"Canawlers" back in print!

It’s been a couple years since I allowed Canawlers to go out of print. I still kept getting requests from bookstores and some individual buyers to get copies, though. I went back and forth about it, but since I’m hoping to bring the third book in the trilogy out around Christmas time, I figured I would need to have the first book available, too. So I gave in and brought the book back in print. It is available today and it is still only $17.95. You can order a copy from Amazon and if it’s not in your favorite bookstore yet, they should probably be able to order it. Canawlers is a family saga set on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal during the Civil War. Hugh Fitzgerald proudly calls himself a “canawler.” He works on the C&O Canal transporting coal Read more…

The Man Who Made Personalized Movies

Sometimes even heroes need saving. Don Newland showed the country that everyone could be a movie star. One day a person might be driving a taxi, practicing law or simply a mother caring for her children and the next day Newland would have them in front of his movie camera saying lines and becoming a movie star. It was the classic “A Star is Born” discovery except that it wasn’t happening to Lana Turner who was discovered at a soda bar in Hollywood. It was happening to John Q. Public in Cumberland and dozens of other small cities across the country.   Don Newland Newland was an “itinerant filmmaker,” which is a filmmaker who traveled from city to city shooting a film with local actors before moving on to the next city. He is known to have filmed dozens of Read more…

Where was the casket that went with the handle?

In 1896, Frostburg residents seemed to be worried that a grave robber was on the loose in Frostburg. The Frostburg Mining Journal ran an article on April 30 under the headline: “A Suspicious Find” that explained that a silver-plated casket handle had been found on Maple Street in front of former Justice L. J. Parker’s home. “It is slightly rusted but otherwise well preserved, indicating that it had not been long underground. Evidences that it had very lately been wrenched from a casket are seen in the fresh breaks,” the newspaper reported. Members of the Parker family had heard a wagon and team of horses pass by the house around 2 a.m., which was unusual, “and now believed to have some connection with a grave robbing somewhere,” according to the Frostburg Mining Journal. The handle had been shown to all Read more…

100 years of Maryland Historical Magazine available

The Maryland Historical Society has now put up a century’s worth of Maryland Historical Magazine, the society’s journal, on a free, on-line searchable database.  I stumbled on it the other day when I was looking for information on Carrollite, a mineral named for Carroll County where it was first found in 1852. I already had the historical society bookmarked in my research folder, but I quickly added this one. I’m always working on Maryland topics and this will definitely help with my research. If you use the search feature, make sure you try the most-unusual words that will get your information, otherwise you may get a lot of dreck in your results. For instance, a search of the word “Carrollite” yielded two useful hits, but “Carroll” gets you any article where Carroll County, Charles Carroll, Carroll Creek or John Carroll Read more…