New Year's Eve 1910

New Year's Eve 1910 (Library of Congress)

Red Lion drops cigar on New Year's Eve

(York Dispatch) The eastern side of York County Friday night will be full of cigar raising, shoe drops, fireworks and, if all goes well, streets packed with revelers in Hallam and Red Lion boroughs. For the 14th year, Red Lion will hold a giant, free celebration in its downtown area from 7 p.m. to midnight that committee chairman Joe Valenti thinks should attract people from around the region. They even added "area" to the "Red Lion Area New Year's Committee" to better represent the goal of bringing in people from outside Red Lion. "We're willing to take as many people as we can hold," he said. Continued

Narrative and the Grace of God: The New ‘True Grit’

(Stanley Fish/NYTimes) ... In the movie we have just been gifted with, there is no relationship between the two; heroism, of a physical kind, is displayed by almost everyone, “good” and “bad” alike, and the universe seems at best indifferent, and at worst hostile, to its exercise. The springs of that universe are revealed to us by the narrator-heroine Mattie in words that appear both in Charles Portis’s novel and the two films, but with a difference. The words the book and films share are these: “You must pay for everything in this world one way and another. There is nothing free with the exception of God’s grace.” These two sentences suggest a world in which everything comes around, if not sooner then later. The accounting is strict; nothing is free, except the grace of God. But free can bear two readings — distributed freely, just come and pick it up; or distributed in a way that exhibits no discernible pattern. In one reading grace is given to anyone and everyone; in the other it is given only to those whom God chooses for reasons that remain mysterious. Continued

Photo: My great, great grandmother, Clarksville Arkansas c1860. Her family adhered to a theology nearly identical to that of Mattie in True Grit. They were hard people. One of her son's-in-law, whom, I suppose, came from touchy-feely stock, lamented that he could "break his leg in the living room and nobody would bat an eye."

Paul Stookey

(Wikipedia) Noel Paul Stookey (born December 30, 1937) is a singer-songwriter best known as "Paul" in the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary. He took the stage name "Paul" as part of the trio Peter, Paul, and Mary, but he has been known as Noel (his first name) otherwise, throughout his life. He did not retire after Mary's death and, as of 2010, he continues to work as a solo singer and activist. Continued

Railroad Accident Takes Seven Lives in Delmar in 1909

(Reflections on Delmarva's Past) One gloomy Monday night in February 1909, the Norfolk Express, eleven cars loaded with passengers, baggage and mail for Norfolk, rolled out of Wilmington at midnight. As the train rushed down the Peninsula, past Middletown, Dover, Harrington and Seaford, a thick fog cloaked Delaware, greatly reducing visibility. Moments before 3 o’clock in the morning, No. 49 slowed for Delmar Station. Continued

Pictured: "Princess Trixie, queen of all educated horses."

Frederick Douglass Visited Port Deposit and Rising Sun in 1885

(WoCCP) Just days before Cecil County residents celebrated the arrival of a New Year, welcoming in 1886, an aging social reformer, orator, and writer, traveled to Cecil County to lecture on “The Self-Made Man.” On his way to Rising Sun where the town’s literary society was sponsoring the program, the abolitionist leader, Frederick Douglass, who’d escaped from slavery, stopped for a few hours in Port Deposit. There he attracted considerable attention. Continued

Image: "Frederick Douglass appealing to President Lincoln and his cabinet to enlist Negroes," mural by William Edouard Scott, at the Recorder of Deeds building, built in 1943. 515 D St., NW, Washington, D.C. (Library of Congress).

Billy the Kid to be Pardoned 130 Years Later?

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (CBS/AP) Descendants of Old West lawman Pat Garrett and New Mexico Territorial Gov. Lew Wallace are outraged that Gov. Bill Richardson is considering a pardon for Billy the Kid, saying Wallace never offered a pardon, and a petition seeking one is tainted because it comes from a lawyer with ties to Richardson. Continued

Photo: Falmanac, some rights reserved.

"The Greatest Game Ever Played"

(Wikipedia) The 1958 National Football League Championship Game was played on December 28, 1958 at Yankee Stadium in New York City. It was the first ever National Football League (NFL) playoff game to go into sudden death overtime. The final score was Baltimore Colts 23, New York Giants 17. The game has since become widely known as "The Greatest Game Ever Played." Continued

E.D.E.N. Southworth

(librarycompany.org) Christened Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte at her dying father's request, the most popular woman novelist of her era used the acronym E.D.E.N. throughout her career. After graduating from her stepfather's academy in Washington, D.C., in 1835, she taught school for five years before marrying inventor Frederick Southworth and moving with him to Wisconsin. In 1844, when E.D.E.N. was pregnant with their second child, Frederick abandoned his family to seek fortune in South America. Faced with the task of raising and supporting her children alone, E.D.E.N. returned to Washington, D.C., to resume her teaching career. Continued

Funds secured to preserve possible Revolutionary War tract

(YDR) A farm where historians believe a Revolutionary War prison camp once stood is close to being preserved because the Conservation Fund has secured the money needed to buy the property.
The York County commissioners voted unanimously Wednesday to give $150,000 toward the preservation of the 116-acre Rowe farm off Locust Grove Road in Springettsbury Township.
It was the last commitment the Conservation Fund needed to purchase the property for $2.1 million - a lower price than the original offer, said county officials and Todd McNew, state director for the Conservation Fund. Continued

A Visit from Saint Nicholas in the Ernest Hemingway Manner by James Thurber

It was the night before Christmas. The house was very quiet. No creatures were stirring in the house. There weren't even any mice stirring. The stockings had been hung carefully by the chimney. The children hoped that Saint Nicholas would come and fill them.
The children were in their beds. Their beds were in the room next to ours. Mamma and I were in our beds. Mamma wore a kerchief. I had my cap on. I could hear the children moving. We didn't move. We wanted the children to think we were asleep.
"Father," the children said.
There was no answer. He's there, all right, they thought.
"Father," they said, and banged on their beds.
"What do you want?" I asked.
"We have visions of sugarplums," the children said.
"Go to sleep," said mamma.
"We can't sleep," said the children. They stopped talking, but I could hear them moving. They made sounds.
"Can you sleep?" asked the children.
"No," I said.
"You ought to sleep."
"I know. I ought to sleep."
"Can we have some sugarplums?"
"You can't have any sugarplums," said mamma.
"We just asked you."
There was a long silence. I could hear the children moving again.
"Is Saint Nicholas asleep?" asked the children.
"No," mamma said. "Be quiet."
"What the hell would he be asleep tonight for?" I asked.
"He might be," the children said.
"He isn't," I said.
"Let's try to sleep," said mamma.
The house became quiet once more. I could hear the rustling noises the children made when they moved in their beds.
Out on the lawn a clatter arose. I got out of bed and went to the window. I opened the shutters; then I threw up the sash. The moon shone on the snow. The moon gave the lustre of mid-day to objects in the snow. There was a miniature sleigh in the snow, and eight tiny reindeer. A little man was driving them. He was lively and quick. He whistled and shouted at the reindeer and called them by their names. Their names were Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donder, and Blitzen.
He told them to dash away to the top of the porch, and then he told them to dash away to the top of the wall. They did. The sleigh was full of toys.
"Who is it?" mamma asked.
"Some guy," I said. "A little guy."
I pulled my head in out of the window and listened. I heard the reindeer on the roof. I could hear their hoofs pawing and prancing on the roof.
"Shut the window," said mamma.
I stood still and listened.
"What do you hear?"
"Reindeer," I said. I shut the window and walked about. It was cold. Mamma sat up in the bed and looked at me.
"How would they get on the roof?" mamma asked.
"They fly."
"Get into bed. You'll catch cold."
Mamma lay down in bed. I didn't get into bed. I kept walking around.
"What do you mean, they fly?" asked mamma.
"Just fly is all."
Mamma turned away toward the wall. She didn't say anything.
I went out into the room where the chimney was. The little man came down the chimney and stepped into the room. He was dressed all in fur. His clothes were covered with ashes and soot from the chimney. On his back was a pack like a peddler's pack. There were toys in it. His cheeks and nose were red and he had dimples. His eyes twinkled. His mouth was little, like a bow, and his beard was very white. Between his teeth was a stumpy pipe. The smoke from the pipe encircled his head in a wreath. He laughed and his belly shook. It shook like a bowl of red jelly. I laughed. He winked his eye, then he gave a twist to his head. He didn't say anything.
He turned to the chimney and filled the stockings and turned away from the chimney. Laying his finger aside his nose, he gave a nod. Then he went up the chimney. I went to the chimney and looked up. I saw him get into his sleigh. He whistled at his team and the team flew away. The team flew as lightly as thistledown. The driver called out, "Merry Christmas and good night." I went back to bed.
"What was it?" asked mamma. "Saint Nicholas?" She smiled.
"Yeah," I said.
She sighed and turned in the bed.
"I saw him," I said.
"Sure."
"I did see him."
"Sure you saw him." She turned farther toward the wall.
"Father," said the children.
"There you go," mamma said. "You and your flying reindeer."
"Go to sleep," I said.
"Can we see Saint Nicholas when he comes?" the children asked.
"You got to be asleep," I said. "You got to be asleep when he comes. You can't see him unless you're unconscious."
"Father knows," mamma said.
I pulled the covers over my mouth. It was warm under the covers. As I went to sleep I wondered if mamma was right.

Found at http://thenostalgialeague.com/olmag/st_nicholas.html

Booth descendants agree to brother's body ID tests

(Philadelphia Inquirer) In life, Edwin and John Wilkes Booth were brothers, ambitious actors, and bitter rivals. They ruthlessly competed for the limelight on stages in Philadelphia and across the nation.
Edwin became one of America's greatest Shakespearean actors, while John Wilkes achieved infamy in another role - as the assassin of Abraham Lincoln, at Ford's Theater in Washington.
Now, for the first time, Booth descendants have agreed to exhume Edwin's body, adding drama to the family's story and delighting historians who have speculated that John Wilkes escaped capture 145 years ago. Continued

Photo: The Booth Brothers

The Great Snowball Battle of Rappahannock Academy

(weatherbook.com) Two back-to-back snowstorms in February of 1863 provided the ammunition for a friendly snowball battle amongst rival divisions of Confederate troops near Fredericksburg, Virginia. On February 19, eight inches of snow fell on the region. Two days later, nine inches of snow fell. On February 25, sunny skies and mild temperatures softened the deep snow cover, providing ideal conditions for making snowballs.
During this time, the Confederate Army was camped near Fredericksburg. Some of the Divisions of the army had been reorganized, which had created friendly rivalries between the Confederate brigades and regiments. This helped spark a huge snowball battle near Rappahannock Academy in which approximately 10,000 Confederate soldiers participated. Continued

With Little Less Than Savage Fury

(AmericanHeritage.com) On April 22, 1775, three days after a British column marched out of Boston and clashed with militiamen at Lexington and Concord, the news—and the cry of Revolution!—reached Danbury, Connecticut, where 18-year-old Stephen Maples Jarvis was working on the family farm. Over the next several days, the young man would confront the hard, consequential choice between joining the rebel patriots or staying loyal to King George. He was not alone; all across the eastern seaboard, others were wrestling with the same dilemma. Continued

Connie Mack: The Tall Tactician

(LoC) Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy, known as Connie Mack, the "Tall Tactician" of major league baseball, was born on December 22, 1862, in East Brookfield, Massachusetts. Ramrod-straight and a string bean of a man at 6'1" and 150 pounds, Mack was a professional baseball player prior to serving as manager and team executive for fifty-three years.
Fifty of those years, from 1901 through the 1950 season, were spent as owner-manager of the Philadelphia Athletics. The A's won nine American League championships and five World Series under the management of this beloved and respected baseball legend. Continued