Welcome to Bird Land

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 not 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. “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 10 million birds had migrated there and Graceham was becoming known as Bird Land. “Their problem apparently stems from a quirk in the migratory patterns Read more…

Easter at Camp David

Anyone with eyes knew just where President Richard M. Nixon and his family were Easter Sunday morning in 1971. It was pretty widely known through town that the Nixons would be spending the weekend at Camp David, a favorite retreat for the president. Since it was also Easter weekend, speculation was on whether they would attend church on Sunday and which church they would choose. “Gold Cadillacs, television cameras, photographers, newsmen, and Secret Service agents do not stand outside of a church in Thurmont for the average person,” the Catoctin Enterprise reported. The church was the Thurmont United Methodist Church where the Reverend Kenneth Hamrick was pastor. Prior to the Easter service, Mrs. Hamrick had received a call from Camp David asking for her husband. Rev. Hamrick was officiating at another church, but when he returned home, his wife had Read more…

The final trip of Maryland's last interurban trolley

February 20, 1954, was an overcast Saturday morning that drizzled rain in Frederick County. The somber weather matched the feeling a many people as they watched trolley cars No. 171 and No. 172 pull out of the East Patrick Street car barn in Frederick and head north. About 100 people crammed the trolley, which is more passengers than it had seen on a single trip in a long time. One report noted that the leather hand straps riders could hold onto inside the trolley cars were as good as new. This was because the cars were rarely crowded enough for them to be used. The Thurmont Trolley had transported 3.8 million riders around Frederick County in 1920, but by 1940, that number was down to 500,000 riders. With ridership dropping and the popularity of cars skyrocketing, the decision had been 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…

"Looking Back" newspaper column now in 4 newspapers

I’ve posted many of my history articles to this blog. Many of them come from my newspaper column, “Looking Back.” Beginning in the middle of next month, I’ll be adding the Gettysburg Times to the newspapers to the ones that run my column. It will be the fourth newspaper that runs my column. The others are: The Cumberland Times-News in Maryland, the Chambersburg Public Opinion in Pennsylvania and the Catoctin Banner in Maryland. Though “Looking Back” is a column in multiple newspapers, it isn’t syndicated. It is unique to the newspaper in which it runs. I get to dig through old newspapers and find forgotten or little-known stories in Maryland and Pennsylvania. I find them interesting whether they are simple slice-of-life or a murder mystery. So pretty soon you’ll be able read about some of the interesting goings-on in Adams Read more…

Hunting wolves in the Catoctin Mountains

           While you would be lucky to find a wolf in Maryland nowadays, in the early 19th Century, Frederick County farmers kept their eyes peeled for lurking gray shapes stalking their livestock. In 1821, Captain Harman and his good friend Christian left Catoctin Furnace one morning with their hunting dogs. They hiked into the Catoctin Mountains hoping their dogs would catch the scent of a wolf. Wolves have been hunted for nearly 13,000 years for sport, their skins and to protect livestock. It’s uncertain as to whether the two men were hunting wolves for sport or to protect the livestock of farmers in the area. Harman and Christian had walked about four miles when the dogs returned with their back hair standing up and their tails erect, which was the sign that they had either caught the scent or found 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…