crop in Frederick County.

“By 1920, Frederick County was producing 80 percent of the goldfish in the United States, and they were being shipped from Thurmont to all parts of the country,” George Wireman wrote in his book Thurmont: Gateway to the Mountains.

His number is supported with information in “The News-Post Year Book and Almanac.” Throughout the 1930s and into the 1940s, the annual publications note that Frederick County had “more goldfish produced than in any part of the United States.” Interestingly, the yearbooks list goldfish as “selected crops harvested” rather than “livestock on farms.”

The fish raised in Frederick County were considered common goldfish. A 1914 The Frederick News article noted, “Few, if any, of the Japanese variety are raised. They are said to be too clumsy and awkward and an easy mark for preying birds. No coloring is necessary for the fish raised here, as is the case with those raised in some localities, where the fish have to be kept in shallow ponds in order to obtain their color.”

By the late 1930s, competition from larger, more diversified, growers across the country reduced the demand from Frederick County farms. Ernest Tresselt, whose family raised goldfish in the Thurmont area said, “Frederick County farmers raised the plain, common goldfish. By the 20s and early 30s, fancier varieties became available. It wasn’t so easy for locals to keep up with the change. They weren’t in a position to grow fancier varieties that were genetically difficult to breed, and we lost some goldfish producers.”

Tresselt said that when he entered the family goldfish farming business, about 40 percent of each year’s crop would not turn orange. They remained the dull, muddy color of wild goldfish.

“Those fish would be sold as bait fish. They were called Baltimore minnows,” Tresselt said.

He said the county’s goldfish breeders began more selective breeding of goldfish and the percentage of goldfish that turned the proper color dramatically increased and “Baltimore minnows” disappeared.

The use of modern science helped the goldfish farmers increase their harvests and profitability, which helped keep the county goldfish farmers competitive.

Other advances worked against county goldfish farmers. Advances in shipping techniques and the increased variety and quality of goldfish available from growers around the world gradually changed the goldfish market. The result was that farms producing only common goldfish seasonally could not compete. By the 1940s only a few farms in Frederick County were still cultivating goldfish.

By the 1950s, fish could be shipped in plastic bags by air freight. The plastic made shipping costs cheaper and the planes extended the distance the goldfish could be shipped. This increased the competition in the market, particularly from the countries in the Orient that had created goldfish.

“Everything changed,” Tresselt said. “We have to supply fish year-round. The competition made it unprofitable for most farmers and they went out of business.”

Charles Thomas, another Frederick County goldfish farmer, said that with air transportation, areas that usually weren’t thought of as places for goldfish farming, such as Arkansas, became competitive or even better locations than Frederick.

“By going south, you had a longer growing season,” said Thomas. “In a place like Arkansas, instead of having only one crop each season, you could have two.”

By 1980, Lilypons, once the world’s largest producer of goldfish, had diversified so that it now specialized more in water garden supplies and plants than fish. Hunting Creek Fisheries and Eaton Fisheries also survived by diversifying their offerings into plants, game fish, and/or other types of ornamental fish, such as koi.

Today, you can still see fish ponds marked on a Frederick County maps, but not as many as there once were.

Lilypons has 265 acres and about 500 ponds, though very few of them are devoted to goldfish. However, the business has grown into a multi-million-dollar business employing more than 50 people.

Hunting Creek Fisheries still has ponds in Thurmont and Lewistown. Eaton Fisheries still has its Lewistown ponds as well. Other ponds are now lost to history:

The Claybaugh fish ponds are now covered over by Mountain Gate Exxon and McDonalds in Thurmont.

Along Moser Road across Hunting Creek from the Thurmont sewage treatment plant is where Ernest Powell and Maurice Albaugh used to have fish ponds.

Ross Firor used to have his fish ponds east of the Maple Run Golf Course.

The ponds on William Powell’s Arrowhead Farms on Apples Church Road north of Thurmont were adjacent to Owens Creek have been turned into pasture.

Frank Rice’s goldfish ponds south of Thurmont alongside Route 15 have been filled in and turned back to pasture.

Frederick County’s no longer the biggest producer of goldfish in the country, but there are still fish ponds out there, and if you stop and watch, you may see a flash of gold.

My beautiful picture

Goldfish in vats at the Hunting Creek Fisheries in the late 1980s.

The Year is…1918

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by James Rada, Jr.

The Pandemic to End All Pandemics — Part 2

Few people saw Spanish Flu as a threat at first. Although more people than usual got sick in the spring of 1918, they recovered for the most part.

That was the first wave. The second wave hit in the fall of 1918.

The Second Wave

Spanish Flu hit Frederick County on September 26, 1918, when the Frederick News reported 50 flu cases in the county. The following day, 10 more cases were reported. The first death from flu in the county, George Cronise of Buckeystown, occurred on September 29.

By October 2, more than 100 cases were reported in Buckeystown alone.

At this early stage, Thurmont, Emmitsburg, Urbana, New Market, and Buckeystown were the hardest-hit areas, according to Dr. T. Clyde Routson, the county health officer. He was against closing schools at first because the children would play and mingle with friends, and the result would be the same. He also said that it would be unfair to communities not affected to have their children deprived of education.

One Frederick Post headline on October 7 was “Physicians Believe That Epidemic Has Been Checked.” This was far from the truth. The flu had taken hold in all areas of the county. During the month of October, a flu story could be found on the front page of the Frederick Post every day it was published except for two days. Most of those headlines announced how many had died the previous day.

Quarantining

Pennsylvania enacted the strictest quarantine the state had ever seen, closing virtually every public meeting place. The Gettysburg Times announced on October 4 that Acting State Health Commissioner B. F. Royer ordered closed every moving picture house, every theater, every saloon, and every place of public amusement, including pool rooms and dance halls. The sick weren’t allowed to have visitors unless they were so desperately ill that they weren’t expected to live. And any visitors had to wear a gauze mask. All funerals had to be private. The Chambersburg Public Opinion called this “the most drastic quarantine order ever given in Pennsylvania.”

At this point, 60,000 people in the Philadelphia area were already sick with the flu. Camp Colt in Gettysburg had 21 deaths on October 2, bringing the total deaths there to 62. Yet, it wasn’t big news. Suddenly, with the issuance of the quarantine order, headlines were everywhere.

With Pennsylvania setting the example, Frederick County started talking about quarantines on October 7. It was too late. That day, 25 people in the county died from the flu, including Francis Dotterer in Catoctin Furnace, Mary Smith, Fleet Gall, and Lulu Smith in Thurmont.

Frederick County remained open, but then Maryland took actions similar to Pennsylvania, closing public meeting places on October 8. Camp Meade, which had been flu-free a few weeks earlier, had 277 deaths, more than 5 percent of its population. Three Daughters of Charity from Emmitsburg and three from Baltimore had been at Camp Meade since October 3, trying to fight the disease. The sisters reported back two days after arriving that there had been 100 deaths in one day and 30 deaths on their first night at Camp Meade.

Since the Crimean War the previous century, whenever there was a public health crisis, whether in peace or war, the Daughters had been called on to help. Around this time, the Daughters of Charity received telegraph and phone messages from sisters across the country, asking for their help.

Also, the first Daughter of Charity died from the flu around this time after being sick only four days. St. Joseph’s College in Emmitsburg reported that nearly all of the teachers were sick, and 31 of the students had the flu.

Suddenly, the flu began repeatedly appearing on the front page of the newspapers, although not the lead story, generally. WWI was winding down, and so the last battles and then the truce talks were the big stories of the day, supposedly.

On October 8, Maryland issued a statewide ban that closed theaters, movies, schools, dance halls, and other public places. It was very similar to Pennsylvania’s quarantine.

Some people complained about the quarantine because they had developed their own remedy. Since alcohol was used to kill germs on the skin, they had increased their intake to kill the germs inside them. One newspaper pointed out that “while whiskey is a good medicine for a person ill with the disease and in fact may then be needed as a heart stimulant, it really lowers the resistance of the system of a person who is not infected and makes him still more susceptible.”

A Deadly October

By the middle of October, the Daughters of Charity had sent everyone they could spare from the Central House in Emmitsburg out to serve in the missions. However, sisters at the Central House were also suffering from the flu.

The first student at St. Joseph’s College died from the flu on October 18. It was the first pupil death since 1872. The following day, another student died. The following day, a sister serving at Soldier’s Home in Washington died, and another sister in Emmitsburg died the following day. It looks like four sisters eventually died from the flu, although there may have been more. Certainly, more were given the Last Rites.

The county fairs in both Frederick and Washington counties wound up being canceled that year, reluctantly. The directors argued that the fresh air would do people good. However, in the end, they must have realized that attendance would be down because people were sick, and many healthy people would be afraid to be part of a crowd for fear of catching the flu.

It was only the second time that the Great Frederick Fair had been canceled. The only time previously that the fair had been canceled was when a little spat called the Civil War happened.

Churches decided to prevent parishioners from being within close proximity to each other.

Also, volunteer nurses were being sent throughout the county to visit the homes where entire families were down with the flu. They would care for these families in their homes.

The B&O Railroad brought in its emergency hospital to help people in Brunswick, which apparently was one of the harder hit areas of the county. An emergency hospital run by the Red Cross was also set up at Montevue.

Things would still get worse.

Picture shows passengers and employees were required to wear face masks to ride on public transportation in many cities during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, which killed 100 million people worldwide.