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Talking About the Mason Dixon Line: The Stories Behind a Geographic Boundary at Docent’s Workshop

In this living history program, Chip Jewell shares stories of the early days of firefighting, as a representative of the Independent Hose Co.
In this living history program, Chip Jewell shares tales of the early days of firefighting as an officer of the Independent Hose Company.

I was pleased to talk about how to interpret the history of the Mason-Dixon Line at the Frederick Historic Sites Consortium’s Master Docent Series Workshop on February 16.

This was the 22nd year for the program, which is geared toward providing educational opportunities that help volunteers working in museums share the stories of their communities and collections.

With that purpose in mind, we discussed how to develop narratives supporting the famous boundary’s history and ways to share those accounts with general audiences.

The workshops included several other interesting and informative topics, which helped docents share the stories of the past in Frederick County.  Those included the Civil War, prohibition in Frederick County, working with teenage audiences, and the history of firefighting in the county.

Chip Jewell, the Frederick County Director of Emergency Communication with the Frederick County Fire & Rescue Museum.
Chip Jewell (right), the Frederick County Director of Emergency Communication, is with the Frederick County Fire & Rescue Museum. He did a living history program for his presentation, interpreting the stories of the county’s early firefighters. I enjoyed catching Chip’s great program.

Research Treasures Reside in Delmar Public Library Collection

If you are researching local or family history on the Delmarva Peninsula, there are many fine libraries from Wilmington down to Cape Charles that can help.  Some are large, university affiliated repositories, while others are non-profit, stand-alone institutions located in some of the region’s small towns.  Traveling from one end of Delmarva to the other, I often find evidentiary traces to the past in these places so I will highlight a few of the smaller collections that can help you puzzle together narratives from the past.

The railroad town of Delmar, at the southern tip of Delaware, has one of these great assets.  The community, promoting itself as the “little town that is too big for one state,” is located in two states, the boundary line going right down the center of the business district.  It has always had a strong historical connection to the locomotive as the settlement got its start when the Delaware Railroad reached here in 1859.

In the center of the divided town on Bi-State Blvd, there is the Delmar Public Library, a welcoming place with a patron-oriented staff and excellent resources.  Its large collection of books and serials, should make any bookworm happy, but there is much more.  There are clusters of computers, free wi-fi, just about all the services one expects to find in a solid institution. They also have active children and teen programs and all of this seems to make it a strong community center that engages residents.

But in addition to these resources, the library also has a valuable special collection of unique railroad materials.  There are dozens of rare, one-of-a-kind, photographs; notebooks of newspaper clippings compiled over generations; various pieces of ephemera, such as railroad tickets and shipping documents; and other unique items of historical interest.

I was delighted to find some photos that I hadn’t seen as they were relevant to an investigation I was working on.  Just when you think a piece of evidence linking something to the past has been lost to time, there it is in some special collection and that was my experience at the Delmar Public Library.

Be sure to check out this unique special collection if you’re doing some digging into the past around these parts, especially if it relates to the railroad.  You will find an excellent small town library that engages its patrons, takes care of reader needs, has unique special collections, and is a community gathering place.

railroad delmar library 02

Making Sure Fallen Officers from Long Ago are not Forgotten in Delaware and Maryland

An officer makes a call from a Wilmington police call box.
Wilmington Police call box.

Occasionally while doing a study on some subject related to criminal justice history, I’ll find some hint in the old records related to a long forgotten, undocumented fallen police officer. When that happens, I pick up the evidentiary traces and follow the trail back through the old sources, to make sure the officer’s ultimate sacrifice isn’t forgotten in the mist of time.

Over the decades, I have found officers in Wilmington, Clayton, and Crisfield who fell in the line of duty, but were never listed on national, state, or local memorials or remembered in their community. Usually when the tragic occurrence is pointed out and the facts around the incident have been sorted out, an officer or retiree from the department picks it up from there, making sure that the individual’s ultimate sacrifice is honored and recognized by the agency and the community the officer served.

Right now a Wilmington Police Department retiree is working to get Officer Charles Schultz listed on the official record. The patrolman gave his life while serving the citizens of Wilmington more than a century ago.  The tragic death in 1891 caused a sensation at the time but once he was lowered into his grave memory faded as generations passed and the lawman was largely forgotten except for headlines in old yellowing newspapers at the Delaware Public Archives.

It’s important not to forget those who gave everything to the communities they served.  So it is good to see them finally honored and remembered, as their names are formally added to the department’s roll and etched on the memorials.  Now it’s going to happen in Wilmington as this retired patrolman takes on that task of remembering this fallen police officer.

Historic Digital Maps of Maryland and Delaware Are Just a Click Away on New Website

Map of part of road from Philadelphia to Annapolis published in 1789 by Christopher Colles. Sources: David Rumsey Collection

Digital resources available to researchers have grown enormously in recent years, making the work of researchers much easier as sought after data is often just a few clicks away. Maps are one of those areas of growth as they’ve been scanned by special collections institutions, making them virtually available on demand.

I was recently made aware of a valuable new repository for researchers, Old Maps Online. This free resource serves an easy to use portal to historical maps in libraries around the world, allowing users to search for online digital historical maps across numerous different collections via a geographical search engine. It’s contributors include the New York Public Library, the David Rumsey Collection, the British Library and many more.

I’ve been using it for a few months now to access material to help with classroom lectures and public talks. It’s making items that are stored deeply away in distant, special collections institutions easily available.

In addition, you will find a number of other links to map resources on my links research page. 

Beers Atlas of Delaware, Newark Page, 1868: Source: Rumsey Map Collection