Category: Community Studies

Police Officer Slain 122 Years Ago Remembered in Service

May 2, 2013 — On a beautiful day in early May dozens of current and retired Wilmington Police Officers gathered with their assembled AR-10 rifles in Cathedral Cemetery to pay their respects to an officer who was murdered in the line of duty 122-years-ago.  They stood in a lonely corner of the burial ground, the potter’s field, near an unmarked grave where Patrolman Charles W. Schultz had been laid to rest in 1891.  While the tragic death caused a sensation at the time, the loss of the lawman was soon forgotten after he was lowered into his grave as memory faded into the mist of time.

But recently a retired member of the force, Layman Grant, picked up some research I had done on the overlooked crime, taking an interest in seeing that one of their own was properly memorialized.  The remembrance of the public servant and the dedication of a headstone was completed today.

Mournful notes from police bagpipes opened the service.  After welcoming guests and providing a narrative about the tragedy, Layman Grant, the master of ceremonies noted the words of the loss in 1891 “still echo today.”  The officer’s case was never solved. “Officer Schultz, along with nine other officers remain on patrol in the city of Wilmington.  We honor Officer Schultz as we honor all our fallen brothers and sisters of Wilmington during this memorial.”

After additional remarks by the chief, chaplains, and others the honor guard aimed into the air firing a 21-gun salute as the sad notes of taps sounded over the cemetery on this sunny Thursday in mid-spring.  Then a dispatcher’s voice crackled over the police radio with the final call, a law enforcement tradition.  “10-4 Officer Charles Schultz you are out of service at 11:59 hours on January 30, 1891.”  With the dispatcher’s voice fading, a police siren, somewhere off in the distance, broke the silence as the men and women of WPD reflected on the sacrifice of their slain comrade.

Thank you Wilmington PD retirees and current officer for making sure this public servant will never be forgotten.

Wilmington Police Officers gather for memorial service
Wilmington Police Officers gather for memorial service

 

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An old Wilmington Patrol car.
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Wilmington Officers stand at attention during final radio call.

 

Finding the Past While Strolling Delaware Communities With a Class

The Central Hotel about 1914 in Delaware City

Communities all around Delaware make excellent learning laboratories for classes that are seeking to increase historial-thinking and understand the evolution of our 21st century environment.  With that in mind, I often take undergraduates out for fieldwork, especially this time of year as autumn gets underway on the Peninsula and the days are ideal for strolling.  The focus of these experiential learning exercises is to demonstrate how to understand the history that is all around by showing them where to look, what to look for, and how to examine the visual evidence.

So we spent this morning in Delaware City considering how physical, economic, cultural and political forces shaped growth and development of the quaint little town at the eastern end of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.  This applied research in a classroom without walls gave us the perfect place to gather evidence and talk about how and why this place looks the way it does.  In preparation for the trip that explored the physical and built landscape, technological changes and demography, we scrutinized photographs, maps and other primary document that served as the foundation for our investigation.

Next week, we are going to venture down below the canal to look at two other towns, Middletown and Odessa, for a comparative case study.  Together these towns provide the perfect laboratory for comparing and contracting how and why development of three Delaware communities took place and analyze the different paths they took over the centuries.

The Central Hotel in Delaware City today.

Project Scholar For New Study Asking What Happens When Big Government Moves In and Families Move Out

I have just started working on an exciting new investigation that is seeking to answer questions about the impact the military has on people and communities when it uproots long-established families to create a wartime reservation.  This particular migration occurred in Harford County, Maryland, as the government established Aberdeen Proving Ground in 1917, six months after the United States entered World War I.  To create the Proving Grounds, families occupying nearly 73,000 acres were forced to make a “patriotic sacrifice” and move.  They had no choice but to quickly relocate for the “good of their country,” so hundreds were displaced, many with large farms that had been in their families for generations.

As many of the displaced and their descendants still live in the area, two local partner organizations, Harford County Public Library and Hosanna School Museum will document their stories.  Using “youth curators,” the project will collect their oral histories, documents, and photographs, as we examine their reactions and efforts to make a new life work.

The goal of this project, which is being underwritten by the Maryland Humanities Council and the Smithsonian Institute is to work with “youth curators” to help them create an exhibit that will tell this unexamined story.  So soon, thanks to the stakeholders and “the youth curators,” we’ll have a better idea of what really happened when the big government moved in, and families moved out.

I’m serving as the project scholar.  It’s always exciting to investigate the changes that have come to our communities, and I’m particularly looking forward to this youth-oriented project.

Working With Museum on Main Street Program to Reach Younger Audience With Oral History

The Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street (MOMS) was recently awarded a grant to engage underserved, rural youth in using technology to capture local stories related to the MOMS’ Journey Stories exhibit.  As part of the grant, I will join another scholar as we conduct workshops in oral history methods for teachers, students and museum staff around Maryland.   I’m looking forward to working on this project as it seeks to reach a younger audience with a product they can share with the local community and national audience via the Smithsonian’s “Stories from Main Street” on-line resource.