The Return of the King: The Babe Visits the Place He was Discovered

          Word had gotten around that Babe was back, the home run king of the American League had returned. Those who heard came to see him; some even took the trolley from Frederick to Thurmont and then switched to the Emmitsburg Railroad to make the rest of the journey to Emmitsburg. So when George Herman Ruth walked onto Echo Field at Mount St. Mary’s College on May 7, 1921, a crowd was there to greet him. The Babe Discovered It was far larger than the one that had greeted him when he made his first appearance on the field in 1913. At that time, Ruth was a young man of 18 years who was playing baseball with the team from St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys of Baltimore. The school was a reformatory and orphanage. Ruth had been there since Read more…

There was no stopping “Commando” Kelly during WWII

Ralph F. Kelly of Emmitsburg, Md., was a battle-hardened veteran of World War II by the age of 24. It only prepared him for what was to come. “He was with the first Allied troops which invaded the North African coast last November, and has been fighting steadily since with the exception of a two-week period spent in a hospital recovering from wounds received in initial engagements,” the Gettysburg Times reported in 1943. In August of 1943, the Allied Forced invaded Sicily. The soldiers met strong resistance from the Italian and German armies as each side battled to control the high ground in the hilly country. During the fighting, Sgt. Kelly found himself behind a machine gun firing on the enemy. He fired on the enemy time and again, but eventually, he and the other riflemen in his machine gun nest 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…

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…

Thurmont’s “Cat Lady” lived in an old bus

Mae Carbaugh lived the quiet life of a hermit. She rarely left her home along Route 550 close to the Western Maryland Railway tracks near Thurmont. Yet, in the months before she died in 1974, her life was national news. Carbaugh wasn’t a native of Frederick County. She was born on a farm in Delaware in 1896. Deciding that the farming life wasn’t for her, Carbaugh left home at age 16. She wound up working as a hotel restaurant waitress in Emmitsburg until the hotel closed. She married Charles Carbaugh and the couple had a daughter. Charles was an alcoholic and didn’t work much so when he died in 1953, he left his wife with nothing. Mae found work as a housekeeper for an elderly bachelor, though. “When the old bachelor died, she continued, she had no place to live. Read more…

The Unstoppable Thurmont Sluggers

      Baseball has always been a popular pastime in Frederick County. The county has had professional, semi-professional, and amateur teams, often engaged in fierce competition for the title of league champion. In the 1920s, Thurmont had an amateur baseball team that played in an eight-team county league, along with teams from Mt. Airy, Emmitsburg, Point of Rocks, New Market, Woodsboro, Middletown, and Brunswick. Woodsboro emerged at the top of the heap at the end of the 1922 season. And when the 1923 season started, it was expected that they would again reign victorious. They met with a problem, though. It was Thurmont’s baseball team. Near the end of July 1923, Woodsboro and Thurmont met at the Woodsboro baseball field for their first game against each other during the season. It was one of the largest crowds ever to Read more…

Thurmont's House of Matches

Note: Since the world’s eyes were focused on Thurmont this past weekend, I figured I’d post a historical story about the town. Jacob Weller was a blacksmith and the grandson of one of the founders of Mechanicstown. He knew how to make tools and he did that well in his shop across the street from his house in Mechanicstown. He was proud of his work, so proud in fact, that you often see his name as “Jacob Weller, B.S.” for Jacob Weller, blacksmith. Jacob was born on January 25, 1775. He was the oldest of nine children born to Jacob and Anna Krall Weller. Jacob married Anna Margaret Weller in 1800. She was the granddaughter of another unrelated Weller family who were also one of the founders of Mechanicstown. They had five children before Anna died in 1816. Jacob remarried Read more…