Barge Hits Maryland Rail Bridge Along Northeast Corridor

 

My very first successful lowlight photo of a train on Amtrak's Susquehanna River Bridge,
circa 2003 with a Canon Digital Rebel. It wasn't completely dark, more of a hard dusk.

(NYTimes) Amtrak said crews were conducting a safety assessment for the bridge, which crosses the Susquehanna River in Maryland. The U.S. Coast Guard reported no injuries. Continued

Removal of old bridge piers completed at site of Amtrak’s new Susquehanna River Bridge

 

(Trains) An Amtrak contractor has completed the removal of 10 bridge piers dating to 1866 from the Susquehanna River, a required move in advance of construction of new bridges connecting Havre de Grace and Perryville, Md. Continued

‘The Wire’ Stands Alone

(NYTimes) “The Wire” premiered on HBO on June 2, 2002. In the two decades since, its reputation has only grown, as has its audience. It is one of those series, like the original “Star Trek,” that future generations will refuse to believe struggled with low ratings during its entire run. (Let alone that it was nominated for an absurd two Emmys, and won exactly none.) Continued

29th Infantry Division at D-Day

Clearing the Vierville Draw
by Larry Selman

(D-Day Overlord) The 29th American Infantry Division was founded on 3 February 1941 and brought together men belonging to the National Guard. Comprised of four battalions and based in Fort Meade (Maryland, USA), it receives from its creation a large number of vehicles and equipment freshly out of the weapons factories. Continued

A woman’s name on the Declaration of Independence

(Washington Post) This Fourth of July, look closely at one of those printed copies of the Declaration of Independence.
See it? The woman’s name at the bottom?
It’s right there. Mary Katherine Goddard. Continued

1807: Jenkin Ratford, Chesapeake-Leopard affair casualty

(ExecutedToday.com) On this date in 1807, the British navy hanged Jenkin Ratford from the yardarm of the HMS Halifax off the coast of Maryland — an incident destined to become a rallying cry for the United States in the ill-fated War of 1812. Continued

Aberdeen mayor promises continued city help with restoration of historic B&O station

(The Aegis) Aberdeen Mayor Patrick McGrady pledged this week that the city would continue to support the ongoing community project to restore the historic B&O Railroad station off West Bel Air Avenue.
"The City of Aberdeen wants to see it done as much as you do," McGrady told Bob Tarring, who is the head of an ad hoc citizen committee formed to oversee the restoration, as Tarring and his associates gave the mayor and City Council an update Monday.
Tarring, along with Rick Herbig, of the Historical Society of Harford County Board of Trustees, and Jon Livezey, treasurer for the Aberdeen Room Archives and Museum, provided the update during Monday's city council meeting. Continued

Harford officials hope to preserve historic Bel Air house, golf course barn being dismantled

 

(Aegis) Harford County officials and the Historical Society of Harford County are working to move and preserve the historic Joesting-Gorsuch House, which had been slated for demolition to make way for five new houses to be built on the north side of the Winters Run Golf Club property near Bel Air.
The historic red barn next to the house is being dismantled this week, however, as golf club officials and Forest Hill home builder Gemcraft Homes go through the final stages of obtaining county approval to build the new houses on nearly 12 acres off of North Tollgate Road near the club entrance.
The Joesting-Gorsuch House dates to the 1730s, making it one of the oldest standing structures in Harford County. Continued

How Kentucky [and Maryland and Delaware] Became a Confederate State

 

(NYTimes) ... On Feb. 20, the president wrote to Missouri’s new governor, Thomas C. Fletcher, troubled by persistent violence and distrust among civilians there. “Waiving all else, pledge each to cease harassing others, and to make common cause against whomever persists in making, aiding or encouraging further disturbance.” The president implored. “At such meetings old friendships will cross the memory, and honor and Christian charity will contrive to help.” Less than two months later, Lincoln was dead, at the hands of a Marylander, John Wilkes Booth. Had he lived, he would have learned, painfully, in slaveholding border states that amity would be difficult to find, especially over the end of the peculiar institution there. Continued

Captain Chesapeake

Let the River Run Wild

 

Conowingo Dam

(NYTimes) IF the Chesapeake Bay is America’s Estuary, then its largest tributary, the Susquehanna River, could arguably be called America’s River. But we certainly don’t treat it as a national treasure: This once magnificent watercourse, which runs through New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland toward the coast, is today an ecological disaster — largely thanks to four hydroelectric dams, built along its lower reaches between 1904 and 1931.

An impending license renewal by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for two of these dams will lock in another half-century of measures woefully inadequate to remediating the dams’ environmental consequences. Instead, all four should be removed. Continued 

 

Holtwood Dam

Safe Harbor Dam

York Haven Dam

 

Harry Gilmor's Raid

(Wikipedia) Gilmor's Raid, also known as The Magnolia Station Train Raid, was a foraging and disruptive cavalry raid that was part of an overall campaign against Union railroads, led by Maj. Harry W. Gilmor with 135 men from the First and Second Maryland Cavalry regiments. It was authorized by Confederate Lt. Gen. Jubal Early during his Valley Campaigns of 1864, which threatened Washington, D.C., during the American Civil War.
As Early advanced north and east toward Baltimore, Maryland, a Union force led by Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace met Early's forces and was defeated in the Battle of Monocacy on July 9, 1864. The cavalry brigade of the Second Corps, led by Brig. Gen. Bradley T. Johnson advanced further eastward into Maryland, led by cavalry forces under the command of Maj. Harry W. Gilmor. Upon reaching Westminster, Maryland, on July 10, Gilmor attacked Union cavalry forces, driving them out. Johnson's main cavalry force continued pressing Wallace's retreating Union troops, pursuing them into Cockeysville-Hunt Valley, Maryland, north of Baltimore, and then turned south destroying tracks and trestle bridges along the North[ern] Central Railroad. Upon reaching Timonium, Maryland, Johnson divided the Second Corps cavalry brigade. Continued

Images: 1. "The invasion of Maryland--capture of a train on the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad at Magnolia, near Gunpowderb sic [B]Ridge, July 11" 2. Harry Gilmor. 3. Bradley Johnson. 4. Wade Hampton and Bradley Johnson, long after the war.

Air Raid on Pearl Harbor

(LoC) On December 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, killing more than 2,300 Americans. The U.S.S. Arizona was completely destroyed and the U.S.S. Oklahoma capsized. A total of twelve ships sank or were beached in the attack and nine additional vessels were damaged. More than 160 aircraft were destroyed and more than 150 others damaged. Continued

Photo: The U.S. Navy battleship USS Maryland (BB-46) alongside the capsized USS Oklahoma (BB-37) at Pearl Harbor. The USS West Virginia (BB-48) is burning in the background. (National Archives).

Before I got rid of my Maryland accent

Are we Northern? Southern? Yes.

(Baltimore Sun) Brian Witte, an Associated Press writer, recently revived an old debate that's been going on since Palm Sunday, April 9, 1865, when the Army of Northern Virginia stacked its arms, parked its artillery and furled its flags for the last time at Appomattox Court House, Va. The bloody Civil War had at long last come to an end with a handshake in the parlor of Wilmer McLean's house. ... "Though Marylanders live just south of the Mason-Dixon Line, their attitudes and even their accents straddle that border," Witte wrote. Continued

Haldan Keffer Hartline

(Wikipedia) Haldan Keffer Hartline (December 22, 1903 – March 17, 1983) was an American physiologist who was a co-winner (with George Wald and Ragnar Granit) of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work in analyzing the neurophysiological mechanisms of vision.
Hartline began his study of retinal electrophysiology as a National Research Council Fellow at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, receiving his M.D. in 1927. After attending the universities of Leipzig and Munich as an Eldridge Johnson traveling research scholar, he became professor of biophysics and chairman of the department at Johns Hopkins in 1949. One of Hartline's graduate students at Johns Hopkins, Paul Greengard, later also won the Nobel Prize. Continued

The Traveler’s B & O Christmas Tree, a Holiday Tradition

(WoCCP) The 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 when thousands of people gathered to ring in the season as lights from thousands of colorful bulbs on the evergreen softly illuminated the Jackson [Station], MD hillside. Continued

Link to the Cecil County Holly Tree Website.

Photos: MDRails

James J. Archer: A Confederate General from Bel Air

(Wikipedia) James Jay Archer (December 19, 1817 – October 24, 1864) was a lawyer and an officer in the United States Army during the Mexican-American War, and he later served as a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.
Taken as a prisoner of war at the Battle of Gettysburg, Archer was the first general officer captured from Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Continued

Photos: 1. "Annotation from negative, scratched into emulsion: Briggen J.J. Archer," (Brady-Handy/Library of Congress) 2. "Old R.R. cutting where Archers Brigade of A.P. Hills Division was captured by the 14th Brooklyn 6th Wisconsin and 95th N.Y. ... 1863 July 1 (Alfred Waud/Library of Congress)

Edmund 'Ted' Stanley

(Baltimore Sun) Edmund A. "Ted" Stanley Jr., a generous but quiet benefactor to environmental causes who made a fortune in a New York financial printing business, died Wednesday of a neurological disease at his Oxford home. He was 85.
... The Stanleys were also early donors to National Public Radio's "Morning Edition." When their names were announced as donors, few listeners realized they were a couple living in Talbot County. Continued

Historical blizzards

The Baltimore Sun has a nice little slide show of snowstorms that hit the region over the years.
Falmanac has also covered the Great Blizzard of 1888 and the infamous Knickerbocker Storm of 1922. The Knickerbocker storm was named for a Washington D.C. theatre which collapsed in the blizzard, killing 98 people and injuring 133. Also, check out this odd story from a snowstorm in 1772. And please, whatever you do, don't forget the snacks!

Photo: The Great Blizzard of 1888 (NOAA)