Guest Editorial: Cecilton’s Levi Coppin School Should be Saved

A Public Letter to Cecilton Town Officials — A Guest Column

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April 26, 2020

Dear Cecilton Town Officials:

I am writing to you to strongly urge you not to demolish the historical Levi Coppin School.  While scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed on Sunday, I was surprised to read about the town’s newest project to build a new school and senior housing village. While there is nothing wrong with this idea, I was shocked and angered to read about the plan to demolish the historical school building that sits on the grounds of the construction site. 

The Levi Coppin School in Cecilton on April 27, 2020 (Source: Kyle Dixon)

The Levi Coppin School follows a lineage of schools that educated African-American children in Cecilton and the surrounding area dating back to the Reconstruction Era immediately following the American Civil War.  In the early 1950s, the current structure was built and dedicated in honor of Levi Coppin who was from the area and went on to become a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.  He also spent time in Cecilton as a  teacher in the earlier school before pursuing a career in ministry.  Hundreds of African American children were educated at that school until public schools in Cecil County were fully integrated in 1965.

Back in 2013, while attending Washington College, I wrote a senior capstone thesis titled Standing in the Schoolhouse Door: The Desegregation of Public Schools in Cecil County, Maryland, 1954-1965.  In this paper, I spent some time discussing the history of education of African-American children in the county and analyzed the factors that ultimately led to the desegregation of Cecil County Public Schools.  While segregation of public education is not something to be proud of, it is important to document the struggles that students, educators, and community members went through to fight for equality in education.  Preserving the Levi Coppin School would do so. 

There are countless examples of preserved African-American schools in the region.  In Elkton, Wright’s AME Church recently bought the original Elkton Colored School and plans on preserving the building as a community center and museum. The Elkton Colored School’s successor, the George Washington Carver School, is currently the administrative headquarters of Cecil County Public Schools. My current residence, Harford County, has two examples that now serve as museums documenting the struggle for equality, the Havre de Grace Colored School Museum and Hosanna School Museum.

The Hosanna School Museum has also acquired the McComas Institute and plans on turning that into a museum as well.  In Queen Anne’s County, alumni of the Kennard School purchased the facility from the local board of education and converted the building into the Kennard African American Cultural Heritage Center, an organization that hosts after school programs and serves as a museum.  With so many examples in the region of preserved African American schools, why cannot the Levi Coppin School be incorporated into the surrounding construction as offices, community center, a museum, or meeting hall?

Lastly, I wish to challenge the comment presumably made by a town official on the Cecilton Facebook page that argues that Levi Coppin School does not meet the criteria for preservation by the Maryland Historic Trust.  MHT follows guidelines set by the National Register of Historic Places.   The NRHP has the following criteria:

A. The property must be associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history.

B. The property must be associated with the lives of persons significant in our past.

C. The property must embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, represent the work of a master, possess high artistic values, or represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction.

D. The property must show, or may be likely to yield, information important to history or prehistory.

I argue that the Levi Coppin School meets criterion A.  It was built in 1950 during the time when  separate but equal education was sadly the norm. The predecessor to the school was known as the Cecilton Colored School.  At the insistence of community members, the board of education agreed to rename the school after accomplished former area resident Levi Coppin.  Although Levi Coppin passed away in 1924, this was the community’s attempt to honor his legacy and to rid the school of the belittling norm of naming schools for African-Americans as colored.  As stated earlier, preservation of the school would document the struggle for equality. 

As a volunteer with the Historical Society of Cecil County, educator, and native of southern Cecil County, I urge Cecilton to do the right thing and preserve the Levi Coppin School so that future residents children of Cecilton can learn from the past.  Shamefully, Cecilton has not demonstrated much care for historic preservation as it has been demonstrated in demolition of numerous historical buildings.  Once a historical structure is destroyed, that history is gone forever.  As George Santayana once stated, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing your response.

Sincerely,

Kyle Dixon

Havre de Grace, Maryland

Nurses were the Heroes of the Day When Spanish Flu Hit

During the first seventeen years of the 20th century, Cecil Countians lived tranquil lives, far removed from growing tensions in Europe and the terrible devastation of a deadly pandemic.  However, one group of young ladies preparing to become healthcare professionals at the end of the horse and buggy era in medicine, had their careers minted by the growing global disruptions of a world war and a lethal contagion.

Once Union Hospital opened in 1908, they hired a Canadian nurse, Maida Grace Campbell, to serve as superintendent.  The trained medical clinician managed all facilities and served as the head nurse while also supervising a small staff of aides and orderlies.  Three years after it opened, the institution decided to establish a nursing school to supply more caregivers to aid in the work.      

Young, unmarried women twenty to thirty years old with one year of high school could apply for admission.  Once accepted into the three-year program that led to a nursing diploma, students received lectures, practical experience, and room and board, along with a monthly stipend of $5.  There was no charge for tuition as the ladies exchanged their labor for the clinical experience.

Alice Denver Trenholm, a graduate of the 1914 Union Hospital class. (Source: John McDaniel)

Nurses Decreased as Deadly Virus Advanced

At the first commencement exercise in 1914, Alice Denver, Stella Graves, Mary King, and Georgia May Miller proudly dressed in white uniforms, received the coveted Union Hospital caps and diplomas while standing on the stage of the Elkton Opera House.

The graduates of the Union Hospital School of Nursing. (Source: Tenth Annual Report of the Union Hospital. personal collection)

For those in this cohort and classes over the next four years, troubling, distant matters disrupted their lives.  As they advanced in their studies or started fledgling careers, war flared up in Europe — in 1917, the United States entered the conflict, fighting alongside European Allies.  As the blood spilled on the battlefield, the army needed caregivers to staff field hospitals in France, so the Surgeon General issued a call for 5,000 nurses to serve in the Army Nurse Corps. 

Several Union Hospital nurses answered the patriotic call, going off to care for the soldiers.  Superintendent Maida Campbell, R.N, resigned first.  In August 1918, she enlisted as a nurse in Canada’s Military Hospital Service.   Her brother, a member of the Canadian forces, had been killed in battle, and a second brother lost a leg in 1917.  ¹.

A Nurse wears a mask as protection against influenza. September 13, 1918. (Source: National Archives, https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/influenza-epidemic/records-list.html)

Within a month, additional Union Hospital graduates mobilized, at least one-fourth of the training school’s alumnae enlisting.  Adelia Monica McGready (Class of 1917), Mary Ella Alderson (1918), and Laura Tucker Story (1918) departed for military duty in September.  Allice Denver, a 1914 graduate who had taken a position at the Rockefeller Institute in New York, also volunteered for war duty in France.

These young, patriotic professionals serving the nation in wartime undoubtedly thought that these were the most distressing times they could ever confront professionally.  But as summer slipped into fall, worse suffering appeared as the pandemic swept across the nation.  The remaining nurses at Union Hospital, their ranks thinned by war mobilization, scrambled to feed patients, provide nursing care, and maintain hygiene as the wards filled with pneumonia cases when the Spanish Influenza hit Cecil County hard in September and October 1918.   The nurses worked day and night to combat the illness and relieve the suffering, each day becoming more difficult as even they were not spared in this era before vaccines and antibiotics.

Two Nurses Fell Victim to Deadly Viruses

Among those who toiled day and night, Rose Cecilia Suter, lost her life.  The 29-year-old class of 1917 graduate died at the Kelly Institute in Baltimore while working as a nurse.   Becoming ill at work, Miss Suter returned home for a couple of weeks to recover from the grippe.  But upon returning to Baltimore, the Cecil County News reported that she contracted influenza.  She was laid to rest at Immaculate Conception Cemetery. Her mother, six sisters, and a half-brother survived her. Rose’s father, Francis X, 83, had died suddenly of a heart attack earlier that year. 

Another victim of the infectious diseases of that era was Stella A. Grave (class of 1914).  While doing Red Cross Duty, She met and married Dr. Victor L. Glover.  After a wedding trip to Pen-Mar, the couple returned to Inwood, WV, where the groom practiced medicine.  There, while working in his office, she contracted Tuberculosis. 

These often-forgotten, overextended nurses were the heroes of the time as frontline clinicians, just as our overworked healthcare workers are today as they fight the coronavirus.   They faced the Spanish Influenza, their jobs being made all the more difficult by the nation’s other fight, World War I. 

For more on the Spanish Flu in Cecil County, see the Spanish Flu Archive.

For more on women as caregivers during this time see Did We Forget to Memorialize Spanish Flu Because Women Were the Heroes?

Union Hospital Training School for Nurses, Schedule of Lectures, 1918-1919 (Source: Tenth Annual Report of Union Hospital. personal collection)

Endnotes

1. Midland Journal, Aug 16 1918[↩]

Public Health Officer Led County’s Fight Against the Spanish Flu

When the Spanish Influenza appeared in Cecil County in the autumn of 1918, the man on the frontline of the battle here was Dr. H. Arthur Cantwell.  The young clinician, an alumnus of the Jacob Tome Institute, graduated from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1906.  After interning at the University Hospital and the Kernan Hospital for Crippled Children in Baltimore, the doctor returned home to Charlestown to open a general practice of medicine and surgery in his mother’s home.

It wasn’t long before the office shifted to North East, a move that helped build the budding practice.  There the twenty-three-year-old worked seven days a week, treating every type of case imaginable, from minor distress to heart attacks, cancer, and gunshot wounds.   His colleagues in the medical fraternity in the town consisted of Dr. Phillip B. Housekeeper who received his medical diploma in 1868; Lewis F. Hamrick (1901), and T. A. Worrall (1870).¹

Appointed County Health Officer

Months before the Spanish Flu struck, the county commissioners appointed the North East physician to a term as the Cecil County Public Health Officer.²   It was April 1918, months before the first bout of the Spanish Flu struck, a small outbreak occurring that summer. But the most serious wave lurked until autumn before it hit.  And there was a third less severe eruption that resulted in additional deaths early in the winter of 1919.

Months before the Pandemic struck, he was appointed to a term as the Cecil County Health Officer.

As an up-to-date graduate of a university medical school, Dr. Cantwell understood the era’s theories on contagions.  But like all medical professionals in 1918, he didn’t know that influenza was a virus as the science hadn’t developed that information. Thus, there was no vaccine, test, or therapy to treat this strain of influenza.  However, his knowledge of germ theory and the way microbes spread through droplets in the air was solidly grounded in the science of the time. 

Public Health Officer Monitors Pandemic

In the early days of the outbreak, news of the deadly pandemic swirling around military camps and large cities, the new health officer read newspaper accounts about the plague sweeping across the nation and studied whatever bulletins the Maryland Board of Health and U.S. Surgeon General Blue provided.    The clinician recognized that medical therapeutics could not stop the microscopic killer; only the public health measures of containment, good hygiene, isolation, and quarantine would reduce the suffering, something we now call social distancing.  This information he shared with Cecil’s old hands at medicine during County Medical Society meetings.   

“Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases – As Dangerous as Poison Gas Shells”. U.S. Public Health ad on dangers of the Spanish Flu epidemic during World War I. (Source: U.S. Public Health Service, via Wikipedia)

One State Health Department bulletin informed local authorities that an “extra-containment zones” had been established around government reservations in Maryland, including Aberdeen Proving Ground.  The emergency regulation established a five-mile boundary for containment, authorized the appointed of five additional deputy state health officers, and the publication of circulars with instructions on sanitary requirements for anyone in the zone. 

When the second wave struck here in September and October, the county’s physician, took charge as the contagion ripped across northeastern Maryland.  Dr. Cantwell was the point person responsible for protecting and promoting public health; never before in the history of Cecil County had the health officer been thrust into the forefront of a major community-wide health emergency, a global pandemic.

In these turbulent times, with the virus killing over 100 people here and infecting many more, he provided strong leadership at the helm of the emergency as people from the Susquehanna River to the Sassafras fell victim to the Spanish Influenza.  With the area in a near state of emergency, doctors being overwhelmed by the calls for help and nurses falling ill, he acted swiftly, promptly calling the shots that reduced the suffering in Cecil County. 

Dr. Cantwell Acted Swiftly

As the number of cases swelled, Dr. Cantwell hoped to stamp out the spreading germs with a quarantine. On October 2, 1918, the local Board of Health issued the order — all places where people assembled were to shutter their doors for an indefinite period beginning that Wednesday. In addition to shutting down schools, houses of worship, moving picture theaters, and all places of public assembly, the authorities also banned public funerals.  Struggling to keep a lid on things, he also arranged to have information printed that alerted the public to good hygiene practices that would slow the spread of the viral killer.

When the physician ordered the closure of public places, there were no complaints, even if most people didn’t understand the danger of influenza.  The streets suddenly grew quiet and still, with few exceptions, as the newspaper columns filled with obituaries. What we call social distancing now is all they had to prevent the spread of the viral killer.

Six days later, the Maryland Board of Health followed along, issuing a statewide directive. Noting that public gathering places where large numbers were likely to congregate played an essential part in the dissemination of the disease. The Maryland Health Officer added that as the virus showed alarming signs of assuming severe proportions, the situation called for serious measures. 

Finally, toward the end of October, the suffering and deaths declined.  And on October 27, the Cecil County Board of Health lifted the ban on public assembly, announcing that church services, schools, and public assembly could resume for the first time in several weeks. To a significant degree, Cecil County activity stopped or slowed for 25 days, but the people adjusted.

The staff of Union Hospital in the 1930s. Seated: Dr. H. A. Cantwell, Miss Mary Delancy, Dr. J. H. Bates, Dr. Winfred Morrison; standing: Dr. Milfred Sprecher, Dr. Richard Dodson, Dr. Vernon McKnight, Dr. H. V. Davis, Dr. Jacob Greenwald (source: Union Hospital — Celebrating the First 100 Years!) ³

For the annual report for the state, Dr. Cantwell reported that 2,073 communicable disease cases occurred in the county, in comparison to 264 incidents in 1917.  Also, his report indicates that there were 85 deaths in 1918.  Early the next year, there were about 25 additional deaths.⁴

After leading the county’s fight against this unprecedented pandemic, Dr. Cantwell resigned as the health officer in Dec. 1921, the commissioners appointing Dr. William G. Jack to the vacancy. ⁵

The clinician’s practice and reputation continued to grow in the decades ahead.  Instrumental in the continuing modernization of Union Hospital, he was the chief of surgery from 1921 to 1954.     

Providing Care for 50 Years

After decades as a caregiver, he had grown from the young doctor in town to the senior practicing physician in Cecil County.  On the fiftieth anniversary of tending to the ills of residents, more than 1,000 people packed the North East Elementary School, turning out to honor the respected caregiver.    On this special occasion Mrs. Mary Belle Heverin Reynolds, his first baby delivery on September 29, 1907, was present, as well as his first patients, Mrs. Curtis Reed and her daughter, Mrs. Frank Conway, Sr., of North East.  Mrs. Reed remarked that several people told her that it was awful taking her to a young doctor barely out of school.

This is your favorite Doctor, Dr. H. Arthur Cantwell, (Source: Morning News, June 11, 1956)

Dr. Cantwell recalled that his first operation was performed on John Benjamin’s father. “I was still in school and was on vacation when I was called.  He was accidentally shot while gunning.  He had blown away part of the calf of his leg.  After stopping the bleeding, we took him to the old Union Hospital where Dr. Mitchell permitted me to operate.  There is no comparison between medicines of today and that of yesteryear.  It is wonderful how the different drugs of today have caused the medical profession to progress,” he remarked.  ((“1000 Countian’s Honor Doctor Who Practiced for 50 Years.” News Journal. (Newark), June, 11, 1950.))

Dr. Cantwell, 89, died on December 20, 1972.  Part of his lasting legacy was leading the county’s fight again the Spanish influenza as the public health officer. 

For more on the Spanish Flu in Cecil County see

Women were the Caregivers During the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918

For the National Story see

“Spanish Flu, or Whatever It Is. . . .”: The Paradox of Public Health in a Time of Crisis

Endnotes

1. Polk’s Medical Register and Directory of North America. 10th ed. Baltimore, MD: R. L. Polk & Co. Publishers, 1908. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924108425525&view=1up&seq=17.[↩]
2. Cecil County Commissioners, Minutes of Meetings, April 9, 1918, p 75[↩]
3. Union Hospital, “Celebrating 100 Years: Union Hospital, 1908 – 2008), p.27[↩]
4. State Board of Health of Maryland.  Annual Report of the State Board of Health of Maryland for the Year Ending December 31, 1918.  10^th annual report, Baltimore:  State Printer, 1918 https://www.google.com/books/edition/Annual_Report_of_the_State_Board_of_Heal/WWVfPgKK8esC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=maryland+board+of+health+1918&pg=PA214&printsec=frontcover (accessed April 6, 2020)[↩]
5. “Town and County.” Midland Journal (Rising Sun), January 21 1922.[↩]

Women Were the Caregivers During the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918

When the Spanish Flu of 1918 spread from the battlefields of Europe to North America, it struck swiftly with its devastating sweep across the nation.  Since treatments, vaccines, and antibiotics didn’t exist, the lethal contagion quickly overwhelmed the early 20th-century  healthcare system.  To aggravate matters, the Great War had thinned the ranks of medical clinicians, and many remaining practitioners became ill themselves.       

From the onset of the pandemic in Cecil County, the sick and ill relied on the ladies to provide palliative care.  They took charge of caring for the stricken in the “flu homes,” sitting up all night will ill family members and neighbors.  This day-to-day care in the sick homes required constant attention, providing the person down with the flu liquids and nourishment, keeping the room ventilated, making sure they were warm enough, and administering whatever remedies doctors could provide to alleviate suffering.   As the contagion rampaged across the county, the work was especially hard as frequently entire households became infected.   

Nurses Face the Ultimate Test

The first nursing class graduates (1914). L to R: Mary King, Alice Denver, Stella Graves, Georgia Miller. Miss Graves died while fighting the contagion. (Source: Dorothy Robinson Collection at the Historical Society of Cecil County)

While women at home provided most of the care, some acute cases needed hospitalization, so they were admitted to Union Hospital.  This put the institution’s nurse, student nurses, matron, and orderly on the frontline, the war already having weakened their ranks.  Miss Maida G. Campbell, R.N., the superintendent, and three pupils, Adelia McGready, Ella Alderson, and Laura Storey, enlisted in the overseas service of the Red Cross.

The remaining group of emerging professionals, the eleven “pupil nurses,” provided the bulk of the institutional care.  These young, unmarried ladies in the training program exchanged their labor for free instruction that led to a nursing diploma.  In between caring for the sick during regular times, they occasionally attended physician lectures and received practical, supervised experience related to medical procedures, medications, and nursing care.  It was a bargain for the institution, a cheap source of labor.¹    This band, the class of 1918, embarking on their chosen career encountered the ultimate test of their profession that autumn at the forefront of the desperate struggle, they too falling il.  They also heard about alumnae dying from the disease while performing patriotic duties in faraway places. 

Elkton’s new hospital also faced an unprecedented public health emergency.  For the first time in its ten-year history, admissions barely increased in 1918.  The managers attributed this to the reduced ranks of surgeons and the influenza pandemic, which incapacitated the nursing staff.  The virus also hampered recruiting for the training school²  

Spanish Flu Strikes Hospital

The staff of the Union Hospital in 1918 (Source: Tenth Annual Report of the Union Hospital of Cecil County, personal collection)

To help alleviate the burden placed upon the severely overworked doctors and nurses of the country who were working night and day, U.S. Surgeon General Rupert Blue ordered health departments to mobilize all available resources for the national struggle on Oct. 15. Local Authorities should make use of untrained women to relieve overworked nurses, he advised.³

In the grim world turned upside down in 1918, when the deadly virus stalked victims, they met the dual upheavals — World War I and the virulent contagion sweeping unchecked across the land.   At the epicenter of this battle, the overstretched caregivers turned out to be the class minted by a pandemic.   Each was forcefully reminded of what a medical career meant — the personal sacrifice, the risk of death, and the shortage of help in an overextended healthcare system when the contagion raged out of control with no cures available.  These young nurses did their duty while facing great suffering, sacrifice, exhaustion, and risk in the grueling battles.  

Ladies on the Front Line

In this topsy-turvy world, a time of great dread and misery, women stood on the front line of this awful struggle, delivering care to family and neighbors in the home.  They lived through a global tragedy, one of the worst ever to take place. 

For more see

Not the First Time Cecil County was Shut Down

Salem County Shut Down During Flu Epidemic of 1918

Upcoming Articles

Part II – Cecil County Practitioners on the Front Line.

Part III — The Fallen Nurses

Union Hospital School of Nursing Graduates in 1914. This was the first class to graduate. (L to R) — Mary King, Alice Denver, Stella Grave, and George Miller. Miss Graves died while performing her duties as a nurse during the epidemic. (Source: Dorothy Robinson Collection at the Historical Society of Cecil County)

Endnotes

1. Admin. “Union Hospital Nurses Served on the Battlefield During World War I -.” Window on Cecil County’s Past, November 13, 2018. https://cecilcountyhistory.com/world-war-i/.[↩]
2. “Tenth Annual Report of the Union Hospital of Cecil County.” Vol. 10. Elkton: Union Hospital, 1918.[↩]
3. National Campaign Ordered, Capital Gazette: Annapolis, Oct. 15, 1918.[↩]

Not the First Time Cecil County was Shut Down

This isn’t the first time that Cecil County has been shut down by a pandemic. In the autumn of 1918, a deadly virus, the so-called Spanish Flu, swept across the nation. As this grim situation unfolded 102-years ago, many public health officials advised that the spread of the disease called for drastic action, a general shut down. In voicing these professional judgments, the medical men added that only critical wartime work should go on, while other activities should cease for not less than ten days to minimize the possibility of further contagion.

This halt of business, they added, would give exhausted physicians fighting the deadly infection a chance to catch up with the overtaxing situation while better managing care for the sick.

These measures seemed extreme to many, the statements of public health officers being greeted with skepticism. The doctors countered that since so many people were being brought down by influenza that most activity would cease anyway due to community spread.

As the number of cases increased daily, Cecil County’s Public Health Officer, Dr. H. Arthur Cantwell, took decisive action to quarantine the virus, hoping to stamp out the germs spread. On October 2, 1918, the local Board of Health ordered all places where people assembled to shutter their doors for an indefinite period beginning that Wednesday. In addition to shutting down schools, houses of worship, moving picture theaters, and all places of public assembly, he also banned public funerals. Emphasizing the importance of this action, Hugh W. Caldwell, Superintendent of Schools, added that this action would check the spread of the Spanish Influenza.

A message from the U.S. Dept. of Health in 1918 (National Institutes of Health)

That first Sunday, a striking, unrivaled silence fell on Cecil County, not a church bell ringing while on the streets few people, automobiles, or other vehicles were around. All across the county, meetings or assemblies were called off as places closed their doors to visitors. And as a new week got underway, Cecil County residents adjusted to the new normal and there was good cooperation, as public assemblies stopped and many business owners became gravely sick.

Six days later, the Maryland Board of Health issued a statewide order, noting that public gathering places where large numbers were likely to congregate played an essential part in the dissemination of the disease. The health officers added that as the virus showed alarming signs of assuming severe proportions, the situation called for serious measures.

Finally, toward the end of October, the suffering and deaths declined. And on October 27, the Cecil County Board of Health lifted the ban on public assembly, announcing that church services could resume for the first time in several weeks. With things returning to normal, Cecil County Schools Superintendent Caldwell added that schools would reopen on Monday, October. 28. He ordered the principals to secure formaldehyde for the schools, or if they couldn’t do that, they should completely air out the buildings. To a significant degree, Cecil County activity stopped or slowed for 25 days, but the people adjusted.

In some ways, the events we are living through during the pandemic of 2020 mirror the public interventions instituted here in the autumn of 1918 when the Spanish Flu struck hard. Today as our nation’s public health officials try to slow the spread of the coronavirus, we hear about quarantines, social distancing, sheltering-in-place, warnings not to gather in groups, and the shuttering of non-essential activities. While we may use different terms, these public health concepts were familiar to physicians in 1918 as the words and actions of these practitioners from different ages have the same goals.

To prevent the Influenza. (U.S. Public Health Service, via the National Institutes of Health)

For more on the Spanish Flu see

Cecil Grappled with the Spanish Influenza of 1918

Influenza Precautions Then and Now

Cecil Grappled With the Spanish Influenza of 1918

One-hundred-two years ago, a mysterious killer, the so-called Spanish Influenza, came calling in Cecil County   Reports of the outbreak in northeastern Maryland first trickled in from Aberdeen Proving Ground in the middle of September 1918 as the virus took a deadly toll. 

Within weeks, the flu exploded locally, as the sickness got a firm grip on Cecil County, expanding at an alarming rate.  Ripping across the area, many residents became gravely ill, and an appalling number of deaths occurred.  Nonetheless, this wasn’t an occasion for panic public health officials stated, although the spreading disease called for drastic steps.^1,2,3

Local physicians on the home front for this fight braced for the battle with the deadly bug.  Throughout October, physicians kept on the move, rushing from home to home day and night while snatching brief rest periods.  They found it necessary to give daily attention to only the most critically ill as the medical men received more calls than they could handle, their ranks already thinned by military duty.  Also, many of the remaining doctors were incapacitated for periods as they too fell victim to the malady.    

Physicians warned that “precaution” was the best way to avoid the Spanish Influenza.  They advised not to congregate in crowded places, nor use common towels or drinking cups.  Also, people should wear clothing appropriate for the temperature, sleep with windows open as fresh air was a good germicide, and not allow oneself to become fatigued.  Regular habits, good food, and exercise were excellent preventatives, they concluded.⁴

 All Places of public assembly closed

Hoping to stamp out the spreading germs, the Cecil County Board of Health acted promptly, ordering all public places where people assembled to shutter their doors beginning Wednesday, October 2, 1918.  Such a quarantine, the shutting down of schools, houses of worship, theaters, and all public gatherings, was new, but people cooperated, newspapers reported.

That first Sunday, a striking, unrivaled silence fell on Cecil County, not a church bell ringing while on the streets few people, automobiles, or other vehicles were around.  Six days later, the Maryland Board of Health issued a statewide order, noting that public gathering places where large numbers were likely to congregate played an essential part in the dissemination of the disease.  The health official added that as the virus showed alarming signs of assuming severe proportions, the situation called for serious measures.⁵  

The pandemic also hit the patriotic campaign to sell liberty bonds to finance the war.  The drive was underway when the Board of Health shut things down, including several fairs, which involved having a squadron of airplanes fly over the gatherings.    

With shortages of nurses already existing across the nation because of the war, the burden on Union Hospital was particularly hard.⁶  A month before the outbreak, the institution’s superintendent, Miss Campbell, and three of the nurses, Miss McGready, Miss Alderson, and Miss Storey, enlisted in the overseas service of the Red Cross.  In October, it was reported that the hospital was full of patients while the virus incapacitated many staff members, reducing the institution’s ability to admit and care for the gravely ill.⁷  

Doctors, Nurses, Druggists & Undertakers

Others contributing to the brave, untiring fight needed to handle the crisis were overstretched.    Druggists compounding medicines for the afflicted labored long hours, but supplies of quinine, aspirin, and other essential drugs and patent medicines held out.   The undertakers of Cecil County were on the go day and night.  But the funeral directors reported shortages of caskets, the manufacturers being unable to keep up with the enormous demand across the nation.  And the pandemic filled cemeteries in its wake, the gravediggers digging so many graves that they were worn out. 

Many businesses shut down on account of illness.  The Jewelry store of J. J. Minster closed for several days while in North East, editor Geo. O. Garey up against the flu shut the publication down for eight days.⁸ This was the first time in its 36 year history that it had missed an edition.

On the Octoraro Branch Railroad, some freight trains failed to run because crews were ill.  Also, trains operated without mail clerks or express messengers in some cases, and section crews maintaining the rails operated with reduced numbers.⁹

As October faded into November, those in touch most closely with the epidemic – the doctors, nurses, undertakers, and druggists – noted that the emergency showed a marked improvement.¹⁰  These brave Cecil County caregivers had put up a heroic, untiring fight and they reported that “victory was now theirs,” few new cases being recorded.    And on October 27, the Cecil County Board of Health lifted the ban on public gatherings.

Obituaries published in the Cecil Democrat by month in 1918. Once the Archives opens for research we will visit Annapolis and pull the death certificates from the pandemic here to provide more reliable data on the impact of the Spanish Influenza in Cecil County

For more information on the Spanish Influenza see part I — The Spanish Flu Shutdown Cecil County.

Endnotes

1. “Hands of Death Still Sadly Felt, Influenza Epidemic Claims Many More Cecil County Victims,” Cecil County News, October 16, 1918[↩]
2. Rising Sun, Town Pierced by Flu, Oxford Press, Oct. 17, 1918[↩]
3. “Spanish Influenza, Is This Mysterious Infection a New Kind of German Offensive,” Midland Journal (Rising Sun), Oct. 4, 1918[↩]
4. “Uncle Sam’s Advice on Flu, U.S. Public Health Service Issues Official Health Bulletin on Influenza,” Cecil County News, Oct. 12, 1918[↩]
5. “All Meetings in Maryland Closed,” Cecil County News, October 6, 1918[↩]
6. Union Hospital of Cecil County, 1918. Tenth Annual Report Of The Union Hospital Of Cecil County, Elkton, MD.. Tenth Annual Report. Elkton: Union Hospital of Cecil County, pp.25-27.[↩]
7. “Nurses Wanted,” classified advertisement, Cecil County News, October 2, 1918[↩]
8. “Minor Locals,” Cecil County News, Oct. 16, 1918[↩]
9. Fighting the Flu, Physicians, Nurses, and Red Cross Workers Busy Day and Night,” Oxford Press, October 10, 1918[↩]
10. “Cecil County Letter,” Cecil County News, Oct. 24, 1918[↩]

Pandemic of 1918 Shutdown Cecil County

In the autumn of 1918, World War I was nearing an end, and Cecil County was looking forward to the doughboys returning home from the trenches of Europe. But no one was prepared for the crisis that was about to strike the home front. Hitting suddenly, the Midland Journal reported on October 4, 1918, that the Spanish Flu or “some other creepy, shivery, feverish, disagreeable malady was fairly epidemic in Rising Sun, numerous person, some very serious, were on the sick list.”

Illustration from Illinois Health News, October 1918 provides ways to prevent the spread of the flu of 1918. Source: Chicago Public LIbrary

Is This a New German Offensive

As this unprecedented epidemic swept across the nation and Maryland, the Rising Sun newspaper asked, “Is this new disease which has already killed hundreds and stricken thousands of our soldiers and civilians a new German war offensive ¹? If not, how did it happen that this epidemic appeared so suddenly and extensively in such widely scattered cities and army camps throughout the country? Smitten as from a bolt from a clear sky, thousands of Americans have been suddenly prostrated in many widely separated parts of the country, during the past ten days, by a disease which is called, apparently for want of a better name, ‘Spanish Influenza.’”

“Naturally, under all the circumstances, there is much speculation regarding the maters,” the paper continued. “Perhaps because there seems to be a rather natural disposition to ascribe about everything that is perfidious in the world today to Germany, some have ventured the guess that the disease may have been introduced and spread by German agents. This theory is considered groundless and absurd, it seeming hardly conceivable that if Germany undertook an offensive of this kind, she would choose such a mild and humane sort of disease. Much more plausible explanation seems to be the fact that the recent cold snap caught the country entirely unprepared for such severe weather, and as a result of our unheated dwellings and the inadequate clothing, large numbers of people contracted cold. Regardless, there seems to be no occasion for special alarm or panic about the matter for the disease is evidently one which the American medical profession is perfectly able to handle and effective measures are being taken. ¹.”

Despite the editor’s reasoning, the Spanish Flu invaded homes and businesses in every part of the county. In North East, the Cecil Star’s publisher, Mr. Garey, “fell under the influence of the flu, putting it [paper] completely out of business for eight days.” And since there was no help in the office, the North East publication missed an issue, the first time in 36 years ²

In Elkton, all the operators at the telephone exchange were seriously ill, so the phone company brought in operators from Salisbury ³. A similar situation existed in North East, the virus sweeping the office there, causing the exchange to shut down.

As the Spanish Flu hit, a Wilmington newspaper reported that Elkton’s dead were without coffins. Source: Evening Journal, Oct. 16, 1918

As September faded into October, the situation was “exceedingly grave,” with numerous deaths occurring. “One of the distressing features of the epidemic was that so many deaths occurred throughout the county that it had been impossible for undertakers to secure caskets from the supply houses on time,” so funerals were delayed. In other instances, undertakers called on local carpenters to make caskets ⁴. At the West Nottingham Cemetery, Eli Coulson, the superintendent, reported that he had opened three graves daily for the past two weeks.

Spanish Flu Shutdown Cecil County

As this was going on, the Cecil County Board of Health took action to quarantine the virus. Dr. H. Arthur Cantwell, the public health officer, ordered that all schools, churches, moving picture theatres, and places of public gathering be closed starting on October 2, 1918. He also banned public funerals. Emphasizing the importance of the action Hugh W. Caldwell, Superintendent of Schools added that it was the hope that this action would check the spread of the Spanish Influenza.

Toward the end of October, the suffering and deaths declined. And on October 27, the Cecil County Board of Health lifted the ban on public assembly, announcing that church services could resume for the first time in several weeks. With things returning to normal, Cecil County Schools Superintendent Caldwell added that schools would reopen on Monday, October. 28. He ordered the principals to secure formaldehyde for the schools, or if they couldn’t do that, they should open up the buildings to admit sunlight and air for several days.

All schools, churches, moving picture theatres and public gatherings were ordered closed. Source: Midland Journal, Oct. 2, 1918, via Library of Congress Online Newspapers.

Notes:

Over the next week, we will share a few more items on how Cecil County coped with the pandemic of 1918

We will also compile a tabulation of those killed in Cecil County to develop a better idea of the impact of the virus. This will include a list of those that died during the pandemic.

Continues on Part II — Cecil Grapples with the Spanish Influenza of 1918

More on the Spanish Flu in Mid-Atlantic

Salem County Shutdown During the Flu Epidemic of 1918

When Death Came Calling Salem County Needed a Hospital

Endnotes

1. Midland Journal, October 4, 1918[↩][↩]
2. Midland Journal, October 18, 1919[↩]
3. Cecil Democrat, October 26, 1918[↩]
4. Midland Journal, October 25, 1918[↩]

Horror at Childs Railroad Station

CHILDS, June 20, 1890  — Just after two o’clock in the morning the overnight Baltimore & Ohio Express Train, No. 114, bound for New York hurtled across Cecil County.  As the engine, baggage car, and two Pullman sleepers neared the Childs Station, it was going full speed, the throttle opened up to 55 miles an hour.

Seconds after passing the dark station, the engine rushed onto the high bridge that spans Blue Ball Road. There the connecting rod on the left drive wheel of the locomotive broke, the one end flying up and demolishing the part of the cab where Fireman John McNamara of Philadelphia was sitting.

The rod struck the railroader, hurtling him from the cab to the roadside.  Instantly killed, his skull was fractured, and both arms were broken.  Engineer J. P. Fitzgerald applied the airbrake, reversed the engine, and escaped injury by jumping behind the firebox.

The Childs Railroad Station, a circa 1912 postcard

In the first Pullman, seventeen passengers were asleep when the heavy car hurled down the fifty-foot embankment with a terrifying, shuddering jolt and bang. The heavy coach broke into two fragments as the sound of twisting metal filled the air, striking against a stone abutment.

Crawling out of the break created by the impact, all the passengers were more or less injured.  Chief Engineer Charles Ackenheil of the Staten Island Railroad was aboard this car, and he was thrown into the roadway, where he was found unconscious in a pool of blood. He was put on a train for Philadelphia but died before reaching there.  The wonder is how anyone could have escaped instant death, the Cecil Whig remarked.

The second sleeper left the tracks too and went over the bank at the edge of the bridge.  Sliding down the side of the steep hill, none of its passengers were injured.  It came to rest within ten feet of the residence of Pierson Matthews, where the wounded passengers were initially taken. 

Not realizing that the rear coaches had toppled off the high bridge at Blue Ball Road, Engineer Fitzgerald grabbed a lantern and started to search for his fireman. But to his horror, he found that the two passenger cars had toppled some distance down the steep drop. About the same time Conductor Robertson rushed back to the Childs Station to telegraph Philadelphia for urgently needed assistance. There a special train with surgeons was assembled and rushed to the scene to render medical aid. The injured were then moved to that City.

The wreck crew worked all night and early the next morning the track had been cleared and rail service was resumed.  But the Blue Ball Road traffic was still suspended by the debris that filled the gap between the rocks.  Coroner Litzenberg summoned a jury with Daniel Harvey as foreman, which rendered a verdict in the case of McNamara in accordance with the facts and exonerated the road from censure.

For Additional Photos

See on the Road to Providence

Source: Cecil Whig, June 21, 1890

The B & O Railroad Timetable from 1890 shows the service at the Childs Railroad Station and other spots on the line. Source: Cecil Democrat, June 28, 1890

Elkton’s First Police Car

A few months after the Great Depression rocked the country, the Mayor and Commissioners of the Town of Elkton took a major step forward, purchasing a patrol car for the two-man police force. This was the first police car for local law enforcement in Cecil County, local dealer Warren W. Boulden selling the 1930 Ford to the town for $493.

A local newspaper, suggesting that Chicago gangsters should steer of Elkton, criticized the modernization of the department. “Although the Elkton Police may be short in number, they are now long on equipment. A year or more ago they were furnished with impressive-looking revolvers and Sam Browne Belts, and now an automobile in which to dash around. Certainly, Chicago racketeers and gangsters should steer clear of Elkton,” the Cecil Democrat editorialized.

In the photo (L to R) Mayor Taylor McKinney, Night Officer Albert Buckworth, and Chief George Potts proudly have their photo taken with the new vehicle.

Mayor Taylor McKinney (left), Night Officer Albert Buckworth (seated), and Chief George Potts proudly have their photo taken in 1930 with the new patrol car.

For More on the Elkton Police Department Also See

George Potts, Elkton’s First Police Chief

Chief Thomas McIntire Guided Elkton Police into the Modern Era

Notes and Sources:

A Cecil Star photo from the issue of Feb. 15, 1930. Photo in personal collection.

Dr. Richards’ Port Deposit Hospital

Advances in health care in the late 19th and early 20th century, things such as antiseptic and aseptic surgery, x-rays, and laboratories, made hospitals indispensable for treating the sick and injured. Physicians needed the services of these institutions with their technical equipment, specialized personnel, and capability for around-the-clock care so treatment started moving from the home to the institution.

There were a couple of ways to launch these ventures, as the number of institutions increased rapidly across the nation. It was a public undertaking, operating as a nonprofit for communities such as Elkton and Havre de Grace. But in other places, proprietary hospitals, facilities created by a single practitioner (or a group), were established.

With the surge in demand for in-patient beds, Dr. G. Hampton Richards established a for-profit hospital in Port Deposit in 1923. That April, the doctor had “the old Murphy residence in Port Deposit remodeled and fitted for use as an up-to-date hospital,” the Midland Journal reported.

When the doors opened, it had 14 beds. Admissions increased so at some point Eli Selcer Sentman, a contractor, added the wing stretching along Center Street. This increased the capacity to 28 beds and provided the latest technology, including x-ray equipment, electrical appliances, and a surgical suite.

Over the years, the hardworking physician treated the sick and injured at the medical center, providing critically needed services in western Cecil County.

The closest hospitals were far away in Elkton and Havre de Grace, over poor roads. Thus, Dr. Richards saw many accidents and emergency admissions, as noted in news stories in local papers.

The doctor was giving a talk for “Armistice Day” at the Tome Memorial Church in November 1929. Feeling ill, he tried to leave early but collapsed outside and was rushed to his hospital. A hurried call alerted Miss Nesbitt, the head nurse, that the emergency case was on its way. She administered a hypodermic needle, sufficiently reviving the ill physician to some degree.

Dr. Brown of Johns Hopkins was summonsed to take over the treatment. He diagnosed the case as Angina Pectoris, ordering that the ailing caregiver remain quiet for practically three weeks, after which he would remove him to the Baltimore hospital.

Sometime early in the next year, he resumed his work, “even performing a large number of operations and risking a second attack for the benefit of the health of the community,” the Midland Journal reported.

But the doctor eventually announced he would close the place “where many sufferers “had found relief through the ministration of his surgical and medical skills and the care of an efficient corps of nurses.” It was hoped that some way could be found to keep the hospital open, the Midland Journal remarked.

But with his health in decline, Dr. Richards closed his Port Deposit hospital on August 1, 1930. He died on May 10, 1932.

He had graduated from the University Of Maryland School Of Medicine in 1908, coming to Port Deposit that year to establish his practice. Eventually, he associated himself with Dr. Clarence I Benson.

Shortly after the outbreak of World War I he entered the service. The surgeon was on the front in France for several months and suffered from a gas attack, which impaired his health. At the close of the war, he returned with the rank of captain, immediately resuming the practice of medicine and surgery in Port Deposit.

The papers reported that he died from Angina Pectoris in the 48th year of his life.

A postcard shows Dr. Richards Hospital in Port Deposit.

For additional photographs of Dr. Richards’ Hospital, see the album on Facebook.