Deputy LaMonte Cooke of the Kent County Sheriff’s Office on Patrol
When 25-year-old LaMonte Cooke, a Philadelphian, joined the Kent County Sheriff’s Office in 1975, the entire seven-man force was white. “The day I interviewed for the deputy’s job with Sheriff Bartus Vickers, he had four questions for me. He wanted to know if I voted, what my party affiliation was, how well I got along with whites, and I forget the last one. I must have answered them correctly, for he told me to report to work the next day.”
“That next morning, my first day in law enforcement, the sheriff allowed me to borrow one of his revolvers since, in those days, you bought your own weapon. That was my first gun. For orientation, one of the deputies took me out on the road and showed me around the county. Here I was, a man who’d never given a thought about this type of work, policing Kent County.”
Patrolling Kent County
Once he began patrolling as a deputy, he regularly turned heads from people surprised to see an African-American in a Kent County Sheriff’s uniform. The city guy was much more comfortable with the ways of Philadelphia than the cornfields and waterways of a county with 16,000 people.
While he learned on the job in Maryland’s smallest county, members of the force and community gradually became accustomed to seeing him on the job. “Responding to a call once in an outlying area, I rang the doorbell of a house. When the lady answered and saw me in uniform, with a patrol car sitting behind me, she was so surprised that she telephoned the sheriff to confirm that I was one of his officers before she’d talk to me.”
One particular night, while out handling a complaint, teenagers smashed watermelons around Cooke’s usual parking spot, a place for watching the traffic flow up and down the main road through the county, Route 213. When his fellow officers heard about it, “they wrote up those kids for every infraction they could find,” he says. “After that, this sort of stuff stopped, and I knew I had been accepted professionally.
Over the next twelve years, he rose through the ranks. As a college-educated officer, he was naturally suited for the increasing administrative duties of running a department since minimum requirements were being put in place for jails and police agencies. He first worked to bring an outdated old building constructed in the 1880s into compliance and became the first local facility in the state to reach full compliance. As a result of his handling of several challenging management assignments, Sheriff Blizzard promoted him to Chief Deputy.
May Day Celebration at Washington College
Deputy Cooke in front of the old Kent County Jail.
Cooke recalls a little mayhem that occurred at Washington College. It was during an annual student liberating tradition, a fling for International Workers Day. “On May Day, some students celebrated by streaking or making nude dashes across the campus and town. One year [1978], I got a call about undressed people running across the highway, and when I pulled up, I saw several of them. Most dashed off, but I caught one, a student nicknamed Miami, whom I put in the patrol car.”
“But 200 students quickly surrounded the vehicle chanting ‘free Miami.’ They wouldn’t let me move so there I sat with yelling people all around me. I radioed for backup, and it wasn’t too long before I saw all these bodies diving out of the way. Coming through the crowd was Chief Deputy Blizzard just swinging his nightstick, and the mob was just jumping out of the way. Once he opened a path, he yelled hit it. I did but they followed us to the jail. It was sort of tense with all these students surrounding the building, so we called for help from the State Police. Finally, the dean from the college came down to get the students to disperse.”
Queen Anne’s County Warden
“In 1987, Queen Anne’s County was closing its old, outdated jail and opening a modern Detention Center. I applied for the position of warden to run that agency. There were several highly qualified candidates with lots of corrections experience. But I went ahead and applied for the job since the pay was a lot more than I was making as Chief Deputy in Kent. I got the appointment, so my first task was to build the institution, which opened in 1988 with room for 80 inmates. About two years later, a modular addition added 24 more beds, which increased the county’s detention center to 104 beds.”
“In 2008, the county commissioners approved a new modular addition to accommodate a growing female inmate population and a more secure male dormitory unit. Completed in 2009, it increased the facility’s total inmate capacity to 148 beds. I also worked with a committee of several counties considering a regional corrections facility. ”
Reflecting on nearly forty years of wearing a badge, this professionally recognized trailblazer, who has been involved in modernizing law enforcement and corrections in two counties, says: “From the time when I started in Kent County, things have changed so much. When you went into the jail in those days, you pretty well knew everybody. Now, we have such transient populations, and we are faced with more mental health issues, an increasingly diverse population, gangs, and more hardened criminals.”
During his tenure, Cooke served on several boards and commissions, including president of the Maryland Correctional Administrators Association (twice), vice chairman of the Maryland Police and Correctional Training Commission, commissioner on the State Commission on Criminal Sentencing Policy, acting county administrator for Queen Anne’s County. He also served on the board of directors for Peoples Bank of Kent County and worked with other criminal justice agencies on legislative matters in Annapolis.
Warden LaMonte Cooke of the Queen Anne’s County Detention Center got his start in the old days when the Kent County Sheriff’s Department consisted of just a handful of deputies, a couple of patrol cars, and a century-old jail built for wrongdoers of another era. In 2008, three African Americans served in the the Sheriff’s Office, which had twenty-two sworn officers.
Deputy Lamonte Cooke, Tom Rosazza, head of the Maryland Commission of Correctional Standards, Sheriff Allan Blizzard, and Delegate Mary Roe Walkup stand in front of the Kent County Jail as the agency receives a commendation for improving operations.
Salem County was mainly a quiet, idyllic area in rural South Jersey, in the late 19th century. As the last twenty years of that serene era slipped by and the dawn of a new, bustling century neared, the pace was slow and steady. In this fine agricultural district on the Delaware River just above the bay, the main lines of highways had not penetrated, nor were there large towns. Thus, few newcomers arrived here to add to the county’s stable population throughout those final decades, the United States Census Bureau counting around 25,000 people in 1900.1,2,3
However, a spate of powerful forces that would fundamentally change part of the county was converging. Along the Delaware River, the area known as Penns Grove had grown gradually as city dwellers discovered the delightful spot for escaping the oppressive heat of summer at fashionable riverside hotels. As a result of development, the New Jersey Legislature incorporated the borough in 1894. 4,5
On the matter of the tranquil, relaxed nature of the county, one of the nation’s new professional groups, the American Association of Corrections (1919) took note, remarking that the agricultural district on the River, about 32-miles south of Camden, had no “serious problems of a social nature to meet until war was declared in 1914.”6
DuPont Powder Plant Creates Industrial Boom
However, with World War I ripping distant Europe apart, an industrial boom commenced upending this serene, waterfront corner of New Jersey. DuPont’s Smokeless Powder Plant at Carney’s Point, which had mostly employed small numbers of local workmen until fighting erupted in Europe in 1914, was suddenly rushed, churning out orders for explosives, the Penn’s Grove Record reported. Because of unprecedented demand, Carney’s Point hummed continually, night and day, as workers at the growing manufacturing complex churned out product, freighters waiting at the dock to carry vital supplies back to the war-wracked continent.7
The “demand for carpenters, masons, operators, and workmen far exceeded the supply,” wrote Charles Harrison, in A History of Salem County, New Jersey.8 The local labor market was “drained to the last drop,” so from all parts of the United States and distant countries came skilled workmen and laborers in droves, knowing jobs awaited them here.
The little borough of Penns Grove, whose population in 1910 was less than 1,900 jumped to over 6,000 in ten years, an increase of almost 200 percent. In the rural area surrounding the powder plant, Upper Penns Neck Township, the population soared from 775 in 1910 to over 6,200 in 1920, an increase of over 700 percent.9
Figure 1. Population 1900 – 1910 Penns Grove and Upper Penns Neck
The surge spilled into Carney’s Point and Pennsville, the region becoming a hub of growth overnight as population skyrocketed and housing and barracks hastily went up. It was estimated that the plant needed 15,000 men in 1915. To accommodate the swelling labor force, practically every house had boarders, while the hospital building and Cove School were being used as bunkhouses. At the plant, construction of new buildings and railways were continually going on day and night, and lines of electric lights were erected by which to work at once the sun went down.10
By the late winter of 1915, the building rush at the “Carney Point Powder Works” continued around-the-clock, more land constantly being needed for industrial development. William Crispin, the tenant on the du Pont farm adjacent to Penns Grover formerly owned by Thomas Flanigan and later by Robert Kidd, had been notified to cease growing crops on his 150 acres. Likewise, Thomas Whitesell, a tenant on the du Pont Farm formerly owned by Edwin A. Vanneman and later by Dr. David Wiley had also been notified to cease growing crops on his 300 acre as it was needed for buildings to make and dry power.
Once this work was done, the DuPont Smokeless Powder work occupied more than a mile square mile of land, about 700 acres, making it “by far the largest powder making plant in the world,” asserted the Penn’s Grove Record 11
But people hadn’t seen anything yet, as Salem County’s equivalent of the gold rush hit. The United States entered the “Great War” in April 1917. By summertime, the “Carney’s Point Works had more than twenty-five thousand men and women toiling away around the clock, turning out powder for allied armies, according to Harrison in Salem County: A story of People.12 Thus, More people seeking jobs poured into the area.
Salem County Crime Wave
Beyond the volatile nature of young, transient men with pocket-cash looking to have a good time after toiling away for a week in the dangerous occupations, this also brought in “a rough and reckless element,” as well as rough and tumble taverns and bars. “Boom town viciousness in all forms was rampant, “according to the 1919 Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Workers.13
Whatever the case, plenty of mischievous types frequented Penns Grove and nearby communities, making much work for officials. “The two cells in the [Penn’s Grove] Borough lockup were generally occupied, and men were often transferred to the Salem Jail, to make room for more unruly prisoners.”
The criminal justice system in the Borough and the County, grappling with the wave of lawlessness, was quickly overrun with wayward types from all over the nation and world. The Penns Grove mayor appointed “thirteen assistant marshals at the request of the Company.” Soon Du Pont formally established a police department, and Major Richard Sylvester, formerly of Wilmington, organized the force. In the ranks, 30 uniformed men and 14 mounted police officers guarded the plant, according to the Salem Sunbeam. Also, there were plainclothes detectives. The new police headquarters had a lockup, and Pennsville Justice of the Peace Duffy often held court there. 14
About the time newspapers were reporting on industrial expansion, county editors noted that a new Sheriff, A. Lincoln Fox, was sworn into office, along with his deputy Charles F. Pancoast 15. The new sheriff had to deal with an unprecedented crime wave that was terrorizing residents and was nowhere near cresting. He, along with troubled and perplexed prosecutors, judges, and magistrates, grappled with the problem of having a system designed for simpler times.
Criminal Mayhem
This enormous influx created the perfect storm, as the area around Carney’s Point teemed with newcomers. Sheriff Fox warned the Board of Freeholders that this was a crime wave of epic proportions. Stories of criminal mayhem, gangsters, and all sorts of marauding bands filled the weekly newspapers in Pennsville, Penns Grove and Salem as lawmen, judges and prosecutors confronted an overwhelming wave of theft, violence, drunkenness, and general mayhem.
Squire John K. Duffy of Penns Grove knew this first hand, the brunt of the Salem County crime wave falling upon his shoulders. “In the early days of the boom his job kept him rather busy: for ex-convicts, tramps and bums of various descriptions struck town expecting to enjoy the fullest pleasure of personal liberty,” the Survey reported.
At the Du Pont camps and villages, wayward types encountered the company security patrol and in Penns Grove they ran up against the municipal police force. The borough was proud of its five-man force, a favorable light shining on the lawmen when the crime wave hit. But above all the disorderly element learned to fear Squire Duffy. “He can lay a man out as well as if he were a trained barrister, and his favorite penalty for disorderly characters”: was to give them ten minutes to clear town, the Survey remarked in 1916.16
Penns Grove was entitled to a second justice of the peace, but no one “pressed forward to divide the honors,” so Mr. Duffy monopolized justice in Penns Grove and vicinity. Finally, after having worked with “the unruly day and night since the powder boom” began, he decided to take a well-deserved winter vacation in Florida in 1917, the Salem Sunbeam reported.17
As for the county jail, and tiny municipal lockups something had to be done to ease overcrowding if the outbreak of mayhem was going to be contained. Newspapers reported that 1914 was one of the most “criminalistic years on record.” In one quarter session of the county court, the judges heard 93 cases, a third more than the previous year. The Salem Jail had 258 commitments in 1914, 617 for 1915, and 742 in 1917.18
The Salem County Sheriff’s Home in Salem City. The jail was behind the house and te section at right was the female ward of the jail. Source: Salem County Historical Society
Taking into consideration the magnitude of the problem, resilient Salem County was ready to cope, in a practical sort of way. Freeholders, realizing in the spring of 1914, that the overcrowded conditions at the jail were out of control, contemplated enlarging the prison at a cost of $30,000.18
As the elected leaders assessed the cost Sheriff Fox had another idea. A new New Jersey law passed in March 1915 offered a solution as it permitted county road camps.19 Thus, the top lawman presented a plan for a portable jail, a “workhouse” with bunks for 16 men and a dining room and kitchen. At night the superintendent and guard slept in the dining area on cots that were lowered from the ceiling. Thomas F. Waddington, the former chief of police in Salem, had developed this unique facility.
Prisoners Work on Roads
This seemed to be a cost-effective solution to the problem of inmate overcrowding. The experiment started on July 11, 1915, with eight prisoners, Supt. Waddington and a guard. Originally the portable prison was at the almshouse, but it was eventually moved to Daretown, where it was placed on wheels, twelve horses being required to move the building. It moved from job to job about the county as projects were completed and new ones tackled. The maximum number of prisoners up to 1919 was twenty-five. After a few years, it was decided to locate the camp permanently at the Freisburg-Yorktown Road and Commissioner’s Pike.
Salem County’s Itinerant County Jail. Source: The Survey
This experiment in corrections reform came along just as the county was grappling with another costly problem, converting dirt roads and timber bridges to modern highways for automobiles. Thus, judges started sentencing prisoners to the road camp to do manual work on the roads, rather than serving jail time. According to the Society of Social Workers, the portable road camp was the first of its kind established in the State and it was also credited with being the first in the United States.
Road Camp Continued
The unparalleled Salem County crime wave waned once the war was over but through good times and hard times, the camp continued for about a quarter-of-a-century. During the Great Depression, many vagrants deliberately had themselves committed so as to make the camp their winter home. This occurred mainly during the low ebb of the economic crisis when the population of the camp would rise in winter and fall in summer.
In the late 1930s, the Freeholders were considering abandoning the camp, but the final closure didn’t take place until July 1943. With the number of prisoners committed to road work decreasing steadily, the Board of Freeholders finally decided to close this practical experiment in penal reform. Although the matter had been under consideration for years, and at least one time the elected leaders deadlocked in a vote to close it, the dwindling number of inmates made it impractical to continue the operation. There were two prisoners there when the camp closed (Sunbeam, 1945).
The Salem Sunbeam wondered how a rise in the jail population would be met in the future. The county’s prison policy remains where it had always been: “take care of the current year; let the future take care of itself,” the editor remarked 20
“Decennial Census for 1900” (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau, 1910).[↩]
Austin, William Lane., Teele, Ray Palmer. Fourteenth Census of the United States. United States: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921.[↩]
Paul U Kellogg, ed., “What War Orders Mean to a Rural Town,” The Survey XXXV (October 9, 1915): 38.[↩]
John Parr Snyder, The Story of New Jersey’s Civil Boundaries, 1606-1968 (Trenton, N.J.: New Jersey Geological Survey, 1969[↩]
Patricia W. Blakley, Encyclopedia of New Jersey, ed. Maxine N. Laurie and Marc Mappen, Google Books (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004), 626, https://bit.ly/2Uc1hHh.[↩]
American Prison Association Congress, Proceedings of the Annual Congress of the American Prison Association, Google Books (Indianapolis, IN: W.B. Burford, 1919), 172–78, https://bit.ly/2MCAsaR[↩]
“Why the Powder Rush Is On,” Penn’s Grove Record, November 27, 1914[↩]
Charles H Harrison, A History of Salem County, New Jersey : Tomatoes and TNT (Charleston, SC: History Press, 2011[↩]
Department of Commerce, “Fourteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1920” (Washington, DC: Bureau of the Census, 1920), https://bit.ly/3cGgExQ2, https://bit.ly/2z9OfTn.[↩]
“Why the Powder Rush Is On,” Penn’s Grove Record, November 27, 1914.[↩]
“Building Rush for Powder Continues,” Penn’s Grove Record, February 5, 1915.[↩]
Charles H Harrison, Salem County : A Story of People (Norfolk, VA: Donning Co, 1988), 79–80.[↩]
Mrs. Albert T. Beckett, “Salem County Road Camp and Portable Jail,” in National Conference of Social Work, vol. Forty-Sixth Annual Session (National Conference of Social Work, Chicago, IL: National Conference of Charities and Correction), 112–13, accessed April 17, 2017, https://bit.ly/3eRCVKA.[↩]
“Police and Fire Departments,” Salem Sunbeam, October 3, 1915.[↩]
“Penn’s Grove’s Big Powder Boom,” Penns Grove Record, Nov. 13, 1915[↩]
Zenas L Potter, “A Shipping Place for Sudden Death,” The Survey, December 4, 1915.[↩]
“Well Deserved Vacation,” Salem Sunbeam, February 14, 1917.[↩]
Albert T. Beckett, “Salem County Road Camp and Portable Jail,” in National Conference of Social Work, vol. Forty-Sixth Annual Session (National Conference of Social Work, Chicago, IL: National Conference of Charities and Correction), 112–13, accessed April 17, 2017, https://bit.ly/3eRCVKA.[↩][↩]
Legislature of the State of New Jersey, “County Prisoners Put to Work,” 119 § (1915).[↩]
“Road Camp Closes After Quarter Century of Use,” Salem Sunbeam, July 7, 1943.[↩]
