1931: Bootlegger vs. a revenue agent in Oldtown
The two revenue agents for the federal government crept into the woods around Oldtown on November 15, 1931. William R. Harvey was the senior agent so he led the raid. They were after three bootleggers who they had been watching lately. While making illegal liquor during Prohibition was a problem in Western Maryland due to its abundance of forests and lack of population, it usually wasn’t a fatal one like it could be in the larger cities. For the most part, it was a game of hide and seek between the bootleggers who would try and hide their stills and federal agents who would try and find them. If a bootlegger was caught, he would serve a few months in prison and then start all over again when he got out. Two of the bootleggers had been arrested previously for Read more…
1790: Was the Snider family massacred on Catoctin Mountain?
Jacob Snider, one of the early settlers in the area, owned 25 acres west of Owens Creek Campground on Catoctin Mountain that he obtained in 1770. The parcel, called “Snider’s Gardens” was “at a bounded white oak standing on the North side of a branch that runs into Owens Creek, about 20 perches (330 feet) from said creek,” according to the land deed. Further west, a settlement was established near the mouth of the Conococheague Creek. It could be reached from the Thurmont area by traveling the Monocacy Indian Path. The path ran from Wrightsville, Pa., to the Shenandoah Valley. “Like most frontier outposts, the Conococheague Settlement was an occasional target for Indian raids. On one such occasion, a raiding party of Susquehannas captured a young Scotchman named Peter Williamson, and forced him to carry their loot. He later escaped, Read more…
Brotherhood of the Jungle Cock (and, no, this isn't porn…it's history!)
On May 23, 1953, about 350 boys and probably just as many adults gathered on the banks of Hunting Creek where the Thurmont (Md.) Town Office now sits. The boys were at the end of a three-day campout where they were taught how to fly fish. The adults included men like U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Douglas; U.S. Senators J. Glenn Beall, John M. Butler and A. Willis Roberterson; Congressman DeWitt S. Hyde and former Maryland Governor Preston Lane. They were there to dedicate a memorial to deceased members of the Brotherhood of the Jungle Cock. While the name of the group sounds like the title to a bad porn movie, Ken Crawford, president of the Jungle Cocks at the time said in the Frederick Post, “Our only aim is to teach youngsters the art of fishing. … We Read more…
LOOKING BACK 1945: Lincoln's chair reappears
Last week, I wrote about how the chair that Abraham Lincoln may have used using the Gettysburg Address ceremony disappeared from Gettysburg College. This week, the rest of the story…. For years, Gettysburg College had displayed a rocking chair believed to have been the one Abraham Lincoln used as he sat on the platform during the dedication of Soldiers’ National Cemetery where he delivered his Gettysburg Address. At some point in the 1920’s, it disappeared from the collection. No one knew who had taken it or how and no big deal was made of its loss. Then on April 7, 1945, the Gettysburg Times reported, “The little old rocking chair that Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have used on the platform in the National cemetery November 19, 1863, when he delivered his deathless Gettysburg Address, has come back to the Read more…
LOOKING BACK 1920's: Lincoln's chair vanishes
On November 19, 1863, thousands of people gathered in Gettysburg for the dedication of Soldiers’ National Cemetery. The keynote speaker of the event was Edward Everett. As his speech continued on and on, people standing in the crowd had to sit or risk their legs buckling. On the stage, the speakers had chairs to rest on until their time to speak came. President Abraham Lincoln sat in a rocking chair between Everett and Secretary of State William Seward. “Mr. Lincoln sat on the platform all the time in a rude, little stiff-backed chair, hard, and uncomfortable, but he hardly ever moved,” Dr. Henry Jacobs recalled in the Gettysburg Times in 1923. He had been a young boy in the audience at the dedication. When Everett had finished his two-hour speech, the president stood up from his rocker, walked to the Read more…
1833: The night the sky fell in Gettysburg
The old Adams County jail wasn’t the most secure of prisons. Early in the morning of November 12, 1833, a convicted murderer was so scared that he broke out of the prison, according to the History of Adams County published in 1886. Though the man was free from prison, he still wore shackles. He ran to the nearest blacksmith shop and filed them off. Then, “as he forgot to come back and give himself up to be hanged, it may be inferred he is still fleeing from the ‘stars’ that do not pursue,” according to the History of Adams County. Few people probably even noticed the killer’s escape that evening. Their eyes were turned to the heavens watching the reason the man had become scared enough to break out. “The whole heavens appeared to be illuminated by countless meteors, of Read more…
White House wallpaper came from house waiting to be demolished
The White House staff darted back and forth, even busier than usual on September 20, 1961. A State dinner was to be held for Peruvian President Manuel Prado, but the Diplomatic Reception Room, the first room that President Prado and the other guests would see was filled with workmen, paint cans and drop cloths. The staff was used to preparing dinners and receptions for President John F. Kennedy and his wife, but they weren’t used to having to make the preparations while weaving in between workmen who were redecorating one of the rooms they needed to prepare. Peter Guertler of New York was in charge of redecorating the Diplomatic Reception Room with antique wallpaper acquired from the Stoner House in Thurmont. “We just sneaked out as the guests arrived,” Guertler told the Associated Press at the time. “Sitting on empty Read more…
REVIEW: Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff
I admit that Lost in Shangri-La caught by attention because of Shangri-La in the title. That is what Camp David used to be called and I live near there. However, once I read that cover copy that it was a survival story and rescue mission I was intrigued. Near the end of WWII, a plane took off from a U.S. Army camp in New Guinea. It carried two dozen people and was supposed to be flying on sightseeing trip and giving the soldiers and WACs aboard a little rest and relaxation. That was until the plane crashed in the jungle high in the mountains. Five people survived initially, though two of them died within a day. The remaining three survivors had various injuries, but they managed a three-day hike with nothing to eat but Charms candy. (This fact probably sticks Read more…
Ex-LAPD detective believes his father committed the Black Dahlia murder
The Black Dahlia murder case is one of the famous unsolved murders from Hollywood, but does it finally have a solution? Steve Hodel, a former LAPD homicide detective thinks his father committed the murder. It doesn’t come as too big a shock to him. His father, George Hodel, was a prime suspect in the 1947 murder. He was eventually booked in 1949 for incest and child molestation. Hodel recently spoke to a Pasadena audience explaining the evidence he had against his father. Elizabeth Short was one of the many young women who came to Hollywood looking to be an actress. In January 1947, the 22-year-old woman was murdered in Leimert Park in Los Angeles. Her body had been sliced in half at the waist and drained of blood. It was a gruesome killing that attracted a lot of attention then Read more…
Lincoln’s Last Visit to Harrisburg, Pa.
On April 21, 1865, a locomotive slowly pulled out of the depot in Washington D.C. carrying about 300 people. Those who saw the train generally bowed their heads. Many of them cried. The train was carrying the remains of President Abraham Lincoln who had been assassinated a week earlier and Willie Lincoln who had died in 1862 back to Springfield, IL. The Lincoln Special The train consisted of the funeral car, baggage cars and coaches and the engine, which had a photo of Lincoln mounted on the front of the train over the cowcatcher. The funeral car was decorated with black garland and silver tassels and had a U.S. coat of arms painted on the side of it. “With sixteen wheels for a smoother ride, rounded monitor ends, fine woodwork, upholstered walls, [and] etched glass windows” this funeral car surely Read more…
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