Currently viewing the tag: "Mason Dixon Line"

Once Upon A Time in Franklin County…

By On · Add Comment · In Community News

Just north of the Mason Dixon Line in southcentral Pennsylvania, Franklin County broke away from Cumberland County to grow into a thriving location for business, while still maintaining a lot of its natural beauty. It is also a location filled with interesting stories and rich history. 

In his new book, Secrets of Franklin Mountain: Little-Known Stories & Hidden History Along Pennsylvania’s State Line, award-winning writer James Rada, Jr. tells the stories of Franklin County, its people, and its places.

Residents of Northern Frederick County are familiar with nearby Franklin County, Pennsylvania, as a place to shop or enjoy a local park. However, the county is filled with interesting stories of notable people, unusual events, and fascinating places. Secrets of Franklin County tells more than three dozen of these stories and features dozens of photographs.

You can scale buildings with a human fly; mastermind a jailbreak from the county jail; and survive tornadoes, floods, and blizzards.

Learn about the English duchess born in the county, the participant in the Lewis and Clark expedition from Franklin County, and the governors of three states who came from Franklin County.

There are stories of a building’s rent paid with a single rose each year, the two professional baseball teams Franklin County once had, and the wedding that took place in the jail.

These are just a few of the stories included in Secrets of Franklin County. They tell the tales of ordinary people living their lives under unusual conditions at times. Taken together, they paint a picture of the character of the people who live along the Mason Dixon Line in southcentral Pennsylvania.    

“These are stories that caught my attention in one way or another,” Rada said. “They aren’t the types of stories you find in history books about the county, but they are part of the area’s past.”

Rada considers “secrets” in this book as stories that aren’t widely known. He gave as an example a presentation he did at the Garrett County Historical Society about his book Secrets of Garrett County. He told the audience about a half a dozen of the “secrets” from the book.

“Before each one, I would ask, ‘Who has heard of…’ and say the secret. I thought that I would be preaching to the choir, and the group would know even more about the stories I was telling than I did. Most of the group had only heard about two of them,” he explained. “That’s the type of stories I look for, interesting, but not well-known.”

Secrets of Franklin County contains 54 black-and-white photographs and illustrations that help bring the stories to life.

“I love writing about history,” Rada said. “I love finding interesting and unusual stories about people and places, and I haven’t come across an area that doesn’t have plenty of these stories.”

Secrets of Franklin County is the seventh in a series of books Rada writes about regional topics. Other titles in the series include Secrets of Catoctin Mountain, Secrets of the Gettysburg Battlefield, and Secrets of the C&O Canal.

James Rada, Jr. is an award-winning writer who Midwest Book Review called “a writer of considerable and deftly expressed storytelling talent.” Small Press Bookwatch said that Rada’s coal-mining book, Saving Shallmar: Christmas Spirit in a Coal Town was “highly recommended.” He has two dozen writing awards from the Associated Press, Society of Professional Journalists, Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association, Maryland State Teachers Association, and Utah Ad Federation.

He has been writing about history for more than 20 years and still finds it fascinating and new.

“History is not boring. It’s full of love, adventure, comedy, and mysteries that still aren’t solved to this day. It’s those types of stories I like to write, and I believe I’ve pulled together a great collection of them for this book,” Rada said.

Rada is the author of 38 books, most history and historical fiction. His articles have been published in magazines like The History Channel Magazine, Boy’s Life, and Frederick Magazine. He also writes monthly for The Catoctin Banner.

Secrets of Franklin County: Little-Known Stories & Hidden History Along the Pennsylvania State Line retails for $19.95 and is available at local booksellers. For more information visit jamesrada.com.

Dinosaurs of the Mason Dixon Line

By On · Add Comment · In Featured Articles

New Find Enhances Record

Richard D L. Fulton

There was a time when Frederick and Adams counties looked more like an alien world than that which exists today.

A primordial lake (dubbed Lake Lockatong) existed from Rocky Ridge, growing in size towards the northeast, as it sprawled through Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and into New York State. Some believe that this great lake covered an area equivalent to the presently existing Lake Tanganyika in Africa, at some 20,000 total miles in size.  Often, vast mud flats bordered the huge freshwater lake, giving way to conifer forests (based on fossil evidence gathered outside of Rocky Ridge).

This was during a period of time classified as the Late Triassic, some 220 million years ago.

Based on fossil excavations in Rocky Ridge and another nearby site, fossils recovered indicate that the lake teemed with fish, mostly those related to the present-day gars, sharing the water with five-to-six-foot coelacanths (whose ancestors gave rise to land vertebrates), and an ancient aquatic gator-like (but unrelated) reptile called Apatopus.

It should be noted that the reptiles and dinosaurs discussed are known only from their tracks, with the exception being Rynchiosauroides (noted below) whose body impressions have also been recovered at Rocky Ridge.

Hundreds of two-to-three-foot-long lizards (called Rynchiosauroides) patrolled the shorelines, diving into and paddling their way within the shallows in search of snails, clams, and freshwater shrimp, while prehistoric crickets, beetles, and millipedes scurried about the mudflats.

The lizards were occasionally joined by at least one species of dicynodont reptiles in their quest for more food. The dicynodonts, though reptiles, were also ancestral to the first mammals, and those of Rocky Ridge apparently established that these unique animals survived longer than previously assumed before,  themselves, becoming extinct.

But the local evidence of the beginning of the rise of another group of animals in the Late Triassic —the dinosaurs—can be found a little further north in Adams County.  Most of the dinosaurs during this period of time in the Mason-Dixon area ranged from a few feet in height or length to 12 feet.

The latest evidence of the local presence of dinosaurs occurred on June 9, 2012, when a remarkable bed of dozens of dinosaur tracks was found at an undisclosed, secured site located on private property, southwest of Gettysburg (for security purposes, The Catoctin Banner agreed not to reveal the exact location of the ongoing excavation, although the reporter was permitted to visit the site).

The discovery was initially made by Brian Cole, a member of the Franklin County Rock and Mineral Club, while hunting for crystals in the limestone deposits. Cole stated that the collectors he was with started finding fossil mud cracks and gathered up several specimens to take home. He later discovered one of the slabs had a clearly defined dinosaur track on it.

The find resulted in return trips to the site, which ultimately resulted in the discovery of dozens of dinosaur tracks, along with non-dinosaurian  reptile tracks. To date, more than 40 tracks have either been removed from the site or still remain on-site. How many remain to be found? Only time and further exploration will reveal.

The site in question consists of limey layers of rock which likely represents the shoreline of Lake Lockatong. Aside from the reptiles Rynchiosauroides and Apatopus, the new site added the tracks of two more (non-dinosaur) reptiles to the list, Desmatosuchus (which bore some resemblance to a crocodile with prominent spikes on its back and heavy back armor) and two different species of  Brachychirotherium.

The primary dinosaur present at the site has been identified as Grallator, also known only from its tracks, but it is believed to be related to better-known Coelophysis, whose skeletal remains have been found in New Mexico. There may be what turns out to be species of Grallator at the site, one larger than the other.  The much more plentiful smaller tracks may represent a different species of Grallator than the scarcer larger version.

The Grallator were bipedal carnivores, potentially ranging up to more than nine feet in height, and apparently hunted in packs. Over two dozen tracks were found on one layer at the site, all heading in the same direction. If Grallator was as Eastern Coelophysis, it could have had “feet (with) three main claws and a fourth, smaller claw positioned further up the foot,” and “The arms (that) were adapted for grasping and holding prey but are not thought to have been particularly powerful, a long and thin head, with jaws containing “around 50 small, sharp teeth,” according to Activewild.com.

Grallator and Coelophysis are among the oldest known dinosaurs, and it is generally held that they primarily ate insects and other small animals. As has been demonstrated by finds made at the Rocky Ridge site, there was no shortage of insects and small reptiles living in the area during the Late Triassic Period.

In 1895, James A. Mitchell, a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University, found nearly two dozen, 220-million-year-old dinosaur footprints on two flagstone (shale) slabs found in the pathways leading up to Saint Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Emmitsburg, thus making them reportedly the only dinosaur tracks that had been found in Maryland from this period of time (the Triassic Period).

The tracks appeared to have been those of Grallator. One of the two slabs that were found by Mitchell is presently on display at the Maryland Science Center.

But the first “mother lode” of dinosaur tracks, which also included non-dinosaurian reptile tracks, including dicynodont, occurred in Adams County in Trostle’s Quarry near York Springs when the tracks were discovered by Elmer R. Haile. Haile made his discovery in the summer of 1937 when he and some associates were gathering stone for the Civilian Conservation Corps to be used in a bridge; they were building the bridge on South Confederate Avenue over Plum Run.

The Gettysburg Times reported on August 3, 1937, that three dinosaurs who left their tracks in the quarry were identified by Arthur B. Cleaves, state junior geologist and paleontologist, as Anchisauripus exsertus, Anomoepus scambus, and Grallator tennis, all three being bipedal (standing upright on two legs). The newspaper also reported in December 1937 that approximately 150 tracks were recovered.

The two blocks containing the dinosaur tracks that made it into the top layer of stones on the Plum Run Bridge have been identified as Atreipus milfordensis, a plant-eating dinosaur that walked on all four legs, and Anchisauripus sillimani, another bipedal meat-eater. The Trostle’s Quarry tracks have been dispersed over time to such places as the Smithsonian Institute, the William Penn Museum, the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburg, the Adams County Historical Society, and the bridge on the Gettysburg Battlefield (where they remain exposed and unprotected). 

As an aside, the species names of the dinosaurs (and reptiles) noted in the article can, and may have, changed over time. Paleontology, or the study of prehistoric life, is a constantly evolving science, in and of itself, and as more is learned about a given prehistoric species, sometimes new findings can result in name changes.

Grallator

Adams County Grallator tracks (new site).

Photo Courtesy of Robert Weams (USGS retired).

Illustration Courtesy of National Park Service.

The Grallator were bipedal carnivores, potentially ranging up to more than nine feet in height, and apparently hunted in packs.

atreipus

Atreipus tracks (Plum Run Ridge).

Photo by Rick Fulton.

Illustration Courtesy of Columbia University.

Atreipus, a plant-eating dinosaur that walked on all four legs.

DAY TRIPPIN’

By On · Add Comment · In Featured Articles

Waynesboro Becoming Destination Town

by Blair Garrett

With the world’s gradual return to normalcy looming on the horizon, the need to make up for lost time is ever-growing.

There are countless great restaurants and places locally to have an awesome experience, and more seem to be popping up every month. Just over the Mason Dixon Line in Pennsylvania, not far from us in northern Frederick County, several places have risen from the shutdowns to bring good drinks and good times to all.

A wide variety of options are now available for just about any craving, but a fun and unique side of Waynesboro hasn’t had its chance to blossom just yet.

The rapidly changing town has seen an influx of businesses over the past few years. Notably, more breweries have found a new home in the south-central Pennsylvania town. Waynesboro even boasts a brand new distillery, sure to spice up the weekends of visiting customers and regular locals.

Rough Edges Brewing

Just past the square on Waynesboro’s main drag lies Rough Edges Brewing. The small team has found tremendous success crafting brilliant recipes into well-balanced beers.

The brewery is led by owners Wes Phebus and Casey Phebus, who are excited for an opportunity to flourish post-pandemic.

“The growth in Waynesboro has been fantastic,” Casey Phebus said. “We like to think we are a part of that. With us and Lake House, and the other breweries opening up, I think we’re part of making Waynesboro a destination.”

The brewery’s launch was an initial success, but due to the ongoing pandemic, Waynesboro’s newest brewery had to weather the storm during uncertain times. “We opened February of 2020. We were open six weeks, but the weekend of our grand opening, we got shut down, and it was heartbreaking,” Phebus said. “We had been doing well, and the community was very happy and very receptive.”

Adjusting to the restrictions wasn’t easy, but Rough Edges pulled through selling beer to-go, allowing them to keep brewing and producing great local craft beer.

“The community was insanely supportive,” Phebus said. “We survived with that model, and then we were able to finally have indoor dining, and luckily we were in a position to get right back into it.”

Rough Edges came to be through Wes’ home-brew hobby, which eventually blossomed into a career in crafting beers.

“Wes started as a homebrewer, and got into it as a pretty serious hobby,” Phebus said. “After a year or so, he decided he wanted to brew professionally, so he left his prior career and got a job at Something Wicked Brewing over in Hanover.”

Phebus quickly took over as head brewer at Something Wicked, and the two seized the opportunity to open a place of their own when presented with the chance to do so.

“We had aspirations to have our own place, and we wanted to bring our love for craft beer to our hometown.”

To date, Rough Edges offers a variety of craft beers that have been making waves in the community. “We do a little bit of everything,” Phebus said. “We have kettle sours, IPAs, we have a root beer float stout that’s been really popular, we have lagers on, too.”

You can catch some of Rough Edges’ beers at select stores locally, or at their brewery, Thursday through Sunday.

Lake House Distillery

Lake House Distillery is one of Waynesboro’s newest attractions, and it has quickly become the talk of the town. Their sign hanging above the bar features owners Aaron and Tara Lake’s name and family home, displaying the at-home feel of a comfortable and intimate bar and restaurant.

The couple opened Lake House Distillery just two months before the chaos of the pandemic set in, and navigating their way back to a full-capacity business has been a journey and a half.

“It was a brand new business, with nothing like that around here, and eight weeks later, Corona shut us down,” Tara Lake said. “It was kind of a gut punch after you spend 18 months of building.”

After renovating and pouring money and time into their passion project, the uncertainty of what was to come pushed the pair to take action to help in any way they could.

“Around here, hand sanitizer was very difficult to find,” Lake said. “During the pandemic, we used what product we had that we were going to be making whiskey with, and we made hand sanitizer with it. We donated it to the fire department, police departments, nursing homes, the post office, and all the first responders to make sure that our community had some sort of protection.”

The Lake family gave away hand sanitizer to the community after first responders had been stocked up, continuing to provide for Waynesboro residents in any way they could. “ It was two weeks that turned into eight months,” Lake said.

The distillery pushed through the pandemic by selling to-go drinks, and now has events in the works.  They often feature live music on the weekends to show guests a great time to go with their great drinks.

Aaron Lake runs the spirits side of the business, perfecting his craft with an open-barrel fermentation process and a whole lot of fine-tuning. If it isn’t up to his quality, he won’t pass it on for distribution.

“When I put something out, I want to make sure that it’s good. That’s our name, that’s our house on the sign,” Aaron said. I’ve dumped up to 45 gallons of whiskey down the drain, just because I won’t sell it if it’s not to my standard.

His attitude of continuing to learn and hone his skills has made Lake into a phenomenal distiller. “I will never call myself a master distiller because I want to learn,” Lake said. “Once you stop being humble and learning things, that’s the day you start losing interest in it.”  

Waynesboro used to be a bustling hub for distilleries over a century ago, and Lake touched on some of the history behind the town’s pre-prohibition era scene.

“Pre-prohibition time, there were actually five distilleries in Waynesboro,” Lake said. “One of them was about two blocks from here called Pen-Mar Distilling Company. A lot of people think of whiskey as a southern thing, but all of the distillers that are in Kentucky came from Pennsylvania distillers. The old colonies and the farmers moved south where corn was more prevalent, and up in Maryland and Pennsylvania rye was more common.”

The Lake family has a few great whiskeys and vodkas, and more in the works coming soon. On hand, Lake House Distilling has a corn whiskey, a white rye, a vodka, an applejack brandy, and an apple pie moonshine that compete with decade-old companies.

Their spirits can be found at their Waynesboro location and in stores located throughout the greater Catoctin Region, including Catoctin Furnace Liquors in Foxville, North End Liquors in Hancock, Liberty Liquors in Cumberland, and Prohibition Hub in Hagerstown.

With both Tara and Aaron still working full-time jobs, Lake House Distillery’s action takes place on the weekends, often featuring food trucks, live music, and good times.         

With more and more places opening in Waynesboro, it’s easy to see why breweries and distilleries would follow suit. Waynesboro currently has Rough Edges, Lake House Distillery, and 633 Brewing, named after the 633 acres of land Waynesboro was originally settled on, and more to come soon.

Waynesboro is not a giant metropolis, but there is a lot to look forward to in the coming years for this growing town, and the new businesses that have set roots here have created a real destination that people in surrounding areas have noticed.

Rough Edges features great drinks and great designs, with their IPAs quickly gaining popularity.

Aaron and Tara Lake, owners of Lake House Distillery, show off their brand-new refurbished bar, featuring handmade drinks and a hometown feel.

Photo by Blair Garrett

Fighting the War Underwater

By On · Add Comment · In Columns, Veteran Spotlight

by Priscilla Rall

John Henry Lehman was born in Reed near Hagerstown in 1922 to J. Henry and Elizabeth Hege Lehman. His grandfather, a Mennonite, owned and operated the Lehman’s Mill on Marsh Creek, one mile south of the Mason Dixon Line. The mill, first built in 1869, had been rebuilt three times, the last time using bricks made at the mill by Marsh Creek. The mill ground corn, buckwheat, and wheat for human consumption and for animal feed. It still had the original stone-grinding stones imported from France. His grandfather was progressive for those days. He installed a telephone in the mill and got rid of his horses and wagon, buying a truck to deliver his wares.

This upset the elders of the church, but Grandfather Lehman insisted that he was running a business and needed the phone in the mill. This might have been the reason that John was raised in the Lutheran Church. Eventually, the mill was sold to a woman who removed all of the milling equipment and then sold items made by the local women.

John’s father worked for the Western Maryland Railroad until the Great Depression hit and he was laid off.

John and his two sisters attended the Bridgeport school on the Cavetown Pike by Antietam Creek. It had one room, one stove, and one teacher. Later, they went to school in Hagerstown. The family survived the Depression, as their grandfather hired his father for small jobs and such. The Mennonites did not lose their money when the banks failed, as they only dealt in cash, which they kept in their homes, not trusting banks. The Lehmans saw many hobos during this time. John’s mother would always find enough to feed them a meal before they journeyed on, looking for work.

The family had a half-acre garden where the children would help plant, pull weeds, and harvest. At this time, they lived along the Cavetown Pike. Sometimes they would go to Hagerstown to the movies, but that was all the entertainment they had.

After graduating from the old Hagerstown High School, John went to the Bliss Electrical School in Tacoma Park for one year. Amazingly enough, Mr. Bliss had once worked for Thomas Edison! John then briefly worked for the C&P Telephone Company, but the war caught up with him. Before he was to be drafted, John joined the U.S. Navy.  A naval officer had visited the Bliss School and encouraged the boys to complete the course, saying that they would then be very useful to the Navy. So, the Navy it was!

At the Naval Yard, John continued learning about radios, even building crystals sets and one-tube radios. He returned to Bliss, which by now was under the Navy, and learned more about the budding science of radar. He then traveled to San Francisco and spent six months studying radar. Then, he was off to New London, Connecticut, to learn specifically about radar used on submarines. After finishing these courses, he traveled back across the country to Mare Island, where he joined the crew of the USS Barb (SS-220). With Captain John Waterman, John made five combat patrols in the North Atlantic and sunk one German ship. The seventh patrol began with a trip through the Panama Canal, and then off to Pearl Harbor, where Eugene Fluckey joined the crew for his final training. Waterman was old-school, and Fluckey was from the new; they clashed repeatedly. John could hear this from where he was stationed. Finally, Waterman said, “Shut up…I’m the captain!”

Commander Fluckey captained the submarine during the next seven war patrols, between March 1944 and August 1945, when the Barb sunk 17 enemy vessels. In addition, when a “hell ship” carrying Australian and British POWs was unknowingly sunk (as she had no identification) by the SS Sea Lion, the Barb raced for five days to reach the survivors just before a typhoon hit. She was able to rescue 14 Allied POWs from the SS Rakuyo Maru.

Captain Fluckey considered Lehman one of the best radar men he sailed with, noting him several times in his book, Thunder Below.

The last two patrols were particularly impressive. The Barb sank four Japanese ships, including an aircraft carrier, in the East China Sea, off the coast of China. Next, with John constantly monitoring the radar, the Barb sailed up a busy harbor on the Chinese coast, launching her torpedoes at a convoy of 30 enemy ships at anchor. This was the easy part…getting out of the harbor safely to open water was the tricky part. Then, running on the surface, she retired at high speed through the uncharted harbor, full of mines and rocks. Seaman 1st Class Layman was at his station the entire time. For this audacious feat, Fluckey was awarded the Medal of Honor and the USS Barb received the Presidential Unit Citation.

After John left the Navy, he worked for the telephone company. In 1960, he married Anne Pearce and adopted her two children from a previous marriage. They had one son, William, together. They eventually retired to Frederick at Homewood. John passed away on March 5, 2021, the last crew member of the famous submarine, the USS Barb.

USN — Official U.S. Navy photo 19-N-83952 from the U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage Command.

USS Barb (SS-220)

DAY Trippin’

By On · Add Comment · In Featured Articles

What’s Afloat on The Monocacy

Blair Garrett

The perfect relaxing day for an August Day Trip lies in the heart of the Catoctin area.

With the sun beating down, not much feels better than sitting on the water surrounded by good people. Fortunately, the Monocacy River is a natural lazy river, which flows from the Mason-Dixon Line around Frederick and all the way to the much larger Potomac River at Dickerson, Maryland. The river bridges Frederick and Carroll Counties, allowing all local kayakers and floaters a short drive for some fun in the sun.

The pace of the river is leisurely to say the least, so for kayakers or those fearful of rapids, the Monocacy is a great place to start learning or adapting to all of your water adventures.

There are entry points scattered throughout nearly every twist and turn, but the farther north in the river that you hop on, the longer the potential float. Popular drop spots include the MD 77 access point, the Creagerstown Boat Launch, Devilbiss Bridge, Biggs Ford Road, and Riverside Park Boat Ramp. Each of these locations grant riders easy access to smooth waters on a sunny day.

The process is easy and a blast with a great group of people. One person parks at an entry point, and one parks at the finish line, so the whole group can hitch a ride at the start on their tubes or kayaks and make it to the end point with a ride back to their cars or back home.

The trip itself can take several hours, or much less depending on where you want to end your ride. Floating is simple, though, and a great way to spend some time with family and friends. Grabbing a few tubes, stringing them together and playing some music while taking an easy stroll down the Monocacy can provide hours of entertainment, and the atmosphere is unbeatable on a nice day.

It’s not uncommon to see families with a big tube in the middle, packed with coolers filled with drinks and snacks, but don’t forget to bring sunscreen and plenty of water to combat those hot August days.

The river flows at an average speed of 2-3 mph, and despite the trees surrounding the river providing shade toward the edges, there is plenty of room in the middle with direct sunlight. So, whether or not you plan on catching some rays, make sure to protect yourself from getting a nasty sunburn.

Depending on recent rainfall, the river may run much faster and may have deeper waters, so it’s important to be prepared and cautious for your day trip on the water. There are few if any rapids at all over the course of the Monocacy, but significant rainfall can and does affect the speed and intensity of the river.

The Monocacy passes plenty of beautiful landscapes and farmlands, but it also runs past a few points of interest that can be seen and heard during a typical floating trip on the northern half of the waterway. The river runs right by the Thurmont Sportsman Club, where they often have competitions and events at their gun range. 

The river also flows under Old Links Bridge, where you may just be able to take a pit stop and grab a bottle of wine from Links Bridge Winery.

Of course, the best part about the Monocacy River float is shutting out the rest of the world and enjoying quality time with loved ones and some of the freshest air Maryland has to offer.

Over the course of the Monocacy’s 58 mile stretch from PA/MD border to the Potomac River, there are plenty of places to fish or swim, so even if a long tube ride isn’t your cup of tea, there’s surely something to do for everyone. The river is also home to several species of bass, trout and sunfish, with each fish posing a different challenge to catch.

With the mountainous and forested landscape covering much of southern Pennsylvania and Northern Maryland, there are plenty of rivers, streams and tributaries that offer the public a great way to cool off over the summer. The Monocacy is just one of a few popular floating destinations in the area. For those of us north of the PA/MD border, the Conococheague Creek is another similar experience for adventurers to have a fun day on the water.

The Conococheague is a tributary in the Potomac River system, running 80 miles from start to finish. The majority of the creek lies in Pennsylvania, with prime floating locations near Greencastle, PA. Just 12 percent of the creek resides in Maryland before connecting to the Potomac River.

While both the Monocacy and the Conococheague eventually connect to the Potomac River, many of the sights to see and points of interest on the Monocacy tour are in and around the greater Frederick Area.

Historic locations like the Buckeystown Dam and the Monocacy National Battlefield run with the river, so a quick detour to do some exploring and to take in the history is an option worth checking out.

Whatever it is that draws you to the water, the Monocacy River float is a day trip the whole family can enjoy. Check out a location near you and grab a tube before the summer is over!

Wade and Alison McGahen kick back for a day of fun in the sun on the Monocacy River.

A group of friends hits the Monocacy waters with their favorite tubes on a hot summer day.

Accesses & Points Along the Monocacy

A Road by Any Other Name…

By On · Add Comment · In Featured Articles

BY James Rada, Jr.

Depending on who you might talk to and where you are along the U.S. Route 15 corridor that runs through the heart of the Catoctin Region, the highway could be referred to by at least nine different names and that’s not even counting the names of the business routes and auxiliary routes.

U.S. Route 15

This is the official name of the nearly 792-mile-long highway that runs from Waltersboro, South Carolina, to Painted Post, New York. It passes through South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York.

The Catoctin Banner region encompasses an approximate 15-mile stretch of the highway from the Pennsylvania/Maryland (Mason Dixon) Line south of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to the area north of Frederick, Maryland.          

Route 15 is one of the earliest U.S. Highways, opening in 1926. However, the original U.S. Route 15 did not enter Maryland. What is currently Route 15 from Frederick, to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was called U.S. 240 at the time. In 1927, U.S. 240 became the major route between Washington, D.C., and Frederick and Route 15 was extended from Leesburg north into Maryland through Point of Rocks, Maryland, and connected with U.S. 240 in Frederick, and U.S. 240 from Frederick north became U.S. Route 15.

Journey Though Hallowed Ground

From Gettysburg to Charlottesville, Va., U.S. 15 Route has been designated The Journey Through Hallowed Ground. It is a 180-mile long, 75-mile wide National Heritage Area that includes 9 presidential homes and sites, 18 national and state parks, 57 historic towns and villages, 21 historic homes, hundreds of Civil War battlefields and thousands of historical sites. The Journey Through Hallowed Ground bills itself as “Where America Happened.”

“With more history than any other region in the nation, the Journey Through Hallowed Ground was recognized by Congress as a National Heritage Area and offers authentic heritage tourism programs and award-winning educational programs for students of all ages,” according to HallowedGround.org.

James Monroe Highway

The northern portion of Route 15 in Virginia is also known as James Monroe Highway. Monroe was the fifth President of the United States who lived in Loudon County, Virginia at Oak Hill. To make matters confusing, the highway later changes from James Monroe Highway to James Madison Highway, named after the Virginian who was the fourth President of the United States.

Catoctin Mountain Scenic Byway

Along most of its nearly 38 miles through Maryland, Route 15 is known as the Catoctin Mountain Scenic Byway. This is because along that route, the highway runs along the east side of Catoctin Mountain. The break in this designation is from the U.S. Route 340 intersection to the Maryland Route 26 intersection north of Frederick. Route 15 was originally called Catoctin Mountain Highway beginning in 1974. The entire length of Route 15 in Maryland became a National Scenic Byway in 1999. It became the Catoctin Mountain Scenic Byway in 2005.

Jefferson National Pike

Route 15 and Route 340 run concurrently for a few miles in Frederick. This stretch of U.S. 15 is known as Jefferson National Pike. This is due to the fact that Route 340 through Frederick is also known as Jefferson Boulevard.

Frederick Freeway

From the Route 340 intersection to the MD 26 intersection, Route 15 is sometimes called the Frederick Freeway. This is the stretch of Route 15 that runs north-south through Frederick. It is the busiest section of Route 15 in Maryland.

115th Infantry Regiment Memorial Highway

The Maryland General Assembly designated Route 15 the 115th Infantry Regiment Memorial Highway. The 115th Infantry Regiment is a unit of the Maryland National Guard and it was a regiment of the U.S. Its history dates back to the Revolutionary War. The unit saw service in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War I, and World War II. A large stone marker was erected in the median of the highway near Emmitsburg in 2006 to mark this designation.

Blue AND Gray Highway

The first of the two designations that Route 15 carries as it begins its trek through Pennsylvania is Blue and Gray Highway. This designation comes from the fact that the first 12 miles of Route 15 in Pennsylvania takes you from the Maryland border to Gettysburg, site of the most-famous battle in the Civil War.

Marine Corps League Highway

The Marine Corps League is made up of Marines and former Marines who support the United States Marine Corps. They are perhaps best known for the “Toys for Tots” Christmas toys program. Route 15 through much of Pennsylvania is named in their honor.

Business Routes and Offshoots

The above names cover the main route from Gettysburg to Virginia. However, Route 15 once passed through some small towns. As traffic increased, the decision was made to divert the highway around the towns and the original route through the town was designated Business Route 15.

Along the area The Catoctin Banner covers, this happens in Emmitsburg and Gettysburg. In Emmitsburg, Business Route 15 is known as North Seton Avenue and South Seton Avenue. In Gettysburg, the route is known along different sections as Emmitsburg Road, Steinwehr Avenue, Baltimore Street, Carlisle Street, and Old Harrisburg Road.

Route 15 also has five auxiliary routes in Maryland designated 15A, 15B, 15C, 15D, and 15G. These are all very small sections of road adjoining the main highway. The longest is less than .2-miles.

Call it what you will. U.S. Route 15 is still a beautiful highway to travel to see natural beauty and historic sites.

Pond Hockey Tradition

By On · Add Comment · In Community News, Featured Articles, Sports News

wivell pond hockey

For four generations, the Wivell family has strapped on ice skates and taken to the ice for some pond hockey.

Deb Spalding

 Many of you can probably recall a memory of sitting by a camp fire, enjoying the glow of the flames, the toasty warmth on your legs, and the occasional pop of a spark. Just imagine. Despite the pesky mosquitoes, isn’t that a nice place to be?

To generations of the large-extended Wivell family in Emmitsburg, this scenario is commonplace. In summer, they go camping. In winter, they snuggle close to a camp fire, while warding off a stiff sub-freezing chill on the non-toasty side of their bodies. They’re dressed in layers for warmth, thick gloves, and… ice skates. Every now and then, when a skate starts to smoke, they check the bottom to make sure it didn’t melt much, then return to the family pond for more ice skating and pond hockey.

As many as four generations of Wivells have been represented on the pond at one time in recent years. 

Sarah (Wivell) Bryson said, “My dad was one of thirteen children and his dad was one of twenty.”

Skaters of all ages show up to skate. The family’s ‘elders’ are just as fast on skates—if not faster—than the youngsters. Sam Wivell and Roy Wivell, Jr., both in their 60s, are two of the most advanced skaters on the pond. They zip around the ice with ease, handling the puck with proficiency.

When a large crowd shows up, teams are created and games are timed (usually five to eight minutes), with the winners of each match staying on the ice. There are plenty of falls, sprains, bruises, and challenges; however, the physical discomfort becomes insignificant compared to the foundation of heritage created in these treasured times.

“You’ve got to be prepared to bounce and go to work on Monday with a lot of bruises,” said Chris “Chic” Wivell.

The ice is rarely perfect. The wishy-washy temperatures on the Mason Dixon line guarantee a challenge to keep the ice in a useable state. The winter of 2014 was a consistently cold winter, during which the occasional snow was quickly pushed off the ice with a snow plow. This season, however, the ice has been suitable for skating on only two days so far.

The Wivell pond was built in 1954, through the Maryland Soil Conservation, by Roy Wivell, Sr. 

When conditions allow, pond skating takes place day and night. In earlier days, lanterns were used to light the ice at night; today, the Wivells use stadium-like lights, tied high in a tree to light up the ice. Music blasts from a nice sound system, and everything is powered by a generator, except the camp fire and the skaters. Even with today’s technology evident, you can get to the ice only one way: by walking through the pasture among the goats, cattle, and chickens.

The Wivells are generations of farmers. The descendants of those original 20 siblings number 536 these days.

 “Chic” Wivell said, “Growing up, it was go to church, milk the cows, and pond hockey on weekends. In that order.”

With such a large family today, many family members hold full-time, non-farming jobs, but they return to the farm when they can to help out.

A video called The Magic of Pond Hockey was created by Danny Favret and Jason Pugh. It showcases the Wivell family’s unique heritage of pond skating. The video was part of a documentary that NBC-4 aired in 2014, leading up to the Washington Capitals Winter Classic game that was played outside at Nationals Park on New Year’s Day. View the documentary at  www.nbcwashington.com/news/sports/1224-pugh-ice-sports_Washington-DC-286798701.html.

20150118_134943_resized

Issiah “Bub” Wivell is shown tying on his skates for an afternoon of skating in January 2015.

New Museum Remembering Battle of Monterey Pass in Blue Ridge Summit

By On · Add Comment · In Community News, Featured Articles, History

James Rada, Jr.

museumAs the Confederate Army retreated from Gettysburg on July 4, 1863, they encountered Union troops in the area of Blue Ridge Summit. A two-day battle ensued in the middle of a thunderstorm that eventually spilled over the Mason-Dixon Line into Maryland.

“It is the only battle fought on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line,” said John Miller, Director of the Monterey Pass Battlefield Museum in Blue Ridge Summit.

While lots of books, movies, and stories have focused on the importance of the three-day Battle of Gettysburg, little light has been shed on how the Confederate Army made its retreat south from the battlefield through enemy troops with weary men. The Battle of Monterey Pass involved about 4,500 men with 1,300 of them winding up as Union prisoners and 43 soldiers being killed, wounded, or missing. Major Charles K. Capehart of the 1st West Virginia also earned his Medal of Honor during the battle.

Through the efforts of Miller and other volunteers and supporters, Blue Ridge Summit has a small museum and a growing area of protected land dedicated to educating the public about the battlefield.

The museum opened last October on 1.25 acres along Route 16 in Blue Ridge Summit. The Monterey Pass Battlefield Museum displays a collection of artifacts related to the Battle of Monterey Pass. It has galleries that look at different aspects of the battle, such as the overall Confederate invasion of Pennsylvania and Washington Township at the time of the battle. Outside the museum is a marker erected by the State of Michigan commemorating the participation of Michigan troops in the battle.

“It is one of only five such markers outside of the state of Michigan,” Miller said.

Most of the uniforms, weapons, pictures, and other artifacts were donated to the museum, and the attractive building was built through the hard work of volunteers.

“The purpose of the museum is to educate people about the battle,” Miller said, “but it also can set a standard for other community organizations along the retreat route that want to see how they can do it.”

Places like Hagerstown and Falling Waters are among the towns looking at doing something similar in their communities.

Although the museum wasn’t open in time to catch a lot of the tourist traffic in 2014, more than 300 did visit.

“It’s been slow at first, but the number of visitors will grow as more people learn about it,” said Miller.

The Friends of Monterey Pass have been working with tourism councils in the surrounding counties to tie the museum into the counties’ Civil War tourism plans.

When it reopens in April, the Friends of Monterey Pass hope to add 116 acres of land over which the battle was fought to the museum. Miller said that before the museum reopens for 2015, he hopes to have some additional displays in the museum as well as some interpretive panels for a driving tour of the new piece of land.

Monterey Pass Battlefield Park is located at 14325 Buchanan Trail East, Waynesboro, PA 17268. For more information, visit their website at www.montereypassbattlefield.org.