Falmanac: The Fallston Almanac of American History
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Photo of Brunswick, Maryland courtesy of MDRails
(The Guardian) - Four members of an underground "cultural guerrilla" movement known as the Untergunther, whose purpose is to restore France's cultural heritage, were cleared on Friday of breaking into the 18th-century monument in a plot worthy of Dan Brown or Umberto Eco.
(HSoCC Blog) - One tradition for kicking off the Christmas Season in Cecil County is the annual lighting of the “Holly Tree by-the-tracks.” The Baltimore & Ohio held the first public ceremony in 1948 and for many years the company dispatched a special train from Mount Royal Station to Jackson for the occassion. After 1971, the tree was dark for a few years until a group of local volunteers started making sure the tree festively blazed for the holiday season. Continued
Photo courtesy MDRails
(AP) - The Civil War spawned countless human narratives, each seemingly more heart-wrenching than the last. But few of those narratives matched the drama surrounding the final moments of Confederate Col. Isaac Erwin Avery. The date was July 2, 1863, the opening day of the Battle of Gettysburg. Avery's North Carolina unit was ordered to attack a heavily fortified Union position on East Cemetery Hill. Leading the charge on a white horse, Avery was struck in the neck by a musket ball.
As he lay dying, a close friend, Maj. Samuel McDowell, managed to reach Avery's side. So badly wounded that he was unable to speak, Avery dipped the point of a stick or some other sharp object into his blood and scratched out on a piece of paper his last words, "Major, tell my father I died with my face to the enemy." Continued
Images courtesy of Ethan F. Bishop
The Historical Society of Cecil County has posted a glossary of sorts to its website. It's called The Ernest A. Howard Cecil County Genealogy and History Fact File and is filled with lots of good information.
Canon EOS Digital Rebel
Photo: Swing bridge at Seaford Delaware by Kim Choate
I've been eating these berries since I was 5 years old. That's when I found my neighbor, a wise old second grader, eating them. I wouldn't touch them until the next day, just to make sure she didn't die overnight. She called them wineberries, but I never could find a thing out about them, until I looked them up on Wikipedia, which says: "The species was introduced to Europe and North America as an ornamental plant and for its potential in breeding hybrid raspberries. It has subsequently escaped from cultivation and become naturalised and sometimes invasive in parts of Europe and eastern North America. They are also called Wine raspberries." The wineberry season is over, but if you see some next summer, try them; they're tasty & grow all over Maryland and Southeast Pennsylvania. I like them better than raspberries or blackberries.
Photo: Wikipedia under a GNU License
Photo by Warren Olt: MA&PA Railroad at Glen Arm, Maryland. MDRails collection.
(boingboing) - This nearly iconic portrait of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is a composite of Lincoln's head and the Southern politician John Calhoun's body. Link
(Slashdot) - "The team of 'digital archaeologists' who developed the technology behind the Intel Museum's 4004 microprocessor exhibit have done it again. 36 years after Intel introduced their first microprocessor on November 15, 1971, these computer historians have turned the spotlight on the first application software ever written for a general-purpose microprocessor: the Busicom 141-PF calculator. Link
"... Locally the burial permits were issued by coroners and the burial spreadsheet contains abstracted data data from 1912 to 1955. The death certificates came from the file copies kept in the local corners office. These records are important sources of genealogical information and Evelyn and Billie are working on more of these valuable projects, including additional death records. Billie, our most experienced genealogist and the person we turn to with our complex family history research questions, is also working on digitizing (with images) some of our naturalization records. ..." Link
Churchville, Maryland
Photos by Kim Choate, Canon EOS 20D & EF-S 10-22mm lens
(PRNewswire) - What do elephants, lighters, bugs, trains, Houdini, and Pez dispensers have in common?
They are just a few of Pennsylvania's offbeat museums which everyone can tour with Dave Rhodes and Dave Hallewell in their next Pennsylvania Public Television Network (PPTN) show called Pennsylvania's Offbeat Museums with Dave and Dave.
The RR bridge at Conowingo Creek (by the boat launch), marks the approximate location of the old town.
Photo courtesy of MDRails
