Currently viewing the tag: "Looking Back – 1913"

by James Rada, Jr.

The End of Rocky Ridge

Rocky Ridge disappeared in 1913. “So far as railroad matters are concerned, Rocky Ridge does not exist and hereafter that station will be known as Emmitsburg Junction,” the Catoctin Clarion reported.

The Western Maryland Railroad (WMRR) station had opened in Rocky Ridge in 1870, with Sheridan Biggs serving as the first freight agent and telegraph operator. He served in that position until 1907. Over the years, he had had to deal with confusion over passengers knowing that they needed to switch trains in Rocky Ridge in order to get to Emmitsburg on the Emmitsburg Railroad. They boarded a small train made up of an engine, baggage car, smoker/mail car, and parlor car.

Though only a few miles long, the railroad was well run. The Adams County News noted in 1916, “…there is to-day a short distance from Gettysburg a railroad planned, built and financed through the efforts of women, a road which was built some 40 years ago and which to-day untroubled by strikes and other unpleasantness, is paying steadily 4 per cent on the original investment.”

The Daughters of Charity owned 70 percent of the stock in the railroad, according to the Adams County News. This is not surprising since one of the stops on the line was at St. Joseph College. Students traveling to Mount St. Mary’s College also used the railroad traveling to and from school.

“It is probably the only road in existence where the possession of an ordinary ticket entitles one to parlor-car accommodations,” the Adams County News reported.

But something about the location confused passengers, despite the conductor often calling out, “Rocky Ridge, change for Emmitsburg.”

A.V.D. Watterson, Esq., a Pittsburgh attorney and president of the Mount St. Mary’s Alumni Association, lobbied to the Western Maryland Railroad for years to change the name of Rocky Ridge to Emmitsburg Junction to make it clearer that the station was a changing point for passengers.

In 1913, he wrote the directors of the WMRR again. This time, he noted in his letter, “Since a through line is now established from Pittsburgh to Baltimore, which will permit of persons going through to Emmitsburg with only one change of cars, it is important to your Company to make a change of this kind, and I, therefore, again call your attention to it.”

This time, the directors agreed with his reasoning and renamed Rocky Ridge Emmitsburg Junction on all of its documentation and schedules. However, the post office remained Rocky Ridge, so anything being mailed to Emmitsburg Junction had to be sent to Rocky Ridge.

The Clarion noted that the change might have come too late. Thurmont might soon become the transfer point for rail travelers if the Frederick and Hagerstown Railway continued to grow.

“It is hoped a trolley road will soon be built from Thurmont to Mt. St. Mary’s for the benefit and convenience of the hundreds of students attending college at that place, and also for the benefit of the many people residing between these two points,” the newspaper reported.

This did not happen, but with the growth of automobile travel, so few people were using the Emmitsburg Railroad by 1935 that it became freight only. It ceased operation in 1940.

Even then, not all the stations along the Western Maryland line were alerted to the change.

In 1959, Mrs. James Tucker and her daughter, both from Boston, traveled to New York City, where they purchased a ticket to Emmitsburg via Emmitsburg Junction. They boarded the train for the five-hour trip to St. Joseph College.

When the New Englanders arrived at Emmitsburg Junction, they found a worn out railway station but no railroad, not even a track,” the Gettysburg Times reported.

Luckily, they met Guy Baker, who was driving a mail and express truck. He offered to take the ladies to the college.

Emmitsburg Junction still continues to pop up on modern maps from time to time, although it should have ceased to exist along the railroad. A 1992 Frederick County trash map showed Emmitsburg Junction as north of MD 77, while Rocky Ridge was south of the highway. Even today, if you type Emmitsburg Junction into Mapquest, it will take you to Rocky Ridge.

Rocky Ridge WM Station.

by James Rada, Jr.

Thurmont’s Part in the 50th Gettysburg Reunion

Three hundred cavalrymen rode through Thurmont on June 25, 1913. They arrived on Western Maryland Railroad from Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia. They unloaded their mounts from the train and rode through the town on Wednesday morning.

They were part of the second invasion of Gettysburg.

At the beginning of the 20th Century, Civil War Veterans were aging into their sixties and seventies when the average lifespan of an American was around forty-seven years.

Acting on an idea from Henry Shippen Huidekoper, who had been wounded during the battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania Governor Edwin Stuart urged the state legislature to remember the Veterans of the Battle of Gettysburg during the 50th anniversary.

Gettysburg had hosted battlefield reunions before, but they were relatively small events. For this milestone reunion, people envisioned an immense event with an abundance of people in town and the surrounding countryside as hadn’t been seen since the battle itself.

State legislatures responded positively and appointed representatives to participate in the planning. They would serve as liaisons between their states and the Pennsylvania Battle of Gettysburg Commission.

Seeing the nationwide interest in the event, the U.S. Congress appointed a committee of three U.S. senators and three congressmen to assist the Pennsylvania Commission in June 1910.

Much of the federal assistance came in the form of U.S. Army personnel to plan how to run the camp and army equipment. The cavalrymen from Fort Myer were part of the federal support of the Gettysburg reunion. Capt. Dean, adjutant of the troop, and Lt. Surles, quartermaster, were the first to arrive in Thurmont. They made the arrangements with Col. John R. Rouzer to occupy Camp Field along Hunting Creek.

The men were members of the 15th U.S. Cavalry with Troops A, B, C, and D under the command of Maj. Charles D. Rhodes. Then the food and horses arrived.

“Nearly a carload of feed was shipped to Thurmont over the Western Maryland railroad for the use of the horses and about half a ton of meat and provisions for the men while in camp here,” the Catoctin Clarion reported.

The cavalrymen stayed one night before reboarding the train and heading to Gettysburg the next day.

The reunion lasted for a week, with nearly 57,000 Veterans returning to Gettysburg. They stayed in a temporary military camp the army erected. Although the Veterans were grouped by their states, they mixed during the day as they walked miles each day covering the battlefield where they had once fought.

During the reunion, monuments were dedicated, the cyclorama opened for the first time, and a silent film about the battle premiered. Senators, congressmen, governors, and the president attended as special guests.

A group of Civil War Veterans from Thurmont also attended the reunion. The men from the Jason Damuth Post No. 89 of the G. A. R. left town on July 1 to be part of the reunion. They were Rev. W. L. Martin, John Tomes, William Jones, Jacob Freeze, Jeremiah Dutrow, Charles Carrens, W. T. Miller, George Elower, C. I. Creager, Charlton Fogle, William Freeze, Maj. George A. Castle, and George W. Miller.

The Gettysburg reunion was the largest reunion of Civil War Veterans ever held.

Confederate survivors of Pickett’s Charge re-enact the charge at the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Survivors of Pickett’s Charge shake hands across the wall where they fought so desperately fifty years earlier.

A Union and Confederate veteran goof around showing they can still fight at the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.

The Veteran encampment at Gettysburg housed around 57,000 Veterans at the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.

The Catoctin Outlaws and the Origins of Blue Blazes

Years before the Blue Blazes became part of Thurmont’s history due to the 1929 raid on the county’s largest moonshining operation, it made the newspapers for another raid, but this one was to capture wanted criminals.

In 1913, the Catoctin Clarion reported “a gang of this character has been in our midst for some time; walking around town, making purchases at our stores, talking freely to citizens, and making trips through the country at night relieving people of feed, poultry and other articles.”

The “outlaw gang” turned out to be two men, but “one of them known as a desperate character.”

They were camping on Catoctin Mountain in a heavily wooded area to the right of Blue Blazes and a mile from the old Harman Mill. “It is said that so dense was the growth of small trees that it was almost impossible to see the camp up until within a few feet of it,” the Clarion reported.

In nearly every local story, Blue Blazes refers to the massive still that county deputies raided in 1929. The still is said to have been named Blue Blazes after the color that moonshine burned when it was ready. The 1913 story does not involve a still, and it is before Prohibition. Blue Blazes was the name originally given to a section on Hunting Creek in the mid-1800s.            As the story goes, a group of men was “gigging” in the creek using torches to see by since it was nighttime. One of the men slipped, and his torch fell into the water. The Clarion reported, “the party was terrified at finding that it had set on fire the entire surface of the stream as far up and down as they could see and that it burned with a Blue Blaze.”

In 1888, the Clarion asked its readers what could have caused the phenomenon. Some readers suggested it was burning coal oil from beneath Chimney Rock that leaked into the stream. One reader wrote that coal oil wouldn’t have burned that color. He suggested “the party might have broken its jug or decanted its keg of whiskey, which the torches ignited, and in their condition of exhilaration, the flames seemed more extended than they actually were.”

Whatever the scientific explanation was, the name stuck to that area, eventually spreading to include the area around that section of Hunting Creek.

Once the authorities located the camp near Blue Blazes, Thurmont Police conducted a joint raid with Waynesboro Police.

“Both men were there, but the fine big bay horse they had in their possession put them wise that some one was coming by neighing,” according to the Clarion.

The men in the camp ran for theirs as the officers rushed in. One man gave himself up. The other man got away.

The captured man was Sparon Gaugher, who, according to the Clarion, “It is claimed he has killed a number of men, and it is thought he and his companion are the ones who assaulted a man at the ‘Blue Goose’ saloon near Pen-Mar a short time ago.”

The other man was named John Toms and was wanted for escaping jail in Gettysburg for stealing chickens and other property.

The police found a stolen horse, buggy, feed, and new clothing at the campsite. The prisoner was taken to jail in Waynesboro.

Gaugher was convicted of horse stealing in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and given a prison term.

His companion turned out to be wanted in three Pennsylvania counties. He had served time in the state penitentiary for shooting a man at the Leland Hotel in Waynesboro.

The Train Derailment No Passenger Noticed

by James Rada, Jr.

The Western Maryland Railroad mail train left Hagerstown on time on August 26, 1913, just another day on the daily mail run. However, as it rumbled down the steep grade on Horseshoe Curve in Sabillasville, the driving wheels of the engine left the tracks.

“The engineer applied the air, but as the drivers on the engine were off the rail, the air was effective only on the five heavy coaches,” the Catoctin Clarion reported.

The engine plowed ahead, no longer riding on iron rails but on the railroad ties. The engineers kept applying air to the brakes. Finally, the engineer thought the engine was going to topple into a ravine and he jumped. As the coach cars became a greater drag on the engine, the train finally came to a standstill.

“Had the derailed engine skidded a few inches further it would have toppled over and fell into the deep ravine,” the Hagerstown Morning Herald reported.

The crew climbed out of the engine to check what had happened. They walked back along the track to locate where the engine had left the rails and tried to figure out what had happened. It appeared that the track had separated about two inches on the curve, which allowed the engine to leave the rails.

“They found that the train had virtually slid 61 rail lengths, or 2,013 feet, and that the flanges on the engine wheels had cut almost all the bolts in the plates which held the rails together,” the Catoctin Clarion reported.

Surprisingly, the engine hadn’t toppled over. Not all of the engine’s wheels had left the track. The pony and trailer wheels had remained on and provided enough guidance to keep the engine upright.

Although the engineer had been injured by jumping from the train, the Catoctin Clarion reported that “passengers scarcely knew anything had happened.”

The track remained blocked all night before the engine could be put back on the track.

It had not been a good summer for the Western Maryland Railroad in Frederick County. Although only one person was killed, there had been four accidents that delayed traffic along the railroad.

In late May, a westbound train had passed over the iron bridge west of Thurmont, when a refrigerated car loaded with pork jumped the rails and rolled down a 150-foot embankment. Somehow, it was the only one of eleven cars in the train to derail. The trucks stuck on the side of the embankment, and only the car went rolling to the bottom. It remained intact, and the 25 tons of meat was transferred to another rail car and later delivered.

At the end of July, an eastbound train ran into the iron bridge, destroying one of the engine wheels. The engineer applied the brakes and stopped the train before it got out onto the bridge. Although scared, none of the passengers were injured.

A couple weeks before the August 26 derailment, a flagman fell asleep on the tracks. A westbound train hit him and crushed his leg and back. He died soon after the after the accident.

Sabillasville Horseshoe Curve.