Cokesbury College

"The idea of a Methodist academy in Abingdon, Maryland had been discussed as early as 1782. Thomas Coke (1747-1814) was John Wesley's envoy to American Methodists, making nine voyages to the United States. Coke and Francis Asbury (1745-1816) met at Barratt's Chapel in November 1784 and the following month Coke presided over the Christmas Conference at which the Methodist Episcopal denomination was formed.
At their meeting at Barratt's Chapel, Coke and Asbury adopted the plan. The preachers at the Christmas Conference decided to name the school Cokesbury College in honor of their two bishops." Continued

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

Country Churches: Cokesbury Memorial UMC

"Cokesbury Memorial United Methodist Church was first called the Abingdon Methodist Chapel. It was built on land purchased in 1782 from John Paca, the brother of the Governor of Maryland. By 1784 it was opened for worship. This Methodist church has served its community faithfully for more than 200 years and is the oldest Methodist church in Harford County that rests on its original foundation with an on-going service to its parishoners.
The original church of 1784 was partially brick, mostly wooden structure which burned in 1896. Immediately, upon its original foundation, the present little brick church was erected. Services were held in the autumn of 1896; concern for the community at no time was interrupted; and the church today serves the needs of the extended Abingdon community." Link

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

USS Forrest Sherman not on the way to Havre de Grace

(HarfordNow) - Havre de Grace’s City Council was expected to hold a public hearing Monday night to discuss and vote on whether the city would be the future home of the USS Forrest Sherman, a retired Navy Destroyer without a home. But before the hearing was held, USS Forrest Sherman DD-931 Foundation Inc. decided to withdraw their proposal. Link

Photo: DoDMedia via Wikipedia

Aloysius Koford, Mountain Man

Died this day in 1956: H. L. Mencken

"Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere is having a good time."

The Knickerbocker Storm

(Wikipedia) - The Knickerbocker Storm was a blizzard that occurred on January 27–28, 1922 in the upper South and middle Atlantic United States.
It was named this due to the resulting collapse of the Knickerbocker Theater in Washington, D.C. shortly after 9 p.m. on January 28 which killed 98 people and injured 133.
An estimated 22,400 square miles (58,000 km) of the northeast United States were affected by 20 in (51 cm) of snow from this cyclone, which was over one-fifth of the total area that received over 4 in (10 cm) of snow. Snowfall was quite heavy in Maryland and Virginia. Richmond, Virginia recorded 19 inches. Baltimore, Maryland was paralyzed as it received the most snowfall within 24 hours since 1872. Continued

Photos courtesy of the NOAA Photo Library

This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War

(Geoffrey C. Ward) - During the Civil War, my great-great-grandfather, a Presbyterian clergyman, served as chaplain to the 104th New York Infantry Regiment. He was a man of stern moral conviction and in weekly letters to his parishioners back home allowed little to escape his censorious eye.
President Lincoln’s erratic church attendance irritated him. So did mud and heat and the “intemperance” and “profanity” that he believed were the “great sins of our army,” and he was infuriated by the proximity of his quarters to the “tents of several of the most blasphemous, immoral persons I ever heard.”
But in the aftermath of Gettysburg, words failed him. Continued

Photo: Library of Congress

Hobo cats booked

Meet the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats! Kitteh and Pip, the hobo cat stars of the old timey comic strip featured on HOBOTOPIA, in their first compendium of over 250 comics. Also includes comments by Aloysius Koford and never before seen drawings. Link

Marine railways fading from memory

(HometownAnnapolis.com) - "Marine railways have nothing to do with trains - a common mistake for those introduced to them for the first time," Mr. Webb said in his thesis.
"A marine railway is a mechanical device used to lift boats from the water so that the vessel may be serviced. Marine railways have existed in different sizes, although the basic characteristics of most 20th century railways are universal: a pair of rails built on a wooden foundation that stretched along a shoreline and extended into a body of water. Continued

County exec cherishes roadway’s history — in postcards

(Examiner) - One of the leaders in revitalizing the Route 40 corridor — and possibly replacing the old hotels, restaurants and roadside attractions of the area’s long-ago heyday — also savors his role as an archivist.
Harford County Executive David Craig, 58, a lifelong native of Havre de Grace, collects vintage postcards of the county. Many of them promoted the diners, restaurants and hotels of his youth. Link

Police receive spanking for taking photographer's camera

Just another friendly reminder that photography is not a crime, even if the police tell you it is. Link

Photo shows Herman A. "Germany" Schaefer (1877-1919), one of the most entertaining characters in baseball history, trying out the other side of the camera during the Washington Senators visit to play the New York Highlanders in April, 1911. (LoC)

Hungerford Station

Hungerford Station, formerly Turnpike Station, sits on the outskirts of Shrewsbury, Pennsylvania. The station was built in 1925 and was part of the Stewartstown Railroad, which ran from 1885 through 2004. It was a classic "farmers railroad," and prospered in its time. Later, it went into the excursion business. There is a group trying to get the old line back in operation, you can read about them here.
In the picture above, you can get a glimpse of why there was a station in Hungerford: Anderson's feed mill on the left and some old commercial buildings on the right. There was a general store, a wire screen plant, a packing house, and a potato warehouse there as well - all served by the railroad.
A history of the short line, printed by the Baltimore chapter of the NRHS, is available for purchase here. It's a good book, covering most of the railroad's history and that of the ill-conceived New Park & Fawn Grove Railroad as well.

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

Where's the Route 40 stuff?

If you saw the Route 40 article in the Baltimore Examiner, and are wondering where all the related material is, check out these previous posts:

Before the Flood: What to save from BRAC

More neon please

Pine Grove Tourist Camp

Route 66 has many siblings

Hidden monuments

Spesutia

House free to a good home

BRAC: Who's safeguarding our history?

Dembytown

Union of Brother and Sisters of Ford’s Asbury Lodge No. 1

Mitchell's Shoe Peg Corn (also: Old House #7)

The Spesutia Rangers

Brave Miss Bowman of Bush River Bridge

Perryman Post Office

That's not all of them, but it's some of them.

Chronicling Route 40

(Matthew Santoni, Baltimore Examiner) - Boom times may return to Route 40 north of Baltimore. But the crumbling relics — the former Magnolia diner that’s now the office for a junkyard, the Keyser Motel so often cordoned off by yellow crime-scene tape, the old Flying Clipper restaurant that became a liquor store — may be among the casualties of progress.
As developers eye the run-down car lots, rent-by-the-hour motels and porno palaces along Route 40 as ripe for redevelopment opportunities, photographer Michael Lijewski rushes to document the area’s hidden history before it disappears.
“It’s a place that most people consider worthless, but the history there ranges from the obvious vintage motels and motor courts to the Colonial era,” says Lijewski, creator of the local history blog Falmanac. “Route 40 is our Route 66.” Continued

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

Country Churches: Pine Grove Methodist

Pine Grove Methodist is located near Parkton, Maryland. The flock is tended by our favorite circuit rider, Rev. Fritz Outlaw. Somebody made a list of all the people buried in Pine Grove's cemetery, you can read it here.

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

1849: Heavyweight Championship of America takes place in Maryland

The only problem being that boxing was illegal at the time.

"February 7th was a day of intense excitement in this city, it being the day set apart for the great prize-fight between Hyer and Yankee Sullivan, in which, contrary to general expectation, Sullivan was dreadfully whipped by Hyer, who sustained but comparative little injury, winning the stakes ($10,000) in sixteen minutes.
The police force under High Constable Gifford, started in hacks for Carroll's Island to operate by land in that direction. The Independent Greys, Capt. Hall, and the Independent Blues, Capt. Shutt, were on brief notice ordered out, "armed and equipped as the law directs," all under the command of Major Watkins. The steamer Boston having been chartered by Attorney-General Richardson to carry the military to the "seat of war," started off about 12 o'clock on the night of the 6th, and reached the field of battle about daylight. The police and military arrived on Poole's Island about 3 o'clock on the morning of the fight, but both of the principals escaped.
The fight took place notwithstanding all the efforts to prevent it, on Rock Point, in Kent County, Maryland. As it was, none of those who were on board the boat, and those of the police who so nobly endured the most laborious and painful hardships to prevent the fight, will ever forget this memorable "expedition to Poole's Island." - John Thomas Scharf

Smithsonian travels U.S. to show tips on protecting what’s in family attics

CHICAGO (AP) - Evelyn Johnson's father has never liked talking about his time in the Army during World War II. He was angry that black servicemen like him fought for freedom overseas only to come home to face discrimination, she says. Johnson, however, now has a window into her father's experiences, having recently inherited about 30 letters he wrote his mother while stationed in North Africa and Italy.
On Saturday, Johnson learned how to best preserve the box full of letters — written in pencil, still folded in their original envelopes — at an event organized by the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. Link

Mapping & Documenting Cemeteries

"The February Luncheon Meeting of the Historical Society of Cecil County will be held on Saturday, February 16, 2008 at 12:00 Noon at the Chesapeake Inn Restaurant, 605 2nd Street, Chesapeake City. Our guest speaker will be Pamela Goffinet, a resident of Fair Hill, MD, who recently published “Mapping & Documenting Cemeteries,” which describes a method that provides an accurate map, along with organizing inscriptions and deed information. She will have examples of completed cemetery maps and inscription collections along with copies of her book." Continued

Canon EOS 5D, EF 28-135 mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens

Controversy doesn't deter Poe toaster from annual visit

(AP) - Undeterred by a controversy over the tribute's origins, a mysterious visitor placed three red roses and a half-filled bottle of French cognac at the grave of Edgar Allan Poe early Saturday morning before stealing away into the darkness.
Nearly 150 people gathered outside the cemetery of Westminster Presbyterian Church, but the man known as the "Poe toaster" was, as usual, able to avoid being spotted by the crowd, said Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum. The tribute takes place every Jan. 19 - the anniversary of Poe's birth. Link

Ever with thee I wish to roam -
Dearest my life is thine.
Give me a cottage for my home
And a rich old cypress vine,
Removed from the world with its sin and care
And the tattling of many tongues.
Love alone shall guide us when we are there -
Love shall heal my weakened lungs;
And Oh, the tranquil hours we'll spend,
Never wishing that others may see!
Perfect ease we'll enjoy, without thinking to lend
Ourselves to the world and its glee -
Ever peaceful and blissful we'll be.

- Virginia Clemm Poe

Illustrations & poem: Wikipedia

The Library of Congress' photos on flickr

Convention Hall by night - Baltimore 1912

The Library of Congress has opened a flickr account and loaded it up with pictures. The LOC has tons of pictures on its own website, but the flickr location is nicer for casual browsing; they've done a good job with the tagging too. You can see them here.

Swingology at Katnip Kollege

(Ursi's BLOG) - At Katnp College, "swingology" is one of the subjects and the students are having a great time! If you like "swing music", and are a "young cat" at heart, you'll love this Warner Bros. musical cartoon from 1938! (via boingboing)

You can't hug your children with exploding ARMs: How to take a half decent real estate photo

I know this house, it's a very nice house, but you wouldn't know it from this picture.

Real estate companies have done some wonderful new things to attract buyers over the past few years, but taking a simple picture of a house isn't one of them. Why have a virtual tour and mapping data when your cover shot looks so very bad? Here are some easy tips for getting a better picture:

• Take the picture with the sun at your back. This will give your background some sky and illuminate your target; do this even on an overcast day. Different times of the day will produce different results; it may be a good idea to target the front of the house in the morning and the back in the afternoon or vice versa. Do not try pasting a blue sky in, after the fact, unless you're real good with Photoshop - real good.


• Hold the camera level and plumb. If your camera is pointed too far down or up, it will distort the photo, making your house look weird. It's better to crop out half the shot than to depict a warped looking structure.


• Speaking of cropping, do you really want that much lawn in your picture? Most of the lawn-care freaks died out with my parents' generation.


• Bracket. This simply means taking a picture at the normal settings and then a darker shot and a lighter shot. Some cameras have an auto-bracket option: use it.


• Try again. If you don't like the first shots, take some more. I mean it's your house, you're trying to get a good price, right? Oh, and set your camera to the highest quality setting, it does make a difference.

Country Churches: Chanceford Presbyterian - the elder

We featured the newer church here, this is the older sanctuary, build in 1851. Quite a difference.

Canon EOS 5D, EF 28-135 mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens

Pastis and a G-string: Absinthe part 2, Lucid (updated)

Absinthe became notorious for two reasons: it was popular with artists and it was thought to cause insanity. If you would like to be a crazy artist, here's two things to consider about absinthe.

1. Artists drank absinthe because it was the cheapest thing on the menu.

2. Absinthe won't make you crazier than any other alcoholic beverage will.

In part 1, we tried Absente and Green Moon, two drinks that may or may not be Absinthe, but we couldn't get our hands on "the real thing," that is, Lucid or Kübler. But that has changed as we found a store in NYC, Park Avenue Liquor Shop, that ships. And ships quickly, they must cater to the most demanding of alcoholics; our delivery got here, safe & sound, in 30 hours.
How is it? The good news is, just as reported, Lucid has less of a licorice taste than Absente. And, like Absente, it has a pleasant peppery aftertaste. The bad news is that it has a pronounced chemical taste, almost gassy in flavor, like a robot fart. I tried diluting it, but that just made it watery. For the second glass I doubled up on the sugar, and that helped a little, but I still wasn't loving it. I have yet to try a third glass.
It occurs to me that perhaps we don't have the same tastes as those who have come before us. Absinthe comes from a time when fruitcake and horehound candies were considered yummy. Another thought: while the makers of Lucid may have gotten it chromatographically correct, perhaps they should have given their concoction a little more soul, or at the very least, a bit more flavor. Having said that, I think I'll go have another. Next up, when I can afford it, Kübler - or maybe St. George Absinthe Verte.

Update: 3 cubes to the wind

Maybe I was a bit hasty with my first impressions. I tried Lucid with 3 sugar cubes; it made all the difference in the world. It's good, real good, and the chemical taste all but disappeared. Here's my recipe:

• 1 part Lucid absinthe
• 3 - 4 parts cold water
• 3 lumps sugar (1.5 tsp)
  

"The Absinthe Glass Show," Dita Von Teese (A different sort of historical reenactor than most.)

Go to Kübling away the green hour: Absinthe Part 3

Mukusu Tribe, No 13

Harford County, Maryland.

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

Cold War-era destroyer could find home in Havre de Grace

Havre de Grace, Md. (Examiner) - The USS Forrest Sherman, a 418-foot-long destroyer dating to the Cold War era, could soon dock on the Susquehanna River in Havre de Grace.
A Bel Air-based nonprofit seeking to restore and preserve the 53-year-old destroyer has its sights set on the waters off David Craig Park as a possible berth.
There, the ship that served in the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion could become a floating museum and tourist attraction, President Kurt A. Wagemann said. Continued

Photo: DoDMedia via Wikipedia

Thousands follow soldier’s fate in WWI ‘blog’

LONDON (Reuters) - Thousands of people have been following the fate of a British soldier fighting in the trenches of World War I on a Web site publishing his letters home exactly 90 years after they were written.
Like William Henry Bonser ("Harry") Lamin's real family almost a century ago, the modern reader visiting www.wwar1.blogspot.com does not know when the next letter is coming, or whether the one they are reading is in fact his last.
Many are braced for the dreaded telegram from the army notifying relatives of a soldier's death. Link

The Katrina Cottage

(Wired) - At 308 square feet, some people have bigger bathrooms than the Katrina Cottage, a modest-but-charming modular home created by Marianne Cusato and Eric Moser to help house victims of the hurricane.
Imagined as a "grow house" that could eventually become just one portion of a much larger building, locals quickly fell in love with the cottage, commissioned by the Mississippi Renewal Forum.
... You can now buy your own Katrina Cottage at Lowe's stores nationwide in configurations ranging from 544 to 1,800 square feet. Continued

Serenading Miss Daisy: The Old Folks at Home

It's well documented that our brains store different types of memories in different places. This is clearly evident in the elderly; an octogenarian who may not remember his last name, can still sing along to a tune he hasn't heard in 50 years. It isn't a mere reflexive response, the listener knows what's being played and enjoys it.
In the case of my mother, 84 years old, it has been something of a challenge to find what she listened to, way back when. When I was a kid her tastes had taken on a pious hue, but today, those songs don't appeal to her very much. I remember her telling me about the way they got music when she was a kid: the gramophone & Victrola (78's, 16's, and even wax cylinders), the crystal radio (that she and her sisters called "the hear"), and further along, on a table radio (an Atwater Kent - later repossessed in the Great Depression), but I don't recall her telling me what she listened to on those ancient machines. I probably wasn't paying close attention. To make things even worse, she liked a lot of the music that her mother (born 1890) and her grandmother (born 1855) liked. I had a lot of ground to cover.
A couple of years ago I found a diary she kept as a child and it was full of references to Bing Crosby, so I bought her a Bing Crosby CD and sure enough, she started singing right along. Recently we were watching a documentary about the Carter Family and I was pleasantly surprised to hear her singing along with those songs too. I never expected that, but I remember my aunt once told me "your mother liked hillbilly music when she was a kid." I never quite knew what she meant, until that documentary came along.
Some of the songs from the past are considered objectionable today, especially around young ears, but with all the recording options now available, we can edit those songs out. If your elder likes Stephen Foster, just leave in "Oh Susannah" and leave out "Old Black Joe." You never know what some people will object to: I remember my very Conservative brother-in-law's irritation over his 4 year old having picked up an old song titled "You Ain't Done Nothin' if You Ain't Been Called a Red." I guess it was the poor grammar that bothered him.
There are contemporary musicians who dip into the old songbook on a regular basis. I recommend anything by Leon Redbone or Jim Kweskin. My mom loves those guys. And sometimes, what your elder disliked back then, is now a favorite; my mother didn't care for Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett before, but she likes them now. One more note: It doesn't always work by sitting the person down alone in a room with the music, try playing it in the car or in the background. Oh, and never, ever assume they can work the machine that's playing the songs.

Here are some CD's my mom likes, maybe your mom, or grandma, or great-grandmother, will like them too:

Bing Crosby: 16 Most Requested Songs

Leon Redbone: On the Track

Jim Kweskin: Side by Side

Penthouse Serenade: Nat King Cole at the Piano

The Carter Family: Best Of , Greatest Hits

Swanee: The Music of Stephen Foster

Maria Muldaur: On the Sunny Side

"Nixon lived here? Really? In Middle River?"

(Baltimore Examiner) - It took more than 20 years, but he upgraded from a $40-a-month garden apartment in suburban Middle River to the White House.
Now, historical advocates are calling on a Baltimore County commission to preserve the onetime home of former President Richard Nixon, apartment D at 900 Wilson Point Road. Nixon lived in the modest apartment for several months in 1946 during his final naval assignment and, from there, moved to California to run for Congress. Continued

Photo: U.S. government via Wikipedia

Edison Fries an Elephant

Jan. 4, 1903: Thomas Edison stages his highly publicized electrocution of an elephant in order to demonstrate the dangers of alternating current, which, if it posed any immediate danger at all, was to Edison's own direct current.
Edison had established direct current as the standard for electricity distribution and was living large off the patent royalties, royalties he was in no mood to lose when George Westinghouse and Nicola Tesla showed up with alternating current.
... Edison got his big chance, though, when the Luna Park Zoo at Coney Island decided that Topsy, a cranky female elephant who had squashed three handlers in three years (including one idiot who tried feeding her a lighted cigarette), had to go. Continued

(For an even stranger tale of elephanticide, check out the sad story of "Mighty Mary," the only elephant known to be lynched in the U.S.)