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Rocky Ridge Woman Becomes POW

by James Rada, Jr.

Edna E. Miller of Rocky Ridge was a young, idealistic teacher in 1940. The graduate of Western Maryland College (McDaniel College) had taught at schools in Rocky Ridge and Thurmont, but her life changed when she joined the faculty of a school outside of Washington, D.C. and was sent to teach at the Brent School in Baguio in the Philippines. Charles Henry Brent founded the boarding school in 1909 for the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States.

The Japanese invaded the Philippines the day after they attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, and Edna’s family and friends lost contact with Edna. The Japanese, meanwhile, installed a Council of State to direct civil affairs in the Philippines. They abused the civilians, forcing many young women to act as “comfort women” for the Japanese soldiers.

Edna escaped this fate, but the Japanese imprisoned her. The Brent School closed during the war. It became a Japanese hospital and officers’ residential area. The Japanese Army sent the Brent School faculty and staff to a concentration camp called Camp Holmes in La Trinidad, according to the Brent International School website.

Back in the United States, “An attempt was made to learn of her whereabouts through the International Red Cross, but without success. She had been in the Philippines about three and a half years,” the Frederick Post reported in 1945.

Edna later told the press, “In all that time I received one 25-word message from my family and one package from the Red Cross.”

That 47-pound package came near Christmas 1943. “You should have seen the children scamper out on the green in broad daylight dressed in pajamas and shoes, the first they had had for many a long shoeless month. And Bagnio (sic) is not a place to be without warm clothing with its 200-inch rainfall and its coolness-70 degrees or less,” Edna said.

More importantly, the packages contained food and medicine that helped keep the prisoners alive in 1944, when their daily food allotment from the Japanese was 800 grams of moldy rice or corn.

“Conditions were so bad in camp with no medicine to stem the diarrhea, dysentery, anemia and malnutrition that even the doctors and nurses were sick. What those vitamins and sulfa drugs did for us, only the thousands of suffering internees could tell you,” Edna said.

The prisoners used the food and medicine they had received in their Red Cross packages sparingly since no one knew if they would receive another package.

Edna said the women shed tears over receiving bobby pins and powder, things they considered luxuries at the time. They were having to hammer out homemade pins from old iron on a forge or use bamboo pins.

Although the Millers hadn’t heard from their daughter in years, they prayed she was still alive.

The tide of the war began turning. American forces began retaking the Philippines in late 1944. Most of the Japanese in the Philippines surrendered on February 23, 1945. However, Gen. Douglas MacArthur continued routing the Japanese from other parts of the country until it was declared free of the Japanese on July 4, 1945.

In the meantime, the War Department announced on February 21, 1945, that Edna was one of the American prisoners freed as the American forces took Luzon. The Frederick Post encouraged friends and family to write to her, care of the Red Cross, but they cautioned people to mail more than one letter because getting mail to and from the islands still took weeks and could be unreliable.         

“The night that we were liberated we had to leave our Bilibid prison to escape the fire surrounding it, and we were asked to leave all, save a handbag and we would come back for our other things,” Edna said.

It was during this time the Red Cross impressed Edna. The volunteers stepped in to help take care of the freed prisoners. They had even arranged for them to cable their families and let them know they were safe.

Edna was so impressed that she didn’t return immediately to the United States. She stayed to volunteer with the Red Cross and help others.

According to information the United States released years after the war, U.S. casualties in the Philippines were 10,380 dead and 36,550 wounded; Japanese dead were 255,795. Filipino deaths during the occupation was estimated to be 527,000 (27,000 military dead, 141,000 massacred, 22,500 forced labor deaths and 336,500 deaths due to war-related famine).

Prisoners liberated from a prison camp in Manila, Luzon, Philippine Islands, line up for their first square meal in over three years of Japanese imprisonment.

Courtesy Photos

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T h e Y e a r i s…1 9 02

by James Rada, Jr.

Courtesy Photo of Gravemarker

The Story of the Barefoot Wanderer

Amanda Wisensale handed the lunch pail to her daughter, Ellen, and sent her off to deliver the lunch to William Wisensale. Amanda let her daughter know not to dawdle. Although Ellen was 14 years old, she had mental problems, so Amanda had to be specific with her.

Ellen took her responsibility seriously and set off to the limestone quarry along the Hanover Turnpike, where her father worked. It was June 1902, and Ellen walked barefoot from the family home near Hanover to the quarry along the dirt roads in the area.

William was hauling a load of limestone in a wagon when his daughter reached the quarry. Missing him, but knowing he would want his lunch, the girl followed where she thought the wagon had gone along the turnpike.

As the time grew later, Amanda realized her daughter hadn’t returned home. Assuming Ellen had gotten distracted and was playing, Amanda found one of her other children and sent him to the quarry to fetch his sister and make sure William had his lunch.

No one at the quarry had seen Ellen, and the boy hadn’t seen her on his way there. When William heard this, he stopped work for the day. He returned home to talk with his wife and then started searching for his daughter.

“He followed her to Littlestown, and from there, two miles out the Taneytown road, where all trace of her was lost. A number of people noticed her as she went through Westminster,” the Emmitsburg Chronicle reported.

Meanwhile, Ellen kept walking. “The road was rough and she was barefooted, and the sharp gravel cut her feet,” the Washington Post reported. “Still, she had set out to find her father, and she did not wish him to go hungry a minute longer than necessary; so, she trudged along, looking to the right and left, but seeing nothing of him.”

Ellen reached Westminster around 9:00 p.m. Joseph U. Smith saw the young girl walk past his office. He walked outside to see why the youngster was out so late. “She appeared bewildered and could not tell who she was or where she was going,” the Emmitsburg Chronicle reported.

He took her into his office and started gently questioning her. Smith noticed Ellen was carrying a basket full of food. He asked her why she hadn’t eaten it.

“This is papa’s dinner,” she answered.

He eventually learned she was from Hanover and what her father’s name was. Smith called Hanover and was connected with William Wisensale.

“How the child managed to get from the Taneytown road to the Littlestown turnpike is a mystery,” the Chronicle reported. “She trudged the whole distance without shoes, and the bottom of her feet were full of blisters.”

When William reached Westminster, 18 miles away from Littlestown, he thanked Smith profusely. He explained that his daughter had been “suffering mentally for several years,” the Chronicle reported.

Because of Ellen’s diminished capacity, she could never live on her own. She lived with her parents until they grew too old to care for her. She was admitted to the Adams County Home in 1917 and remained there for another 11 years.

She died there on October 20, 1928. The cause of her death was listed as dropsy, an old term for edema. This is a swelling of soft tissue because of water accumulation. Although any soft tissue could swell, it’s likely she died from congestive heart failure brought on by the edema.

Her funeral was held in one of her brothers’ homes in Hanover, and she was interred with her parents at Christ Church Cemetery near Littlestown.

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T h e Y e a r i s…1 9 2 8

by James Rada, Jr.

She Wa s the F i r s t L ine in Fire Defense

Photo Courtesy of findagrave.com.

Alice Willard knew all about struggling to get by. The Foxville resident was a 30-year-old single mother of an 11-year-old son, living in a rural area. Even though she had family who could help watch her son, Atley, Alice still needed to earn a living to support the both of them.

In April 1928, she became the only female “lookout” in Maryland. C. Cyril Klein, the district forester for Western Maryland, appointed her the lookout for the Foxville fire tower. A lifelong resident of Foxville who lived in a house her father built the year she was born, Alice knew the area she was to watch over.

“She went on duty Wednesday [April 4] and for the next eight weeks, until about June 1, she will occupy a small room at the top of a 60-foot steel tower in the heart of the Catoctin mountains, about 12 hours a day, on the lookout for mountain fires,” the Frederick Post reported.

Her pay for this job was $60 a month (about $925 in today’s dollars). It was a low-paying job, even among common laborers at the time, but it helped pay her bills.

From the fire tower, Alice had a 12-mile view in every direction.

“At the first indication of fire or smoke, she will telephone to the nearest warden, who in turn will investigate the fire. If it is of a threatening nature, a force sufficient to combat the flames will be summoned and efforts will not be relaxed until the blaze is extinguished,” the Frederick Post reported.

She had experience with the job. She had substituted when her brother needed time off from the job years earlier.

“While she will be some distance from the nearest house, Mr. Klein said she is courageous and he added that she knows how to shoot,” the newspaper reported.

Not only was Alice the only female lookout in Maryland at the time, she was the first woman put in charge of a fire tower in the state. Women had done the work before, but only as a substitute or an assistant.

She said of her experience years later in a Frederick News Post article, “Indeed there were lots of fires! And no lightning ever set those fires. Men set fires! Tossing a cigarette or some other fool thing, that’s what done it. Many’s the fire that was set on purpose, too. Did you know that? I’ll tell you just why! They’d set fires to burn off a clearing in the woods. Then the huckleberries would grow up thick in the burned out places. Huckleberries were a big cash crop here in those days. Many a berry’s been picked and sold for three cents a quart. Every child on the mountain’s picked huckleberries at one time or other.”

In 1930, she was mentioned in an article talking about a rash of fires on Catoctin and South mountains. She had been the first lookout to identify some of them.

She was named an assistant fire warden in 1931.

In 1933, she had a near-fatal encounter with a copperhead that the Hagerstown Morning Herald said she handled with “remarkable coolness and bravery.” She was burning brush while on the job when the snake bit her above the ankle. “She cut open the wound and applied a tourniquet to stop the circulation of blood, then walked to a neighbor’s house, where she secured medical attention.”

She left her job with the State of Maryland in 1934.

The Frederick News noted in 1971 that Alice was still driving a tractor, chopping wood, farming, feeding livestock, keeping house, quilting, sewing clothes, baking, and canning at age 76.

She was also living alone. She had never married, and her son had died from cancer in 1962 at 45 years of age.

“She values her privacy, resents any encroachment upon her land or her rights, and is the personification of the attitudes and traditions of the mountain folk for over two centuries,” Ann Burnside Love wrote for the Frederick News.

Alice died in 1993, a week before her 98th birthday. She is buried in the Mt. Moriah Lutheran Church cemetery.

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The Year is…1925

The Summer Blue Ridge Summit Burned

Blue Ridge Summit was not a heavily populated area in 1925. Only a few hundred people lived there year-round, but that summer the small community suffered three fires that caused a lot of damage to the town.

On June 16, the engine house of the Monterey Hotel caught fire and burned to the ground. The loss was put at $1,000 (roughly $13,500 in 2016 dollars).

Three days later, the Chambersburg, Greencastle and Waynesboro Trolley station caught on fire. Luckily, there weren’t any people there. Trolleys had been slowly falling into disuse as the popularity of cars grew. The Chambersburg, Greencastle and Waynesboro Trolley would end its service in 1928.

“The fire at Highfield Tuesday completely destroyed the confectionary store, pool room, and barber shop owned by John Flautt, adjoining the station,” the Hagerstown Morning Herald reported.

The fire department responded as quickly as it could and Rev. Charles Niles, rector of the Episcopal Church drove the fire truck. The problem was notifying enough people that help was needed to fight the fire. The Gettysburg Times called the alert system inadequate. “The old fire rings, huge iron circles with iron hammers, which were placed at various points on the mountain years ago, are now overgrown with weeds and brush and are practically useless for putting in fire calls,” the newspaper reported.

The blaze was out of control by the time the firemen arrived and they concentrated on keeping the fire from spreading to nearby homes and businesses.

The trolley station suffered $1,000 in damage, while Flautt had $2,500 in damage. It also caused some of the few businesses in the town to be closed for a time.

Both of these fires were reported as being suspicious in origin.

Then in the afternoon of July 13, the shout of fire went up in one of the oldest boarding houses on the mountain, according to The Gettysburg Times. The boarders quickly left except for Bertha Barr who was ill and couldn’t leave her bed.

The fire department responded as quickly as they could to the scene.

“Fighting their way through stifling smoke and flames to the third story, J. M. Detrow and Dr. H. C. Bridges, of Blue Ridge Summit, yesterday afternoon rescued Miss Bertha Barr, of Baltimore, from a fire which destroyed the boarding house owned by Mrs. Mae Truitt, for a time threatened the heart of the fashionable Blue Ridge Summit summer colony, and fought by a bucket brigade including girls summering at the resort,” The Gettysburg Times reported.

The entire building burned to the ground in half an hour. Sparks from the fire set a nearby vacation lodge on fire and threatened to catch other buildings on fire, but the Waynesboro Fire Department arrived on scene and helped the Blue Ridge Summit firefighters get the fire under control.

The boarding house had recently undergone a number of repairs and was valued at $18,000 (roughly $244,000 in 2016 dollars). The loss was only partially covered by insurance, and Truitt had a loss of $12,000. The fire was believed to have been caused by a defective flue in the chimney by the roof.

If there was a silver lining to all of the fires that summer, it is that enough money was raised to purchase a new siren for the Blue Ridge Summit Fire Department.

“It was bought after several destructive fires had threatened the entire mountain settlement because of an inadequate alarm system,” The Gettysburg Times reported.

The new electric alarm weighed 550 pounds and was installed on a steel tower in the plaza at Blue Ridge Summit in mid-August.


The Monterey Inn suffered a major fire in 1925, one of three large fires that summer in Blue Ridge Summit.

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The Year is…1879

A Pleasant Fall Ride Through Emmitsburg

by James Rada, Jr.

In early October 1879, Samuel Motter, publisher of the Emmitsburg Chronicle, took a ride around Emmitsburg with a friend.

“All the world knows that the drives, calculated to afford pleasure and delight, are very numerous around Emmitsburg, and the heart which is not alive to the beauty of the scenery and the unexampled loveliness everywhere around must be wanting in refined sensibilities,” Motter wrote in the newspaper.

It was a lovely day for a ride. Although it was October, it was 80 degrees out. He wrote, “You who used to sit by glowing stoves, at this time of year, with buttoned-up coats and with sensible forebodings of winter’s approach, think ye of us, riding in an open buggy, with straw hats, and the high temperature we have mentioned!”

They rode down the old “Dutch Lane” to Poplar Ridge Road. The road at the time was old, but it had been widened, leveled, and was kept in excellent condition. His only complaint was that the road had some steep hills. It started at Carlisle Street (North Seton Ave.) continuing from a broad alley. It went uphill to a ridge where the last of a stand of poplar trees stood. This last tree was “lonely and grand in its position, the last of the giant tribe which gave the name ‘Poplar Ridge’ to those heights, and which from its well-defined proportions, its symmetrical top and proud form, being visible over all the plain for miles to the southward, a lady of taste called ‘Stonewall Jackson.’”

Silver Run and the old brick schoolhouse could be seen from the ridge. Looking toward Emmitsburg, the first thing Motter saw was the old Elias Lutheran Church “with its whitened sepulchers glinting in the sun-light, where rest the remains of so much worth and goodness and such wealth of tender associations as cling to the memories of those who once gave direction and life and influence to the living forces of the neighborhood.”

To the right of the church, he saw another church, the Church of the Incarnation (Reformed) “with its golden cross at the top, about 100 feet high erected in the year 1868, on the lot once known as John Nickum’s.”

He also noted how the relatively new Presbyterian Church towered above its surroundings.

Finally, he wrote, “And there to the east and southward is St. Joseph’s Church (Roman Catholic) with its massive walls and solid spire. Here too the cemetery shows forth the white light reflected from the monuments that commemorate, much of the worth which gave active exercise to itself in the earlier as well as the latter history of Emmitsburg.”

As he moved south, he enjoyed the view, writing, “Beautifully the prospect opens, the autumnal hues everywhere meet the eye, here are the sumach shrubs, there a lone gum tree, yonder a clump of trees, farther off a whole grove appears, end erewhile the eyes rests upon the pile of ‘St. Joseph’s House,’ the groves among—ornamenting the plain, and whose metal roofs and radiant crosses dart forth scintillations of light athwart the valley.”

Off to the southwest, he could see Mount St. Mary’s College, although it was almost obscured among the autumn foliage. Motter described it as “the venerable old church perched upon the hillside and sending forth its reflected light to the far distant horizon.”

Motter and his friend crossed the Taneytown Road bridge over Flat Run. He noted that when the bridge was being built, that water level was so flat that not enough water could be drawn to mix mortar for the bridge. It had to be hauled from another location.

He also mentions a haunted house in Emmitsburg. It was the home of a man named Patrick Savage, who may have lived north of town, along the Gettysburg Road. Motter wrote that Savage was dead, but his “ghost had been said to appear there since his death, not seldom.”

All in all, it was a pleasant ride for Motter and his friend, and it gives readers a look at Emmitsburg as it was 141 years ago.

Picture of Emmitsburg Courtesy of Thurmontimages.com

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The Year is…1909

Were Emmitsburg Residents Pioneers in Aviation?

by James Rada, Jr.

On Friday morning, December 24, 1909, residents of Adams County looked up and saw something flying overhead in a northeasterly direction.

“They say the machine was flying high and fast and that it had a tail. Some thought it was a baloon (sic) but the tail mentioned indicates an airship,” The Gettysburg Times reported.

Although the Wright Brothers had successfully flown the first heavier-than-air powered aircraft at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, six years earlier, airplanes were still an uncommon sight. This airplane may have been a 1909 Wright military flyer, which was used to train U.S. Army aviators at College Park that year.

People had seen something, though. Reports came in from Emmitsburg, Gettysburg, Arendtsville, and Bonneauville of the flying machine. Workers on the Western Maryland Railroad reported that they had seen the airship. William H. Sharretts said that he had seen the plane on the way to school in Bonneauville and had followed it for two miles before it got too far away from him.

The Emmitsburg Chronicle then added to the confusion with a joking article that began “Discovered at last! Curses!” Editor Sterling Galt wrote the article identifying the mysterious airship.

“The truth is that the object that flew over Gettysburg on Friday was an airship, built, owned and navigated by Prof. Dan Shorb and Dr. ‘Bill’ Snyder, of the University of Harney. These men of science who had been working on Dr. Crook’s solar records for two months eleven and one-half days and a few nights completed their calculations and started on their airship journey from Poplar Ridge last Friday at 1 A. X.,” Galt wrote.

Shorb and Snyder were not professors, and there was no University of Harney, but this was probably just as good an explanation as any.

“The expedition proceeded in a northerly course, but on reaching an altitude of 88 1-4 miles the clobhaggle on the hakiscope got tangled up with Dr. Snyder’s memory, throwing the machine off about twenty-three points to the Eastward,” Galt wrote.

Galt added that the plane’s destination was Gogenhaben.

Although it wasn’t ever confirmed in a non-satirical manner, Shorb and Snyder were actual people, so they may have created an airship of some sort. It is unlikely, though.

Shorb and Snyder pop up fairly often in the Emmitsburg Chronicle and usually in humorous ways. Besides being credited for inventing an airship, they also invented a rapid-fire noodle-soup gun and discovered new species of chickens and fish, among others.

So, does that make this incident the first report of an unidentified flying object (UFO) in Adams County? And, did Emmitsburg play a role in early aviation history?

An Arendtsville resident wrote to The Gettysburg Times, “It will not be many years till the sky will be so full of airships that they will darken the sun. Everybody will ride in an airship and the steam passenger cars will be abandoned.”

Air flight finally arrived in Adams County in 1921, when its first airport was built.

Wright Military Flyer

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The Year is…1853

by James Rada, Jr.

Cholera Kills Dozens in Emmitsburg

In July 1853, Emmitsburg residents started getting sick and dying. According to James Helman’s History of Emmitsburg, the first victim was an African American, named Isaac Norris.

Helman wrote, “…he was taken early in the night in a stable and died there; black men attended him, not knowing the disease; whether the doctor did or not, I am not prepared to say. Suffice it to say, he died during the night and was buried in Dr. Patterson’s field.”

Five people died during the first week as officials tried to determine the cause. They realized it was cholera, an intestinal infection. The most common symptom is a lot of watery diarrhea that lasts for days. The diarrhea can lead to severe dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. These symptoms can result in sunken eyes, cold skin, a wrinkling of the hands and feet, and bluish skin.

The cause of cholera is often unsafe water or food that has been contaminated by the bacteria. Poor sanitation and insufficient clean drinking water often led to cholera outbreaks in the 1800s.

The Gettysburg Compiler reported that 45 people in town and the surrounding area died. Victims included Dr. A. Taney and his wife; Joseph Moritz; Mrs. Agnew, a resident in the Eagle hotel; Rev. Thomas McCaffery; George Mentzer; and Samuel Morrison, according to Helman.

Rev. Thomas McCaffrey was a professor at Mount St. Mary’s College. The Story of the Mountain notes “…when the cholera broke out, he went to visit some of his former parishioners and townsmen who were taken down. He caught the disorder and died at the College, a martyr of charity, the glory of the Mountain village. Strange to say, his death was the only one on this side of Tom’s Creek.”

Besides the dying, many people were left sick and in a weak condition.

Some people tried to downplay the severity of the problem. A resident wrote a letter to the Adams County Sentinel saying, “Emmitsburg and the country around are as healthy as they ever were, fully as healthy as any other place in the Union.” The writer also tried to find other explanations of why people were dying, noting that George Mentzer had a stroke and Agnes Brown died of dropsy.

As the outbreak stretched into August, it became obvious that Emmitsburg had a problem.

Those who weren’t sick tried their best to help those who were sick. The Emmitsburg Chronicle noted in a 1951 article that the Rev. G. W. Aughinbaugh of the Reformed Church “evinced no small degree of courage and self-sacrifice in ministering to the suffering during its entire course.”

The Lancaster Daily Intelligencer reported on August 23, “A physician recently returned from Emmitsburg states that during the prevalence of the Cholera at that place, of which nearly forty persons have perished, but which is now abating, the water of several wells was found to be deleteriously affected, and also that a number of lower animals, reptiles, etc, have been found dead.”

“It continued dry the entire summer and very hot until the middle of September, when a very severe thunderstorm passed this way, drenching the earth and washing the surface as it had not been for many months. After this rain, no new cases occurred,” Helman wrote.

Helman notes the problem was in the well water and that once the town started relying on mountain water, such problems were overcome.

In early September, the Adams County Sentinel reported, “There have been no cases of cholera here for two weeks. Our town is very healthy at present, and most all of those who had left have returned. There were about forty-five deaths in all—town and country—from the commencement of the disease till the decline.”

The Chronicle noted in 1911 that the cholera epidemic was “instrumental in reducing our population from 700 to 350.” It was a drop in population that the town didn’t recover from until the early 1880s, according to U.S. Census data.

Cholera Bacteria Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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The Year is…1899

A Spurned Love Affair Turns Deadly

by James Rada, Jr.

On April 22, 1899, 16-year-old Orpha Harshman of Wolfsville started off on a two-mile walk to her sister’s house. She took a shortcut across a field that would cut the journey in half.

Her stepbrother, Edward Morgan, 25, watched and followed. He caught up to her on a mountain ridge out of sight of any houses.

Although there were no witnesses to what happened next, the Emmitsburg Chronicle presented this version of events:

“As she arrived at the rocks, Morgan sprang out and called upon her to offer up her last prayer, as her time had come. He, at the same time, thrust a revolver in her face. She begged him to spare her life, but to no purpose. It is said that, finding her pleadings were fruitless, she summoned all her courage and attempted to strike the weapon from his hand, when he quickly placed it to her temple and fired, the bullet entering the right side of the head and passing out on the left. In attempting to ward off the weapon, the sleeve of her dress took fire from the powder and was burned off, as well as a portion of the dress over her bosom, under which her arm lay where she fell. Her arm was badly burned, and her bosom seared from the fire.

“Feeling satisfied he had killed her, Morgan then placed the revolver to his own head and attempted to send a bullet into his brain, but the leaden missile struck the right cheekbone, and glancing came out of his eye. He then fired a bullet into his left leg. Finding these two ineffectual, he placed the barrel of the revolver against his abdomen and emptied the two remaining chambers into his bowels and fell over by the side of his innocent victim.”

Peter Baer lived nearby. He heard the pistol shots and a scream. More shots, in quick succession, followed a few minutes later, but Baer paid them no mind, according to the Catoctin Clarion.

Charles Kline was driving his mother home in a buggy when he heard the shots. He drove toward the shots and found Morgan’s and Harshman’s bodies lying in pools of blood. The sight upset Kline so much that he didn’t recognize the bodies. He thought they were tramps.

Kline drove his buggy to Scott Martin’s house and told Martin to get a doctor. Kline then drove back to the bodies with some other people who were at Martin’s house.

They examined the bodies, and surprisingly, found them both alive. However, Harshman died a short time later. Morgan’s body was loaded onto a wagon and taken to his home. The doctor could do nothing, and Morgan died five hours later.

The story soon came out that Morgan had been obsessed with his stepsister (Morgan’s father married Harshman’s mother).

“The family had been living happily and contented until about six months ago, when Mrs. Morgan observed her husband’s son was paying what she considered too much attention to her daughter,” the Emmitsburg Chronicle reported. “The more she resisted, the stronger became his attachment for her.”

Morgan became so desperate that he asked Harshman to elope with him. She refused him and said if he didn’t leave her alone, she would leave home.

“Seeing she was determined in her purpose, he told her that unless she married him, she would never live to be the bride of another,” according to the Chronicle.

Instead, Morgan’s father told him he needed to move out. Morgan did, but he stayed in a building near his family home. He also spent a lot of time in Hagerstown getting drunk, and a week before the murder-suicide, he purchased the pistol he would use to kill Harshman and himself.

Both Harshman and Morgan were buried in separate cemeteries. Harshman was buried in the Grossnickle Dunkard Church cemetery and Morgan in the Wolfsville Reformed Church cemetery.

Even in death, Morgan still could not be near Harshman.

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The Year is…1877

The Archbishop Who Was Buried in Emmitsburg

by James Rada, Jr.

To those who knew Archbishop of Baltimore James Roosevelt Bayley, it didn’t come as a great surprise when he died on October 3. He had been in ill health for months. It was said he died from liver and kidney problems.

What was a surprise is where the current Archbishop of Baltimore and former Archbishop of Newark, Del., chose to be buried. 

“By request of his Grace, the most Rev. Archbishop of Baltimore, James Roosevelt Bayley, the Sisters of Charity of St. Josephs convent had prepared in the vault in the memorial Chapel erected over the remains of Mother Seton (sic) the Foundress of the order in the United States, a final resting place for all that was mortal of the distinguished divine,” the Catoctin Clarion reported.

Bayley wanted to be buried with Elizabeth Ann Seton because she was his aunt. His father, Dr. Richard Bayley, was Seton’s brother.

Bayley had originally been ordained a minister in the Episcopal Church and preached in Harlem and Hagerstown. However, like his aunt, Bayley converted to Catholicism. He was baptized in Rome and trained for the priesthood in Paris before being ordained in New York on March 2, 1842. Upon doing so, he gave up his family fortune because his maternal grandfather removed him from his will.

He taught at St. John’s College in Fordham, New Jersey, and served as the college president from 1845-1846. From 1846-1853, he worked as a secretary for Archbishop John Hughes, who had ordained him a priest.

On October 30, 1853, he became the first bishop of Newark, New Jersey, which “under his administration became one of the most prosperous in the United States,” according to the Richmond Daily Dispatch. The diocese comprised all of New Jersey. He had more than 40,000 Catholics, mainly of Irish and German extraction, with only 25 priests to minister to them. He founded Seton Hall College in Madison, New Jersey, as well as other schools, convents, and churches.

He became the Archbishop of Baltimore on July 31, 1872.

After a funeral Mass in Baltimore on October 9, Bayley’s casket was loaded onto a Western Maryland Railroad train at 2:00 p.m., and then onto the Emmitsburg Railroad train in Rocky Ridge. It arrived at the station in front of St. Joseph’s College at 4:20 p.m.

“Outside the depot building on the broad avenue leading to the institution, the Sisters of Charity and pupils of the school formed in line, on the south pavement. Opposite on the north pavement were the Professors and students of Mt. St. Mary’s,” the Clarion reported.

A seminarian with the cross and censer led the funeral procession from the train, which included friends, family, and Cardinal John McCloskey.

“The scene was one never to be forgotten, the Revs., Clergy in vestments of their several orders, the Seminarians with black cassocks and white surplices, with Sisters of Charity in their flowing white cornets, the pupils of St. Joseph’s in long white veils, the beautiful cemetery of the Sisters radient (sic) with the bloom of autumn flowers, the soft misty haze of an October sunset combined to make a picture rarely to be seen,” according to the Clarion.

They entered the cemetery and proceeded to the chapel behind the old White House, where Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton had lived more than a half century ago. The chapel was in a grove surrounded by oak trees.

“As you enter the chapel to the right of the altar, a Tablet with the proper inscription indicates the spot where all that is mortal life of the venerated Foundress. To the left, another table to mark the spot of her illustrious nephew,” the newspaper reported.

Cardinal McCloskey pronounced the last absolution, and the coffin was lowered into the ground.

Afterward, the crowd moved to the St. Joseph’s exhibition hall for a reception until the train whistle blew at 6:00 p.m. The group from Baltimore then headed back to the station to be aboard the train by the time it left for Baltimore at 6:30 p.m. Archbishop of Baltimore James Roosevelt Bayley

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The Year is…1918

by James Rada, Jr.

The Pandemic to End All Pandemics — Part 3

Spanish Flu rampaged through Frederick County and the world in the fall of 1918. During October 1918, the State of Maryland shut down public venues and businesses, and those places that could still open had trouble finding healthy workers.

On October 11, the Frederick Post reported that 50 people in the county had died from the flu; however, this seems too low just looking at the daily numbers it was reporting. The newspaper noted on October 12, “There are homes in this city where entire families are ill and bed-ridden with influenza and nobody to help care for them.”

County Health Officer T. C. Routson and the Red Cross called on student nurses to help care for the sick. They only had mixed success because many young women were afraid to help. Afterall, they didn’t want to catch the flu themselves.

On October 14, the Frederick Post tried a good news, bad news thing. New cases of the flu had “slumped.” Yea! However, more people who already had the flu were dying.

By October 17, Mount St. Mary’s College alone had 160 students and faculty sick with the flu, after first appearing on campus the previous week. Two Daughters of Charity were on the campus trying to help, but it wasn’t enough. The situation at the college was so serious that Monsignor Bradley, president of the college, asked Maj. Dwight D. Eisenhower at Camp Colt in Gettysburg for medical assistance. The camp was experiencing its own problems with the flu, but Eisenhower did send two doctors to help. The doctors placed the college under military quarantine, and no one was allowed off the grounds.

The Mountaineer noted, “In consequence of this quarantine, all students who were free from any sign of the disease were sent to their homes early in December and did not return until January was well advanced.”

With only eight deaths on the 17th, the Frederick Post declared that the flu was “waning.” It noted in the article that the death rate was lower, but you don’t see the higher death rates in the paper except for the one instance. The paper reported on October 18, “With only four deaths yesterday, the average death rate per day, which is usually about nine or ten, has been cut down less than half.”

A week later, the newspaper reported that there had only been two flu deaths in the county the previous day. “This is the smallest number of victims for a single day since the influenza became an epidemic.” Sadly, the doctor in charge of the main Red Cross hospital had fallen victim to the flu and died.

The Perfect Storm

Many communities were already shorthanded medically because doctors had been drafted to serve in WWI. Then, along came the flu, which intensified by the shortage, making many of the remaining doctors sick at a time when the workload was drastically increasing. The remaining doctors found themselves working longer hours with contagious people. This would wear them down and make them susceptible to flu and the process would repeat.

One example of this can be seen with Dr. Brown and Dr. Kuhlman in Jefferson. They had 30 patients sick with the flu, but they were sick themselves and bedridden. Dr. Brown tried to help his patients over the phone without much luck.

Routson noted that Thurmont’s efforts to fight the flu were hampered because all of the doctors there were sick with the flu. At its peak, Thurmont doctors were seeing 50 to 60 patients a day.

Other professions faced similar problems. An ad in the Frederick Post urged residents not to make unnecessary phone calls. “The influenza epidemic had brought a heavy overload of calls to our wires. It has caused a serious shortage in our operating force. Calls other than those concerning important government work, and those compelled by the epidemic, embarrass the country’s war program and place lives in jeopardy.”

Even newspaper delivery was affected because many of the carriers were sickened with the flu. In Brunswick, rail service was crippled because “about half of the population has the flu,” according to the Frederick Post.

The Third Wave

Halloween passed on October 31 without any celebration.

Maryland listed its closure order on November 4. There was a resurgence of the flu in December in Washington County, but it didn’t kill anyone. Parts of Frederick County also saw a resurgence. The Catoctin Clarion in late December reported, “Influenza, a disease dreaded by a big majority of people, is not disappearing very rapidly at this time, the number of cases increasing rather than decreasing in various communities.”

The third wave of Spanish Flu hit particularly hard in the Fairfield, Pennsylvania, area, as well as the eastern part of the county. One doctor was quoted in the Star and Sentinel as saying, “I have just come from four homes. Three or four people were sick in every one of them. One of the families had both parents and the two children ill. I have another family in which there were six cases.”

Reports said the second outbreak wasn’t as pervasive, but it could still be deadly. This is typical of locations where there was a third outbreak.

Christmas 1918 was somber. A lot of people had lost someone they knew to the flu. Officials urged people to do their shopping early when fewer people would be in the stores. Church Christmas programs were canceled for fear of having too many people in a confined space.

Determining Impact

Maryland conducted a door-to-door survey in March 1919 in Baltimore, Cumberland, Lonaconing, Frederick, Salisbury, and three rural districts in Frederick, Washington, and Wicomico counties. The information is useful, but not conclusive, something that the survey noted when it acknowledged some of the shortfalls.

Although deaths in Maryland didn’t exceed births in 1918, it came close with 32,183 deaths, which was about 10,000 more than five years in either direction. The death rate was 2,257 per 100,000 or about 700 more than the years on either side. No other year from 1902 to the present day comes close.

The U.S. Census also reported that the decade between 1910 and 1920 is the only decade since 1900 that Frederick County lost population, to which Spanish Flu certainly contributed.

Looking at the Maryland survey, newspaper reports, surrounding county information, and county reports, it appears about 350 people or .7 percent of the county’s population died from the flu. However, this might be underestimated because it is known that during the pandemic’s peak, some doctors were so overwhelmed that they couldn’t fill out death certificates until days later, sometimes leaving the cause of death blank.

What is known is that Spanish Flu was the worst disease to hit Frederick County.

Employees needed to wear facemasks while at work during the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918.

The 39th Regiment on its way to France, marching through Seattle, Washington. The Seattle Chapter of the Red Cross made masks for them. 

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The Year is…1918

The Pandemic to End All Pandemics — Part 1

by James Rada, Jr.

Although the country essentially quarantined itself state by state this spring, it’s not the first time such a thing has happened. However, when it happened in 1918, 675,000 Americans died in roughly two months. Worldwide, the death toll may have reached 100 million people, or 1 person out of every 20.

The Spanish Flu is the worst disease the world has ever known.

The First Wave

Much like COVID-19, when the Spanish Flu was noticed and when it began are two different times. It first appeared in Spain in February 1918, hence, the name. However, because Spain was a neutral country during World War I, the press was free to report on the flu, although other places were said to be having troubles with the disease. One historian believes he traced the flu back to a Chinese avian flu in 1917.

With this first wave of the Spanish Flu, people got fever, chills, and aches for three days, and then they would be fine. It was 1918’s seasonal flu, and there was nothing to be concerned about except that more people than usual caught the disease. The odd thing about the flu of 1918 is that rather than attacking the very old and very young with weaker immune systems, it also attacked healthy adults in their 30s and 40s.

By May, 8 million Spaniards had or had recovered from the flu. Not only did the flu attack people of all ages, it attacked people at all social levels. King Alfonso XIII of Spain and King George V of England caught it.

The flu spread worldwide, including the United States, when it appeared at Camp Funston in Kansas in March. Because flu was not a reportable disease, it’s uncertain how many cases there were, but 233 soldiers developed pneumonia, and 48 doughboys died. Given the number of soldiers in camp, this was not considered a remarkable mortality rate.

With a virulent flu sidelining so many soldiers across the world, it affected the progress of World War I.

In one instance, the 15th U.S. Cavalry contracted the disease while at sea. They called it the “three-day fever.” Doctors noted that while the disease lasted three days, it often took a week or two for the victim to recover fully.

King George’s Grand Fleet could not put to sea for three weeks in May because 10,313 men were sick. The British Army’s 29th Division had planned to attack La Becque on June 30, but had to put off the operation because too many soldiers were sick with the flu to mount an effective offensive. German General Erich von Ludendorff blamed the flu for his failure to mount offensives.

Then the flu vanished as temperatures warmed.

The Second Wave

Spanish Flu appeared again in late August. This time, it was even more contagious and much more deadly.

One physician wrote that patients rapidly “develop the most vicious type of pneumonia that has ever been seen,” and later when cyanosis appeared in patients “it is simply a struggle for air until they suffocate.” Another doctor said the influenza patients “died struggling to clear their airways of a blood-tinged froth that sometimes gushed from their mouth and nose.”

The second wave first appeared in America at Boston. On August 28, 1918, eight sailors reported sick with the flu. The next day, the number was 58, and by day four, it was 81. After another week, the number was 119, and civilians were getting sick. On September 8, three people died.

By this time, it had spread beyond Boston. Flu reports were coming in along the East Coast.

On September 26, 50,000 residents of Massachusetts had the flu; in Boston alone, 133 died that day from flu and 33 from pneumonia.

In Frederick County

Spanish Flu first appeared in Frederick County around the end of September 1918. On September 20, local newspapers warned that an outbreak was coming. At that time, only one known case of the flu was in Maryland. By September 25, hundreds of cases had been reported, mostly soldiers at Camp Meade, although there was no reference to any in Frederick County.

Given the headlines, Spanish Flu struck suddenly, although not unexpected, in Frederick County. “Spanish Flu Sweeps Co.; Fifty Cases,” read a Frederick News headline on September 26. The article notes one thing thwarted researchers trying to get an accurate count, and that is that all flu cases weren’t being reported to the health officer, either because the doctors were too busy working or because influenza wasn’t a disease that they were required to report. By the way, that changed after the Spanish Flu outbreak, at least in Maryland.

The following day, 10 more cases were reported. The first death from flu in the county, George Cronise of Buckeystown, occurred on September 29. He was a young man of 23, but his resistance had been compromised because he had been sick for two weeks with a slight case of typhoid fever.

The Spanish Flu had arrived in Frederick County and was starting to kill.

The St. Louis Red Cross Motor Corps on duty during the Spanish Flu pandemic.

The 39th Regiment on its way to France, marching through Seattle, Washington. The Seattle Chapter of the Red Cross made masks for them. 

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The Year is…1896

An English Dutchess Born at Blue Ridge Summit

by James Rada, Jr.

When Alice Montague and Teakle Wallis Warfield were married in 1895, Alice was already pregnant, and Teakle was dying. He had tuberculosis, which is probably why they traveled to Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania, in the summer of 1896. Besides being a popular summer resort, it was also believed the fresh air was good for a person’s health.

The Warfields stayed in Square Cottage at the Monterey Inn in Blue Ridge Summit. It was the town’s largest hotel at the time, and featured not only a central building but also wooden cottages.

While staying there, Alice went into labor, and Bessie Wallis Warfield was born on June 19, 1896, seven months after her parents had been married in Baltimore.

Wallis would never remember her father, though. He died on November 15 of that year, before she was even five months old.

Wallis and her mother were taken in by Wallis’ uncle, Solomon Davies Warfield. He was the postmaster of Baltimore and a wealthy bachelor. They lived in a four-story row home on Preston Street.

Alice Warfield married John Freeman Rasin in 1908. Wallis was confirmed in 1910 at the Christ Episcopal Church.

Between 1912 and 1914, Wallis attended the most-expensive school in Maryland: Oldfields School. According to Charles Higham in his book, Mrs. Simpson, this is where she became friends with Renée du Pont, a member of the DuPont Family, and Mary Kirk, whose family founded Kirk Silverware.

Wallis married Earl Winfield Spencer, Jr., a Navy aviator, in 1916. The marriage was marked by long periods apart, as Spencer was stationed at different postings. She began traveling in Europe and China during the 1920s. She also began a number of affairs with men she met during her travels.

Higham wrote that an Italian diplomat said of Wallis, “Her conversation was brilliant, and she had the habit of bringing up the right subject of conversation with anyone she came in contact with and entertaining them on that subject.”

Not surprisingly, Wallis and Spencer divorced at the end of 1927. She was already having an affair with a shipping executive named Ernest Aldrich Simpson. He divorced his wife, Dorothea, to marry Wallis on July 21, 1928. They lived in England, which is where Wallis came to meet Edward, Prince of Wales, at different house parties hosted by members of the upper class.

It is believed that Wallis and Prince Edward began an affair in 1934, while his current mistress was traveling abroad. By the end of the year, he was deeply in love with Wallis, and she with him.

However, his family was against the pairing, primarily because of Wallis’ marital history. Things became even more complicated when George V died on January 20, 1936. Edward became Edward VIII, the king of England. He watched the proclamation of his accession with Wallis from a window in St. James’s Palace, which was a break from royal protocol.

Heavier attention now fell on his relationship with Wallis. Most of British royalty seemed against the relationship.

When it became apparent that Edward wanted to marry Wallis, it became a legal issue because the Church of England, which the British monarch headed, did not permit the remarriage of divorced people with living spouses.

To make matters worse, Wallis would be a two-time divorcee, since she had filed for divorce from her second husband on October 27, 1936.

As the English public became more aware of the affair, it became a scandal. Under pressure from the British government, Wallis announced that she was willing to give up her newest love, but Edward was not ready.   

He abdicated the throne on December 10, 1936, and his brother, the Duke of York, became King George VI the next day.

Edward addressed his country via radio and said, “I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility, and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love.”

He and Wallis stayed apart until her divorce was finalized in May 1937. She took on her maiden name and the couple reunited. They married on June 3, 1937, and the child born at Blue Ridge Summit became the Dutchess of Windsor.

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The Year is…1953

by James Rada, Jr.

Being a Good Neighbor on Catoctin Mountain

It’s nice to have good neighbors. It’s even nicer when the neighbor is the President of the United States.

Works Progress Administration laborers built the 22 camp buildings at Camp Greentop between 1934 and 1938. The log buildings were a mix of sleeping cabins, administrative buildings, and lodges. The plan was for Camp Greentop to look the same as Camp Misty Mount, but it was changed during construction so that the League for Crippled Children in Baltimore could use the buildings. According to the National Park Service, the camp was one of the first handicap-accessible facilities in the country.

Although the camp was built to house 150 children, 94 children—53 girls and 41 boys (ages 7 to 15)—were enjoying the outdoors there in June 1953. Most of them suffered from cerebral palsy or polio. On the morning of June 28, their neighbors, Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower, came to visit.

“Responding to an invitation sent to him by some of the children, the President turned up at the camp about 9:30 a.m.,” the Frederick News reported. “The children had not been told that Eisenhower and the first lady were coming, and they cut loose with squeals of delight as their distinguished guests drove up.”

The first couple had been staying at Camp David, the presidential retreat near Camp Greentop on Catoctin Mountain, and were on their way back to Washington, D.C.

The Eisenhowers spent a half-hour at the camp, meeting and talking with the children. Although the visit surprised the children, they gathered and sung a couple of songs for the Eisenhowers.

“Do you know what the President did this morning?” Mamie asked one little girl. “He got up and made hotcakes.”

One boy said to the President, “Hello, President Eisenhower, I saw you on television.”

Eisenhower chuckled and replied. “You ought to be looking at Gary Cooper on television.”

As the visit wound down, Eisenhower looked around for his wife, who had been led away by a group of children. “I think I’d better go and get my little gal,” he told the group of children near him.

He located Mamie and helped her into the car, but before they left, the President found Fred Volland, the camp business manager. He asked what the children’s favorite dessert was. Then he slipped Volland some money and said with a grin, “Give them the dessert on me.”

From Catoctin Mountain, the couple continued on to Washington, D.C.

Camp Greentop Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

Photograph shows a pair of campers at Camp Greentop in 1937.

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The Year is … 1871

There’s Gold in Them There Hills!

by James Rada, Jr.

With the arrival of the railroad in Thurmont, you would have thought that attention would have been focused on how it connected Thurmont with the world and the economic development opportunities it brought with it.

“The sound of the steam whistle twice a day in the suburbs of our hitherto quiet little town has awakened everything up to newness of life, and a spirit of ‘go-aheadativeness’ which is quite refreshing,” the Catoctin Clarion reported.

However, attentions shift quickly, and the same page of the March newspaper that printed the above quote also had three articles about mining and the possibility of finding gold in Catoctin Mountain.

One article headlined “Gold! Gold! Gold!” talked about the gold strikes in North Carolina, Georgia, and California in the early 1800s. The writer then noted that the place where gold had been found had been in California, “bears a strong resemblance to the Red Land curve beginning at the dividing sections near ‘Spitzenberger’s Tavern,’ and gravitating to near Graceham and Emmittsburg. —The question comes up can it be that gold may be found in this locality?”

The article noted that an old miner had noted this and other markers that indicated to him the high probability of gold in the area.

“Has the country from Fishing creek to Flat Run been thoroughly ‘prospected?’” the Catoctin Clarion asked.

If not gold, then the article suggested that there might be other useful metals, such as iron, copper, zinc, or silver.

A second article supported Maryland’s proposal to do a statewide geological survey, as this would be the best way to determine what mineral resources were in Northern Frederick County.

The editorial praising the Western Maryland Railroad even called for prospecting in the area. “We must develop the bowels of the earth.”

Yet another article talked about prospectors coming to the area. “As the snow disappears from the mountains, our active prospectors for valuable minerals, which are believed to be embedded in the hills and canons of the Catoctin base, will be on the alert in search of the rich treasures.”

Although no gold was found on Catoctin Mountain at this time, a gold mine was eventually worked on the mountain. It was located close to Braddock Heights in the 1930s. Samples from the mine assayed at .22 ounces of gold per ton. With gold trading at $35 per ounce (about $620 per ounce in today’s dollars), this meant that there was about $7.70 (about $136 in today’s dollars) in gold per ton of raw material. Gold was first found in Maryland in the early 1800s, but it wasn’t commercially mined until after the Civil War, according to GoldRushNuggets.com.

“The majority of the gold that has been recovered here is found in the northern and central parts of the state. Unlike much of the gold on the East Coast, which are limited to glacial deposits, there are actually lode gold deposits present here, with several dozen mines that have been worked since the original discovery of gold,” according to the website.

The state’s peak production was in the 1940s, and it was only 1,000 ounces of gold. Besides Frederick, gold in Maryland was found in the Catonsville area, the Liberty area, the Simpsonville area, the Woodbine area, and the Great Falls area.

Looking Back – 1974 Welcome to Bird Land

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by James Rada, Jr.

In November of 1973, flocks of blackbirds, grackles, cowbirds, and starlings discovered the 60-acre white pine forest owned by Edgar Emrich of Graceham. Emrich had no trouble sharing his trees with the birds.

There were thousands of trees that he had originally planned to sell as Christmas trees when he had planted them in 1957. He hadn’t, and the tree farm had turned into a forest.

“I remember we’d go outside and make a game of trying to dodge the droppings,” Mrs. Austin Young told the New York Times about the birds. “Of course, there were only thousands of them then.”

As the months passed, more and more birds decided to call Graceham home, and by March 1974, an estimated ten million birds had migrated there. Graceham was becoming known as Bird Land.

“Their problem apparently stems from a quirk in the migratory patterns of the birds. They flew south from their warmer-weather homes in New England and southern Canada, but something about Graceham suited them perfectly—Mr. Emrich’s pine trees or perhaps the rolling acres of fields nearby—and they settled in,” the New York Times reported.

And the birds were causing problems. Dead birds abounded, droppings could be measured in inches, and the whole area had a foul odor. Residents had trouble sleeping because of all the chirping and shrieking from the birds at night. “Their flappingly thunderous comings and goings are frightening the children, unsettling the dogs, and scaring the cows,” according to the New York Times.

“Our dog, Herman, shakes when they fly by,” Clare Myers told a reporter. “They go into his dog house, chase him out and eat his food. We need help to stop this or otherwise we’re going to turn into the world’s biggest bird cage.”    

The birds ate the chicken and cattle feed before the animals it was meant for could get to it, and they even got into fights with cats and dogs. The birds also affected the local flora and fauna.

“Now, virtually every tree is dead or dying. The droppings, at least three inches thick after the last five months, have deadened the trees’ roots,” the Abilene Reporter noted.

Dr. Kenneth Crawford, a veterinarian with the Maryland Department of Health said, “No robins, no pheasants, no rabbits—no wildlife of any kind is left in the grove. Those birds chased everything else away.”

More importantly, the millions of birds represented a possible health hazard for the four hundred residents of the town. The excessive droppings could cause histoplasmosis, a fungal disease that occurs in the soil where there is a large amount of bird or bat droppings.

Dr. Charles Spicknall, Frederick County chief public health officer “toured the bird roosting area at sunset just as the flock of an estimated several million blackbirds, starlings, and grackles soared and swooped in from daytime feeding grounds up to fifty miles from the little hamlet of Graceham,” the Frederick Post reported.

The town held a meeting in Graceham Moravian Church to discuss what to do about the birds. Poison was suggested, and Emrich even volunteered to dig a mass grave for the bodies.

Ornithologists said that birds would head north again during the spring and summer, but they also said they would probably return in the fall.

Graceham wasn’t the only town experiencing problems with large numbers of birds. Hopkinsville, Kentucky; Albany, New York; Frankfort, Kentucky; and New York City were all having problems to one degree or another.

However, Graceham had another problem besides millions of birds, and that was dozens of media. Reporters, photographers, and the wire services were all driving to Graceham to report on the invasion of birds, and their cars and trucks blocked the roads in the small town. Graceham was written about in newspapers all over the country.

A county meeting held on March 20 laid out a three-phase plan for getting rid of the birds. Phase 1 would use loud noises and explosive devices to scare the birds away. Phase 2 involved thinning out the pine grove to make it less attractive to the birds. Phase 3 was to develop a long-range program to ensure the birds didn’t come back. Poison was once again mentioned, but only as a last resort.

Frederick County Commissioner Don Lewis said, “I’ll not be a part to the mass killing of birds. We don’t want to create a slaughter ground in Graceham.”

Phase 1 was put into play the next evening. It began around 5:30 p.m., with shotgun blasts and explosive devices sounding off around the perimeter of the pine grove. Loud recordings of bird distress calls and high-frequency sounds played in the grove. Around 7:30 p.m., it appeared that the birds were being discouraged and flying off elsewhere. “Within twenty minutes, the tide shifted as the birds caught Crawford short of firepower on the southeastern perimeter and larger numbers of them began flying through the break,” the Cumberland News reported.

Not to be discouraged, Phase 1 continued for five days. Crawford reported a 90 percent success rate, although residents were skeptical.

“We’ve won the battle but not the war,” Crawford said. “We won’t win the war until we eliminate the unbelievably dense forest that’s there.”

For Phase 2, every third row of trees in the pine grove was removed.

By the end of April, the birds were gone, though whether it was the natural time to leave or they had been driven off by the noise was unknown.

Unfortunately, the birds returned again in October.

Emrich said, “The birds are returning to my trees in increasingly large flocks. We don’t have the big, long streams we had last winter but they’re increasing. They started coming back about two months ago, and it looks like they’re young birds who were born here last winter.”

Luckily, they did not return in the millions, and fewer returned each season as the migratory patterns returned to normal.

This shot from Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, The Birds, typified how Graceham looked in 1973.

Courtesy Photo

Looking Back 1877- Coal Mine or Coal Dump?

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by James Rada, Jr.

Frederick County hides a wealth of natural resources underground. It is mined for iron, copper, gold, lead, silver, zinc, aluminum, stone, limestone, silica, calcium, and clay. At one time, Frederick County also had a short-lived coal mine or did it?

In October 1877, coal was discovered on the farm of Mary Ann Cretin near Motter’s Station. This was an amazing find. Maps of Maryland coal resources with the Maryland Department of the Environment show the state’s coal deposits are in the Western Maryland mountains, beginning beneath the mountains that run along the border between Garrett and Allegany counties.

After the mine opened, the Catoctin Clarion announced that it “is really amounting to something and coal in large quantities is being taken from it.”

People were apparently visiting the farm just to see the coal mine in operation. They said that the coal seam being mined was about a foot thick.

Samples of the coal were tested by a blacksmith whose last name was Weaver “who pronounces it equal to any he ever used for his purposes. All who have seen the specimens taken from the vein pronounce it genuine coal and the owner of the land is in high glee in anticipation of a big fortune,” according to the newspaper.

Many people were comparing it to the high-quality bituminous coal mined in Allegany County. Coal mining was a major industry in that county, and some hoped it could become so in Frederick County.

“This will be a big thing in Frederick County and the cost of coal in the future will be lessened a great deal,” the Catoctin Clarion reported. “It will also cause others to make an examination of their lands and probably bring to light some richer minerals, which must be about in this region so close to the mountains.”

Despite the hoopla, the newspaper announced that mining on the property had ceased in November after less than two months in operation.

“The proprietor is still hopeful, however, that a big let lies buried under the ground, but he doesn’t feel justified in digging for it just now,” the newspaper reported.

A letter that appeared later in the Catoctin Clarion suggested the coal mine might not have been what it seemed. The letter writer said that a man named Harris Bush had been hauling coal to Emmitsburg years ago when the load proved to be heavy to pull. Bush unloaded much of the coal to make it easier for his horses to pull the remainder. The letter writer believed this to be the source of the coal mine. Although the letter writer said the coal had been dumped near Motter’s Station, it doesn’t seem likely that it would have been the coal mine on Cretin’s farm. For one thing, the coal wasn’t found near a road. Also, witnesses saw the coal seam and coal being dug from the ground. Bush’s excess coal would have sat on top of the ground.

However, the Motter’s Station coal mine is improbable. It was found in a region where coal has not been found, even today. The coal seam also petered out quickly.

So, was there a coal mine in Northern Frederick County?

Cretin believed so, but when she died in 1899, no other coal had been found on her farm or in the county for that matter.

Although coal seams are only known to be found in Western Maryland, Motters Station once had a short-lived coal mine in the late 1800s.

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1971: The Mount Goes Co-Ed

by James Rada, Jr.

Although Mount St. Mary’s University was named for a woman, she wouldn’t have been able to attend the college until 1971. It was only in its 164th year that the college decided to admit female students.

Some females from nearby St. Joseph’s College had been attending a limited number of classes at the Mount beginning in 1970. The two colleges had entered into a cooperative agreement that allowed students from either school to take a class at the other school if it wasn’t offered at their home college. The schools even provided transportation between the two campuses to aid the students. During the 1970-71 school year, 119 men from the Mount attended one or more classes at St. Joseph’s, and 100 women from St. Joseph’s attended one or more classes at the Mount.

While the agreement seemed to address the educational reasons for the Mount going co-educational, it didn’t address the cultural or financial issues.

St. Joseph’s College announced that it would close in 1973. This caused concern at Mount St. Mary’s, which had also seen its enrollment dropping. The school had 1,100 students during the 1970-71 school year.

“We are, of course, saddened by the Saint Joseph announcement but we do not feel that the wave of bleak prophecy which has pervaded our own campus is justified. Our situations are in no way similar even though we face the same serious problems of most of the nation’s private colleges,” Mount President John J. Dillon Jr. said during a speech.

In June of 1971, it was announced that the Mount would begin admitting women as non-resident students beginning with the 1971-72 school year. They would be admitted as resident students the following year.

To ensure that students from St. Joseph’s College wouldn’t be delayed in their graduation because of the transition, the Mount also waived some of the curriculum requirements at the Mount for students who needed it, according to the Emmitsburg Chronicle.

While admitting female students helped the women of St. Joseph’s College, it also helped the Mount, which had been seeing fewer applications.

“I feel that the tragedy at Saint Joseph can make us a stronger college if we all work in that direction,” Dillon said. “Mount St. Mary’s is, after all, your college.”

The Mount student body celebrated the decision. David Fielder wrote in the Mountain Echo, “This year, however, we have witnessed the emergence of the Mount into the twentieth century with the administration’s radical new policy concerning co-education. We actually have female names listed in the registrar’s office, and, come next year, Mounties may even find men and women living near each other within the campus grounds. Thus one might conclude that we’ve been granted the other half of what it takes to have a student body.”

While the males were certainly happy to see women on campus, the Mountain Echo pointed out that it was a good academic decision for the school. According to the newspaper, in 1969, 40 colleges and universities had gone co-ed. It was a move being made to attract high-caliber students, of which, 81 percent said in a Princeton University survey that they wanted co-educational schools.

However, not everyone was happy. Women who were losing their college with the closure of St. Joseph’s College lead the way with this group. One woman wrote a letter against the move in The Valley Echo called “Better Dead than Co-Ed.”

The overlapping between the admittance of female students and the closing of Mount St. Mary’s allowed for a gradual transition. Today, women make up the majority of the student body (55 percent) at the Mount.

James Rada, Jr. — Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives

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Deb Spalding

In addition to serving as The Catoctin Banner’s Contributing Editor, and writing the monthly column “Looking Back” that appears in the Banner and four other newspapers, full-time freelance writer James Rada, Jr. is the author of 18 books. These include five historical novels, seven historical non-fiction books, and others exploring a wide range of genres including young adult fiction, thrillers, and fantasy.  Jim said that 80 percent of what he writes is history based, adding, “If I have an interest in the story, I will explore it.”

Raised in suburbs of Baltimore, Jim first discovered his love for writing while in kindergarten. He dictated the words for his first “book,” Mickey’s Dream, to his teacher and then drew pictures to go with it. It was about Mickey and Minnie Mouse going on a date.      Then, in third grade, he and a friend wrote stories about the Bionic Boys. Jim called these stories fan fiction since they were watching “The Six-Million Dollar Man” on television. Seeking to encourage Jim and his friend in their writing, his third-grade sent them to the first-grade classes to read their stories to the students. They loved the stories. Jim explained, “Seeing that reaction from the kids — that’s what hooked me on writing.”

Though his work spans several genres, the foundation of his writing is, “To share the stories of ordinary people who have led extraordinary lives.” He was interviewed as a subject on WHAG’s Sunday Newsmaker in October. You can view the interviews online at Your4State.com.

Jim’s short stories were first published when he was in high school. He also wrote his first novel, The Guardian Angel, in high school, but he never published it. Jim has claimed a natural growth in his writing, starting with short stories, and progressing to novels.

A graduate of Brigham Young University, he majored in Mass Communications with an emphasis in advertising. This gave him experience in copywriting, ad production, and public relations. He even sold newspaper ads in college.

After college, while working at a biotech company, he began selling some short stories. He said, “Short stories didn’t pay well then, and they don’t pay well now. I was just happy to be published.”

The time was 1993 and Jim decided to become a free-lance writer. He advises promising writers, “Start while you have a job. Develop contacts with magazines and news-papers for articles, so you get the clips you’ll need in your resume. Work with a lot of different magazines.”

Jim and his wife moved to Western Maryland in 1994 where he eventually took a job as a newspaper reporter. As a reporter, Jim drove in demolition derby, flew in a B-17 bomber that had to make an emergency landing, rode with police on drug bust and had to sit in the back with the perpetrator, and had a lot of fun experiences.

Other assignments weren’t so fun. September 11, 2001 was his day off. When he heard about the planes hitting the Twin Towers in New York that morning while running errands, he went in to work to give extra help. He was told to take a photographer and head towards Summerset, a town about 45 minutes away where a plane was said to have crashed. Jim said, “Even the police didn’t know where they were going.” They finally arrived at the site at Shanksville where Jim went house to house to interview people. He was there all day and wrote an article about the crash and their impressions of the day. He was one of the first three reporters on the scene. By afternoon, tons of people had arrived.

His first two novels were published in 1996. One was a young adult novel and the other was a thriller. While they sold plenty of copies, neither one made him a lot of money.

Then in 2000, he decided to publish his third novel himself. Canawlers would become part of a trilogy following a fictional family during the Civil War on the C&O Canal as they faced problems on the canal that were caused by both the Union and Confederate armies, as well as problems caused by Mother Nature and the railroad. He wants his readers to understand is that the canal was the true dividing line between north and south, not the Mason Dixon Line. He said, “The people working the canal were truly caught in the crossfire at that time.”

He advises wannabe authors that marketing is more work than writing the book and putting it together. He described, “Promotions, press releases, talking to people, book signings, and shows, it’s a lot of work.”

His family moved to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in 2004 when his wife got a job as medical technologist for Frederick Memorial Hospital. Jim worked for a short time as a reporter before becoming the editor with the Dispatch newspapers in Emmitsburg where he worked until he became a full-time freelancer in late 2008.

His most recently published book, Clay Soldiers: One Marine’s Story of War, Art & Atomic Energy, is Jim’s first biography. It is about the experiences of 92-year-old Chuck Caldwell. When Chuck was 14 years old, he attended the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg and has autographs from the soldiers. He fought at Guadalcanal as a marine. He also worked with the aboveground atomic bomb tests in Las Vegas. Jim said, “He has a rich history of military experience, perseverance and determination that others need to hear.”

Jim has received many writing awards from the Maryland Delaware DC Press Association Society of Professional Journalists, Associated Press, and others.

Visit jamesrada.com or amazon.com to learn more and purchase his books.

jimrada

James Rada, Jr. is shown at a library exhibit, one of many where he promotes his books.