Parishioners say goodbye to St. George's Spesutia at final service

(Aegis) The parishioners at St. George's Spesutia Church were not celebrating Christmas on Sunday morning, the Rev. Bill Smith told them amid poinsettias and holiday decorations, but rather The Incarnation.

"We tell it over and over and over again for one reason: so we can become part of the story," he said about the tale of Christmas.

But for those gathered at the Perryman church, the oldest Episcopal parish in Maryland, Sunday's service was the end of one part of their story.

The Eucharist service is expected to be the last one to be held at St. George's, after The Right Rev. Eugene Sutton, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, ordered an end to the parish's services earlier this year. Continued

Fire chief plans to OK temporary repairs at historic York church

(York Dispatch) A historic York church once slated for demolition is getting a second chance.
York City Fire Chief Steve Buffington said Monday that he intends to issue a permit for temporary repairs to the damaged roof of Trinity United Methodist Church, 241 E. King St. The permit hinges on approval from Historic York, which serves as a consultant to the city's Historical Architectural Review Board (HARB).
Buffington, who earlier ordered the 140-year-old desanctified church immediately repaired or demolished, said he is "reasonably comfortable" with the congregation's newly submitted plan to stabilize the building. Continued

Photo: Preserving York

HARB gives Historic York one week to find fix for Trinity United Methodist Church

(YDR) Historic York has one week to produce a viable plan to save the historic Trinity United Methodist Church at 241 E. King St.
The reprieve was negotiated by Historic Architectural Review Board during its Wednesday night meeting. HARB continued the meeting until Oct. 26.
In the meantime, Historic York will work on a plan to shore up the building to eliminate the immediate danger of collapse, said Mike Johnson, president of the organization's board of directors. Continued

Dembytown

"In 1917 Harford's decades of sunny, prosperous, and seemingly unending tranquility were abruptly interrupted by America's entry into World War I. Many Countians volunteered for and saw service in Europe during the conflict, it seems arguable that the greatest affect the Great War had on Harford came in October 1917, when the federal government condemned the entire Gunpowder and Bush river necks -35,211 acres of land and 34,000 acres covered by water or about 60 square miles in all. Heretofore, as historian Keir Stirling has written, these stretches of southern Harford County "were locally known as the 'Garden of Eden,' where an excellent grade of shoe peg corn had been grown for many years. Many area farmers were able to produce 125 bushels of corn to the acre. The Baker family and others engaged in the profitable canning industry were producing about 300,000 cases of shoe peg corn and tomatoes worth approximately $1.5 million annually by 1917 .... The famous Poole's Island peaches were ... were canned locally and considered to be of high quality. Local fishing was another industry worth $700,000 a year."
Overnight all this changed as everyone living on those bay-front lands had to move to make way for the poison-gas testing facilities Washington felt the war demanded. The former landowners - the Cadwaladers, Bakers, Mitchells, and others - received some payment from the government for their lost acres and many of them then purchased other farms and resumed their lives. The workers, generally black tenant farmers, received nothing and were forced to move from the source of their livelihoods. Many such displaced families, including the Dembys and Gilberts, settled in a stretch of land near Magnolia; the houses, church, and school they built created the community now called Dembytown (HA-1603, HA-1604)." From the 1998 Historical Preservation Element.

Emory Grove in Glyndon has been a serene religious retreat since 1868

(Baltimore Sun) ... This 62-acre, interdenominational religious retreat is composed of 47 small, privately owned cottages, a large open-air pavilion called the Tabernacle and a stately, three-story, 1887 hotel that is on the National Register of Historic Places. It was founded in 1868 as an Methodist camp meeting site during the post-Civil War religious reawakening. Continued

Photo: http://emorygrove.homestead.com/

Aberdeen historic church to get new life

(The Record) The low-key white church dating to 1866 on the corner of West Bel Air Avenue and Law Street has stood vacant for two decades and has clearly seen better days.
The sanctuary has been allowed to deteriorate, and several congregations who used the property took a bell and pieces of stained glass when they left.
But now, two local men are busy getting the church back on its feet, and hope to see it brought back to life as a house of worship. Continued

Benjamin Latrobe

(Wikipedia) Benjamin Henry Boneval Latrobe (May 1, 1764 - September 3, 1820) was a British-born American architect best known for his design of the United States Capitol, as well as his design of Baltimore's cathedral.
Latrobe came to the United States in 1796, settling first in Virginia and then relocating to Philadelphia where he set up his practice. In 1803, he was hired as Surveyor of the Public Buildings of the United States, and spent much of the next fourteen years working on projects in Washington, D.C.
Later in his life, Latrobe worked on a waterworks project in New Orleans, where he ended up dying in 1820 from yellow fever. He has been called the "Father of American Architecture." Continued

Local African-American cemeteries topic of program

(YDR) Small cemeteries dot the York County landscape, some attached to country churches, others small family plots on ancestral farmland.
The York County Heritage Trust is presenting a program about African-American cemeteries at 5 p.m. Saturday in York.
The Beatty family cemetery -- sometimes called the Batty's Chapel, River Hills Cemetery or Black Diamond -- is different because it is one of the few African-American cemeteries throughout the county. Continued

Photo by Kim Choate

Parkton church finds 70 year-old quilt signed by past members on eBay

(North County News) While Janet Denbow was organizing a tour of four small North County churches built in the late 1800s, a mystery surrounding one of them was being solved.
Participants of the Oct. 23 tour of Bentley Springs, Parke Memorial, West Liberty and Pine Grove/Kirkwood Shop United Methodist churches will get to see what brought on hours of amateur detective work.
Parke Memorial Church will display a 70-year-old quilt signed by hundreds of Parkton residents in 1940. Continued

Image: Pine Grove Methodist Church (Falmanac)

Historic Catholic chapel in Cecil County restored

(Baltimore Sun) Volunteers built a modest chapel in a remote area of northeastern Maryland nearly 200 years ago and dedicated it to the patron saint of their homeland. Volunteers today have saved that simple frame building from ruin. Many descendants of those early settlers will gather at the fully restored St. Patrick's Chapel in Cecil County for a rededication Saturday. They will offer prayers of gratitude to their forebears and to those who have preserved their legacy. Continued

Images: Saint Patrick's before restoration (Kim Choate).

Our Lady of the Highway Watches Over Stretch of Interstate Where Massive Pileup Occurred

(WoCCP) As speeding vehicles dash across Cecil County on I-95, Our Lady of the Highway watches peacefully over motorists zipping past a tranquil hillside in Childs, MD. The guardian of travelers, a 14-foot high white marble statue of the Virgin Mary, was placed there after a massive pileup took three lives one foggy October morning in 1968. Hearing the vehicle piling up, seminarians and priests from the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, the first outside aid to reach victims, tended the injured and dying while waiting for emergency crews to make their way through the dark mist. Moved by the sad tragedy that took place that unforgettable autumn day, the Oblates erected the shrine in 1973. Continued

Cokesbury Memorial UMC to Celebrate College's 225th Anniversary

(Talking about Abingdon, MD) Cokesbury Memorial United Methodist Church is gearing up to celebrate the 225th anniversary of Cokesbury College, the first Methodist college in the world on June 20. The celebration will begin with worship on the lawn at 10:30 a.m. with featured speaker the Rev. Dr. Laurence Hull Stookey. Following the service, a box lunch will be served and Bonnie McCubbin will give her presentation, “Mystery Unearthed: Cokesbury College An Investigation into the History and Demise of the First Methodist College.” The discussion will focus on the mysterious circumstances of the fire that led to the total destruction of the college in 1795. Continued

Photos: Falmanac

Appeals court rules against rubble landfill near historic community

In the more than two decades since the fight against a proposed rubble landfill outside Havre de Grace began, some of the most active opponents have died and others have moved, but those who remain in a historic black community are celebrating as the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled Thursday against the project.
... She and her husband are among about 250 white and black families who live within a half-mile of the proposed 55-acre site off Gravel Hill Road, just west of Interstate 95. Established by emancipated slaves in the 19th century, the settlement's key landmark is the St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church, where the graveyard contains remains of several black veterans of the Civil War. Continued

Photo: Falmanac, some rights reserved.

Mary Clyde Streett, Spenceola Farm owner

(Baltimore Sun) Mary Clyde Streett, who helped operate a once-thriving Harford County tomato cannery, died of dementia Dec. 26 at the Bel Air Convalescent Center. She was 98. Born Mary Clyde Spencer in Forest Hill, she worked alongside her father in his canning operation in Frogtown, between Bel Air and Forest Hill. Continued

Photos: 1. Spenceola Farms Tomatoes (Falmanac) 2. Child Laborer in Maryland, c1909, by Lewis Hine/Maryland Child Labor Committee

Bittersville church closes after 103 years

(YDR) After years of decline, Bittersville United Methodist Church in Lower Windsor Township closed last week at age 103.
"People just got old. We had no children left. And the people in the little village of Bittersville just didn't support the church," said longtime member Donald Staley, 84. Continued

1907 - The cornerstone is laid at Washington National Cathedral in the U.S. capital

"Construction lasted 83 years." Continued

Photo: Library of Congress

A look at historic Harford sanctuaries

(Aegis) - When the writing team of Henry Peden Jr. and Jack Shagena Jr. did research on their first four books in the Harford County’s Rural Heritage series, they were often asked, “Why don’t you do churches?” After the successful publication of books about blacksmiths, barns, spring houses and mills, they have just come out with their latest book, “Churches: An Illustrated History." Continued

Photos: Falmanac

Amish paper succeeds the old-fashioned way

(MSNBC) - ... "People call The Budget the Amish Internet," Rathbun says. "It's non-electric, it's on paper, but it's the same thing."
The Budget is the dominant means of communication among the Amish, a Christian denomination with about 227,000 members nationwide who shun cars for horse-drawn buggies and avoid hooking up to the electrical grid. Continued

Photo: WPA (Library of Congress)

August 15, 1790: John Carroll Becomes First Bishop of Baltimore

(LoC) - On August 15, 1790, John Carroll became the first bishop of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. The son of a wealthy Catholic merchant, Carroll was born in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, in 1736 and had significant Revolutionary connections. His cousin, Charles Carroll, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence; his brother, Daniel Carroll, signed the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution.
After receiving a Jesuit education at the Bohemia academy in Cecil County, Maryland, Carroll studied abroad at the English-language Jesuit College of St. Omer in Flanders. Continued

Photo: Sacred Heart Church at Whitemarsh, Bowie, Maryland, Jack Boucher, photographer (Library of Congress).

Historic black church may be reborn as museum

(Baltimore Sun) - The 19th-century laborers pooled their money and did what they could to build this biscuit box of a church along Offutt Road in the southwest corner of Baltimore County. Atop a stone foundation they put up four walls, eight windows, a peaked roof, three rows of pews, a pulpit for inspiration and a wood stove for warmth - and called the thing done. Continued

Photo: Louis Diggs