Country Churches: Fallston Presbyterian

June turned out to be Presbyterian month at Falmanac, but just by accident, though I did actually attend this church when I was very young. However, the reason I picked this location was because I'm still getting used to a new camera and the place is near my house. When you've got new equipment, stay close to home!
I'm also getting used to a new "walk-around lens," though this one won't take long to digest. "Walk around lens" is a term for any lens suited to a variety of tasks, it's the lens you leave on the camera. Most people prefer a medium zoom and I'm no exception. I use Canon's EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS lens; it's fast, image stabilized, and not too prone to distortion. Kim uses Canon's EF-S 17-85 lens, which is slower, but has a longer reach, and is also image stabilized. I think the 17 - 85 is perhaps the most versatile lens I've ever used, but I'm a nut about fast glass, so I prefer the 17-55 f/2.8 model. The S designation means they are made for Canon's APS-C line (dRebels, 20D, & 30D), and use all of the lens. This allows for wider angles, but more vignetting too. Nevertheless, the S lenses have been, in our opinion & experience, an outstanding line.
Fallston Presbyterian Church was built in 1873. It is one of the few Greek Revival buildings in Harford County, Maryland. It used to sit next to an old school house, which I attended when it was a preschool in the 1960's. When the church expanded in the 80's the school came down, which most agreed was better than ripping down the old sanctuary.
The 1980's saw major changes at three historic Fallston churches: one was torn down entirely, one was moved, and one (this one), was added onto. It would be interesting to compare and contrast the situation at each church back then. One of the big problems for these old congregations is space, they all sit on smallish lots and local real estate prices have been high for decades. They are country churches, but it isn't country anymore - it's suburban. You can read more about Fallston Presbyterian here.

We are all of us a little odd

A funny thing has been happening the past few years, the use of modern data collection methods has discovered something many of us have long suspected: we are not a monoculture. Recent data has informed us that America's "national pastime" is not baseball, it's NASCAR. That the most popular type of music in the country is not rock, but country, and that our nation's biggest, most popular hobby - is bird watching. It turns out that we aren't a nation of Disney loving consumer zombies after all. We have other interests.
We have rediscovered the obvious, which we had to do, because so many are actively employed in obscuring the fact. It isn't any grand conspiracy, mind you, it just happened. It happened because of a top down media, and it happened because it's much easier, and more lucrative, to herd everybody into a couple of venues than it is to have them scattered all over the place.
A few years ago we took a vacation in Folkston, Georgia. Folkston isn't what's traditionally known as a tourist hot spot, but that's changed recently. The reason? Trains. Folkston is the site of the "Folkston Funnel," the place where all CSX trains going into or out of Florida, have to pass; it's quite a parade.
But Folkston didn't become a railfan Mecca on its own, it had a little help from the town. For a very small amount of money, the town built a gazebo for rail fans to sit and watch the action. It has chairs, lighting, a picnic table, outhouse, and a scanner built in. My recollection is that the whole thing cost less than $30k. The town promotes the site on the internet. As do local businesses; we stayed at the Western Motel, an old style place, located along Route 1. We got the railfan special discount and stayed an extra day with our savings. There's also some newer chain motels, and some local B&B's for those with more discriminatin' tastes.
We had plenty of company, people were there from all over the country, and a couple from the UK too. And they were all there for the trains, and they were all spending money.
Does this area have a similar location? Yes and no. Perryville, MD is a nationally known "train watchers hot spot." On any given day, you're likely to find some railfans at Perryville, sometimes more than a few. Often you'll find 'em there late into the evening. There's only one difference between Perryville and Folkston: Perryville has no interest in its railfans. There's no designated train watching spots, no promotion of the place, not even an outhouse. Which is too bad, because there's a nice big old station there, which is used only by MARC train passengers - it has no real function, other than as a parking lot. There's even a little museum there, though it's rarely open. But no amenities at all, and train fans are subject to police scrutiny as well - not very welcoming. The same is true of Brunswick, Maryland.
But the news isn't all bad. I remember a couple of decades back when a local coalition of railfans, civil war buffs, and architectural historians were trying to save President Street Station in Baltimore. It seemed like a hopeless case until 1988, when 12,000 reenactors, and 250,000 spectators, converged on Gettysburg, PA to mark the 125th anniversary of the great battle. Local governments and business interests suddenly woke up. A quarter million civil war buffs in one place? Why there's money to be made off these weirdoes! President Street Station is now the Baltimore Civil War Museum.
Are you one of those weirdoes? Do you like railroads, or history, or airplanes, or old buildings, or cemeteries, or jousting, or geo-caching, or old diners, or bird watching, or any of a thousand other pastimes? Well join the club, you aren't alone. Perhaps it's time we spoke up.

Mug Books

"Late nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century mug books are collections of biographical sketches, a curiously rich source for geneologists and historians alike. Typically these books were published only by advance subscription. If a person had the funds to subscribe, he or she (more often he) would have a biographical sketch in the book. For an extra fee, a photograph or sketch would be included." Continued.

Futer Brothers

I was attracted to the look of Futer Brothers Jewelers, in York, PA, because it reminded me of the stores my mother dragged me to when I was small. Despite the facade, the building is much older than that; it was York's first "skyscraper," 6 stories, built in 1850. The red brick building to the left is even older; the Articles of Confederation were signed there.

Futer Bros. recently closed the store. There was a good obituary in the York Dispatch, it asked some of the same questions I've been asking myself lately:

"Still, in the long run, how well are the city and its taxpayers being served when all of the official effort, energy and dollars are expended promoting restaurants, clubs and bars, industries well known to come and go in a flash, subject to trends and financial failure, while long-standing businesses are left to fend for themselves or die in a sea of red ink? How many of those long-time businesses, I wonder, have been offered tax forgiveness or tax rebates or tax incentive programs? How many have received a single economic development or block grant dollar to help them remain viable in downtown York, while others plan on spending $30 million on a baseball stadium?"

York, Harford, it's the same everywhere. A few years back I was listening to a talk show featuring an interview of a prominent foreigner who spent a lot of time in the U.S. When asked how he liked the place he said he loved it, "except for all the corruption." The interviewer, a usually savvy, realistic, professional, was at a loss for words. Why are we always surprised?

Partners

I rarely take pictures alone and that's a good thing. The other night we were surveying the signage along Route 40 and I took some of the worst pictures I've ever taken. I could blame it on the new camera, but in reality, I just wasn't paying good attention. But Kim got some good shots, so we have something to put on the blog.
It occurs to me that along with photographing much of the history of this area, we've also been documenting a friendship.

Canon EOS 20D ©Kim Choate

The horse palace

"Wow, if I were a horse, I don't think I could afford to stay here," I said.
"Not the way you run," she said.

The Ghost of the Susquehanna

"The Ghost was a shriveled little old man with a paper satchel who claimed he was headed for "Canady." ... But as far as I could see he was just a semi-respectable walking hobo of some kind who covered the entire Eastern Wilderness on foot, hitting Red Cross offices and sometimes bumming on Main Street for a dime. We were bums together.
... I thought all the wilderness in America was in the West till the Ghost of the Susquehanna showed me different. No, there is a wilderness in the East; it's the same wilderness Ben Franklin plodded in the oxcart days when he was postmaster, the same as it was when George Washington was a wildbuck Indian-fighter, when Daniel Boone told stories by Pennsylvania lamps and promised to find the Gap, when Bradford built his road and men whooped her up in log cabins.
There were not great Arizona spaces for the little man, just the bushy wilderness of eastern Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, the backroads, the black-tar roads that curve among the mournful rivers like Susquehanna, Monongahela, old Potomac and Monocacy."
- Jack Kerouac

Potomac River, near Harpers Ferry
Photo: Sony F-717 ©falmanac

Does Harford have Buddha nature? No, it has a mercurial nature.

Awhile back, 10 or 20 years ago, a local Chinese restaurant put a statue of the Laughing Buddha in its front yard. This didn't sit well with some of the local church-goers. They felt it was an affront to Christianity.
It didn't seem to matter to them that their protest was an affront to the Constitution, and even worse, an insult to American Capitalism.
But they got away with it; the statue moved up the road to Cecil County where it sits today, no doubt converting many a wayward youth into the slaves of some devil-religion.
Oddly, when the "porno-post office" (Harford's most joked about phenomenon since the Tuckaway Motel) came along, it was allowed to remain.
Why didn't they get rid of the side-by-side post office/adult video store like they got rid of the Buddha statue? My theory: they don't like Chinese food, but they do enjoy the convenience of one stop shopping. Curiouser and curiouser.

Photos: Canon EOS 30D ©falmanac

Country Churches: Chanceford Presbyterian

My favorite art museum is the outdoors. There's few things I enjoy more than driving through the countryside to discover some great work of art that I've never seen before - never even heard of. Which is why I don't resort to guidebooks when touring the area, I'd rather be surprised. And they are great works of art, many of them, the barns, chapels, and churches; even some of the the old factories & stores are mind bogglingly attractive. And they're just sitting there, out in a cornfield, or hidden between warehouses, waiting to be viewed by me, and hopefully, by you too.

I don't know who designed the latest Chanceford Presbyterian Church building, but it looks similar to Centre Presbyterian, over in New Park, Pennsylvania, not very far away. Perhaps it was the same architect? They are both good looking buildings and I'm not sure which one I like more.

The church was founded in 1751. Another building, perhaps an older sanctuary, also sits on the property. While I couldn't find a history of Chanceford Presbyterian, I did find reference to a sermon delivered there in 1865, on the topic of Lincoln's assassination. They were against it.

Photos: Canon EOS 5D ©falmanac

Before the Flood: What to save from BRAC

When I was a kid we used to visit relatives in Rockville; it was a long, long, drive, and not just because we didn't like them, but because we had to travel through Columbia, Maryland. It was the dullest place in the world. There wasn't any variety there. It was just mile after mile of brand new tract-housing. No stores, no industry, no railroads, no farms, nothing decrepit, nothing historical, not even any people - just houses.

It's my fear that Route 40 (East) will look that way soon: nothing old & nothing interesting. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people who think everything older than myself is historic, or that everything historic is worth preserving, but I do believe we should think about keeping a few things around. And not just for the sake of history, but also for the sake of aesthetic balance. This is where words like "livable" come into play, not to mention terms like "pleasant," and "interesting." When everything is new it can be hard on the eyes and a drag on the soul. (The same goes for incessant antiquity - parts of England come to mind.) We need balance.

Is the Vagabond Motel worth preserving? Probably not, but the sign is nice, perhaps we could keep that. How about the Regal Inn, it's one of the prettier motels along Route 40, maybe we could keep that building around? And honestly now, how many of us locals haven't spent some, er, "vacation time" at one of Pulaski Highway's many fine, uh, "resort destinations?" Wouldn't it be nice to have something to remember your friskier years by?

Still not convinced? How about Sophia's Dairy, it is reputed to be one of the finest colonial era buildings in the nation. Would you rather it be a mini-storage warehouse, or a Starbucks? We need to think about these things now; already the local developers are lined up, licking their chops, and demanding carte blanche. They'll probably get it too.

Photos: Canon EOS 30D ©falmanac

Photography banned in Silver Spring, Maryland

'Security guards in a Silver Spring, Maryland business district are enforcing a "no photography" policy, under the false claim that the street in question is private property. The Peterson Company, which manages the buildings on this DC-area street, claims the right to protect their brand.
Not to be dissuaded, photographers have contacted NowPublic contributor Bill Adler (he of sippy-cup fame) and formed a Flickr group to post photos of the area in defiance of the ban, and a protest is being scheduled by area photographers. this is the latest in the ongoing trend of private guards enforcing frivolous or nonexistent laws in the name of "security".' (Via boingboing)

We at Falmanac run into this kind of illegal vigilantism a lot, all over the Mid-Atlantic. You can read about our run-ins with the alleged law here & here.

Sports Legends museum remembers local heroes

BALTIMORE (Examiner) - Before stepping through the turnstiles of Oriole Park or M&T Bank Stadium, take a walk through more than 100 years of Maryland sports history at the Sports Legends Museum.
“The reason we wanted to create [Sports Legends] was out of necessity,” Executive Director Mike Gibbons said. “We had a burgeoning collection. We went from 100 Babe Ruth artifacts to over 10,000 that represented Maryland.”
Sports Legends, which is owned and operated by the Babe Ruth Museum, is housed within Camden Station, a historic stop along the B&O Railroad during the Civil War. Continued.

Maryland's dusty planes

Steppingstone Museum, Havre de Grace, Maryland

Canon 30D & EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS lens

Along the C&PD

The Columbia & Port Deposit Railroad, now known as the Port Road, travels from Columbia, Pennsylvania to Perryville, Maryland. The railroad was opened in 1877. It was part of the PRR, which later became Conrail, and is now owned by Norfolk Southern. It's a pretty line, but difficult to observe in that it hugs the Susquehanna and the trains run mostly at night.
The above photo (supplied along with the rest of this weeks "finds" by friend of the site Mike Class) appears to be from the C&PD. It looks very similar to a photo found on page 104 of "Triumph VI." The photo is captioned Cromley's Mountain Station, which was located between Octoraro and Conowingo.

More finds: Cows, bicycles, & a horse

From the same batch as yesterday. One photo is obviously from the Loch Raven area, the rest are probably from Baltimore County, Maryland too, but that's just a guess.

Found History: Hydes Station

A friend stopped by the other day and brought us some pictures. He didn't know who took them, who's in them, and some of the locations are a mystery. Please leave us a comment if you know anything about them. This first one looks like Hydes Station on the old MA&PA line in Baltimore County. More to follow.

It used to be a diner

This building, on U.S. 1 between Hickory and Conowingo, used to house a restaurant. When I was a child I decided that, one day, I'd ride a motorcycle up to the place and have a meal there. And one day I did, except that it wasn't a restaurant anymore, it was just an abandoned building. So I rode north to the next diner, and had a cheesesteak - it wasn't very good.

The oldest generation

If you live long enough, the oldest things in your life will, eventually, go from being merely old, to being historical. One day you'll be strolling through a museum and see some toy you played with as a child on display. Or maybe some guy on TV will declare your parents to be of "The Greatest Generation." Suddenly my parents have become museum pieces.
My dad wasn't all that keen on the past. What history did he have to remember? The Depression? The War? No, the past wasn't the place for him, or his ilk. Maybe that's why they embraced post-war modernity so much. They liked their modern ranchers, and big fin-laden cars that looked like rockets, precisely because they pointed to the future and away from history. I can't imagine him living in some retrocon Kinkade-box, getting all nostalgic over the good old days, fondly remembering his years as a dumb Polack, a migrant farm worker, and a killer of men. It just wasn't his thing, nor his generation's thing, not when they were in their prime.

Country Churches: Rock Run UMC

Harford County, Maryland, not far from Level.

Canon 20/30D Kim Choate/falmanac ©

Star-Spangled Banner Museum: A touch of American history

BALTIMORE (Examiner) - The most noticeable thing about Mary Pickersgill’s house in downtown Baltimore is the way it smells.
It is old and musty. The floors creak and the walls are cracking. The doors and windows look as if they have had hundreds of coats of paint — probably because they have.
Before the house was purchased by the City of Baltimore and opened as a public museum, it was home to a pharmacy, shoe repair shop and Italian grocery as well as Pickersgill’s flag-making business, said Jill Peters, a tour guide at The Flag House and Star-Spangled Banner Museum. Continued.

The uncouth are a mixed curse

Every so often somebody asks me what I'm thinking, and oftener than not, I'll answer with something like, "I was thinking about the Lend Lease Act." I think they think I'm being evasive, but the sad, or happy, fact is that I think about history a lot. So it was no surprise to me that while I was standing in the Guinston cemetery, I was thinking not about mortality, but about history, the history of the people scattered about me.
We know from the last entry on Guinston Presbyterian Church, that the Scots-Irish had been apportioned land west of the Susquehanna because the Quaker establishment felt that "their character and customs were so entirely different from the Quakers." In other words, they thought they were a pack of murderous rabble who'd best be placed on the frontier where they could act as a buffer against the Indians. And they were right, their only mistake, was not placing them far enough away; at least that seemed like the case when the Paxton Boys, a group of "rogue Presbyterians" marched on Philadelphia in 1764. On the other hand, when the Revolution came along (War of 1812 too), a whole lot of that rabble signed on to fight with George Washington. Or at least that's what it looks like, standing in an old graveyard in York County. It's just a thought, one I need to do some reading to verify.

"Benjamin Franklin and the Paxton Mob" (Wikipedia)
Top photos Canon 5D ©falmanac

Residents Turn Noses At Sludge Dumped In Park

(WBAL) HAVRE DE GRACE, Md. - People in one Harford County neighborhood are looking for answers as to why sewage sludge has been dumped in a state park near their homes. The state has insisted dumping sewage sludge is a practice that poses no threat.
But people living near the Susquehanna State Park in Havre de Grace are wondering why the law allows the material to be dumped in a state park. Continued.

Photo: Canon 30D ©falmanac

Darwin Awards? I'll take mine at church

This is definitely a case of the aesthetic sense overruling common sense. We were out taking pictures today when the thunderstorms started rolling in. Being commonsensical people, we started home. Except that the clouds were so interesting that I had to get a picture of something, anything. So we stopped off at Norrisville Methodist church, it being the first old building we passed, and took some pictures.

When I got home I found this in my email:

TORNADO WARNING NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE

* AT 450 PM EDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WITH STRONG ROTATION 14 MILES NORTHEAST OF COCKEYSVILLE...MOVING SOUTHWEST AT 15 MPH.* LOCATIONS IMPACTED INCLUDE... COCKEYSVILLE... NORRISVILLE...

Just about the same time we were there; not a smart move on my part. Fortunately the tornado never quite got its act together, but maybe next time, I'll actually switch that weather radio, that I keep in my car, on.

Anyway, the Norrisville Methodist Protestant Church, as it was original named, was built in 1885. It is in Norrisville, Maryland, near the school & right off Route 23.

Canon 30D

Goodbye full-frame, but not good riddance

Falmanc came into being out of a love of history and a love of photography. I don't talk about the photography aspect much; it's mostly a tool to showcase the great historical spots we come across, and besides, there's a zillion or more camera sites already out there. However, I like to blather on about hardware as much as the next guy, so here goes.

This past week, I sold my Canon 5D and bought a Canon 30D. By all accounts, the 5D is the better camera. It has a larger sensor, more pixels, and costs a whole lot more, so it must be better, right? To tell you the truth, the 5D is the better machine - for most applications, but it just wasn't for me. Here's some more good stuff about the 5D. It produces the best color I've ever seen from a camera. It's nice and heavy, not too heavy, but it feels substantial. You can crop the heck out of a shot and still have something viable left over.

Many people like the 5D because it's "full frame," the large sensor uses all of the lens. I found this feature to be underwhelming. The edges of a lens aren't all that great to begin with, and there's lots of vignetting and distortion issues to deal with. And then there's the dreaded DOF (Depth Of Field) imbroglio. Some say there's no difference in the DOF of full frame cameras and reduced (APS) frame cameras. It's quite a heated debate. I can't explain the science to you, but having owned both types of cameras, I can tell you this: full frame cameras have a shallower DOF than reduced frame cameras, at least as far as the Canon 5D & the Canon 20/30D go. This fact is almost entirely without consequence for most camera owners, unless you like shooting in low light, without a flash. And dislike background blur ("bokeh"), as I do. It seems to me, that to make one's subject "pop," one should make one's subject more interesting - but that's a whole other topic.

All in all, viewers of this blog will notice little difference. The 5D is a full-frame 20D, and the 30D is a reduced-frame 5D, which sounds a bit murky, but it's the best way I can explain it. Anyway, all the pictures should look pretty much the same. Visitors to my night photography site "Nightening" will hopefully notice better pictures, and more of 'em. Here's hoping. Now, back to the history ...

Photos Canon EOS 30D

Concord Point Lighthouse

"Concord Point Lighthouse at Havre de Grace, Maryland was established to warn seafaring vessels away from the treacherous currents and shoals near the mouth of the Susquehanna River. Master builder John Donahoo was responsible for the construction of the lighthouse in his hometown, where he also served multiple terms as a Havre de Grace town commissioner. At the time of its decommissioning in 1975, the Concord Point Lighthouse had the distinction of being the oldest beacon in continuous use in the entire state of Maryland. The name Concord Point is derived from Conquered Point, which is itself a rearrangement of the original christening, Point of Conquest." Continued.

Canon 30D