Having nothing at all to do with the distinguished looking gentleman above, I'd like to talk about my pet for starters. We will get to the Col. Sanders-looking guy above in a minute.

​So, it has been a week of freedom, unbridled joy and relief for my cat Bilbo. Last Sunday, I removed the e-collar he's been wearing since late summer. The "cone of shame" was necessary to keep said feline from reopening a wound on his front right paw. After significant healing in August, the collar was removed, but after being left alone for just two hours, this docile, and intelligent, cat completely undid weeks of self-repair on that paw wound. Back went on the cone after just a two-hour respite.

​Bilbo went about his business with the translucent headpiece. One month later, he was given a second chance for e-collar removal. This time, gauze was put over the wound area (devoid of fur) in hopes that it would deter Bilbo from reopening the wound again. Stupid move on the human's part, as he easily chewed through the gauze and re-attacked the scabbed over trouble spot.

Now the cone would be left on Bilbo for nearly the entire month of October. It became so commonplace that I began referring to my 4-legged housemate as "Coney," instead of his preferred Lord of the Rings inspired name (Bilbo Baggins) that came with him when adopted from the Frederick County Humane Society over a decade ago.

Now I know Bilbo is simply an animal and its hard to change those survival instincts within. It was a sad situation, but he seemed to accept his fate and the cone didn't seem to be slowing him down from a daily regimen of sleeping, eating and occasionally scratching things. My plan included removing the e-collar by month's end after a scheduled vet check-up in late October and consultation on a potential strategy to keep him from opening up the wound for a third time.

Amazingly, just days before the visit, I came home to find Bil on a back porch couch cushion with blood smeared all over himself and said cushion. He now possessed a mysterious, oozing wound on his chest area. Thankfully, he didn't seem to be in pain, however the situation was quite perplexing, having me wonder how in the world he could have reached this area with the cone affixed?

A trip to the pet emergency hospital directly afterwards revealed that Bilbo had suffered a ruptured abscess, one that had gone unnoticed beforehand obviously. The subsequent burst left a heck of a mess, leaving Bil in a precarious situation of not being able to care for himself because of the cumbersome cone not allowing him to reach anything as he would have lapped up the fluid as cats are self-cleaning professionals.

The hospital vet theorized that Bilbo had likely been in a recent scrap with another cat, or woodland creature, as he sometimes leaves the yard temporarily by hopping my six-foot privacy fence. He comes back with no problem, however this practice has been limited of late thanks to having an obnoxious cone on his head. The vet cleaned Bilbo up and pointed out the puncture marks, but with all rabies shots current, there was no fear of complications and a prognosis of full recovery after cleaning and sterilizing the wound. I, of course, felt guilty knowing that the cone had inhibited the poor guy's ability to defend himself against his mystery yard opponent.

Anyway, although his right paw was looking great, this new setback would dictate at least three more weeks "under the cone." 

Well here we are nearly a month later. The cone was officially removed last weekend, and Bilbo was heavily surveilled for the first two days. Slowly, I left him unsupervised, and he did not disappoint. He had plenty of "laundry" to attend to (licking himself), and this chore kept him occupied for that pivotal first 48 hours without the e-collar in place.

I did have two major hairballs to attend to on my carpet Monday night, but I didn't care as Bil's wound areas remained unscathed. And they have continued to stay that way throughout all last week. Best of all, Bilbo seems so very relieved not to have something either hanging over his head, and more so, hanging around his neck. 

While out walking the grounds of our lovely garden cemetery earlier this week, I took special notice of a fitting moniker on an old marble stone. This was solely based on my personal happenings at home that I just recounted. I was in Area E, on the side of a hill offering a scenic view of Loats baseball field with Costco in the distance. As I looked the opposite direction towards Catoctin Mountain, I saw the word "cone" carved upon the face of a marble gravestone. It was that of  Spencer Cone Jones.

Who the heck is this guy! I was not familiar with this gentleman at all, but would soon learn that he was quite well known to many during his lifetime, as was his father who is buried just steps away. This "Cone" was a lawyer and former politician of the late 19th century , and received much of his early education in Frederick. He would gain greater acclaim for being a public servant representing his native Montgomery County. A two-time mayor of Rockville, Spencer Cone Jones was a Civil War veteran who would also gain election to serve as a leading member of Maryland's General Assembly. 

​My research on this fellow was pretty easy as I was aided by finding a biography from Bernard C. Steiner's "Men of Mark in Maryland: Biographies of Leading Men in the State" published by Johnson-Wynne Co., Washington DC in 1907. Here is what Mr. Steiner, also buried in our cemetery and longtime librarian of Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Library, had to say about my subject:

​"Spencer Cone Jones, banker and lawyer, was born at Rockville, Montgomery County, Maryland, July 3, 1836, the son of Reverend Joseph H. Jones, a Baptist clergyman, and Elizabeth (Clagett) Jones. He was educated at the Rockville Academy, at the Frederick public schools and at Frederick College, the old county academy. He then read law with William J. Ross of Frederick and was admitted to the bar of Frederick County."

​Spencer C. Jones began to practice law here in town, but the Civil War interrupted  his plans. A Confederate sympathizer, he enlisted in Company D of the First Maryland Cavalry as was stated by Steiner. From our database, I learned that Spencer was arrested by Federal troops at Maryland Heights on May 26th, 1862 and charged with treasonable conspiracy. He was imprisoned for eight months, being held at various periods in the city jail at Baltimore, Fort McHenry, and Fort Delaware. 

When he was first arrested, he was listed as prisoner of war in Baltimore City Jail. Jones was subsequently transferred back and forth between Fort McHenry and Fort Delaware for interrogation. During this period, he was listed at various times as either a prisoner of war or a political prisoner. This interested me greatly because I had two GGG grandfathers who served as prison guards for the Union Army at Fort Delaware, and my GGG grandmother was a laundress and cook there.

Spencer Cone Jones  was released from Fort McHenry on December 16th, 1862. He enlisted into the Rebel forces again at Harrisonburg, VA on May 1st, 1863, but was captured on July 4th, 1863 at Monterey Pass, PA just after the Battle of Gettysburg. A document on Fold3 reports that Jones' horse was killed underneath him in battle here. He was imprisoned for a few more months in Baltimore, but was exchanged in a prisoner swap.  In February of 1864, he was charged in the Frederick County Circuit Court for levying war, and in 1865 was disbarred from the Frederick County Bar. Apparently, he served out the remainder of the Civil War in Virginia and was present at the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Courthouse in April, 1865.  The state dropped all charges on Mr. Jones in March 1866. 

After the war, Spencer Cone Jones taught school near Huntsville, Texas, not returning to Maryland until after the adoption of the state constitution of 1867. He remained vocal and influential among former Southern sympathizers, speaking at meetings of war veterans, including the dedication of a memorial to the Confederate dead in Winchester, VA.

Speaking of Confederate monuments, Spencer Cone Jones had a hand, or other body part, in the Rockville Confederate Monument that was removed from Rockville Court Square a few years back. The statue was unveiled and dedicated on June 3rd, 1913. This date was Jefferson Davis’ birthday and 50 years after the Battle of Gettysburg, a time when reconciliation and ceremonies were important to surviving veterans on both sides of the Civil War.

Judge Edward C. Peter and Rockville Mayor Lee Offutt made keynote speeches at the dedication. It has been suggested, but not documented, that the soldier’s head was modeled after Spencer Cone Jones, father-in-law of an official in the foundry that cast the statue. 

​Let's return back to Bernard Steiner's narrative on Mr. Jones:

"On December 21, 1871, he was married to Ellen, daughter of John and Elizabeth S. Brewer. Mrs. Jones died on July 21, 1876, leaving one daughter, Elizabeth, who is married to Thomas R. Falvy of New Orleans. In Rockville, Mr. Jones soon built up a large practice and in 1871 he was elected on the Democratic ticket to the office of state's attorney for Montgomery County. In 1875 he was re-elected and, in 1879, he was elected clerk of the State Court of Appeals. A second term in this position was given him by the vote of the people of the State in 1885 and, in 1892, he was chosen by the legislature as state treasurer. To this position he was reelected in 1894 and was renominated in 1896, but failed of election, as there was a Republican majority in the General Assembly. Mr. Jones was twice elected mayor of Rockville, in 1898 and 1900. He resigned this office, on being elected a member of the state senate in 1901." 

​"He affiliates with the Baptist church, and is a Mason and Knight of Pythias, in both of which societies he has occupied the higher offices. Mr. Jones is vice-president of the Board of Visitors of the State School for the Deaf at Frederick."

I wanted to learn a little more about Mr. Jones' time in the Maryland Senate and found the following passage in the Maryland Archives as it  appears the Maryland State House Annex building was his idea.

"Jones took a leadership role in the construction of the State House Annex at the beginning of the twentieth century. As a state senator, Jones served on the Executive Committee of the State House Building Commission. On the Building Commission, he frequently participated in meetings regarding the funding and contracts for the State House refurbishment and construction of the State House Annex. In August 1902, the Baltimore Sun reported that the idea for the Annex was Jones' and that he submitted the appropriations bill to fund the restoration and construction. Jones' original bill requested $400,000, but at the request of the Governor and Treasury officials, he changed his request to $250,000, with the understanding that any additional money would be provided during the next legislative session."​

​"Jones was elected President of the State Senate on January 4, 1904, and gave a speech that emphasized the importance of completing construction on the State House:

'So with the sunshine of prosperity, honor and usefulness upon us should we hesitate to make this house a beautiful, lasting and appropriate expression of our gratitude for, and pride in, the achievements of our people? It is with sadness that we are compelled by the necessities of the situation to vacate the old Senate Chamber, memorable in the history of the State, and in which cluster associations which strike a tender chord in the heart of every true Marylander. Let us have it restored as near as, possible to its original condition and sacredly preserve it as the holiest of all in this temple of our liberties.' (Archives of Maryland, Vol. 401, pp. 10)

​A major focus of Jones' speech was that the Legislature should provide the necessary funding to complete the work on the State House and that such work must maintain the original character of the building."

​Even despite some alleged "funny business" during the election, Jones' term in the Senate ended with his defeat in a primary by Blair Lee in 1905.

​Spencer Cone Jones lived the bulk of his adult life as a widower. His wife, Ellen, had died back in July 1876 and was laid to rest in Rockville Baptist Church Cemetery. Spencer continued to live in Rockville afterwards, and can be found on the northwest corner of Washington and Jefferson streets in the 1910 census with his profession listed as president of the Montgomery County National Bank. The property would eventually be sold to the Baptist Church of Rockville.

​He would regularly leave Maryland to spend winters living with his daughter Elizabeth, and her husband, Thomas R. Falvy, in New Orleans. This is where Spencer Cone Jones would die on April 1st, 1915. His body would be sent to Frederick for burial in the family plot in Mount Olivet in Area E/Lot 48 next to his wife and parents. She had been re-interred to Mount Olivet in May, 1888.

Spencer's daughter and son-in-law (the Falvys) would be interred Mount Olivet upon their deaths within the family plot originally purchased at the time of Spencer's mother's death in the 1860s.

​Just a parting word on Spencer's father, Rev. Joseph Hawkins Jones, born December 3rd, 1798 in Fairfax VA. He was the son of Charles Jones of Ireland (immigrated to the US in 1793) and Prudence Hawkins of Providence, Rhode Island. Joseph Hawkins Jones was ordained a minister in the Baptist Church in 1820 and served in Rockville.  Both are buried directly behind Spencer.

Rev. Jones married Elizabeth Clagett of Montgomery County in 1821 and had at least five known children in addition to Spencer (who was the youngest). All are buried with him and his wife in the family plot in Area E/Lot 48: Ann Elizabeth Jones (1825-1888), Susan Prudence (1827-1828), John Hawkins Jones (1829-1830), another John Hawkins Jones (1831-1833), and a second Susan Prudence (1833-1834) The four children who never reached maturity were moved here in 1907 from their original burial place in Rockville.

I learned more about Rev. Jones' career and death from the following information compiled from the archival minutes of Barnesville Baptist Church (Barnesville, MD):

"In 1845, after 24 years of service Mr. Jones resigned his pastorate of Rockville Baptist Church and moved to Frederick, Maryland. While living there, he preached at Barnesville in school houses &c, and after the close of the Civil War, a church was organized at that place and regularly supplied by him, and a meeting house was built under his auspices. Much of this time he was actively engaged in missionary work in Frederick County distributing Bibles among the destitute and needy and preaching at other regular appointments.

In 1864 his wife, who had been a help-mate in all his labors of love for more than 40 years, departed this life. This severe trial, with a rather delicate state of health, induced him to spend his winters with his son-Judge Clagett Jones of King & Queen Co., Va. About 1871, the house of worship near Barnesville was erected as a monument to his faithful life work. Thence he was called home to his Father’s house on above, Dec. 31, 1871."

​"He was a man of strong faith and untiring energy. Where ever a sense of duty led, there he was bound to go and do his best. He was never known to fail in meeting his appointments, unless something beyond his control prevented. His was a remarkably kind heart, with a strong tenacity for what he conscientiously believed, and he candidly proclaimed his convictions of what was right. His preaching and conversations seemed more bent on instructing and comforting Christians than the converting of sinners. His style of preaching was similar to that of the venerable Jeremiah Moore—“well versed in scripture, often giving lucid explanations of different passages. Christian experience was with him a favorite theme. His life was an ornament to religion as a man, a Christian, a preacher, he was an honor to his Country, the Church, his family and himself. He was cheerful even when suffering and joyful during his last illness, his last words were 'Happy, happy, happy.' "

Rev. Joseph Hawkins Jones died in King and Queen County, VA on December 31st, 1871 at age 73, and would be buried in Mount Olivet four days later.

What's in a Name?
I had to go down another rabbit hole to see how Spencer Jones gained his "conical" name. It was a quick search that led me to a man named Spencer H. Cone. ​

​Spencer Houghton Cone was an American clergyman born April 13th, 1785 in Princeton, New Jersey. He entered Princeton University at the age of twelve, but two years later, because of his father’s illness, left his studies. At sixteen he was master in a school at Burlington, NJ and next moved to Philadelphia. Finding his salary insufficient to support his family, he first studied law, but abandoned it and turned to the stage. This vocation did not especially appeal to him, and was strongly opposed by his devout mother who considered it not respectable. He first appeared in "Mahomet" in 1805 and subsequently was successful on the stage. But this profession was distasteful to him and he soon left it.

​In 1812, Spencer H. Cone joined the Baltimore American newspaper as treasurer and bookkeeper. Soon afterward, in connection with his brother-in-law, John Norvell, he purchased and published the Baltimore Whig. During the War of 1812, he was at the Battle of Bladensburg with Norvell and the account of this experience has been chronicled in "Some Account of the Life of Spencer Houghton Cone, A Baptist Preacher in America," published in New York in 1856.
 
Cone then became a clerk in the treasury department in Washington. After moving there, he began to preach with remarkable success. He was converted to the Baptist Church in 1814. In 1815-1816 he became Chaplain of the United States House of Representatives. About 1823, Pastor Cone moved to the Oliver Street Church, New York, where he remained for eighteen years. He then became pastor of the 1st Baptist church there. In 1832, Spencer Cone became president of the Baptist triennial convention, and was re-elected until 1841. From 1837 till 1850, he was president of the American and Foreign Bible society. On the formation of the American Bible Union, Cone was made its president, and so continued until his death on August 28, 1855.
 
At the zenith of his career, he was probably the most popular and influential Baptist minister in the United States. It's no wonder that a man of profound faith such as Rev. Joseph Hawkins Jones would name his son after Rev. Cone. It is likely to assume, that he  (Rev. Jones) met/knew this man during his lifetime.

In closing, I find it fascinating that my subject had such a connection to the Baptist Church in name, family and spirit. The central tenet of the Baptist faith tradition "teaches that people are born again when they believe that Jesus died for their sin, and was buried, and rose again." 

As for my cat Bilbo, he too, must feel "Born again" in having his cone removed. At this moment, he seems to have found a grocery bag to hang out in. From the looks of him, he continues to seem "Happy, happy, happy!"

​This is the second part of a story which I began last week regarding ghosts frequenting Mount Olivet. While I have not personally seen any of the kind, that doesn’t rule out whether there have been visits, and/or if any said spirits still exist "in residence" along with their own mortal remains. I guess one could say when it comes to Mount Olivet, and the presence of apparitions of any of our cemetery residents, you have to look at "what can be, unburdened by what has been."
​
Our cemetery opened its gates to burials over 170 years ago, so it’s quite possible that we've had some unique visitors from the community's past frequent our property in the present. This will likely continue into the future as well. In the meantime, there is plenty of space for the supernatural to roam over a hundred acres which boasts over 41,000 interments.

In folklore, a ghost is the soul, or spirit, of a dead person that can appear to the living. Wikipedia describes ghosts as “varying from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to realistic, lifelike visions.”

According to Daniel Cohen’s Encyclopedia of Ghosts (1984):
​
“The belief in the existence of an afterlife, as well as manifestations of the spirits of the dead is widespread, dating back to animism or ancestor worship in pre-literate cultures. Certain religious practices—funeral rites, exorcisms, and some practices of spiritualism and ritual magic—are specifically designed to rest the spirits of the dead. Ghosts are generally described as solitary, human-like essences, though stories of ghostly armies and the ghosts of animals rather than humans have also been recounted. They are believed to haunt particular locations, objects, or people they were associated with in life.”

Back in March, 2018, I wrote one of these “Story in Stones” about a gentleman buried here in Mount Olivet who has been said to have been haunting a mansion located in the northern part of the county. This house, built in 1808, is named Auburn, and a former resident of that home, Edward McPherson (1827-1848) is buried in our Area E. Auburn was built by Baker Johnson, brother of Gov. Thomas Johnson, Jr. It is located on the west side of US 15 near Catoctin Furnace, a few miles south of Thurmont in northern Frederick County.

​Many residents of Auburn have reported that they heard the mysterious sounds of someone slowly climbing the back servants’ stairway of the 19-room, colonial home. These were relatives and descendants of the greater McPherson family (of which Edward belonged). Our subject died in 1848 in Mexico during a duel fought between two military officers engaged in the Mexican War.

​Anyway, "Sir Edward,” as the ghost has been called, has been frequenting Auburn, but who knows if he has ever haunted Mount Olivet. The word “haunting,” is a strong term defined as having a deeply disquieting or disturbing effect. It also can be defined as poignant and evocative; difficult to ignore or forget.
I’ve recently learned about a few other folks whose mortal remains reside in Mount Olivet, but have reportedly been hanging around their homestead just north of Walkersville. Their names are Henry R. Harris and wife Clarissa Harris.

​I first heard these Harris names, a popular one this year, when I had the good fortune to catch up with an old friend of mine named Ron Layman at the Great Frederick Fair a few months back. While there, Ron told me that he had been spending his retirement doing housework—literal house demolition and refurbishing in the process of rehabilitating a familiar historic home on the grounds of a popular Frederick County park. This happens to be the Heritage Manor House on the grounds of Walkersville Heritage Farm Park located at 9236 Devilbiss Bridge Road near the intersection with Glade Road and salubrious Glade Creek. The farmstead is seen as “a shining example of rural domestic agricultural architecture.”

​For the last five years, Ron Layman, a former Boy Scout leader, has been volunteering with others to bring back a magical farmhouse to its original glory. The location has been known by many names, and best known as the Harris Farm. The property dates back to the county’s beginning when it took its original name Hawthorne Bottom. The Cramer family of Germany are said to have constructed the first farm in the year 1746 (when we were still part of Prince Georges County). This led to the moniker of Hawthorne Farm.
​
The main house and farmstead that exists today was built in 1855 by the forementioned Henry R. Harris. He owned the property, but the actual craftsman builder was one John W. Winebrenner, the founder of the Glade Church of God. The three-story, center plan house was constructed in predominantly late Greek Revival style, with some Italianate elements. The agricultural complex consists of a bank barn with an attached granary; a second frame barn that shares an animal yard with the bank barn; a row of frame outbuildings including a converted garage, a workshop, and a chicken house. There is also a drive-through double corn crib; and a frame pig pen from 1914.

​The 20th-century buildings consist of a frame poultry house, a dairy barn with milk house and two silos, and an octagonal chicken coop. An early lime kiln is located on the edge of the property with the entire complex preserved as part of the Walkersville Heritage Farm Park.

​The Harris Farm was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994, decades after the last permanent occupants lived here. These were renters of the house and farmstead who vacated upon its sale in 1986. Apparently, Frederick County Government rented a room herein to a local Walkersville athletic association who used it for storage of athletic equipment and occasional meetings.
​
Ron Layman has been associated with the building for five years now, coming almost weekly to provide his skills as a volunteer laborer. For many years, Ron served as head scoutmaster of Boy Scout Troop #274 before retiring in 2017. He has continued to lead young men in scouting with this Harris Farm house project. Four years ago, Ron got the Boy Scouts of Troop 274, along with other Frederick County troops, involved in helping him with house repairs and renovation. As part of this agreement, two rejuvenated rooms have been used for Boy Scout district meetings, Eagle Badge boards, scout training programs, meetings of the Walkersville Boy Scout Troop, and a program called “Sunday’s for Santa”—an annual fundraiser.

​Made by the hands of Ron Layman, my lantern continues to serve as a true intermediary between both myself, and the potential ghosts of those buried here­ in our cemetery. Speaking of intermediaries, Ron told me that last year a local spiritualist/paranormalist was brought in to “feel the place out” after some evocative happenstances.
​
The professional "ghostbuster" in question here was Rhonda Russo, who gave a riveting lecture to a large group of participants at the former Harris Farm home on October 26th, 2023. Ms. Russo next helped conduct an investigation, and found that the original housebuilders (Mr. and Mrs. Harris) were still “haunting” the house, in spirit of course. Ms. Russo shared that these first residents of the home were quite happy with the fine renovation work being done by Ron and the scouts. A better testimonial could not be given. However, I guess it can be a little intimidating and unnerving knowing that these humble remodelers are not alone, but instead are being supervised by Henry R. and wife Clarissa Harris who died in 1878 and 1901 respectively. By the way, both individuals died in the house.

​I was previously aware of this house by sight only, and up until recently had no idea that the original residents were buried within Mount Olivet. While I haven't been inside the farm house, I have spent many hours of my life sitting on the greater farmstead property while watching numerous baseball games played by my son Eddie. This period was when he played for Frederick Babe Ruth and Frederick American Legion’s baseball team in games versus some talented Glade Valley Babe Ruth teams, and Woodsboro Legion squads. Here, I sat and watched several "end of season" tournaments on the various ball diamonds positioned just a couple hundred yards away from the farmhouse which stands proudly at the entrance of the park.
​
I have tried to find photos of Henry and Clarissa Harris to no avail, as I’d like to be able to recognize them if they happen to frequent their gravesite here in Mount Olivet’s historic section. According to Ron Layman, no one has had a clear look at them at the Harris farmhouse either, but at least we know they are “there in spirit,” and “alive and well,” at least, in the greater Walkersville area. I will also call out Heritage Frederick to be on the lookout as well, because I’ve learned they are the keepers of the Harris family bible. You never know when this couple may want to peruse it for old times sake!?

​So, let’s talk about Mr. and Mrs. Harris, whose impressive grave monument occupies two large family plots on an elevation in Mount Olivet’s Area R—not far from the grave of Gov. Thomas Johnson and Barbara Fritchie. 

​Henry and Clarissa Harris
Henry Ross Harris was born in Frederick County on September 6th, 1820. He was one of eight known children, and was the eldest son of Franklin Harris (1790-bef 1850) and wife Elizabeth Claybaugh (1796-1850). Henry appears to have received an education and studied law as I have seen him described as an esquire in newspaper mentions of the mid-19th century. He was also a state legislator and gentleman farmer exemplified by the fact that he owned this beautiful plantation now comprising Walkersville Heritage Park.

Henry married the former Clarissa Barrick on July 26th, 1843. Miss Barrick, born December 17th, 1821, was the daughter of Frederick Barrick and Catharina Cramer. It appears this property came down through Clarissa’s family as her father, Frederick Barrick, is identified as a son of Jacob Barrick and Rosanna Devilbiss, large property owners in the area. You may recognize the Barrick name in relation to nearby Woodsboro’s legacy of quarrying (Barrick Quarry), and of course, who can forget the water crossing that has made famous (or almost famous) the Devilbiss name—Devilbiss Bridge.

Henry Harris bought 120 acres of land (part of "Jacob's Lot Well Bounded") from John W. and Catharine Barrick and Margaret Barrick, widow of a man named George Barrick, in 1845. My assistant Marilyn Veek provided me with lineage charts and info, while explaining  that John W. Barrick was Clarissa’s first cousin, and that George and Margaret Barrick were her paternal uncle and aunt.
​
I first found Henry and Clarissa Harris here at this property, and living within the manor house, in the 1850 US Census. They are joined by a daughter, Julia A. Harris, born October 26th, 1846.

​Subsequent census records were found, but not much info can be gleaned outside of Henry’s written occupation as a farmer. The interpretive panel outside the farmhouse states that Henry began as a local teacher at the Old Glade School House, located basically across the road from his home. I would find several vintage news advertisements (in the 1860s and 1870s) pertaining to Henry’s political aspirations and service in state government. There is also proof of his strong Union leanings during the American Civil War, and he conducted many auctions of nearby farms and estates.

​A National Register of Historic Places report by the Maryland Heritage Trust can easily be found online and provides information gleaned through existing histories, tax assessments and census records from the second half of the 19th century.

​Henry would not be enumerated in the 1880 census because he died two years earlier on November 24th, 1878. I checked that particular year to see when Thanksgiving was celebrated. I found it was November 28th, so I think we are safe from Henry not dying on Thanksgiving Day, thus being particularly “unsettled” on the holiday. I learned a great deal more about the man (Henry R. Harris) courtesy of his obituary which appeared in the December 12th, 1878 edition of Frederick’s Maryland Union newspaper. I had no idea that he was a captain!

​And to think, I could have titled this particular blog story "Death by newspaper." We pick back up by seeing Henry’s widow continuing to live at the property which appears in the 1873 Titus Atlas Map. The National Register of Historic Places report continues in talking about Clarissa cohabitating with an assortment of relatives and farmhands.

​Clarissa Harris passed away on April 19th, 1901. Her obituary would appear in the Frederick News the very next day.

​Mrs. Harris would join her husband in the gravesite in Mount Olivet. However, as we have seen, their spirits appear to have remained at the farmstead on Devilbiss Bridge Road. Daughter Julia Amanda Liggett took over ownership of the property, however her time as the “mistress of the manor” would be brief as she died on December 5th, 1905.

​The land remained in the greater Harris family until Julia’s son (Henry and Clarissa’s grandson), Henry Ross Harris Liggett, sold the property, by then 192 acres, to Charles Sager in 1932. Henry Liggett is buried in the Harris plot in Area R as well, and his name adorns the south side of the large monument.

Soon after the sale to CharlesSager, a couple from Calvert County purchased the farm in 1933. Their names were Jefferson and Mary Patterson. Some may be familiar with Mr. Patterson, a former US diplomat, as his name is synonymous with Maryland archaeology and preservation.

​Jefferson Patterson (May 14th, 1891 – November 12th, 1977) was an American diplomat who served as United States Ambassador to Uruguay under Dwight D. Eisenhower, from 1956 to 1958. He married Mary Marvin (Breckinridge) Patterson in 1940. He also had assignments in Berlin, Belgium, Egypt, Greece, and the UN Special Committee on the Balkans. In addition, Mr. Patterson wrote a book, Diplomatic Duty and Diversion. He worked at the U.S. Embassy in Paris during World War II, and was in charge of French prisoners of war before the transfer of protecting power from the United States to Vichy, France.

​Jefferson Patterson Park & Museum (JPPM) is a 560-acre state park and museum located along the Patuxent River in St. Leonard, Calvert County, Maryland. The property of JPPM was given to the State of Maryland by Mary Marvin Patterson in 1983 in honor of her husband Jefferson Patterson. Both Jefferson and Mary are buried in Washington, DC's Rock Creek Cemetery. 

​Many of its buildings were designed by early female architect Gertrude Sawyer starting in the 1930s. The property has more than 70 identified archaeological sites, with current excavation and research being conducted. The land features 9,000 years of documented human occupation. The visitor center, located in a former cattle barn, features displays about the Pattersons, and about the science of archaeology and the work being done on the property.

The Exhibit Barn features a War of 1812 exhibit and displays of antique farm equipment. The 1812 Battle of St. Leonard's Creek occurred here, and a neighboring property, called the Brewhouse, is the ancestral home of the Johnson family and birthplace of our Gov. Thomas Johnson, Jr.

Seven years ago, I wrote a blog entitled All Hallow's Eve at Mount Olivet in which I revealed that I have yet to see a ghost in the vicinity of Frederick County's largest, and most historic burying ground.

I'm here many nights under the cloak of darkness, and, more recently, have been conducting my annual "Unsettling" Candlelight walking tours of the cemetery. I'm now in my 13th year of leading people around this "City of the Dead" with no incidents, save for the time I had some orbs flying around my head back about a decade ago. Oh, and just last week, I was talking about a decedent named William Nusz (1859-1903) who owned a cigar store in town back in the late 1800s. He was killed in a railroad accident when he decided to jump off a train at Point of Rocks before it had come to a complete stop. All of a sudden, while relaying his tale, many participants on the tour began commenting that they smelled cigar smoke....and no human was "puffing away" in the cemetery that I could see.

As I mentioned in that story back then,  even though I haven't seen ghosts, doesn't mean that they don't exist. And even if they do exist, doesn't mean that they are "camped out" here in the cemetery near their respective mortal remains. Think about it, if you were a ghost, wouldn't you rather be floating around in the comfort of your own home, hanging around descendants or visiting a favorite vacation spot? Heck, I'd enjoy lingering around a concert venue, sporting complex, or other source of "mortal pleasure" enjoyed while alive and well.

All Hallows’ Eve is a celebration observed on October 31st in a number of countries. This marks the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows' Day, better known as All Saints Day, followed by All Soul’s Day. This three-day period that comprises Allhallowtide, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed. 

On a website entitled Manoamano.nyc, I would learn the following about Día de Muertos, the Day of the Dead, an important celebration in Mexico since pre-Hispanic times.

The Mexica [meˈxika] (Aztecs) memorialized their dead for two months in the summer: Miccailhuitontli (for children) and Hueymicailhuitl (for adults). Spaniards introduced the Catholic calendar and moved the practice of honoring the dead to All Souls Day, celebrated on November 2nd.

The tradition is rooted in the native Mexican belief that life on earth is a preparation for the next world and that it is important to maintain a strong relationship with the dead. Families gather in the cemetery during this celebration to welcome the souls on their annual visit. In the houses, people prepare altars known as ofrendas with traditional ephemeral elements for the season, such as cempasúchil (marigold) flowers, copal incense, fresh pan de muerto bread, candles, papel picado, and Calaveras (sugar skulls). Photographs, mementos, and favorite items used by the departed are included.
 
The Mexica believed that when a person died, their teyolia, or inner force, went to one of several afterworlds, depending on how they died, their social position, and their profession (not by their conduct in life). There were special afterworlds for children, warriors, women in labor, and those who died by drowning. This tradition continues today with special altars built on specific days to honor different groups: October 28 for those who died in accidental or violent deaths, October 29 for individuals who drowned, October 30 for forgotten and lonely souls, October 31 for unborn children, November 1 for deceased children, and November 2 for adults who died a natural death, as well as for all other deceased adults. 

Although we don't have official exercises here at Mount Olivet in connection with the Day of the Dead, reminders of the soul, the afterlife, and spiritual journey are captured within monument design, gravestone iconography, scripture and other quotes found on the faces of funerary markers here. An interesting example is the grave monument adorning a gentleman named Daniel Fout. This marble marker can be found in Area M/Lot 69 along our western cemetery boundary.

Under the typical name and vital statistics of the decedent, a clever poem can be read by the keen-eyed "tombstone tourist:"

"There is but a step between me & death.

Remember friend as you pass by,
As you are now, so once was I;
As I am now, so you must be,
​Prepare yourself to follow me."

Our diarist, Jacob Engelbrecht, even chimed in on Fout's demise. 

"Died this afternoon in the 24th year of his age Mr. Daniel Fout of this county. His death was occasioned by being thrown from a horse and instantly died. He was to have been married on next Thursday to Miss Scholl on the Georgetown Road. Buried on the Lutheran graveyard."
​
Monday, January 18th, 1830 

A brief newspaper account from the Republican Compiler, Gettysburg, PA of February 2nd, 1830 gives a bit more information on the accident:

"Fatal Accident - On Monday the 18th ult. as a Mr. Daniel Fout, of this vicinity, was returning home from town, his horse run against a tree with such violence, as to cause almost instant death."

Our subject was born on Christmas Eve, December 24th, 1805​ to parents Daniel Fout (1771-1810) and Barbara Fout (1775-1841). It is thought that he was born on the family farm and was not the first child of the couple's six known offspring to receive his father's name. There was an earlier son Daniel born April 11th, 1800 but died August 31st, 1804. He is buried in this same plot (Area M/Lot 69) which sits just south of the end of Confederate Row.

Our records note that both brothers, by the name of Daniel, were reinterred here in Mount Olivet on May 20th, 1908 after formerly being buried on the Fout family farm south of Mount Olivet and Frederick City. Of course, this raises a discrepancy here with Engelbrecht's account of the horse riding Daniel remark that Daniel was buried in the Lutheran Graveyard. 

The four other children of Daniel and Barbara Fout include: Jacob Fout (1797-1806), Lewis Fout (1801-1857), Otho Fout (1804-1835), and Charlotte Fout (1809-date unknown) None of these siblings are buried here in this plot in Area M, however Lewis and Otho appear elsewhere in the cemetery.

Daniel Fout's mother, Barbara, is buried a few yards away from his grave in Area M/Lot 69. Her first husband (Daniel) died in 1810, and she would remarry a man named John Lane (1771-1849), a native of Yarmouth, England. The couple wed on June 3rd, 1819.

As I "dug deeper" into the genealogy of this family, I found that Daniel and Barbara Fout were first cousins. Daniel's father was immigrant Jacob Fout (1728-1774) born in Sinsheim, a town in southwestern Germany in the Rhine Neckar Area of the state Baden Wurtemberg about 14 miles southeast of Heidelberg. Wife, (and cousin), Barbara was the daughter of Balthazar Fout (1736-1798), born here in America. Balthazar and Jacob Fout were brothers, both the sons of Jacob Pfaut/Faut (1701-1750) born in the village of Rohrbach located in Friedberg within Bavaria in southern Germany.  Rohrbach is northwest of Munich.

​The name Fout is also used as a nickname for a puffing person, from a noun derivative of Middle High German phusen meaning, "to breathe hard, puff." In early records, the name can be seen written as Pfaut, Pfout, and Faut.

The Fout family farm was located on northern Carrollton Manor, not far from Mount Olivet by way of New Design Road. Shown below is a portion of the Titus Atlas Map of 1873. I invite you to locate the notation that reads "Heirs of L. Fout," near bottom of this map. Their property was known as "Rocky Creek," bought by Jacob Pfaut/Faut (the adult immigrant) in 1738. Jacob would also purchase "Goose Nest," an adjacent tract of 30 acres, in 1752. The properties are located on the west side of New Design Road, just north of Ballenger Creek. This is now the general vicinity of the intersection of New Design Road and Corporate Boulevard.

​Daniel Fout's will of 1811 left property to his wife Barbara while his children were still minors at the time of his death. It was directed to be equally divided among them at a later time. In 1835, surviving son Lewis sold the property to John Lane, who had married his mother Barbara.

John would outlive Barbara. When John Lane died in 1849, he left the property in trust to George Fout for the benefit of Lewis Fout's children, as he had promised Barbara he would. This was formalized by a deed in 1868 after the children reached adulthood. Several of the children sold their rights in the property to their siblings George Late, Elizabeth and Mary Catherine Fout. George, Elizabeth and Mary would sell the property to Eugene Sponseller in 1905.

Let's get back to our original subject Daniel Fout, the young man who died while riding a horse, or falling off said horse. His evocative gravestone prose speaks volumes as a clever verse that reads like a riddle. I go back to the Engelbrecht diary passage and was struck with the fact that our subject was engaged and about to be married. All we can glean is that her name was Miss Scholl and they were to be married on the Georgetown Pike.

This was very interesting to me, and I made an attempt to find this woman. If eternal soulmates, perhaps it would be this Miss Scholl who could be a person of interest who might engage in "ghosting" around the particular plot of fiancé Daniel Fout. Likewise, if I could find Miss Scholl's grave, perhaps Daniel's spirit could be a frequent visitor there.  

If you take another look at that Titus Atlas of 1873, you will note that the greater Fout family owned property north and south of that owned by Daniel Scholl, and his plantation known as Manchester.  This is where Margaret Scholl grew up, being the daughter of Daniel and Mary Susan (Thomas) Scholl. You may know this Miss Scholl by her married name, Margaret Hood, the benefactress of Frederick's Hood College. Margaret Scholl Hood was born in 1833 (and died in 1913) and represents the wrong generation in question, as her parents were contemporaries with our subject Daniel Fout. However, Mrs. Hood's family namesake could have been our missing fiancée.

In looking closely at this family, and predicting the convenience of amour with "the girl next door," Daniel Scholl, son of 1812 veteran Christian Scholl (1768-1826), had at least three known sisters reach adulthood. One of these, Mary Elizabeth (1816-1886), can be discounted from our conversation as she was too young to marry in 1830 at 14 years of age. She would marry a man named Daniel Bentz in 1833 at the age of 17. Mr. Bentz died in 1842, and the former Miss Scholl would marry John H. Brunner (1813-1871). She would die in November, 1866 and is buried in Mount Olivet's Area C/Lot 134.

That leaves Catherine Scholl (1799-1878) and Rebecca Scholl (1807-1838). Catherine married Aeneas Hedges and is buried in Mount Olivet's Area C/Lot 85. I disqualify her because she married in 1820 and I was tickled to see that one of her sons was Lycurgus Hedges of whom I wrote an entire "Story in Stone" back in January 2019.

Rebecca Scholl married Cornelius Shriner in 1829, so she too can be scratched off the possibility list. This couple rests in perpetual peace in Area G/Lot 159. 

After a little more exploration, I started thinking about Jacob Engelbrecht's comment that the couple were to be married on the Georgetown Pike. This eventually had me looking for residences of the Scholl family on the main thoroughfare between Frederick and Washington, DC. We know this as Maryland route 355 today. I soon found an old advertisement from the early 1800s that mentioned a tavern belonging to Jacob Frederick Scholl which was located in Clarksburg, just over the line in Montgomery County. 

This led me to thinking that the wedding could have well been planned for Scholl's Tavern, a very popular destination on the Old Georgetown Pike. It now dawned upon me that Miss Scholl was likely related to this Frederick Scholl, who was kin to the other Scholls from Frederick.

​Frederick Scholl had purchased this tavern in 1800. The inn had earlier been known as Dowden's Ordinary since 1750, when Michael Ashford Dowden received a license to keep an ordinary at his home. Frederick Scholl obtained a tavern keeper's license soon after buying the property, and he and his wife Catherine operated the inn until his death in 1815. The tavern remained in the hands of the Scholl family until 1834. I don't have time for another drawn-out history story, but I will tell you that this historic tavern site had direct ties to the legendary Stamp Act Repudiation of 1765 by Frederick County's "Immortal Justices." 

If anything else, this tavern had to be the proposed site of Daniel's impending nuptials in late January of 1830. However, Frederick did not have any eligible daughters for Daniel Fout in the years leading up to untimely death in 1834.

After floundering in my quest to discover the mystery  fiancée of Daniel Fout, I would learn that his brother Lewis had actually taken a daughter of John Scholl (1772-1848) for a wife in 1829. This was Elizabeth M. Scholl, daughter of John and Catherine (Brengle) Scholl. Elizabeth had two sisters who could have been eligible bachelorettes for Daniel Fout in the late 1820s. These included Margaret Scholl (1808-1899) and Catherine Scholl (1810-1899). Both ladies would "tie the knot" in the year 1833: Margaret married Frederick William Cramer (1809-1866); and Catherine married Thomas Jefferson Myers (1811-1850).

​It's very likely that there was a relationship between these ladies and Daniel because they were one-time in-laws in the late 1820s. Saying that, there is a very good chance that one of these women could have been devastated in January, 1830 with the death of Daniel Fout as his soon-to-be wife. She would have to start again at square one leading to a marriage three years later if this was the case.

If Daniel wants to visit the grave of either of these ladies, he will be lingering in Frankfort, Indiana, or better yet, Area E near the John Scholl family plot. 

​Speaking of devastated by death of a significant other, Lewis Fout had experienced this tragedy just four months earlier with the death of his young bride. The aforementioned Elizabeth M. (Scholl) Fout would die one day short of her 27th birthday on September 13th, 1829 just months after her marriage to Lewis Fout on February 4th, 1829. The following obituary comes from the Frederick Town Herald newspaper of September 19th, 1829:  

So, using the above logic with Daniel Fout and his mystery Miss Scholl possibly visiting each other in our cemtery's Area M (Fout plot) or Area E (Scholl plot) or elsewhere as apparitions, maybe Elizabeth M. (Scholl) Fout could be found in "spirit form" hovering around her own final resting place or that of former husband Lewis Fout in Area P? However, I don't know the etiquette or the possibility of reciprocal visits from Lewis to her location in Area E since Lewis remarried, and his "last" wife," Mary Ann (Late) Fout, is buried right beside him.

I would also learn from diarist Jacob Engelbrecht that Lewis Fout had married three times in total. In order of things, I had been unaware of a third wife, but soon saw notations for all three in our Mount Olivet database. This lady was actually Lewis Fout's first wife named Lydia Ann (Routzahn). Lydia died within her first year of marriage to the man, as well, the same fate of Elizabeth. On November 6th, 1827, Engelbrecht would write:

"Died Suddenly today in the 24th year of her age, Mrs. Lydia Ann Fout consort of Mr. Lewis Fout & daughter of Mr. Routzahn near Middletown. They were married on the 15th of February last. Buried in the graveyard at Mr. Lane's farm."

Lydia was not moved to Mount Olivet like others that had been buried on the Fout family farm that would eventually be known as the Lane farm at the time Engelbrecht wrote this entry. Perhaps she is still there, or maybe her mortal remains are somewhere in the Middletown Valley where Routzahns have always reigned supreme.

I'd like to wrap up part I of this spirited, yet painful, genealogical heavy "Story in Stone." Let's conclude by deciphering the message that can be found on Daniel Fout's mother's gravestone. While not as clever as the first quote we started this story on upon Daniel's gravestone, it points to the high probability that Barbara (Fout) Lane was well-read, and likely the individual who had the earlier poem placed upon her son's grave.

I recently taught a course entitled Frederick in the Civil War  in the historic Francis Scott Key Chapel here on the grounds of Mount Olivet Cemetery. On the night of the first class, one of my students presented me with a khaki-colored, zippered canvas bag. It contained two, large, 3-ring binders, filled with copied documents all clad in transparent sleeve protectors. These documents ranged from old military records and regimental histories to government correspondence and handwritten depositions. Upon handing me the bag, the owner, Ms. Verena Rose, simply said: "Here's the info on Henry and Charlotte...good luck!"

I had met Verena, an Olney (MD) resident, one year earlier as she had taken my Frederick History 101 course the previous June of 2023. During a class intermission break for the forementioned 101 offering, I found myself out in front of the chapel talking with a few students. Verena asked if I had contemplated teaching a Civil War class, to which I replied that I was certainly planning to do so in the future. She revealed her interest in the subject and said that she was a member of the Frederick Civil War Roundtable.

I was moved to ask Verena if she had any Civil War ancestors from Frederick? She smiled, and said, "Yes, and he is buried right over there." She pointed to a spot about 30 yards away towards the rear of the chapel in Mount Olivet's Area L. Verena followed by saying that his name was Henry and she had learned through research that he was an "unsavory" character who had defrauded his wife.

My curiosity now piqued, we both took the opportunity to walk over to the "unsavory" man's final resting place and observe his gravestone closer.

On its face, the large marble marker included the names of Henry Durfey (May 15, 1841-March 31, 1913) and "his wife" Charlotte S. Durfey (August 27, 1845-March 13, 1923). Verena had presented me with not just another Union Civil War veteran in Mount Olivet, but more so, a bonafide "mystery man" who had apparently led a second life, plus had an alias to boot—"Hank Miller."

Verena and another family member had researched this man thoroughly a few decades back, more than fitting because she certainly knows her way around these types of characters and stories as a member of the "Mystery Writers of America (MWA)." Not only does she possess a passion for the historical mystery, she has written and published several short stories in the sub-genre.

Verena Rose is the Agatha Award nominated co-editor of Not Everyone’s Cup of Tea, An Interesting and Entertaining History of Malice Domestic’s First 25 Years and the Managing Editor of the Malice Domestic anthology series. In addition to serving as Chair of Malice Domestic, Verena is also a member of MWA, a lifetime member of Sisters in Crime-National, a member of Sisters in Crime Chesapeake, a member of the Historical Novel Society and a lifetime member of the Jane Austen Society of North America.

Verena is also the chief financial officer and acquisitions editor for Level Best Books as their representative, and is a member of the American Booksellers Association, the Crime Writers Association, the Historical Novel Society, and the Women’s Fiction Writer’s Association. If that's not enough, she hosts a podcast called "Sunday Tea with V," which can be found on the History Chronicles on Spotify for Podcasters.

Henry Durfey
So, what's the issue with Henry Durfey? Well, our mysterious "Story in Stone" subject here has more to do with "civil union" than participation in trying to save the "Union" during "the Civil War." He may have been a hapless casualty of war himself, but the true victim in this mystery was "his wife" Charlotte, but I must use that moniker loosely. Actually, I should say "wives."

To review, a civil union (also known as a civil partnership) is a legally recognized arrangement similar to marriage at the state level, however federal protections and benefits are not guaranteed. Many are familiar with the term "common law marriage" which results from the parties' agreement to consider themselves married, followed by cohabitation, rather than through a statutorily defined process.Not all jurisdictions permit common law marriage, but will typically respect the validity of such a marriage lawfully entered in another state or country.

Much to her surprise, shock and dismay, Charlotte S. Durfey would learn late in life that she had not been lawfully married to her supposed husband, at least in the eyes of the federal government. This was exposed when she desperately tried to lay claim to Henry's military pension after his death in 1913. However, the real shocker was learning that she was not alone.

The incredible research done by Verena features a plethora of pages in the aforementioned binders featuring correspondence between the Department of the Interior's Pension Bureau and Mrs. Durfey, a lifelong resident of Frederick. The Durfey surname is spelled a variety of ways (Durfee, Duffee, Duffy), but we will stick to what is "carved in stone" upon the couple's grave —Durfey. The binders' contents also document Henry Durfey's Civil War service with Battery M of the 1st New York Artillery Regiment, along with a medical discharge and a second enlistment with Company H of the 1st Potomac Home Brigade Maryland Infantry.

Interestingly, Henry Durfey would have a hard time getting his own pension after the war because past military records were riddled with inconsistencies and errors that in some cases, he, himself, had created. Primary sticking points would be the forementioned spelling of his last name and use of an alias for starters, but deeper problems related to his actual birth year, while other issues involved embellishment of injuries said to have been suffered during the war. 

Henry's birth dates in the federal military records differ from that carved upon his gravestone (May 17, 1841) here in Mount Olivet, and what can be found in our cemetery records (1839) from his death certificate. Discharge papers from December, 1863 report his age as 23 (which point to a birth in 1840).  He claimed his birthday to be April 3rd, 1837.

Henry brought up war injuries that had no historical backing in federal military records. He submitted a claim for an Invalid Pension in 1888, starting the process in Frederick County Circuit Court. In this claim, which was ultimately rejected by the Bureau of Pensions, he reported that he was debilitated by epileptic fits contracted through his military service.

At the time of the American Civil War, Charlotte was in her late teens, turning 17 just prior to Gen. Robert E. Lee bringing his Confederate Army here to Frederick in early September, 1862. This was mere weeks  prior to the nearby Battles of South Mountain and Antietam. It is about this time that Charlotte started performing care duties for sick and wounded soldiers at the Union Army's Hospital center in Frederick. This would also be a collision course with her destiny in meeting Henry Durfey.

According to his gravestone, we (at Mount Olivet) have assumed that Henry Durfey was born on May 15th, 1841 in Lockport, New York, a town in Niagara County. This location would come to prominence in the 1820s thanks to the famed Erie Canal.  As its name suggests, the community was known for its Flight of Five Locks, and gave work to many Scottish and Irish canal workers brought in as its labor force.  

Henry Durfey's father is said to have died when Henry was 12 years old, and his mother passed when he was 18. I could not find this individual in the 1850 or 1860 census records living in Niagara County.

Henry Durfey enlisted in the Union Army at Lockport on October 21st, 1861 and was mustered into military service at Rochester, New York a week later on October 28th, 1861. He and his fellow soldiers would soon find themselves at Camp Barry, a temporary artillery camp, in Washington, DC.

As mentioned earlier, Henry was originally with Battery M of the 1st New York Light Artillery. In 1862, this unit served under Williams' Division of the 5th Corps of the Union's Army of the Potomac. In January, the battery was ordered to Frederick to help guard transportation lines such as the railroad and canal. In early spring, they were stationed at Point Of Rocks and would soon be ordered to cross the river into Virginia at Harpers Ferry and serve within the Department of the Shenandoah. 

All the while, a lady named Nancy Jane Lake would play a role in our story, representing a proverbial "monkey wrench" to an otherwise, romantic, local love story. Nancy was a New York gal and a daughter of Bloomer and Elizabeth Lake of Wilson, New York. Wilson is also within the state's Niagara County. The village is northeast of the famed Niagara Falls and positioned on the coast of Lake Ontario. 

Nancy would marry a gentleman from Lockport, only 18 miles from Wilson. This was the forementioned  Henry Durfey. ​I'm not certain to the length of the courtship, but the couple had appeared before a Justice of the Peace in Nancy's home town on September 17th, 1860.  It appears that the marriage could have been of "the shotgun variety" with the bride-to-be presumably eight months pregnant at the time. Henry enlisted in the Union Army just over 13 months  later, and would leave for Rochester in November of 1861. 

Two daughters would be born to this union:  Sarah Elizabeth ("Elizabeth") on October 28th, 1860 ​and Rhoda Jane "Jennie" on May 11th, 1862. 

In the spring of 1862, Private Durfey and his unit were under the command of Major General Nathaniel Banks and engaged in fighting Rebel forces under Major General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson in Frederick County, Virginia and its county seat of Winchester. The First Battle of Winchester occurred on May 25th, 1862 and served as a great victory in what has been classified as Jackson's Valley Campaign. Henry Durfey either became sick or was wounded on the morning of June 18th, and subsequently taken to a place called "Union Hotel Rebel" in Winchester with bruised forehead and stomach. This location was a prominent hotel called the Union. Southern sympathizing citizens removed the U & N at the start of the conflict, causing it to be called the Ion Hotel.

Soldiers from both sides would be cared for here, and Union soldiers (eventually taken prisoner) would receive medical assistance from Confederate surgeons and staff. The name "Union Hotel Rebel" comes from a "Memorandum from Prisoner of War Records," and now seems to make better sense to me. I did read that the hotel would collapse in December, 1864 due to a heavy snowfall. In the mishap, seven Yankee soldiers would be crushed by a falling roof. 

Luckily, our subject Henry Durfey had long since left Winchester. He was sent to Frederick, Maryland's General Hospital #1 on June 22nd, 1862, shortly after his wounding or sickness. Again, documents such as the one pictured below say that our subject was suffering from a bruised forehead and stomach. Was this an injury caused by an attack of epilepsy? It sure sounds plausible. However, why is there no report of a shot finger, or left arm damaged by an exploding shell? Sounds like Henry may have conjured this up over time. Just wait until you see his work resume after the war.

For those not familiar with Frederick's General Hospital #1, the main facility was established on the grounds of the Hessian Barracks on South Market Street. This location was practically across the street from Mount Olivet Cemetery's main entrance. The original structures on "the Old Barracks" property consisted of a pair of stone buildings built for the Revolutionary War, and would grow to include at least five frame buildings, set on four acres of ground and enclosed by a board fence. The wooden structures had been built as regimental barracks for the Provost Guard during the Civil war.

In June 1862, the hospital was officially designated The United States General Hospital #1. By then, more suitable hospital ward buildings had been added. William W. Keen, an Assistant Surgeon at the hospital, noted that the new barracks were “finely ventilated” using a ridge-ventilation system, and could accommodate eighty patients each.
 
Here's a little aside that connects with Mount Olivet history. Along with Henry Durfey, a wartime adversary named Pvt. J. E. Johnson, was also brought to Frederick and the General Hospital from Winchester. This Confederate fought with the 16th Mississippi and suffered a gunshot wound to the lung. He and Durfey were among 500 patients transferred from the Winchester hospital to Frederick that late June/early July of 1862. Pvt. Johnson would expire from wounds suffered on July 15th, 1862 and afterwards brought to Mount Olivet to be the first  Rebel soldier buried in our Confederate Row.  

​Even with the new buildings, the hospital was still overcrowded. Henry Durfey was here during the month of September (1862) when Gen. Stonewall Jackson came to town and allegedly had a confrontation with our fabled heroine Barbara Fritchie on West Patrick Street. This account, of course,  came from the pen of New England poet John Greenleaf Whittier. Just days later, Durfey was visited at the General Hospital by former comrades of his unit, the 1st New York Light Artillery Company as they passed through town in pursuit of the Rebels after fighting engagements during the Virginia Peninsular Campaign over the summer.

Following the battles of South Mountain and Antietam, the hospital population here in Frederick swelled tremendously, causing the need for more places to treat the soldiers of both armies. This led to public buildings and churches throughout the city being utilized, along with many townspeople taking soldiers into their own homes as well.

On October 29th, 1862, Union Surgeon Robert F. Weir, who was in charge of General Hospital #1, wrote the Quartermaster General requesting that additional hospital wards be built. The enclosure expanded to eighteen acres. It was around this time that Henry Durfey was transferred to the Union's Invalid Corps, under the purview of the Army of the Potomac, and given "cook" and hospital attendant detail at the General Hospital. He apparently earned the nickname of "Hank Miller" through this Army employment by having a bag of flour on his head one day which spilled all over him and making him look like "a miller," one who grinds corn or wheat into flour. 

Private Durfey would remain in Frederick over the next year until July and August (1863), when he was dispatched to serve as an attendant at a hospital in Newtown, Virginia (northeast of Richmond). He would return to Frederick and his cook detail for the fall months of 1863. On November 16th, 1863, Henry was ordered to report to northern Virginia and the place called Convalescent Camp Virginia. Known also as Camp Misery, the poorly maintained facility had been replaced in February, 1863 with a new hospital camp, situated between Fairfax Seminary and Long Bridge in what is now Arlington County.

The old Camp Convalescent was renamed the Rendezvous of Distribution and Auger General Hospital, and was used as a distribution center to send "healed men" now "fit for field service" back to their regiments.
However, after inspection by a military surgeon, Private Henry Durfey was found unfit for military service because of epilepsy and frequent seizures, apparently contracted through his enlistment (likely the apparent trauma  received at Winchester over a year and a half earlier).  He was given a Certificate of Disability which was received by the Adjutant General's Office a few weeks later.

All the while, future problems would arise due to a clerical error in which  Durfey was inadvertently reported as "a deserter" in 1st New York Light Artillery muster rolls, claiming he skedaddled on his way to Virginia from the hospital of Frederick. This would be corrected upon his discharge at the end of the war.

Henry Durfey spent the year 1864 in Frederick by all accounts. He would not return to New York. In February, 1865, he would volunteer for an additional year's service with the 1st Potomac Home Brigade's Company A. This would  make him eligible for a government bounty (financial incentives) according to enlistment paperwork filled out in Frederick at the time. As a veteran, he now held the rank of corporal.  Durfey would eventually be transferred on April 8th to Company A under the 13th Maryland Infantry Regiment. 

Henry's supposed one year re-enlistment would only include three months of service due to Gen. Robert E. Lee's unconditional surrender of his Rebel Army in April, 1865. Corporal Durfey had successfully made it through the Civil War and was mustered out in Baltimore in May. He would settle down back in Frederick, the place he spent the majority of the war period. But, hold the phone, or telegraph, keeping things in proper historical context! What about wife Nancy (Lake) Durfey and his two daughters back in Niagara County, NY? ​

I found Nancy Durfey (spelled Duffey), along with Sarah Elizabeth and Rhoda Jane (Jennie), living with Nancy's parents in Wilson in the 1865 and 1875 supplemental state censuses of New York. In 1870, she was living with a sister in Wilson, NY.

Many soldiers in the Civil War, both North and South, never returned home because of death. These men, usually buried in far off places, left countless widows who lacked the means to travel and/or bring their beloved husband's bodies back home to family plots in local graveyards. Such is the fate of over 700 Confederate soldiers buried in Mount Olivet's Confederate Row lying beside the earlier mentioned J. E. Johnson of Mississippi. Likewise, many of the Union soldiers buried in Mount Olivet during the war never made it back to places such as New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, etc. Instead, most of the latter were re-interred at the Antietam National Cemetery in Sharpsburg in 1867.

Nancy J. Durfey had last heard from her husband through a letter dated December 18th, 1863. Nothing more came from him, and she eventually learned that her husband had been captured at the Battle of the Wilderness in May of 1864. This conflict featured nearly 29,000 casualties, and not hearing from Henry again, she assumed that he had died, and was buried somewhere in the South.

We know this today because in September, 1881, Nancy tried desperately to receive a widow's pension to help take care of herself and two daughters. They were living in Lewiston, New York at this time. The process was slow and arduous for Nancy, and she was ultimately denied the pension because proof of her husband's death could not be found.

My friend Verena has many copies of correspondence from Nancy Durfey's pension request case courtesy of the Library of Congress. These include official government transcripts and personal affidavits of fellow soldiers and Lake family members assisting the plaintiff.

One of the most interesting testimonies comes from Henry Durfey's former commanding officers from the 1st New York Light Artillery's Battery M--Sergeant John H. Gormley and  Lieutenant John D. Woodbury (later promoted top captain). In May of 1883, both men put pen to paper recounting the last they saw, and knew, of Private Durfey.

As can be seen, Nancy's mother, Elizabeth Lake, would also attempt to aid her daughter in her time of need. The Second Auditor of the Treasury Department  summarized a report of the 1881 attempt by Nancy to claim a widow's pension. The "verdict" of a lengthy investigation which also revealed Durfey was still alive was sent to Mrs. Durfey two years after her claim was opened. Excellent information and correspondence came from the true "eyes and ears" of the nation of the time—individual town postmasters who had helped in locating Henry Durfey in Frederick, Maryland. Unfortunately, this represented nothing but heartache for the jilted Mrs. Henry Durfey, at least the first one.

It's not just the fact that Henry Durfey did not go back to New York or communicate with his first wife, he actually claimed that he had never married Nancy on military documents. When pressed for answers, he said he "skipped town" after getting her pregnant.

So the Treasury Department and Pension Bureau learned Durfey was alive in Frederick, and had deceived this poor woman back home by having her believe he was dead, all the while "living in illicit intercourse with another woman in Maryland." Frederick's postmaster described Henry Durfey as "a poor ignorant fellow, with a fondness for lewd women."

As this is information that was used internally by the Pension Bureau, and remains today as part of their records collection, I have no way to know if Nancy Durfey saw this full report and its contents, or learned the whereabouts of Henry. Hopefully, she did not hear of his crass rationale for not coming back or the fact that he was "remarried" with children in Frederick.

Usually,  in cases of war separation, the grieving or impatient wife or girlfriend remarries after their soldier goes missing, and doesn't come home. This case is certainly a unique turnabout.

So, you likely know who "the other woman" is by now. She is none other than Charlotte Hoffman. Charlotte unknowingly married Henry Durfey on February 24th, 1863. She met the soldier while working as a washerwoman and nursing attendant at Frederick's General Hospital in her aid of the sick and wounded during the Civil War. The couple wed at the Methodist Church in New Market. The former Miss Hoffman claims that Henry never mentioned being married before, and the same goes with failing to reveal the fact that he had two daughters living in northern New York.

Henry and Charlotte went on to have two daughters as well: Laura Rebecca (born March 24, 1864) and Ida Mae (born 1872). In subsequent census records of the late 19th century, Henry is listed as a laborer and as a farmer. The family can be found living at 466 West South Street. 

In perusing old newspaper archives, I saw almost nothing on Henry Durfey. However, I did see countless references to "Hank Miller." He is regularly doing odd jobs ranging from manual labor and hauling to planting trees and digging ditches for sewers. "Hank" can also be found working at Baumgardner's Butcher Shop, Calvin Page's Hinge factory and picked fruit at local orchards. A member of the Independent Hose Company, he was also appointed fireman at the Frederick County Jail for a while. 

​My favorite employment venture of our subject centered on rat extermination for homeowners,  businesses and farmers alike. Hank actually employed a unique labor crew of ferrets for this endeavor.

When Henry Durfey wasn't being productive, he was involved in general mischief, fights and wrong doing. Our veteran soldier (and perennial groom) apparently did not change his deceitful ways throughout life, and was a thorn in the side to municipal leaders. He was asked to leave town on numerous occasions, but always found his way back to Frederick . ​

Charlotte's daughter, Laura (Durfey), and husband Joseph C. Cramer would host the wake of her father at their home on South Street. They also made arrangements to have Henry's body buried in their own family plot within Area L and utilizing Lot 53. 

​​The story doesn't end here, no sir! Charlotte Durfey now took her turn in trying to claim her rightful share of Henry's military pension. In the process, she would learn the bitter truth that she was not the only widow of Henry Durfey. This was her family's first learning of Henry's other family in New York. In fact, Charlotte would come to find that the US Government did not recognize her (Charlotte) as a widow at all.

​The Pension Bureau had all the paperwork associated with Nancy J. Durfey's rejected claim as rightful heir to Henry's pension from 30 years earlier. Since Durfey never divorced Nancy, the second "marriage" to Charlotte did not count as a lawful and recognized civil marriage deserving the benefit of a widow's pension from the US government. However, if Nancy had been alive at this time, she would have now been entitled to a widow's pension due to Henry's death.

Charlotte worked desperately to convince the government of her deserved claim. Unfortunately the Methodist minister from New Market who married her fifty years earlier had long since passed, and any record of the nuptials could not be gotten from the church. Charlotte claims in the documentation that Henry, himself, destroyed their copy of the marriage certificate after a domestic squabble one night.

Verena Rose's second binder contains dozens of pages of correspondence with the government, and examples of testimony, including that from Charlotte, daughter Laura, along with several neighbors/Frederick residents. Charlotte had to claim that not only had she legally married Henry Durfey, and that they lived together as man and wife, but also had the responsibility to prove that she had never divorced the man, although they lived apart for the last 16 years of his life.

The special examiners at the Pension Bureau believed Charlotte to be an honest individual and upstanding citizen by reputation, and received the local references to back it up, however without proper documentation as Henry's lawful wife, they could not process the claim on her behalf.

Charlotte's last chance came with investigating court records in New York in the hopes that Henry had actually secured a divorce from Nancy (Lake) Durfey, or vice-versa. Instead, she would learn of Nancy's death in 1891, with no divorce ever filed. Of most interest to me was a deposition taken on November 24th, 1914 at Niagara Falls, New York involving a Jane Nichols, wife of Alva D. Nichols. This was Henry's second daughter with Nancy J. Lake—the former Rhoda Jane "Jennie" Durfey born May 11, 1862. She stated that her mother, married Henry in 1860 in her hometown of Wilson, but the last name was always spelled Duffee, not Durfey. She also said that her older sister Elizabeth (wife of Alexander Scott, and residing in Lewiston, NY) had died just five weeks earlier. Jane here offers the information that her mother died in 1891 and was buried in the Lewiston, NY Cemetery, however says there is no headstone marking her grave. 

The investigators were given photos of Henry by each family, and these were also shown to both, further proving that they were all connected to the same man in Henry. No such records of divorce were found, and other witnesses (including family members) in New York gave testimony to the fact that Nancy never remarried, or made any effort to obtain a divorce even after learning that Henry was still living through her claim rejection in the early 1880s. Charlotte would learn that Nancy  was destitute and crippled at the time of her death, again at the age of 49 as stated earlier.

​Charlotte saw the writing on the wall and soon realized her attempt was fruitless by the end of 1914. She would receive her rejection letter in late January, 1915.

Charlotte's heartbreak must have been two-fold knowing that not only had herself and two children been deceived by Henry Durfey, but so had Nancy and her two daughters as well.

The last few pages of Verena's second binder contain documentation in February and March of 1915 in which the heirs of Nancy J. Durfey (Duffee) are inquiring of the the Pension Bureau as to their own opportunity of claiming any money due them past, or present. They were quickly shut down by the government, and all cases involving Henry Durfey were closed.

As for Charlotte (Hoffman) Durfey, she passed away on March 14th, 1923. ​In time, Charlotte would join her "common law" partner here in Mount Olivet Cemetery.  I smile in thinking that someone made sure that the grave monument sitting atop the Durfey's  gravesites reads, "his wife Charlotte." 

Naturally, Laura and Joseph Cramer would be laid to rest here in this lot.  They are Verena Rose's great-great-grandparents, thus making Henry and Charlotte Durfey her third great-grandparents. I may add that it might be a stretch to use the adjective "great" when referring to Henry Durfey, but without him, we wouldn't have this lengthy "Story in Stone," or more importantly, Verena Rose, now would we? ​

September 14th marks the anniversary of the unexpected death of Jesse Lee Reno, a career US Army officer who served in the Mexican–American War, the Utah War, the western frontier, and finally, the American Civil War. He was the highest-ranking military officer to die in the line of duty in Frederick County during the decisive conflict of the mid-19th century. 
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This Union general was known as a "soldier's soldier" who fought alongside his men. Gen. Reno had recently opposed his former West Point classmate and friend, Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson, during the Second Battle of Manassas (or Bull Run) just over three weeks earlier.

It’s ironic that both of these men, Reno and Jackson, are said to have had poignant conversations with Frederick’s most famous nonagenarian ­­­­and flag-waver, Barbara Fritchie. This happened in September, 1862 and it has been reported that Reno actually spent time with the patriotic maven just a few days after her alleged “wrangling” with Gen. Jackson.

When passing through town on the 12th, Reno and his brother supposedly encountered Barbara waving a small flag while standing in front of her home on West Patrick Street while the Union Army was heading west in pursuit of the Confederates via the National Road. The Renos are said to have witnessed Barbara holding her flag on the south side of the street in front of her home by Frederick’s Carroll Creek.

Simultaneously, their eyes were also caught by another resident on the north side of the street, here, by the approach of the bridge crossing over the town creek. This lesser-known figure in the annals of local history lore was another patriotic senior citizen aged in his upper 80s — Rev. Joseph Trapnell. Seeing both these mature individuals caused Gen. Reno to cheerfully call out to his soldiers, “Behold the Spirit of ’76!”
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This insinuated that both of these Frederick residents were the products of a greater generation who were alive at the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence (July 4th,1776) and witnessed our country winning the American Revolution. Gen. Reno then told his brother Frank that the aged female civilian reminded him of his deceased mother. With that, the Reno brothers apparently stopped to visit Barbara at her house by Carroll Creek.

​Barbara is said to have given the officer currant wine, along with allowing an opportunity to write a letter home from her family desk. As a parting gift, Dame Fritchie allegedly presented Reno with a flag, perhaps the one she supposedly waved at Jackson a few days earlier when she uttered the immortal line made famous by poet John Greenleaf Whittier:
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“Shoot if you must, this ole gray head, but spare your country’s flag.”

Ironically, it would be this flag that would accompany Reno’s dead body on its trip home to Massachusetts for proper burial a few days later.

​Gen. Jesse Reno died atop South Mountain on September 14th, 1862 while leading his men against Rebel forces in the vicinity of the Wise Farm at Fox’s Gap. This was the result of a sharpshooter’s bullet as Reno was surveying the field prior to twilight after a long day of battle.

​Gen. Reno's death would be a tremendous loss for the Union Army. He would be memorialized with a monument placed where he fell. Reno also has a road named for said monument here in county, but this isn't quite as impressive as the city named for the fallen officer in Nevada. 

Jesse Reno is buried in Washington D.C.’s Oak Hill Cemetery, and Barbara is, of course, residing in Mount Olivet as she would die just a few months after her meeting with the Union general. A couple hundred yards away from the heroine's grave is that of the other Frederick participant involved in the Reno “Spirit of ‘76” episode. Rev. Joseph Trapnell is buried in Area E/Lot 14.

​So, just who was Rev. Joseph Trapnell? Well, there were three individuals (all related) holding that name in September of 1862 when Reno came through town. Representing three generations of this English family, our subject was an immigrant to this country and both father and grandfather to the other two. Ironically, he would not possess the true "Spirit of '76" as he was an English citizen living in Great Britain at the time of the American Revolution. However, he was a Union supporter during the American Civil War, four-score later.

​Rev. Joseph Pearse Trapnell was a former Protestant Episcopal Minister, born in the neighborhood of Tiphill  in Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire, England. This civil parish is located ten miles east of Exeter and is known for St. Mary’s Church, dating from 1260. This Gothic masterpiece was consecrated 516 years before the legendary happenings in Philadelphia and the Continental Congress in July of 1776. However, our Rev. Trapnell was born a year earlier on November 8th, 1775 and was likely baptized in the ancient house of worship there near the banks of the Otterly River.

​Joseph and his sister Eleanor (b. 1759) were the children of John Trapnell (1734-1814) and Martha Leate (1737-1802). I found Trapnell family ancestors living here in Ottery St. Mary dating back to the 1500s, but could be much earlier.

I learned nothing of Joseph’s childhood or entry into the clergy, however I did find a marriage entry date of April 24th, 1809 at St. Thomas' Church in Salisbury, England, some 80 miles to the east of his childhood home. A reference hinted that Joseph could have eloped. Regardless, his bride took the form of Harriet Wylds, born January 29th, 1790 in Bemerton, Wiltshire, England. Our cemetery records show that she was the daughter of William and Sarah Wylds of Bemerton.

​​Always interested in geography, I found this village just outside of Salisbury and located roughly eight miles south of the famed Stonehenge. Bemerton is also eight miles away from Amesbury, the English namesake town for Amesbury, Massachusetts where John Greenleaf Whittier lived and penned his Ballad of Barbara Fritchie in 1863.

I know the couple lived here in Bemerton for at least five years after they exchanged vows because their three children were born here. This included Sarah Trapnell (b. January 10th, 1810), William Henry Trapnell (b. December 12th, 1811) and Joseph Trapnell, Jr. (b. June 19th, 1814). 

The Joseph Trapnell family would make its way to America and Maryland, with homes I assumed being dictated by his profession as a minister. He was naturalized as a United States citizen on September 25th, 1828, however he had come earlier. I would discover through immigration documents on Ancestry.com that this would be in June, 1819. The family shows up on the Frederick City census in 1820.

​I couldn't identify the Trapnell's home in 1820, but, in time, the Trapnells would own many properties in Frederick County including Frederick, Brunswick, Petersville and Middletown. Much of this was done by Rev. Joseph Trapnell, Jr. who would serve (later in life) as rector of St. Mark's Protestant Episcopal Church in Petersville in western Frederick County. My assistant, Marlyn Veek, compiled the following report of Trapnell property purchases:

Frederick:
Joseph Trapnell Sr. bought the lot just east of Carroll Creek, fronting W. Patrick Street, in 1824. Trapnell sold his lot to his sons Joseph and William in 1866. Today it has the address of 155-157 West Patrick Street.

​Let's get back to our other leading patriot of West Patrick Street, Rev. Joseph Trapnell, Sr. He sold the western portion of his West Patrick Street property to our legendary Frederick diarist Jacob Engelbrecht in the year 1826. This land actually bordered the creek and was situated exactly across from the original Barbara and John Fritchie house. Jacob writes about this with an entry in his diary on April 13th, 1826:

“This day I entered into articles of agreement with the Reverend Joseph Trapnell for a lot of ground adjoining Carroll’s Creek (east side) running with Patrick street to within eleven feet of his brick house dwelling and back to within three feet of his brick house. I having the privilege of the passage or alley terms three hundred dollars. One hundred down, one hundred in one year & one hundred in two years without interest. I am to have my deed by the 6 of May next. George Rohr Esquire holds the contract.”

Interesting to note that when Rev. Trapnell’s sons (William and Joseph, Jr.) sold their father’s property in 1869, the deed mentions that the sale did not include a 10-foot square parcel situated in the rear of Jacob Engelbrecht's house which had been granted to Engelbrecht to erect a "privy.”

​Engelbrecht and Trapnell went on to have a lifelong friendship and mutual respect as neighbors. This can be evidenced by Rev. Trapnell having Jacob as a witness to his own last will and testament in 1840, and again with a revision in 1860. Jacob also made an entry heralding Rev. Trapnell’s naturalization date, mentions a number of local weddings administered by the clergyman and discusses additions and improvements that Rev. Trapnell made to his home from time to time.

​When looking through J.T. Scharf’s 1882 History of Western Maryland for references to Rev. Joseph Trapnell, Sr., I found an interesting reference (on pg 518) saying that both Joseph and wife Harriet became members of Frederick’s Baptist Church on May 23rd, 1827.  However, the anecdote states that Joseph was excommunicated on July 25th, 1829. He would switch teams and join the Protestant Episcopal Church and was ordained in 1835 by a Bishop Stone. He became rector of St. Peter's Church in Montgomery County.

​From 1836-1844, Rev. Trapnell served as rector of Urbana’s Zion Protestant Episcopal Church. I also found that in 1837, he was a "professor of grammar" at St. John's College in Annapolis. This was the same school that Francis Scott Key attended at the turn of the 19th century. I saw several advertisements of him marrying local couples  here and in Montgomery County into the 1840s. 

Rev. Trapnell's greatest accomplishments were raising his children into adulthood and moving to America. He guided his sons toward careers with the church. As for his daughter, Sarah, she would marry in 1837, but would not be far from her father throughout her life. Sarah married a local man named Asfordby Beatty (b. 1807), a descendant of early Frederick settler Susannah (Asfordby) Beatty who came here in the 1730s  from Kingston, New York. Sadly, their marriage together was short as he would die in 1848, leaving her with at least four boys to care for. A year prior in 1847, Sarah had lost a 10-month-old daughter, Sarah Ellen. She would move back into the family home on West Patrick Street and can be found living here in both the 1850 and 1860 censuses with her parents and sons. 

​Rev. Trapnell's beloved wife, Harriet, would die suddenly on June 13th, 1853. Jacob Engelbrecht took time to report this loss in his diary, and a short announcement appeared in the Baltimore Sun. Mrs. Trapnell was buried in All Saints' Burying ground before being brought to Mount Olivet where she was later laid to rest in Area E/Lot 14 on December 23rd, 1854. Mount Olivet would not open until May, 1854 and at some point Sarah would re-bury her husband Asfordby, and daughter Sarah Ellen Beatty, here as well on December 15th, 1863 in Area F/Lot 68. This was less than five months before her own death.

As for Sarah Beatty, she was likely at arms reach to her father as he cheered Gen. Reno and the Union soldiers on September 12th, 1862. She would die less than two years later on April 6th, 1864 at the age of 54. Not only did Jacob Engelbrecht write about her death in his diary, he mentioned the honor of serving as a pall bearer for her funeral along with leading citizens Edward Trail, George W. Delaplaine and Valerius Ebert.

​In retirement, Rev. Joseph Trapnell, Sr. filled his time with his grandchildren and served on the Board of Directors of the Frederick Town Savings Institution in the late 1850s and early 1860s. After the death of his daughter and the end of the Civil War, it was decided best that he live with his son, Rev. Joseph, Jr. in the small village of Petersville. The younger Rev. Trapnell was the rector here at this time, and we discussed his living arrangements earlier in the story while taking charge of St. Mark's Protestant Episcopal Church. Rev. Joseph Trapnell, Sr. appears in the 1870 US Census living here. This enumeration was taken in the early summer of that year. 

Just a few months later, the English immigrant would pass on September 5th. His body would be brought to Mount Olivet for burial. ​

While there, Rev. W. H. Trapnell courted a profound, local woman named Mercy Annie Allen (1832-1908) for a few years. Ms. Allen was well educated and was an instructor at a school destined to become New York University. In 1872, Reverend Trapnell left Amsterdam for a parish in Upper Marlboro, Maryland at which time Annie and he finally married. She was 40, he was 60. He died four months later here in Upper Marlboro, the county seat of Price Georges County.

I learned that the new Mrs. Trapnell would not remarry, but would dedicate herself to the cause of advancing women. Her true claim to local fame was in establishing a local library for her town and also The Century Club in 1895. This latter achievement is still revered today in Amsterdam as her philanthropic and educational drive occurred at a time when women had not been received into full intellectual equality with men. Ms. Allen, knowing there were other women who shared her interest in books and study, invited twenty five friends to become the charter members of the Shakespeare-Browning class. These twenty five friends invited four friends each. When they met in one place, there were a hundred women searching for culture, self-improvement and knowledge.

​By 1908, the time of "Annie" Trapnell's death, the membership of The Century Club had increased to 250 women. The  Century Club still operates today, and St. Ann's would receive a memorial pulpit dedicated to Rev. William Henry Trapnell. Both Rev. Trapnell and wife Mercy Annie (Allen) Trapnell are buried in Amsterdam, New York's Green Hill Cemetery.

​​The Trapnells eventually moved to Keokuk, Lee County, Iowa, where a new Protestant Episcopal church, St. John's, had recently been built.  Missions were also being formed as Iowa had just received statehood in late 1846. The family would be back living in Frederick County by the early 1860s as Rev. Joseph Trapnell, Jr. would serve St. Mark's Church in Petersville.  

​We started this article talking about the American Civil War and it is very etched upon my mind as of late as I am currently teaching a four-week course entitled "Frederick in the Civil War" under my History Shark Productions brand. With Rev. Joseph Trapnell, Jr's enthusiastic support of General Jesse Reno in September, 1862, he followed up by making a generous contribution less than a year later after the Battle of Gettysburg for the care of Union soldiers. One would think the man, and his family, were avid and loyal supporters of the Union cause. That brings us to Rev. Trapnell's namesake grandson Joseph, Jr. who was a southern sympathizer and secessionist.

In Jacob Engelbrecht's diary, I found this entry dated August 2nd, 1862:
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"More Arrests - Last night (near 10 o'clock Friday August 1 1862) the Provost Marshal entered the shoe store of J.F. Hill (middle store of German Reformed building) and arrested Mordaunt C. Winchester, Adolphus Fearhake, Junior, Francis Brengle, James McSherry Junior, J.R. Hill, Joseph P. Pope, Joseph P. Myers, Milton G. Urner and Joseph Trapnell of Jos Junior. Subsequently, they arrested Thomas E. Pope, John Myers. Winchester, Fearhake, Brengle, McSherry, Trapnell, & Pope were released on Sunday night 9 o'clock August 17 1862 by taking the oath of allegiance to the United States."

This Joseph Trapnell's life story is equally interesting and we can again thank his grandfather (Rev. Joseph Trapnell, Sr.) for help making it possible. Here is a transcript of an obituary for this gentleman from a Charles Town, WV newspaper called the Spirit of Jefferson and published March 19th, 1912:

"Joseph Trapnell III of Charles Town, W Va, died Saturday, am March 16, 1912. Born in the city of Annapolis, Md, September 1, 1842.  A grandson of Rev Joseph Trapnell, who was born at Ottery, St Mary, Devonshire, England, November 8, 1775. Oldest son of Rev Joseph Trapnell, D D, who was born at Bemerton, Wiltshire, England, June 19, 1814. Our subject's boyhood days were spent in Baltimore, Bristol, R I , and Keokuk, Iowa, where his father was rector of churches in these places. He commenced the study of law in the office of Belknap & Lomax, at Keokuk, Iowa, in 1859.

In 1861 (his father having moved to St Mark's parish, Frederick Co, Md) he continued his legal studies with Joseph Palmer, esq, a noted attorney of Frederick, Md, until Sept 1862, when he entered the Confederate Army on the 12th, Company G, 7th Va Cavalry, where he remained until the late fall of 1864, when he joined the Maryland Battalion, which had the honor of being the last part of the noble army of northern Virginia to surrender.

In the summer of 1865 he continued his interrupted studies in the office of the late N S White, esq, at Charles Town, W Va. In Oct, 1866, he was admitted to the bar at Frederick, Md, and commenced the practice of his profession with his late preceptor, N S White, making the firm of White & Trapnell. On Nov 20, 1866, he was united in marriage in Zion Church, Charles Town, with Miss Rebecca Holmes White, only child of his preceptor and partner. The Rev Joseph Trapnell officiated.

His long useful life in the practice of his profession was spent in this ancient and beautiful town. He was chancellor of the diocese of West Virginia, a lay deputy to the general convention of the church, which meets every three years, since 1889; a vestryman, of Zion church, Charles Town, or warden, for upwards of forty years. Throughout the whole valley of Virginia, especially, and in all parts of the state and adjoining states of Virginia and Maryland, in many parts his professional ability made him much sought after - especially in the intricacies of the great science, he was known to be a master of the law.

Respected, honored, loved by the whole community, after a life spent there of nearly 47 years, he will be missed in the church and state. He leaves a widow and one sister. His brother is Dr R Watkins Trapnell, of Point of Rocks, and his sister Miss Ella Trapnell, of Middletown, Md."

Joseph Trapnell III is buried in Zion Cemetery in Charles Town as are many of his siblings and children. One of these is his oldest son, Benjamin Trapnell (1867-1926) who joined the US military, but his stay was brief. 

​Benjamin and several cousins attended the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland—although Benjamin's military career was cut short by an infamous hazing incident. On August 31st, 1883, Captain Ramsay convened a court-martial to try the third-class cadets accused of violating the Hazing Law.

​The court-martial made national news and received daily coverage in the New York Times and other large newspapers. The first cadet tried was Benjamin Trapnell, who had the most numerous and serious hazing charges against him. Trapnell’s alleged acts included making some fourth-class cadets stand on their heads while wearing only nightshirts, making another sit cross-legged in his hammock while he swung the hammock until the underclassman was thrown to the deck, and making another lie motionless in a tank in the washroom for ten minutes. The court convicted Trapnell. 

Several other cousins were officers in the United States Army as was Benjamin's brother, Wallace Probasco Trapnell, who served in the Signal Corps. Following his father, Frederick Mackay Trapnell attended the Naval Academy, graduated, and was commissioned an ensign in 1923. Frederick Trapnell was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey. After serving for two years at sea on board the battleship USS California and the cruiser USS Marblehead, Trapnell was assigned to Naval Air Station Pensacola in 1926 for flight training, thus beginning his career as a naval aviator.

Frederick M. Trapnell was the first US Navy pilot to fly a jet aircraft, was considered the best, most experienced naval test aviator of his generation, co-founded the branch's first test pilot school, and played a pivotal role in both the development of future Naval aircraft and the survival of the post-World War II Navy's air arm. In 2015, Trapnell was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum. 
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Trapnell was appointed as commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea, effective April 29, 1950. He immediately put his extensive aviator experience to use in order to increase efficiency. Among other innovations, Trapnell revised the system and apparatus utilized for carrier take-offs, considerably streamlining the amount of time expended for the procedure.
 
In February 1951, he was promoted to rear admiral and became- in March- deputy commander of both Sandia Base and the Field Command Armed Forces Special Weapons Project at Albuquerque, New Mexico. He served in this capacity until April 1952 and soonafter medically retired with the rank of vice admiral.
 
After the Navy, Frederick M. Trapnell worked as a consultant for Grumman Aircraft for the next 23 years and became a sailing enthusiast. On April 1st, 1976, the air field at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland's St. Mary's County was officially named "Trapnell Field" in his honor. 

Frederick W. Trapnell was a cousin of Bataan Death March survivor, Thomas John Hall "Trap" Trapnell (1902–2002), a United States Army lieutenant general. He was the son of Joseph H. Trapnell, Jr. (1871-1922), son of Joseph Trapnell III of Charles Town. This gentleman was a West Point grad and career officer who served in World War II and the Korean War. Trapnell survived the Bataan Death March and the sinking of two transportation ships during World War II, put down a rebellion of prisoners of war in the Korean War, was the top US advisor to the French during the French Indochina War, and advised against US involvement in Vietnam. He rose to the rank of three-star general before his military retirement and, at the time of his death, was the oldest living member of the Philippine Scouts.

​Meanwhile, Lt. Gen. Trapnell's brother, Walter Scott Kennedy Trapnell, rose to the rank of commander in the United States Navy during World War II. Commander Trapnell, was a 1921 graduate of the United States Naval Academy who married five times and was forced to leave the Navy when an investigation allegedly uncovered evidence that he was operating a bordello while stationed in the Panama Canal Zone. His wife had attended Radcliffe College and was a member of an old Massachusetts family.

​​Enter son Garrett Brock Trapnell (1938-1993), the most infamous Trapnell of them all. His parents were divorced when he was 4, and he lived his younger years with his mother in Massachusetts. Garrett dropped out of high school, and lived for a time in a brothel in Panama City and joined the Army at the age of 17. He served at Fort Hood, Texas where an uncle was the commanding general, but he developed a long record of infractions and was finally discharged after he shot himself, apparently accidentally.

This led to a colorful career as a con man, bank robber, and aircraft hijacker of the 1960s and early 1970s. Trapnell robbed a string of banks in Canada, frequently posed as an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, masterminded a $100,000 jewelry store heist in Freeport, Bahamas, and simultaneously maintained marriages with at least six women. When arrested for his crimes, he frequently feigned madness and successfully used the insanity defense to be committed to mental institutions, from which he would later escape or be released on the grounds that he was no longer dangerous. While serving life imprisonment for the hijacking of a TWA passenger airliner in 1972, he was the subject of a book, The Fox Is Crazy Too, written by journalist Eliot Asinof.

Our subject, Joseph Trapnell, Sr., gave rise to American patriots just like his neighbor Barbara Fritchie who was a poster child for inspiring countless others. The Protestant Episcopal minister had a lineage that gave us at least three great, great grandsons who would shine through their military duty to his new country of the United States of America and countless other descendants who continue to make important contributions. Unfortunately, there is always one bad apple in every bunch. That would be his scoundrel great, great, great grandson who was not a shining legacy to say the least.

You can't win them all, I guess, but what a fascinating history of a family progenitor buried in Frederick's Mount Olivet —one of oh, so many fascinating progenitors.

​Labor Day is upon us once again! As many know, this isn’t a religious or cultural day of observation, but rather a federal holiday celebrated on the first Monday of September to honor, and recognize, the American labor movement and the works and contributions of laborers to the development and achievements of the United States.

Not all individuals get the day off, but most do. Naturally, those that have to labor on Labor Day are generally employed within health and public safety professions, while others are engaged in hospitality (hotel/restaurant/attractions) and retail trades. The first Labor Day in America was celebrated in New York in 1882. Other states started recognizing the holiday one by one until it was made a national holiday in 1894.

I wonder if John Walter, our featured subject for this week’s “Story in Stone,” labored on Labor Days throughout his lifetime? He died in October, 1905, having the opportunity to celebrate eleven Labor Days if my math is correct.

John Walter was an immigrant who came to Frederick in the mid-19th century and "labored" as a professional collector and purveyor of junk and scrap, and what others would deem trash. But let me clarify, there is certainly a difference, and distinction, to be made between junk and scrap and trash—especially to the well-trained eye. Few in Frederick’s past (and present) can rival the success experienced by John Walter, although Mount Olivet resident Bernie Winkel certainly comes to mind. Mr. Winkel, the self-proclaimed “Used Car King of Maryland,” had a scrapyard of old Model T's and other vehicles which was located on W. Patrick St. at the site of the soon to be gone Patrick Street Center. He specialized in automobiles and “junk cars” for “junk parts,” where Mr. Walter was open to “junk” of all sorts, shapes and sizes.

John Walter achieved a great reputation as a businessman, and held a high standing in the community. This is quite impressive for a humble “junk dealer.” He is buried in Mount Olivet’s Area G/Lot 62 and his final resting spot is marked with an impressive monument featuring a shrouded woman with arms folded across her chest, gazing upwards toward the heavens in what appears to be prayer and contemplation. The white marble statue sits atop a polished, granite base. Upon closer inspection, one will notice that the woman is actually holding a small anchor in her left hand. Anchors represent "hope" in the annals of monument iconography. 

​Volume II of T.J.C. Williams’ History of Frederick County, Maryland includes biographies on notable living Frederick Countians. At the time of its publishing in 1910, John Walter was included posthumously as he  had passed five years earlier in 1905, as already mentioned. Here is a transcript of that biography which appears on pg. 981 of the original printing:

“The Late John Walter, a retired business man and capitalist of Frederick, Md., was born in Germany in 1825.
Mr. Walter’s parents died while he was a little child and he was cared for by friends. He received his education in the public school and he was still but a lad when he began to learn the machinists’ trade. He was a little more than a child when he was thrown upon his own resources and was literally compelled “to paddle his own canoe.” He was only sixteen when he decided to go to America, of which he had heard so much. He had very little money, but not being one who was deterred by slight obstacles, he found a place on a ship where he was allowed to work for passage money. He came at once to Frederick, Md., and, for a time, things looked pretty dark for the orphan boy, alone in a strange land, without money or friends. No one had any employment for him, and he was almost in despair but at length Mr. F(rederick) Pampel gave him a place as a machinist. The youth was faithful to his duties there and, at the end of five years, he was employed by Doub & Glaze, machinists.

​After spending four years with this firm, Mr. Walter began buying “junk.” He had good judgment in buying and made a great success of his enterprise. The same sound judgment guided him in investing his profits, and at his death, Mr. Walter possessed railroad securities and valuable real estate in Frederick and in the surrounding county. He always respected the rights of his fellow men, never overreaching them, but was strictly upright and honorable in all his dealings. A large share of his fortune was made during the Civil War in which he took no active part. After that time, he was a Republican. Mr. Walter was a resident of Frederick from his youth, and had been actively interested in everything related to the development and prosperity of his adopted City. He soon won a competence and, secure from fear of want in his old age, he enjoyed life thoroughly. His friends were legion, and to one and all he extended most hospitably, the courtesies of his comfortable home. He was an entertaining conversationalist, and his friends enjoyed his graphic account of the way in which he obtained his start in financial affairs. He was a member of the Odd Fellows, of the encampment, and of the Order of Red Men.

John Walter was married, in 1848, to Elizabeth Pampel, a daughter of his first employer. Of their ten children, eight reached maturity: 1. Sarah C., married to John O. Smith, a lumber merchant of Hagerstown, Md.; 2. Jacob W. of Hanover, Pa.; 3. Alice V., married to Jacob F. Snyder, a retired farmer of Germantown, Md.; 4. Charles G., deceased; 5. Lewis C., a locksmith, of Frederick City; 6. Florence M., (Mrs William F. Snyder), of Frederick City; 7. Edward H., optician, Hanover, Pa.; 8. Bertie E., married first to the late Professor Mitchell E. Daniels, of Vergannes, Vt., and after his death to James F. Eldridge, of Washington, D.C. For more than three decades, Mr. Walter resided at the old home on North Market Street where he died October 26, 1905, and was laid to rest in Mount Olivet Cemetery, beside his wife, who had died in 1902. He held the faith of his ancestors and was identified with the Lutheran Church. For more than thirty years, he had been superintendent of the Sunday School, and actively engaged in the work among the young people with whom he was a great favorite.”

​Jacob Engelbrecht’s diary features several entries involving Mr. Walter and was well-known to the author in addition to attending the same church. As a matter of fact, John Walter lived across the street from the tailoring business shop that Jacob and his brothers operated on N. Market Street just north of the old Market House/Town Hall (today’s home of Brewer’s Alley Restaurant).

A few diary entries around the time of the Civil War were particularly interesting:

“Our neighbor, Mr. John Walter, who went to Winchester about 2 months ago on the trading business, that is, following the United States Army, was taken prisoner by the army of General (Stonewall) Jackson (Rebel) & taken with the prisoners captured of the First Maryland regiment of Colonel Kenly, Jackson took nearly all the civilians who were trading with the Yankees, as they call the United States Army. This information was received today from a gentleman who had been to Winchester. He was captured May 25, 1862."
Friday, June 6, 1862

"Mr. John Walter arrived in our town this forenoon at 11 & 1/2 o’clock in the Hagerstown Stage. He was not captured but was in Winchester on the day of the fight (May 25) & saw much of the battle. He gave us the particulars a bit ago."
Saturday, June 7, 1862

"Battlefield—Mr. John Walter was at the battlefield yesterday near Boonsborough and he says such sights beat everything. Dead soldiers in heaps decomposing & horses in the same way. At one place he says he saw a pile of dead Rebels in a kind of ravine as long as the width of the street (60 feet) in layers of 3, 4, 5 heaped on each other. Already decomposed, (they were of the last Sunday’s fight already) & the stench was exceedingly offensive. In all the battles fought, `(and they have been at it nearly every day since Sunday last the 14th instant) the number of killed and wounded on both sides must have been tremendous."
Saturday, September 20, 1862

"John Walter & Frederick Kehler (constable) had a striking affair this afternoon. Kehler had process against Walter on dog taxes. When he refused to pay & Walter having his dander raised struck Kehler with a hammer. Did not injure him much."
Tuesday, March 15, 1864

"Mr. John Walter (our neighbor opposite the city hall) told me today that he arrived at New York from “Ipsheim” (his place of nativity) Germany on the “18th of August 1845” in the ship “Agnes” from Bremen. Came to Frederick Maryland, September 3, 1845."
Wednesday, March 7, 1866

​I was disappointed that I couldn’t find any of Mr. Walter’s advertisements for his junk business from any old newspapers. I’m assuming junkyards, junk warehouses and the like did not do a great deal of marketing. I did find locations for two former sites of his business. They appear on Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These atlas maps were created to assist fire and rescue units with understanding the layout of businesses and dwellings in town. In 1887, John Walter’s junkyard could be found on the former West Alley between W. Fourth and W. Fifth streets. This thoroughfare is known as Klinehart’s Alley today, and a few ruins and remnants of the old brick support buildings can be found. The site hosted a soap factory as well.

​Within a few years, I learned that Mr. Walter apparently relinquished this property to John F. Baumgartner. In a January, 2020 edition of Preservation Matters, City of Frederick historic planner Christian Martinkosky writes:
​
“Perhaps the most notable site was a multifaceted business operated by John F. Baumgardner, a German immigrant. It was between Fourth and Fifth streets, adjacent to a slaughterhouse. Baumgardner likely relied on locally sourced animal products to make fine soaps and phosphates, in addition to running a junkyard.”

​We wrote about Mr. Baumgardner, and his son Harry, in a “Story in Stone” back in 2021 as they were very successful in both the junk business, and, more so, the meat processing and retail business. These operations including the junk yard and soap-works, with the addition of a slaughterhouse plant, gave labor to local Blacks living in the immediate vicinity along West Alley as one can see several property clusters on the Sanborn Map labeled simply as “Negro Dwellings.”

Christina Martinkosky, in her article, references the housing plight and relocation of these residents, decades later through government housing projects:

“The mid-20th century brought great change to Klinehart’s Alley. Driven by urban renewal projects, homes along the alley between Fifth and Seventh streets were cleared out. In 1942, the Roger Brooke Taney Apartments were constructed. This community was made up of eight large housing units holding 68 apartments to accommodate low-income white families. A second development, known as the John Hanson Homes, cleared another section of the historically black neighborhood in 1959. These developments have since been demolished and replaced with new homes. Today, only traces of the former neighborhood can be detected, including remnants of Baumgardner’s business.”

John Walter moved to another location as the town was certainly big enough to support two junkyards. This was a pre-existing junkyard on E. Third Street next to the Ruprecht family’s mattress manufactory, and near the cross street of Middle Alley—then known as Locust Alley. The new Walter family business location can be found on the subsequent 1892 Sanborn Map drawn and published for Frederick City.

​And speaking of family businesses, John’s wife, Elizabeth, was a milliner—a maker of women’s hats. I also stumbled upon a listing of a school being taught in the family home on N. Market Street. But just where was this home? I read that he owned some homes on East Third and could have lived or had business on North Market St. Locust Alley properties once in his portfolio are now part of the Maxwell Square Condominiums. Locust Alley is now called Maxwell Avenue.

​John and his wife lived at what is now 129 N. Market Street. This is known as the River Bar & Grill today. The year before his death, Mr. Walter sold his house to his daughter Florence (1904), retaining the right to "use, occupy and enjoy" the room which he used as a bedroom. Florence, like her mother, was a milliner and ran her business out of the home. Interestingly, Elizabeth (Lewis) Peters, who we also once wrote about in conjunction to Miss Bird Smith's re-interment in Mount Olivet bought this building from Florence (Walter) Snyder's heirs in 1970 and owned it until 1973.

​All of John Walter's other properties, on E. 3rd Street and on Locust Alley, were sold at public sale after his death, by William P. Maulsby, trustee. The house at 27 E. 3rd Steet was sold to Edward Walter and his sister Florence (Walter) Snyder, while the remaining properties were sold to Lewis Walter. He apparently mortgaged them in 1908 but then they were advertised for public sale by the mortgagee in 1916.

In researching the deeds, I found that John Walter's youngest daughter Bertha was married to a Mitchell Daniels (oculist from Vermont) from 1890 until his death in 1902, then to a James Fillmore Eldridge from 1904 until his death in 1908. Interestingly, Bertha Eldridge served as a milliner in Thurmont, as this article from the Catoctin Clarion of 7 Sept 1905 shows:

​Mrs. Walter died in 1902 and her obituary was quite lengthy. At some point, we will tackle the story of her parents, particularly her father Frederick Pampel, creator of the Pampel Foundry that once stood on the southwest corner of W. South Street and Broadway Avenue.

​I found several mentions of John Walter in local newspapers, but none greater than this obituary which added a few interesting details to the biography found in Williams’ History of Frederick County. It appeared in the October 27th, 1905 issue of the Frederick News, while also appearing in the Baltimore Sun.

​I could not find any information on the installation of the Walter monument on the site, but I’d bet that it went up in the immediate years after Elizabeth’s death and before John’s death (ie: 1903, 1904 or 1905). Other family members buried here in the Walter plot include infant children Cassandra and John, along with Charles G. Walter (d. 1897), Lewis C. Walter (d. 1923), and Katie Elizabeth Walter (d. 1881). Florence (Walter) Snyder is buried in the adjoining plot.

Happy Labor Day....and all of that junk!

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This cover photograph at the top of this story is not a Frederick scene. It was taken by photographer Joe Clark in 1939 and is part of the collection entitled: Clark Family Photography Collection and was provided by the UNT Libraries Special Collections to The Portal to Texas History, a digital repository hosted by the UNT Libraries. If you have any photos of the former junkyard/scrapyard or warehouse sites connecting to John Walter or his family, please contact me as we'd love to include them with this story.

​Earlier this summer, I was pecking along on the internet, preparing for teaching one of my “Frederick History 201” classes. I wanted to learn a little more detail regarding the history of the Frederick County Courthouse. In particular, I was seeking information on the structure’s architecture and builder by the name of Henry McCleery.

In saying this, I need to make a few clarifications to assist you in figuring out which building  and geographic location I am referring to here. First off, I am talking about the second (of four) courthouses that Frederick County has witnessed being built, and utilized, since the 1750s. The greater locale is within the heart of historic downtown Frederick City.

The particular courthouse in question, and pictured at the top of the story, no longer stands. If it had a gravestone, it would read 1785-1861. We do have its 1862 replacement, but that building is not our present courthouse (#4), which is located on the northwest corner of West Patrick and North Court streets and built in 1982.

​​We are fortunate to still possess former courthouse (#3) —another example of Frederick's many "adaptive reuse" success stories. Today, this building of Italianate design is in its fifth decade of service as Frederick City Hall and like its predecessor (courthouse #2) is positioned within Court House Square, often called "Court Square" for short. This "public yard" has served as Frederick's  village common, or green, far longer than Baker Park and is sandwiched in between Council and West Church streets to the north and south respectively, and North Court and Record streets to the east and west.

So what happened to Frederick's second county courthouse? Well, it burned down in 1861 in the early days of the American Civil War. Some say it could have been an accident, and others say it was arson and an early victim of political protest. Either way, Henry McCleery’s Georgian style masterpiece left us shortly after its 75th anniversary. If anything else, it was certainly more durable and accommodating than our first courthouse, while helping to launch the legal careers of many men of mark including Roger Brooke Taney and Francis Scott Key.

In case you were curious, the first Frederick County Courthouse was built in this same Court Square vicinity after our county's founding in 1748. The Maryland General Assembly ordered that Frederick be the site of the county seat.  On a chosen location on the northwest side of the fledgling village, land would be obtained for the purpose. The order stated:

“That the said three Acres shall be laid out in an exact Square, and staked and well bounded, and that the Courthouse aforesaid shall be built in the Centre of the same Square, and that the Prison or Prisons for the same County shall be built on the South Side of the same Square.”

​Construction began in 1750 but was delayed for some time thanks in part to the French & Indian War which led to the confiscation of workers’ wagons for the war effort among other things. Talk about your supply chain issues! Anyway, the project would eventually be completed in 1756 and hosted the legendary Stamp Act Repudiation less than a decade later in November, 1765. Court Square would be the site of a large mock funeral for "the recently expired" Stamp Act, a satiric protest put on by our local “chapter” of the Sons of Liberty.

​Frederick Town continued to attract a number of talented attorneys and legal minds to work in its courts including Revolutionary War patriots Thomas Johnson, Jr. and John Hanson. The county’s growth naturally necessitated a new courthouse be built, one that could properly accommodate the needs of court business. At the same time, historic records show that the first courthouse and jail (Gaol) were in a shabby state of deterioration. The year was 1785, and that is when the fore-mentioned Henry McCleery enters our story:

“Whereas the Justices and sundry Inhabitants of Frederick County by their petition to the General Assembly have represented, that the Court House and Gaol are at present in a very impaired State—That the former is so much out of repair, that the public papers and Records are not only exposed to be purloined and taken out of the office above Stairs, but to be damaged and defaced by every driving rain and Snow that may happen by penetrating into the Office among the said Records and papers, that the Walls of the said Court House are giving away being Cracked and Chasms made from the foundation to the roof thereof that the Gaol is likewise in a very decayed State and will be insufficient with all the repairs that can be given to secure Criminals.” (Laws, Liber T.B.H. No. A, pp. 46.r)-66, Ms)

Historian Thomas J. Scharf adds to the story in his commentary on the building of the second courthouse in his History of Western Maryland (published in 1882):

“The members of the General Assembly heard this cry of distress and thereupon empowered the justices of the county to levy up to £2,000 current money. They were also granted permission to sell whatever materials in the old courthouse which could not be used in the new building and to add the proceeds to the building fund. By 1787, the outside of the new courthouse was finished, but the interior was not ready and as is usual in these cases, the money had all been expended. It was necessary, therefore, to return to the General Assembly with a second plea, this time for £750 current money. An act authorizing this further levy was passed at the April Session, 1787.

Although it was apparently not finished at the time, the court began sitting in the new courthouse in March 1787. From the time of the razing of the old, and the completion or near completion of the new, courthouse, quarters were secured for the court in the house of Mrs. Rebecca Owen, for which she was allowed thirteen pounds and fifteen shillings at the November Term of 1786.”

The court had appointed a building commission on April 8th, 1785 to supervise the building, and apparently it was this body that employed our subject, Henry McCleery. This man was described by former Court Square resident, historian, politician and international statesman, Charles McCurdy “Mac” Mathias (1922-2010) as "Frederick's little known but highly talented architect” in an article written about his childhood home in the 1950s.

​So back to my innocent Google journey from last June. I stumbled upon a particularly evocative entry within search engine results for “McCleery architect” on a site called www.Biblio.com, a privately owned international online marketplace specializing in rare and collectible books. My find was for an online sale entry for actual work books and ledgers belonging to Henry McCleery and his family. These were  billed as “manuscripts having enormous research value, containing, as they do, a copious amount of first hand information about the architectural and building history of Frederick spanning fifty years, 1790-1840.”

Now I had seen references before to some of the McCleery family papers. These reside in repositories such as the Maryland State Historical Society in Baltimore and the Hall of Records in Annapolis. I also have seen that some McCleery papers and sketches are located at the prestigious Winterthur Museum in northern Delaware. 

My attention was certainly gotten in reading the sale's very detailed description. Here’s just the opening stanza:

“OVER 1100 PAGES OF MANUSCRIPT CONSTRUCTION RECORDS AND ACCOUNTS IN THIRTEEN FOLIO VOLUMES OF AN IMPORTANT FREDERICK, MARYLAND, 18th/19th CENTURY IRISH IMMIGRANT ARCHITECT AND MASTER BUILDER, INCLUDING THOSE OF HIS SONS, WHO WERE HIS BUSINESS PARTNERS AND SUCCESSORS, KEPT OVER A PERIOD OF FIFTY YEARS, 1790-1840
BOOK #1. McCLEERY, Henry (1749-1819), Irish-American architect and master builder in Frederick, Maryland, who built most of Frederick's significant structures in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Tall folio ledger book, original flexible boards (worn & soiled), signed on front cover: "Henry McCleery/ his Book/ 1790 January 1st," then again, "Henry McCleery His Book," with dates "1790/1791/1792/1793," and "Alegheny Lotts in this Book 1790 page 20"; over 320 pages of manuscript in 4 sections, crudely side-sewn and bound as one, ca. pp. [76] + [76] + [80] + [90], each section with alphabetical list of clients/customers + 12 simple original sketch plans of buildings with dimensions, written on laid paper with ProPatria watermark. Frederick, Maryland, this volume, 1790, 1791, 1792, 1793, [1796, 1814-1815, 1821]: Additional volumes described below covering the years 1794, 1800, 1810, 1811, 1821-30, 1830, 1831, 1834-40, 1836, 1840. Thirteen volumes of bound manuscript, tall folios, approximately 1100 pp. Condition is generally used, as would be expected, but very good, as described for each volume. An extraordinary collection of manuscript account books delineating an early American architectural and construction business conducted by Henry McCleery.”

​This listing contained a treasure-trove of local history! But, alas, my find was nothing more than “a ghost page” as the sale had already been completed by an independent firm by in Sheffield, Massachusetts by the name of Howard S. Mott, Inc. The company is a collector/reseller specializing in early Americana, historical books and magazines, autograph letters, etc. I could find no corresponding date, or any info on the seller, buyer or successful bid. Where are these books residing today?  

I surely hope that these invaluable workbooks made their way back to Frederick, or at least Maryland. If not, maybe they are in the possession of a caring family member or property owner. Odds are they are now owned by a museum or architectural history fan who appreciates their magnificent importance. And if the buyer ever reads this humble blog in the future, please consider sending our Heritage Frederick (the former Historical Society of Frederick County) a copy of the books to help us understand the McCleery built structures, and family, a bit better. No one appreciates their history and historic buildings like Frederick with our much-heralded, 50-block Downtown Frederick Historic District.

​So, just who is Henry McCleery? Well, in addition to giving Frederick some pretty amazing edifices, he also is responsible for even more descendants, with plenty buried here in Mount Olivet Cemetery including himself.

​In 1778, Henry McCleery bought a 39'x 83' lot fronting on Market Street from Charles Beatty, next to the north side of the "Market House", where he apparently had his house, and later bought several adjoining properties as well as other properties in and near Frederick. Of course, the Market House property was enlarged, later in 1874 when the opera house was built, so the location of Henry's house is where the northern section of Brewers Alley now is. This house stayed in the family until 1855, although after 1841 it was occupied by William Beall (whose sister Rebecca had married Robert McCleery).
 
Henry McCleery's will was proved in 1820, leaving everything to his three sons equally including several lots in Frederick and his old construction shop which once fronted on East Second Street, just west of the alley that takes one to Market Space. This was said to be the lot east of his mother-in-law's house (Mary Ritchie) and across the alley from the Old Lutheran Graveyard behind the Evangelical Lutheran Church. The Schaeffer Center occupies the majority of the old graveyard today. Interestingly, this location of the McCleery workshop was near the site of the Tory Gaol during the Revolutionary War. 

​Buildings of Frederick attributed to McCleery are plenty with his main achievement being the second county courthouse (1785). It was reportedly designed using the Court of Assizes in Dublin, Ireland as a model. Other construction marvels that still stand include the second All Saint's Episcopal Church (1813) on North Court Street and the Frederick Presbyterian Church (1825) on West Second Street. In some accounts, he is revered for designing and building the famed steeple atop Trinity Chapel which would serve home to the town clock built by Frederick Heisley. This is usually attributed to Stephen Steiner, as are the twin spires of the fore-mentioned Evangelical Lutheran, but this could have been McCleery's design or handiwork in partnering with Steiner.

​Henry McCleery was also responsible for producing numerous other taverns and houses here. The former Potts House on the corner of North Court and West Church streets was built by Henry McCleery after being designed by the noted architect Robert Mills who is responsible for many early government buildings of Washington, D.C.

The sale description states that “there are four pages detailing work accomplished in 1821 for the Committee of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Henry McCleery's manuscripts, with voluminous additions by his sons after his death, provide a wealth of previously unknown information about the flourishing business conducted by these architect/master builders, all regarding properties and businesses they served in Frederick County, as well as some in Georgetown. The initial accounts/records are carried over from a previous "folio," whereabouts, if extant, unknown to us. These thirteen volumes containing more than 1100 pages offer an extraordinary amount of descriptive accounting information about the business activities of McCleery and his sons, with names of their many customers, with all jobs priced and described as completed for some of the most distinguished personages of late 18th and early 19th century Frederick.”

I couldn’t garner a great deal of information on the man himself, as most information accompanies histories pertaining to his children and later descendants. Henry McCleery was born in 1749, in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. His father was Andrew McCleery, (1724-1794) and his mother, Martha E Rea (1724-1813). Henry arrived in America in the late 1760s and would marry Martha Ritchie (b. August 5th, 1755) in 1768. Martha was the daughter of William Ritchie (1726-1765) and Mary Beatty Middagh (1732-1818). The union produced nine known children: four sons (Henry, Andrew, Robert, and William) and five daughters (Mary (Knight) (1779-1820) , Zeruiah (Knox) (1783-1839), Susanna (McLanahan) (1786-1848), Frances (Beall) (1791-1852), and Cairissa.

​I learned that Henry worked his early years in Frederick as a house carpenter and joiner, as listed in some of the early deeds. He is said to have produced the upright cases for grandfather clocks made by John Fessler. I read that he very likely paid someone to take his place in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. His service is noted as making coffins for deceased soldiers. Of course he would be tasked with designing Frederick’s court house just after the end of the conflict that gave him and his countrymen their independence.

An article found while researching for this blog story says that an old hinge had been found on the property of the Old All Saints Burying Ground (by Carroll Creek) sometime after the cemetery’s removal to Mount Olivet in 1913. The hardware resembled that which McCleery used regularly on both the clock cases and coffins he produced. This information came from a lecture given by Joseph W. Urner, a lineal descendant of McCleery, and a fine architect and sculptor in his own right, to the Frederick County Historical Society back in 1950. We have three of this particular gentleman’s sculpted busts in Mount Olivet including those of Roger Brooke Taney, Thomas Johnson, Jr. and Dr. Amon Burgee, and he also was the sculptor of the Alabama State Monument on the Gettysburg Battlefield. Speaking of Thomas Johnson, Urner said in his talk that Henry McCleery was tasked to build a coffin for Maryland’s Revolutionary hero and first elected governor. Both men (McCleery and Johnson) died in the same year of 1819.

​Martha McCleery died on December 12th, 1815, and Henry passed on November 23rd, 1819 at the age of 70. They were both originally buried in the Old English Presbyterian burial ground that once occupied the southwest corner of the intersection between North Bentz Street and West Fourth Street where Dill Avenue begins. The contents of that burial ground were eventually moved to Mount Olivet in the latter part of the 19th century. Our records show that Henry McCleery's grandsons (Perry and Robert) had the bodies of their grandparents (along with several of Henry and Martha's children) disinterred and moved in September of 1863 to the family plot in Mount Olivet's Area H.

​Henry McCleery was undoubtedly a very wealthy man. I have reason to believe that he lived in Georgetown, District of Columbia, after the death of Martha, as this was the place he filed his will in 1818. In his will, he assigns a Georgetown home on Washington Street to son Henry, and it seems as though his eldest son is sick or debilitated and requires "maintenance." I'm thinking that Henry cared for this man, at the time in his late thirties. This same Henry, Jr. would die just a few years later in 1822. His daughter Cairissa never married, and was recipient of his primary home in Frederick Town.

Henry left his daughters large amounts of cash, and  shares in the Bank of Columbia, Farmers Bank of Maryland, Union Bank of Georgetown, and Bank of Baltimore. Other properties and building lots in Frederick were divided amongst his three younger sons as were houses and lots in D.C., along with an importing and exporting company, a shop, and a tavern in Georgetown. He also had shares in the Bank of Columbia, Farmers Bank of Maryland, Union Bank of Georgetown, and Bank of Baltimore.

​The term “Adamesque” had me recalling the John Adams miniseries that first aired on HBO well over a decade ago. In that program, a unique scene included the construction of the White House by slaves under the direction of architect James Hoban. The McCleery House in Georgetown shares many similar features with "the President's Home" and some historians have wondered if Hoban shared his knowledge in the construction of McCleery’s home. It would be interesting to see whether this was simply the architectural genius of our subject who may have influenced Hoban, or vice versa, to be used in the McCleerys’ later ventures. We will likely never know.

Slave labor and construction of this time period is often a missing part of the early building history of our country. They certainly made an important contribution to erecting countless amazing structures that began as humble drawings and designs on paper. The Biblio.com auction listing I found shares glimpses of Frederick’s African American heritage. I was fortunate to find the following in the auction entry writeup:

“Maryland being a slave state, there is much here mentioning named Negro labor, whether slave or free, we don't know, although we do know that the slave population in Frederick was substantial. Building, contracting, carpentry work of all types with different wood such as poplar, ash, chestnut, etc., building houses, making doors, paneled doors, windows, sashes, chimneys, bricks, flooring, joists, shutters, nails, stock locks, boards, scantling, rafters, gutters, etc., etc., also custom furniture making, copious numbers of coffins made to order for children and adults, with some of the more expensive versions described with details of wood, polish, fittings; some for the poor, McCleery apparently having an ongoing contract to provide coffins for those who died in the Poor House, including Negroes.

Included are many renovations, building of complete structures, the buying and selling of various types of lumber and wooden building materials. Accomplished jobs are given full treatment, with names, dates, work accomplished, giving exact accountings of materials used for each task, with prices charged. All four sections begin with a hand-lettered alphabetical index of clients names, be they personal, commercial, or county or state entities. The personal names are sometimes identified with a trade, i.e.: printer, locksmith, "comedian", blacksmith, baker, schoolmaster, butcher, mason, tailor, turner, etc., and some with military titles. Businesses or institutions include the Market House, or Frederick Town Market, of which McCleery seems to have had an official position, mentioning he collected "one Years rent of Room over Market", and "rent of stalls & shambles", signed "Henry McCleery Clerk"; "Christian Dwellings"; the State of Maryland, "federal", the County of Frederick; the Magazine; Court House [built in March 1787; those who would speak there would include John Hanson, Thomas Johnson, Francis Scott Key and Roger Brooke Taney, who appears in these records]; the Poor House [built in 1820, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places]; Lutheran Church, etc.

The initial 52 pages of the first section (1790) have been re-purposed with a child's pen-trials, school writings, notes, scribbles, math sums and writing-over the previous ledger information, most of which is still legible; thankfully the young scholar used blank areas of this section for his or her efforts [probably a young McCleery]. There are about a dozen pinned-in, laid-in, or loose pages of business and personal writings, including materials lists, costs; drawings, plans of buildings and calculation notes. Work for Frederick County included building steps for the Record Room, making doors, benches and tables, a "Pilory (sic) of Locust with Band," and ladder; hanging and leading windows. McCleery also notes his service as a Juror for 5 days, as well as valuing and "laying off", i.e. surveying, properties. Work for Frederick County in 1791 included such things as "new timbers & covering for the South Bridge in Frederick Town…" as well as construction details for the Poor House, ongoing through the years with intermediary David Leavy (or Levy) who often appears in the records as a customer, and whose house (or tavern) McCleery designed and built.

Another notable project was work done on the Market House for butchers, and for various other identified business stalls and their amenities. Occasional bartering is evident, such as using Col. Johnson's "negro" for a project for money and labor trade; to the butcher for a "clock case wild cherry wood to pay on the halph [sic] in cash in 2 weeks and the remainder in truff and tallow…"; and exchanging carpentry work for blacksmithing or masonry. McCleery makes mention of "My own house on 2d Street 48 perches in sellar…By 39,000 Brick laying…", and the Baptist Meeting House."

McCleery’s work on the Market House, today’s site of Brewer’s Alley Restaurant on North Market Street, helped me put the following article in better context. Ironically, this building would be Frederick’s very first City Hall as Mr. McCleery made a lasting contribution to not only Frederick’s beautiful historic skyline, but to the residential, commercial and governmental lifeblood of the community he made his home after emigration.

I know I’m simply sharing facsimile text of this incredible Biblio.com auction ad, as I truly I wish I knew the locale of its original contents today. Much like unique architecture that is unfortunately razed over time, I just want to document this incredible information within this blog in case the listing gets deleted from the internet one day. That said, Henry McCleery was atop one of the most respected trades of his day. I’ve read, that during this time, architects and master masons sat at the very top of the professional pantheon—even above physicians, lawyers and politicians.

Henry McCleery had professional and personal associations with the top citizens of both our community and state. Whitman H. Ridgway, in his 2018 work Community Leadership in Maryland, 1790-1840: A Comparative Analysis of Power in Society states:

“The Frederick County decisional elite in the second party era,…numbered seventy-two men…Frederick County's decisional leaders represented the diversity of the community in contrast to the relative uniformity found in the other rural areas…” 

The men who appear in these McCleery manuscripts include Roderick Dorsey, Colonel John McPherson, Dr. Thomas W. Johnson, Richard Potts, Jr., William M. Beall, Jr., etc. The auction ad for McCleery’s manuscripts and workbooks list accounts that “cover his work for just over 100 different named clients in the first volume, and many more in the later volumes, many of whom have multiple entries during the years covered. There are a great many prominent names listed, including a number of patriots who participated in the Revotutionary War, and important politicians, lawyers, judges, prominent members of the Frederick County community, or trades people such as John Adlum, one of several Frederick patriots of the same family with the same name; Col. Baker Johnson (1747-1811), lawyer and Revolutionary War battalion commander who fought at the 1777 Battle of Paoli in the brigade of his brother, Col. James Johnson. He eventually ran Catoctin Furnace in the early 1800's from his manor house named Auburn, which still stands: several long entries, one for August 12th to September, a full-page for work on 4 floors, fully described; the entry for January 6, 1791 is a full-page accounting of work for Baker Johnson, and another August 12th 1791, and more, including a "coffin for your child hing'd and polished shambles."

Here is more of a description of the individuals McCleery did work for according to the Biblio.com auction listing:

[Charles] McGragh [i.e. McGrath], "Comedian." McGrath, "the American Tate Wilkinson of that epoch" pirated the comedy The Contrast, the first play by an American to be professionally staged, and played it at Elizabeth-Town (Hagerstown) as early as April 13, 1791, after it had played Frederick, Georgetown, Alexandria, etc. The entry for August 10, 1791, shows McGrath was in Frederick, and paid for "170 feet of boards….1000 12 penny nails…to doing the Seattes…150 Spridgs (springs) for making Doors." This leads us to believe it is possible McGrath was outfitting the semblance of an unkown theatre in Frederick, and not having work done on a dwelling; Col. William Deakins, a Georgetown merchant in the tobacco trade; Col. Thomas Deakins, Revolutionary War officer, surveyor of the Maryland-West Virginia "Deakins" boundary line; John Graham (d. 1833), president of the Frederick County Savings Bank; Catherine Kimball, (1745-1831), many entries for this tavern owner of "the highest-caliber establishment of its kind in Frederick (once frequented by George Washington); Rev. Stephen B[loomer] Balch (1747-1833), Presbyterian minister and educator in Georgetown who graduated from Princeton and served in the Revolutionary War. He founded the second church in Georgetown, the Georgetown Presbyterian Church, often traveled the 40 miles to preach in Frederick where he founded the English Presbyterian Church; Richard Potts (1753-1808), whose house is now part of an architectural walking tour of Frederick, was a politician, U. S. Attorney for Maryland appointed by George Washington, jurist, military aide to the governor of Maryland, Thomas Johnson, with the Maryland line at Valley Forge in 1777, U.S. Representative, U. S. Senator."

​"More work was done by the McCleery family firm in designing and building bridges in town and in the county. Pertaining to a  John Winter, printer in Frederick 1791-1800, there exist three entries, the last for "a Wallnut coffin rais'd lid for a Child.” Thomas Johnson, Jr. was a client and Col. John McPherson (abt. 1760-1829), employed McCleery for an extensive amount of work as you may recall that this wealthy citizen built the large townhomes on Council Street known today as the Ross and Mathias mansions. The auction listing rattles off more luminaries of Maryland and Frederick’s past:

Joshua Dorsey (1752-1814), lawyer, sat at one time in the Maryland House of Delegates: 4 1/2 pp. of specs giving a complete description of his new 33 x 35 foot house, three floors and roof; a number of lengthy entries for David Levy [also spelled Leavy by McCleery] (1741-1804), Revolutionary soldier, tavern owner on Patrick Street. With extensive construction account & rough sketches of plans for him, October, 1792 (with Scott, see below); George Murdock, trustee of Frederick College); a number of entries for Isaac Mantz (1759-1826), commissioner of roads; William M[urdock] Beall (1742-1823), Frederick judge, landowner, slave holder; John Ross Key (1754-1821), general officer in the Continental Army, lawyer, judge, father of Francis Scott Key; Abner Ritchie, land speculator; William Ritchie, Clerk of the Frederick County Court, 1779 until 1815; [Henry McCleery married Martha Ritchie, and there are several other Ritchie men named here]; George Scott (before 1742-after 1793), Sheriff of Frederick County (1766-1768), "George Scott Esqr. April 20th 1793, with rough sketch plan and itemization, for large structure "to Joyn to Mr. Leavys house/to Jas. Beatty"; Col. William Beatty, Revolutionary War officer; Benjamin Ogle (1749-1809), George Washington's friend, governor of Maryland (1798-1801). It was he who issued a proclamation after Washington's death setting aside February 11th as a day of mourning, beginning what would become a national precedent; Henry Brothers, tavern owner, with a sketch plan for his house on the corner of today’s West Patrick and South Court streets where the current Frederick Courthouse stands today. Col. Thomas Price (1722-1795), pronounced against the Stamp Act, Revolutionary War officer and later one of the justices of the Frederick County Court; Mountjoy Bayly (1754-1836), Revolutionary War general, large land owner; John Parks (1738-1812), tea merchant; extensive work from May, 1792 to November of that year; and others who served in various Maryland and Pennsylvania military companies, according to Archives of Maryland Records of Maryland Troops Serving in the Continental Service During the War of American Revolution, 1775-1783.

At the end of this first volume there is an undated half-page "Memorandum of an agreement made between Abraham Haff [Jr.] (1769-1813) and Henry McCleery that said Abraham Haff doth engage to deliver scantling of poplar and ash for a house to be built for Benjamin Ogle early next Spring [and seven more lines specifying deliver dates and payment], signed by Haff and McCleery, and witnessed by Susanna Johnson, followed by three more full pages about the projected house, "Mr. Benjamin Ogle's house 31 feet front by 44.'"

I wrote about Abraham Haff in one of these “Stories in Stone” a few years back as he was a prominent member of Frederick's Presbyterian Church to which the McCleery family belonged. Presbyterian minister, Rev. Samuel Knox, served as the first schoolmaster of the Frederick Academy and married Henry McCleery’s daughter Zeruiah. The graves of both can be found in the McCleery family lot in Mount Olivet’s Area H/Lot 357.

​The Mott sale listing states that McCleery had accounts with a number of Frederick women:

“specifying aspects of home-building for the Mrs. Burnes, Cary, Mary Ritchie, Davison, Dyer, Charlton, Cazlister, Catherine Kimball, etc. Also noted are purchases for business: tools, wheelbarrows, hatchets; as well as personal items such as newspapers, coffee, barrels of herring, rum, cloth of various types, "2 tickets in the Washington City Lottery at 7 Dollars ea." Notes are meticulously kept, accounting for labor for himself and working crew, as well as Negro workers who have been lent to him: "…14 Days of your Negros attending masons at my house."

Well if you are still with me, the listing was more like a "history roller-coaster" with non-stop thrilling twists and turns for the Frederick history geek like myself. Coming around the final stretch, highlights of more material within the collection’s next six volumes is highlighted with names very familiar to Frederick and Mount Olivet Cemetery, including my very own. I will explain in a moment!

“Miscellaneous material: A laid-in note from Abner Ritchie requesting his cousin, builder Andrew McCleery, to help a poor man and wife whose daughter had fractured her leg: "…the parents living poor & having but few of the conveniences of life need assistance…the loan of your cot, for the girl to lie on...Dr. Shields & myself have just reduced it…" Dated 1814, repurposing blank pages is a billing summary of 5pp. of a "Bill of Scantling for Joshua Dorsey Esq." which includes small crude drawings of building component details, as well as a side view, side measurements and height plan. Also given are floor by floor details of joist, lath-work, rafters, windows and trim for the project, which is typical throughout the whole book. A further page details a list of "Stuff of ours taken for Dorsey's house" including various timber, nails, planking, chimney pieces and the "costing up" for all. There is also an amusing 27-line piece from December 1814, in which McCleery's describes his and Mr Beall's naiveté regarding buying a horse as they have sold their Chestnut sorrel. "We came to the conclusion last night to get Mr. McLanahan to purchase for us, he being a good judge. We wish him not to go over 100$...The qualities that we would wish him to possess is gentleness & fitness for the Harness…he is intended for our gig…Mr. Beall & myself are both afraid to make the purchase for fear some broken winded or hipshodden animal might be palmed upon us."

The volumes are well used, as is to be expected, but the contents are very legible. In our nearly 50 years of experience, we have never seen anything remotely resembling such a collection of these 18th and early 19th century American architect/builder's records.

VOLUMES 2-13. BOOK #2. McCLEERY, Henry, architect and master builder. Manuscript ledger for the year 1794. Tall folio, unbound, stitching broken, pp. [58]. Frederick, Maryland, January 1st to end of December, 1794. Two leaves, folios 22 and 23, excised. Index from letters Q to Z present here, others preceding excised.

There are 4 pp. of construction and carpentry records for building tavern owner Henry Brothers "new house;" payment made for 1000 acres of land in Kentucky, and for a building lot in George Town; 4 pp. of records for building a house for Benjamin Ogle, "39 by 28 ft. Inside;" 3 pp. on construction work for David Levy; carpentry for Arthur Shaaff Esq. [Frederick lawyer; Francis Scott Key's cousin]; construction and iron work for William Potts; the same for Richard Potts & Andrew Loe; an 11 ft long sign for Christian Rye; work for John McPherson; renting rooms, stalls to butchers; work for Isaac Mantz, George Murdock; State of Maryland; Snider School; buying boards, ending with "Mr. William. Was bound about May for 3 ½ years. I am to pay him £4 year 1795 & £4 year 96 & £4 the time of being free."

BOOK #3. McCLEERY, Henry, architect and master builder. Manuscript ledger for the year 1800. Tall folio, original drab flexible boards, pp. 60, with Index of names, partly covered by newspaper articles and ephemera in a few places. Frederick, Maryland, January to December, 1800. Similar to previous volume with work done for Mantz, Ritchie, Levy, Mountjoy Bayly; 4 full pages for painting carpentry, etc., for Mary Ritchie; 3 full pages for work for Catherine Kimball; the Market House; Col. Baker Johnson, Hugh Reynolds; the Court House; John McPherson. 7 sketches of structures; numerical figures; 2 pages for "Mrs. M[ary] Ritchie's house to be built 2 stories; a house in George Town for Nicholas Hodges on Lot. #9; work on a structure for General Mountjoy Bayly. Somewhat soiled and stained, but very legible. Includes work for Roger Brooke Taney.

BOOK #4. McCLEERY, Henry, architect and master builder. Manuscript ledger for the year 1810. Tall folio, original drab flexible boards (worn), pp. 80, with Index of names. Frederick, Maryland, 1810. Bank information; blacks (presumably slaves) cutting wood; half page for Roger B, Taney for glass, glazing, locks, curtain rods, mending table, etc., as well as a full page on leaf 64 for Taney; the usual work as described previously for members of the Potts, Ritchie, Mantz, McPherson families, and others. Included is Dr. Philip Thomas (1747-1815), a very important Frederick patriot/physician. See, Chris Haugh's long article, Frederick's Physician-Patriot of '76, re: Mount Olivet Cemetery; Lutheran Church; extensive work for Mrs. Lowe's house; Barracks & Arsenal; with 2 wallpaper samples laid in.

That’s right, "Chris Haugh’s long article" on Dr. Philip Thomas, however it pales in comparison to this story and a magnificent auction listing. Nice advertising for me though, thank you! 

BOOK #5. McCLEERY, Henry, architect and master builder. Manuscript ledger for the year 1811. Tall folio, original drab flexible boards (worn), pp. 14. Frederick, Maryland, 1811. 2pp. for "Barracks Account" with two small sketches; purchase of Lot #5 in George Town for Major A. Ritchie; books lent; 3 full pages about building Joab Hunt's three-story house. Volume in rough condition.

Alright, I'm stopping here! What an amazing discovery, one of many I have stumbled upon while writing this blog. Henry’s children did great things as well, and the auction collection also includes workbooks and manuscripts in the hands of Andrew and Robert. I will include that latter part of the listing write-up at the conclusion of this story because I am literally spent from writing this story about Frederick’s original architect extraordinaire. I will leave you with an 1840s portrait of the second county courthouse by artist John J. Markell, and the McCleery's surviving masterpiece on North Court Street of the second All Saints' Episcopal Church. 

​Henry McCleery’s sons Andrew, Robert and Henry, Jr., are buried in Mount Olivet. Robert is in the greater family plot in Area H, but Henry Jr. is in an unmarked grave within the re-interred bodies from the Old Presbyterian Church and located in Area NN. Daughters of Henry buried here include the previously mentioned Zeruiah Knox, Susanna McLanahan, and Frances Beall.

​If you locate the whereabouts of this McCleery collection of workbooks and manuscripts, please let us know! It’s a window on Frederick’s past like no other, and worth its weight in pure gold. Kudos to the research team at Howard S. Mott, Inc. for their insightful and detailed effort and research, and thanks for helping to educate me so I could tell a much better “Story in Stone” of one of Mount Olivets’s many precious eternal residents.

​ADDENDUM
The following is the Biblio.com sale description of books 6-13 in the collection offered by Howard S. Mott, Inc. These all come after Henry's death and pertain to the business dealings of his sons.

BOOK #6. McCLEERY, Andrew (1777-1853), Robert (1788-1840), and William R. McCleery (1794-1848), master builders. Tall folio manuscript ledger, disbound, pp. 80. Georgetown and Frederick, Maryland, 1824-1830.

Partly a business ledger; a travel-log; a record of draft legal documents and agreements, especially concerning the leasing of tavern properties in Georgetown for periods of one to three years, with several draft agreements with lessors, covering bake ovens, sheds, stairs, etc.; the business situated on H St., Georgetown, etc.; leases for rooms in Storehouse on the corner of Market Street. Andrew describes a visit: "…Georgetown appeared to look better than on previous visits. They were painting & repairing every thing formerly seemed going to ruin, renting did not seem to be quite so bad. The City improves considerably, but that seemed to fluctuate from one part to another, places that used to be lively quite dull & houses tenantless other parts that had been dull busy & improving….[closing with accounts of banks there]; banking and investment, personal and family information, including: cash accounting ledger, acting as a diary of business activities; travel expenses, wages, rentals, mortgage, fee collection, money-lending, real estate, and auction purchases of land, household goods, clothing, shoes and on several occasions, books, with titles given, and other material, such as considerable tinware, with prices paid. Charitable contributions include Robert Wait at College Hill, DC (eventual co-founder of Wake Institute, which later became Wake Forest University).

Mountain land; vast quantities of wood delivered to McCleery by Frederick Kleinhart; land called "Puzzlesome Corrected."

At the back, in ledger form, is a record of banking at various named institutions during 1823. They include Hagerstown Bank; Bank of Westminster; Bank of Columbia; and Frederick County Bank, giving a good account of the family's financials. Also in the same section are drafts, or copies of legal documents, for deposits made on the Baltimore branch of the Bank of the United States.

One full page, November 2, 1827 to April 19, 1828 is devoted to "Negro Bob." "Negro Bob commenced work at $6 per Month…Novb. 29. Bob lost one day only cut a little wood. 30th. Bob lost one day did nothing at all got his shoes mended. Dec. 17th. Bob lost ½ day did nothing at all said he wanted to get his shoes mended…Feb 7th. Lost one day says he will work in the holiday to make up," etc.

​Entries from July 29 to September 9, 1825, comprise four (4) full pages of a ca. 300-word "Journal of Expenses to New York & Saratoga [and return]," enumerating running totals for a round trip costing $68.97. Steamboats, ferries; lodging at taverns, with their owner's names; crackers; cakes and beer; toll bridges; barbering (several times); "segars;" oysters; "Museum" in Philadelphia; "three glasses lemonade cream of tartar;" "hats for boys;" Sunday, August 10th "Three times at Presbyterian Church; six hymn books; washing; cantaloupes; apples; tobacco; music, etc., etc. A simple entry for Tuesday, August 25th: "William left Saratoga for the West." "William" would be Andrew's brother, who left for Brookville, Indiana, to help their sister, Mary McCleery Knight (1779-1820) build a tavern after her husband died. William didn't return to Frederick, instead he got married in Brookville, and resided there.

BOOK #7. McCLEERY, Andrew (1777-1853) and Robert (1788-1840), master builders. Manuscript ledger for the year 1830. Tall folio, original drab flexible boards, pp. 73, including 3-page Index, with a copious number of names; [leaves 12-19, half of 22, 23-25 & 27 excised]. Frederick, Maryland, 1830.

One hundred and fifty-five entries in the Index, including 12 who are termed "colour'd man," with their names, one of whom was "Romia (Mr. Taney's man),"-Taney didn't own slaves; and two who are termed "colour'd woman." November 22nd, the 23rd and 27th lists charges to William Ogden Niles, printer of the Frederick Town Herald—"Mr. Niles (printer). To putting up a press…To 216 nails for ditto. To making a cherry frame for a roler (sic) for press. To making a box of pigeon holes, carried to book 1831 page 7" [where it is to be found; see ledger #8]. Quantites of hay, molasses, candles, planks, cords of wood sold; rent of Stone House to a number of named Germans; carpentry work, etc.

BOOK #8. McCLEERY, Andrew and Robert, master builders. Manuscript ledger for the year 1831. Tall folio, original drab flexible boards, pp. 120 [5 preliminary leaves excised, as well as leaves 12, 54 & 60]. Frederick, Maryland, 1831.

Builds a coffin for the famous tavern owner, Catherine Kimball; "Mr. Niles' paper the [Frederick Town] Herald commenced the 11th day of Octr. 1830 when [printer] Mr. J. P. Thompson transferred;" John P. Thompson, "the richest printer in Frederick County, was president of the Frederick County Bank."-John Thomas Scharf, The History of Western Maryland: Being a History of Frederick…(1968 edition), p. 537. "June 24th-Friday (Markly (sic) hung to-day)." John Markley murdered, December 29 and 30, 1830, six persons, including two children. Lists many rents to Germans; sales of planks, straw, manure, molasses, carpentry work done; house construction for John P. Thompson, printer, Director, with Roger B. Taney, of The Frederick National County Bank, then it's president in 1833; Negro hire; construction for the Farmers & Mechanics Bank of Frederick; May 26th "Little Black Boy came to work on Monday (Milly Brown's son)…"; bank certificate with sketches; etc.

At the end are seven pages of closely written recipes (several thousand words) for varnish, black varnish, making a drier for painting, to destroy insects in trees, to make punkin oil, polishing furniture, strengthen vinegar, to distill tar, make cement for rock-work, wood cement for coppersmiths, cement for glass-grinders, crop planting ideas, construction and craft techniques; the last two leaves with six examples of decorative scroll work; the last leaf with "Memorandum of Books Lent," etc., etc., etc.

BOOK #9. McCLEERY, Andrew and Robert, master builders. Manuscript ledger for the years 1833-1840. Tall folio, original drab flexible boards, pp. 80. Frederick, Maryland, 1833-1840. Kept over several a period of years as a memorandum/diary.

Many workers mentioned with first names only, presumably Negroes; i.e. ploughing gardens, hauling quantities of manure and hay "to turnpike;" legal contract to buy Capt. Henry Steiner's land called "Tasker's Chance" (now a neighborhood of Frederick City); a copy of a letter threatening Robert McCleery's "own personal welfare" if he does not "discontinue the Protestant [an unrecorded periodical] and ease corrupting the Public mind…P. S. You are an old offender. The Church has therefore marked you on the blacklist…;" "Mr. Schultz had about 20 hands in Mrs. Steiners lot", presumably colored laborers; eviction notices, which is a recurring theme; land surveys; real estate sales; legal notices; indentures; rent figures; sketches of plot plans; sawing rail cuts, hauling wood turnpike lots; land kiln construction in 1840. At the end are eight pages recording cash, checks and bank dividends received, including $203.00 from Wm. B. Tyler "for negro girl."

BOOK #10. McCLEERY, Andrew, master builder. Manuscript ledger for the year 1836. Tall folio, original drab flexible boards, pp. 160. Frederick, Maryland, 1836. Lists of complex carpentry jobs, prices, etc., about 40pp. counted loose at rear. Condition: Binding rough, contents foxed and stained, but legible; some leaves excised.

BOOK #11. McCLEERY, Andrew, master builder. Manuscript of building plans. Tall folio, 9 pp. laid into original drab flexible boards (worn). With 7 full-page drawings, and full page of figures for stone work, brick work, second floor, roof, girders, window and door frames. Frederick, Maryland, undated; early 19th century.

BOOK #12. McCLEERY, Benjamin Beall (1822-1887). Signed Education Manuscript by Henry McCleery's 18-year-old grandson, signed on front cover: "Ledger Dec. 10th 1840. Perry B[eall] McCleery," and again on verso: "Perry Beall McCleery/Frederick City, Dec. 10th/1840." Tall folio, original pictorial illustrated green printed flexible boards, stereotyped by L. Johnson, Philadelphia, approx. 100 pp. Frederick, Maryland, 1840.

Perry Beall McCleery (1822-1887), cashier of the Frederick County National Bank, built a fashionable house in Frederick between 1876 and 1878 which is listed on the National Register. Here are McCleery's youthful educational exercises, covering mathematics, penmanship, accounting; rules for keeping ledgers and journals, examples of poetry, recipes, home preserving, farm planting instructions, etc, using examples from 1805-1820s.

BOOK #13. McCLEERY FAMILY. Circa 1830s ledger completely repurposed as a mid to late 19th century scrapbook filled with newspaper cuttings, and a few pieces of insignificant ephemera. Bound in leather-backed boards (worn). 84478 ABAA-VBF

I’m still riding a high from recently checking off an item on my proverbial “bucket list.” This occurred thanks to a trip to a unique destination I’ve wanted to visit for quite some time. For those unfamiliar with the concept, a bucket list is “a list of the experiences or achievements that a person hopes to have, or accomplish, during their lifetime. A bucket list is an itemized list of goals people want to accomplish before they “kick the bucket” — or die.”

The true irony lies in the fact that the place I traveled to recently is a location seldom relished by those among the living, yet a stark reality for those who are not. I’m talking about a trip to a cemetery. However, this isn’t any ordinary cemetery, rather it’s thee cemetery—Mount Auburn in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
​
My recent adventure was more than just a personal quest, it was a professional sojourn—one that will further help guide me, my co-workers and our Friends of Mount Olivet membership group in our quest to further enhance Frederick’s Mount Olivet, originally modeled after the Rural/Garden Cemetery movement of the early 19th century.

Dedicated in 1831, Mount Auburn Cemetery is the first rural, or garden, cemetery in the United States. It is the burial site of over 93,000 individuals including many prominent New England families. Here one will discover noted politicians, inventors, social reformers, war heroes, and plenty of authors and artists of note. Mount Auburn Cemetery is also designated as a National Historic Landmark.

The grounds are set with classical monuments in a rolling landscaped terrain. This marked a distinct break with Colonial-era burying grounds with rows of upright slate tombstones, many decorated with “death heads” featuring a central winged skull, sometimes with crossed bones nearby, or an hourglass, or any other mortality symbol.

I saw several of these stones on the same trip to Massachusetts in various old graveyards located along Boston’s Independence Trail. One of the featured points of interest on the Trail is the Granary Burying Ground across from Boston Common on Tremont Street. Here, you will find immortal patriots like Paul Revere, John Hancock and Sam Adams. Ben Franklin's parents and Mother Goose are also here.

​The Granary is the most visited burying ground in the northeast with over one million visitors each year. Just up the street from here is Boston’s oldest graveyard with Kings Chapel Burying Ground.

​​The third such graveyard for the “Tombstone Tourist” on the Independence Trail is Copp’s Hill Burying Ground on the North End of the city. Established in 1659, this is the city’s largest graveyard and it is within easy view of the fabled North Church’s steeple where Paul Revere had placed lanterns on that fateful night in April, 1775 signaling “one if by land, and two if by sea.”

As said earlier, these three examples represent the accepted style for burying grounds here in North America until Mount Auburn Cemetery was planned, and dare I say executed, in the late 1820s leading to a dedication in 1831. The new burial ground project was designed largely by Henry Alexander Scammell Dearborn with assistance from Jacob Bigelow and Alexander Wadsworth. Bigelow, a medical doctor, came up with the idea for Mount Auburn as early as 1825, though a site was not acquired until five years later.

​Dr. Bigelow was concerned about the unhealthiness of burials under churches as well as the possibility of running out of space in Boston. Epidemics causing widespread death gave pause to rethink burial being conducted in the rural outskirts instead of in the heart of residential centers of our early large cities.

With help from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, Mount Auburn Cemetery was founded on 70 acres of land authorized by the Massachusetts Legislature for use as a garden, or rural, cemetery. The original land cost $6,000 and would later be extended to 170 acres. The first president of the Mount Auburn Association was a Supreme Court Justice named Joseph Story. I found his grave, and it soon made me reflect that if I were an employee of Mount Auburn (instead of Mount Olivet) and writing this particular blog series, I would certainly have a clever title for his fitting “Story in Stone.”

I also learned that Justice Story's dedication address, delivered on September 24th, 1831, established the model for many more addresses in the following three decades with particular emphasis on President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address which took place right up the road from Frederick. The national cemetery Lincoln would dedicate there in 1863 adjoins Evergreen Cemetery, a burying ground designed by the very same landscape architect who designed Mount Olivet. This was James Belden.

The appearance of rural, or garden, cemetery landscapes coincided with the rising popularity of the term "cemetery," crudely translated from Greek to mean "a sleeping place.” This language, and outlook, eclipsed the previous harsh view of death and the afterlife embodied by old burying grounds and churchyards such as those previously mentioned in Boston.

The land that became Mount Auburn Cemetery was originally named Stone's Farm, though locals referred to it as "Sweet Auburn" after the 1770 poem "The Deserted Village" by Oliver Goldsmith.  

Mount Auburn was inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris and is credited as the beginning of the American public parks and gardens movement. It was an inspiration to cemetery designers across the country, setting the style for other suburban cemeteries such as Laurel Hill Cemetery (Philadelphia, 1836), Mount Hope Cemetery (Bangor, Maine, 1834), Green-Wood Cemetery (Brooklyn, 1838), Green Mount Cemetery (Baltimore, Maryland, 1839) Mount Hope Cemetery (Rochester, NY, 1838), Lowell Cemetery (Lowell, Massachusetts, 1841), Allegheny Cemetery (Pittsburgh, 1844), Albany Rural Cemetery (Menands, New York, 1844), Swan Point Cemetery (Providence, Rhode Island 1846), Spring Grove Cemetery (Cincinnati, 1844), and Forest Hills Cemetery (Jamaica Plain, 1848) as well as Oakwood Cemetery in Syracuse, New York. It can be considered the link between Capability Brown's English landscape gardens and Frederick Law Olmsted's Central Park in New York (1850s).

​The 174-acre cemetery is important both for its historical aspects and for its role as an arboretum. It is Watertown's largest contiguous open space and extends into Cambridge to the east, adjacent to the Cambridge City Cemetery and Sand Banks Cemetery. It was designated a National Historic Landmark District in 2003 for its pioneering role in 19th-century cemetery development.

Upon arrival, I was immediately impressed with the main entrance off Mount Auburn Street, and was given assistance by a guide positioned just inside the gate. The Story Chapel was a great place to start exploration with cemetery map/guide in hand. In the near distance, a beautiful pond could be found at the base of a hill topped with another, yet more majestic looking chapel known as Bigelow Chapel.

​I know this may seem crass, but looking at the well-manicured grass, bountiful plantings and these two chapel features at the entrance conjured up images of the entrance to DisneyWorld. I wonder if this place was an inspiration to Disney ground designers in any way? Regardless, with this being a cemetery, visitors  can find themselves in a perpetual state of “Yesterland.”  

My exploration of Mount Auburn took place on a sunny and temperate Tuesday morning. The cemetery was not very crowded, and the vast canopy of trees provided plenty of shade. This shade also creates the magic of the landscape with light and darkness accenting the monuments and surrounding trees and vegetation.

​I had performed my advance work in reviewing notable residents of this place. There were plenty, such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Julia Ward Howe, Winslow Homer, Henry Cabot Lodge, Arthur Schlessinger, Jr., and Charles Sumner. Of particular interest to me were three "more modern" residents: Hall of Fame sportscaster Curt Gowdy, architect-engineer R. Buckminster Fuller, developer of the geodesic dome, and psychologist-behavioralist B. F. Skinner, a Harvard professor who gave test rats and pigeons fits with his operant conditioning chamber (aka “Skinner Box”).

​Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. Fuller developed numerous inventions, mainly architectural designs, and popularized the widely known geodesic dome; carbon molecules known as fullerenes were later named by scientists for their structural and mathematical resemblance to geodesic spheres. 

Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, inventor, and social philosopher. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974. Considering free will to be an illusion, Skinner saw human action as dependent on consequences of previous actions, a theory he would articulate as the principle of reinforcement: If the consequences to an action are bad, there is a high chance the action will not be repeated; if the consequences are good, the probability of the action being repeated becomes stronger.

I wanted to find a few individuals buried here in Mount Auburn with definitive connections to Frederick, Maryland and/or former residents buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery. Of these, most can be linked to the American Civil War, and our heroine Barbara Fritchie. The gray-headed “Grand Dame” gained universal fame due to a Massachusetts author named John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892). Many literary historians claim that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's patriotic tale of Paul Revere (published in 1861) helped inspire fellow "fireside poet" John Greenleaf Whittier to write "The Ballad of Barbara Frietchie" in 1863.

Whittier is not buried  in Mount Auburn, but was laid to rest in his hometown 
​of Amesbury, Massachusetts in Union Cemetery. I did, however, revel in finding some other decedents in Mount Auburn, who had once walked the same streets of Frederick that we all know and love. Perhaps some of these may have even visited Mount Olivet while they were here? The following are a few individuals that I specifically sought out while at Mount Auburn.

​Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (August 29, 1809 – October 7, 1894) was an American physician, poet, and polymath based in Boston. Grouped among "the fireside poets," he was acclaimed by his peers as one of the best writers of the day. His most famous prose works are the "Breakfast-Table" series, which began with The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858). He was also an important medical reformer. In addition to his work as an author and poet, Holmes also served as a physician, professor, lecturer, inventor, and, although he never practiced it, he received formal training in law.

Holmes would come to Frederick in September, 1862 after learning that his son, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. had been wounded at the Battle of Antietam on September 17th while fighting with the 20th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment of the Union Army. While here, the elder Holmes interacted with several local residents in Frederick  and Middletown. One such was Gen. Edward Shriver (1812-1896) leader of the Potomac Home Brigade, who is buried in Mount Olivet's Area MM /Lot 23. Holmes first met him in Baltimore on the way here. He writes of him:

"General Shriver, of Frederick, a most loyal Unionist, whose name is synonymous with a hearty welcome to all whom he can aid by his counsel and his hospitality. He took great pains to give us all the information we needed, and expressed the hope, which was afterwards fulfilled, to the great gratification of some of us, that we should meet again, when he should return to his home." 

The elder Holmes would write an account of his desperate search for his son and titled this "My Hunt After the Captain." It would  appear in the December,  1862 edition of the Atlantic Monthly magazine, the same publication that later printed Whittier's "Barbara Frietchie" poem ten months later.

​The elder Holmes would write an account of his desperate search for his son and titled this "My Hunt After the Captain." It would  appear in the December,  1862 edition of the Atlantic Monthly magazine, the same publication that later printed Whittier's "Barbara Frietchie" poem ten months later.

It  has been said that Mr. Whittier borrowed some of Holmes' eye-witnessed imagery of Frederick for his own work since he, himself, had never been  to Frederick. Holmes wrote the following upon laying eyes on Frederick while traveling on the National Pike (today's US40-A), just west of town on the eastern slope of Catoctin Mountain:

"In approaching Frederick, the singular beauty of its clustered spires struck me very much, so that I was not surprised to find “Fair-View” laid down about this point on a railroad-map. I wish some wandering photographer would take a picture of the place, a stereoscopic one, if possible, to show how gracefully, how charmingly, its group of steeples nestles among the Maryland hills. The town had a poetical look from a distance, as if seers and dreamers might dwell there."

Of course this vivid description could have given rise to the immortal opening stanzas by Whittier for his poem:

"Up from the meadows, rich with Corn
Clear in  the cool September morn.

The clustered spires of Frederick stand,
Green-walled by the  hills of Maryland."

​The rest is history as they say, because we have been known for those "clustered spires" ever since.

​George Leonard Andrews (August 31, 1828 – April 4, 1899) was an American professor, civil engineer, and soldier. He was a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War and was awarded the honorary grade of brevet major general.
 
During the Civil War, Andrews served in a number of important commands, first as the colonel of the 2nd Massachusetts, a regiment which saw heavy action in the Battles of Cedar Mountain and Antietam, among other actions. Mentored by Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks, Andrews became part of Banks's staff and was assigned several command roles in the Army Department of the Gulf during the later years of the war. From July through November, 1861, Lt. Col. Andrews was stationed in garrison here in Frederick as he and his troops were responsible for guarding the Upper Potomac under Maj. Gen. Banks.

One of the men that served with Lt. Col. Andrews and the 2nd Massachusetts was Robert Gould Shaw (October 10, 1837 – July 18, 1863). You may recall this Boston native for his later command of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. The Oscar-winning movie "Glory" tells Shaw's story as the young colonel was portrayed by actor Matthew Broderick in the 1989 motion picture release.

Robert Gould Shaw spent plenty of time in, and around, Frederick with the 2nd Massachusetts in late 1861/early 1862. I wrote about him in a two-part "Stories in Stone" blog back in late February-early March, 2020. (I have included a link to those stories below.) Letters home to his sister Effie reveal the names of local citizens, some buried in Mount Olivet. The earlier-mentioned Edward Shriver was one of these as Shaw actually spent time at the former Shriver home located on N. Court Street, across from Court Square.

​Like Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Shaw would be seriously wounded during the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. While recuperating back home in Massachusetts, he would be appointed to serve as  Colonel of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. This happened in March 1863.
 
Among the first units to be made up of African-American recruits, the 54th Massachusetts proved itself in an ultimately futile charge on Confederate earthworks near Charleston, South Carolina on July 18th, 1863. Shaw was buried in a mass grave with his men at Fort Wagner. Mount Auburn contains a cenotaph for Col. Robert Gould Shaw as this type of memorial is a monument to someone buried elsewhere, especially one commemorating people who died in a war. 

On this same trip, I saw the famous relief sculpture memorial for Shaw and his men of the 54th at Boston Common. This was sculpted in 1884 by Augustus Saint-Gaudens.

Dorothea Lynde Dix (April 4, 1802 – July 17, 1887) was an American advocate on behalf of the indigent mentally ill who, through a vigorous and sustained program of lobbying state legislatures and the United States Congress, created the first generation of American mental asylums. During the Civil War, she served as a Superintendent of Army Nurses and was well-acquainted with Frederick as it served as "one vast hospital" throughout the conflict.

Dix set stringent guidelines for nurse candidates. Volunteers were to be aged 35 to 50 and plain-looking. They were required to wear un-hooped black or brown dresses, with no jewelry or cosmetics. Miss Dix wanted to avoid sending vulnerable, attractive young women into the hospitals, where she feared they would be exploited by the male doctors as well as patients. She often fired volunteer nurses she hadn't personally trained or hired. All of these demands "earned the ire" of supporting care groups such as the United States Sanitary Commission,  which Frederick's Dr. Lewis Henry Steiner (1827-1892) headed during the war. Dr. Steiner is buried in Mount Olivet's Area G/Lot 85.  

You can learn more about Dorothea Dix  at our local National Museum of Civil War Medicine on East Patrick Street. In  my earlier research on Barbara Fritchie, author John Greenleaf Whittier reported that Miss Dix was one of his trusted sources for the September flag-waving incident with the Rebel horde in September, 1862. 

Caroline Wells Dall (née Healey; June 22, 1822 – December 17, 1912) was an American feminist writer, transcendentalist, and reformer. She was affiliated with the National Women's Rights Convention, the New England Women's Club, and the American Social Science Association. Her associates included Elizabeth Peabody and Margaret Fuller, as well as members of the Transcendentalist movement in Boston.As a young woman, she received a comprehensive education, encouraged by her father to write novels and essays, and to engage in debates about religion, philosophy and politics. In addition to private tutoring, she attended a private school for girls until the age of fifteen.

Ms. Dall came  to Frederick in the 1870s in search of the truth  about  Barbara Fritchie and her alleged confrontation with Stonewall Jackson during the Civil War. She spoke to Dorothea Dix and numerous Frederick townspeople and Barbara Fritchie associates while conducting her "investigation." Of those  included were the abovementioned Dr. Lewis H. Steiner, diarist Jacob Engelbrecht, former mayor Valerius Ebert, store-owner/author Henry Nixdorff, niece Catherine Hanshew and Marie Diehl, instructor at the Frederick Female Seminary and daughter of former Evangelical Lutheran Church Rev. George Diehl. All but Ms. Diehl are buried in Mount Olivet. 

Miss Dall's writings  on Barbara Fritchie appeared in newspapers, magazines and was published in hardback form in 1892 as Barbara Fritchie; A Study. At the end of the work, Ms. Dall makes mention of Mount Olivet, but not by formal name:

"It was a sunny Sabbath afternoon when a few days later I drove out over South Mountain. Braddock's Road crossed mine almost at a right angle. A spring is still shown where his men stopped to drink. The hillsides are covered with chestnuts hung with vines. From the latter the Germans make a very fair claret. from the cemetery where Francis Key's body was laid, one may look far down the road which leads to  Washington. It is a broad highway, traversing the distance with a mighty sweep. As I looked, I felt the poet's dry bones must have put on their flesh when the Rebel army marched into Frederick!

Old Duvall, who had charge of the cemetery, had been on the spot all through the war. He saw Burnside enter, the sun gleaming on his bayonets, cavalry skirmishing along the road, and the artillery shells from the rear over both armies. I could see it all as I listened and looked down the turnpike,  threading the beautiful hills on the way to Georgetown! When you are on the spot, Harper's Ferry also seems  to be only a suburb of Frederick. Certainly, John Brown and dear old Barbara have long since shaken hands!"

Dall was referring to Mount Olivet's first superintendent, William T. Duvall (1813-1886). Her book subject's body was not here at that time, as she had been  originally buried at the Old German Reformed Burying Ground on the west side of town (at the corner of West Second and North Bentz streets). This is today's Memorial Park.  Barbara Fritchie would  be re-interred  in Mount Olivet in 1913, just five months after Ms. Dall's death.

​Felix Octavius Carr Darley (June 23, 1822 – March 27, 1888), often credited as F. O. C. Darley, was an American illustrator, known for his illustrations in works by well-known 19th-century authors, including James Fenimore Cooper, Charles Dickens, Mary Mapes Dodge, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, George Lippard, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Donald Grant Mitchell, Clement Clarke Moore, Francis Parkman, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Nathaniel Parker Willis.

I've seen plenty of Civil War scenes illustrated by Mr. Darley, but this is overwhelmingly my favorite.

​Some of those featured above may be new names to us Marylanders, but certainly were well-rooted and known in the greater Boston area. However, my favorite decedent, whose grave I visited on this particular July day at Mount Auburn, was that of an individual likely unknown to Massachusetts historians and genealogists. That said, many former local residents, now buried in Mount Olivet, knew her well during her lifetime which began in Frederick City nearly a century and a half ago. This was Nellie Cole, known after marriage as Pauline (Cole) Knissell (1876-1956).

So here I will attempt to give you, the reader, a reverse-engineered “Story in Stone” about a former Fredericktonian turned permanent “Mount Auburnian” for eternity.

Before departing Frederick, I conducted a number of web search trials looking for someone from Frederick who is buried at Mount Auburn. I finally came upon one in the aforementioned Ms. Knissell. I immediately researched her genealogy and found her parents and many siblings here in Mount Olivet. Her maiden name of Cole is a popular one around our parts, and her parents, Charles Edwin Cole (1847-1905) and Mary Catherine (Nichols) Cole (1851-1901), are buried in Mount Olivet’s Area R/Lot 140. In this same plot, I found Nellie’s brother, George William “Will” Cole (1886-1961). 

In addition, other siblings are buried here too, including Frank Warehime Cole (1882-1962) in Area AA/Lot 56; Clara May (Cole) Weller (1873-1944) in Area Q/Lot 140; and Charles Edward “Ed” Cole (1870-1935). This last gentleman worked as a linotype operator in the composing department of the Frederick News-Post for the majority of his life. I suddenly realized that I had interviewed this man’s grandson, Louis N. Cole, Jr., for a documentary project about the newspaper. This was in the early 1990s, and Mr. Cole had recently retired after working the same job in the composing department for his career, as his father (and grandfather) before him. These gentlemen are buried here in Mount Olivet as well and constitute a brother,  nephew and grand-nephew of our subject (buried in Mount Auburn), Ms. Knisell.

To learn more about the Cole family, I was tremendously aided by a family historian named Connie Houtz. Ms. Houtz has done incredible work detailing family members with biographies, obituaries and photographs on the popular site Find-a-Grave.com. Most all of the Cole family photos in this story are from Connie's collection. I first was made aware of her genealogical prowess while publishing a blog in this series titled “Eyewitnesses to the Battle of Monocacy.”

​In that story, I talked about families buried here in Mount Olivet who played pivotal roles in the July, 1864 "Battle that Saved Washington." In particular, one gentleman was the paternal uncle of our subject, Nellie, in the form of William G. Cole (b. 1815 in York, PA). He served as mayor of Frederick during the American Civil War, and is best remembered for delivering the $200,000 ransom demanded by Confederate Gen. Jubal Early. This was done to thwart any potential damage or destruction to the “clustered-spired” city.

Information on Nellie Pauline (Cole) Knisell is scarce. I at least wanted to check her cemetery records. I was aided (onsite) by Mount Auburn’s Client Relations Coordinator, Caitlin Lowry Zouras, in pulling any information the cemetery had pertaining to the Knisell family lot , No. 8429, on Mount Auburn’s Birch Avenue. The Lot card was in a bank of file cabinets located just a few feet from Ms. Zouras' desk.

From this exercise, I learned that there are five decedents buried on the lot under one central stone. Of particular interest was the fact that the date of purchase was May 3rd, 1950, and more so, that there existed a joint-ownership between Nellie Pauline and her sister, Mary Rebecca “Mayme” Cole (1889-1967). Now I had not just one, but two former Fredericktonians in Mount Auburn with Nellie and “Mayme.”

​Nellie Pauline’s husband, Edward Leavitt Knisell (1876-1969) is buried in the plot along with a daughter, Sarah Katherine (Knisell) Wheeler (1902-1995), and Sarah’s infant child, Douglas Robert Wheeler, who died in January, 1959 just 11 hours after his birth.

Again, my sincere thanks to Connie Houtz who illustrated corresponding Find-a-Grave pages of these family members with photographs so I could put faces with names at real time speed. She also helped shed light on the girls’ upbringing here in Frederick through an extensive biography on their father, Charles Edwin Cole. Here is what she included on the Find-a-Grave memorial page for this man:
​
Charles Edwin Cole was a printer by trade, having learned the trade with his father, Charles E. Cole, who published the Maryland Union in Frederick, Maryland until his death in 1882. After his father's death, Charles was a compositor on the Examiner until 1903 when he was obliged to retire due to failing health. He was a nephew of William G. Cole, who was Mayor of Frederick from 1859 to 1865 during the Civil War. Charles married Mary Catherine Nichols of Frederick on 26 November 1869. They were married by the Rev R. Hinkle. Charles was a life-long resident of Frederick, living at 22 East 5th Street, and a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and of the Junior Steam Fire Engine Company.  He was known for his sterling character and kind and congenial disposition.

Nellie's mother, Mary C. (Nichols) Cole, died on June 5th, 1901. Her husband would die four years later in late summer of 1905. Both would be buried here in Mount Olivet's Area R as I mentioned earlier.

​From deciphering interment records at Mount Auburn, I found that Nellie Cole was born on July 22nd, 1876. I found her in the 1880 Census living at the family home at 22 East 5th Street, now the site of modern condominiums.

​I don’t know how, or when, Nellie met her husband, Edward L. Knisell, but the couple married at Nellie's home on  November 30th, 1899 by Frederick’s Evangelical Lutheran Church minister. She can be found in the 1900 US Census living in Glassboro, New Jersey with her husband’s family. Fittingly, Edward worked for a glass company as an assistant secretary. From a few later records, I found that Edward was employed by the Cape May Glass Company.

​The couple obtained their own home by 1910, in neighboring Pitman, NJ to Glassboro. They moved to the Boston area by the 1910 census. Nellie and Edward had three children, but only two reached maturity. These included son Leavitt (1900-1981), daughter Sadie "Sarah" Katherine(1902-1995) and another child, Pauline, who died in her first year (1908-1909). Pauline is buried in Glassboro, NJ.

​I’m assuming that Edward’s job would eventually take the family to Massachusetts as the Knisells can be found there in 1918. A draft registration card for Edward gives his employment as a sales manager for the Cape May Glass Company located at 40 Battery Ward in Boston. This likely may be the upscale Battery Wharf area of today. The Knisell's home residence is listed as 48 Edison Green in the Dorchester suburb of south Boston.

The 1920 Census shows Nellie and her family still living on Edison Green. An additional tenant residing with them is Mary Rebecca Cole (aka Mayme). Mayme is 30 years of age at this time and her job is given as working for the Paymaster Department of the Navy Yard. I would learn that this was the Charlestown Naval Yard in north Boston. Years later, her obituary mentions that she was the Chief “Yeomanette” of that facility.

What's a "yeomanette?" The first large-scale employment of women as Naval personnel took place to meet the severe clerical shortages of the World War I era. The Naval Reserve Act of 1916 had conspicuously omitted mention of gender as a condition for service, leading to formal permission to begin enlisting women in mid-March 1917, shortly before the United States entered World War I.

​Nearly six hundred Yeomen (Female) were on duty by the end of April 1917, a number that would grow to over 11,000 in December 1918, shortly after the Armistice. The Yeomen (F), or "Yeomanettes" as they were popularly known, primarily served in secretarial and clerical positions, though some were translators, draftsmen, fingerprint experts, ship camouflage designers and recruiting agents. We have four know "Yeomanettes" buried in Mount Olivet, including the last living veteran of this rank from World War I in Charlotte (Berry) Winters (1897-2007).

The Knisells moved to Watertown, Massachusetts before 1930 and can be found living at 258 Common Street. The house still stands and is less than two miles west off Mount Auburn. Sarah had married by this time, however son Leavitt and Nellie’s sister Mary were still living with the family. Nellie continued to keep house, while Edward remained working in the glass industry, now as a “commercial traveler,” which I’m assuming is the same as a traveling salesman. It appears from the 1940 census that son Leavitt is a salesman for the same glass firm his father was working for. Meanwhile, Mayme Cole was a stenographer at the Naval Base located in north Boston.

​I would find a few blurbs in the Frederick newspaper of occasional visits by Knisells to Frederick to see family. I’m sure she returned to Frederick and visited Mount Olivet for the funeral of her older sister, Clara May (Cole) Weller (b. 1873) in September, 1944. The 1950 Census shows the family still living in Watertown on Common Street. Leavitt has moved on, but daughter Sarah Katherine is living here with son Robert after her divorce from Robert Southwick Wheeler, Jr. Mayme is residing with them and Edward, at 73, was still employed as a glass salesman.

​Nellie passed away on January 15th, 1956. Her body would be brought to the Mount Auburn lot, #8429 on Birch Avenue, which she had purchased six years prior. A small article appeared in the January 24th edition of the Frederick News-Post saying that family members traveled to Boston for the funeral. ​

 As for Edward Leavitt Knisell, he outlived his wife by 13 years, dying on February 18th, 1969. Interestingly, he would live out his life right here in Frederick, but his body would make the trip to Massachusetts and Mount Auburn for burial.

​The story of these Cole sisters may not be one of the most riveting in this blog series, but it features several threads that bind us to Mount Auburn, the legendary rural/garden cemetery upon which Mount Olivet was modeled. If you are in the Boston area on pleasure or business, I strongly urge you to make time for a visit. You won’t be disappointed. 

Of course, feel free to visit the Cole sisters' parents in Mount Olivet's Area R/Lot 152 at anytime. If life had worked differently, they, perhaps, would be resting here in death.

The title of this "Story in Stone" reads like the name of a big-city law firm --Rinaldo & Rashland. However, that couldn't be further from the truth as this contrived moniker has never graced a "hung shingle" in our fair city and is simply the combination of names of two complete strangers buried nearly next to one another in Mount Olivet's mysterious Area M.  Fittingly this specific location is also known as "Strangers Row."

We seldom know anything about people whom we call "strangers." When researching individuals in this particular sector of the cemetery, I have to be "lawyer-esque" in approach looking extra hard to find out things about my subjects. This includes a careful cross-examination of relatives, residencies and past employments to attempt to paint a better picture of my subject. I may even find out things about their relationship with the law as well.

With two names, Rinaldo, a first name, and Rashland, a last name, I immediately had the vision of a law office in mind, and immediately thought of the practice of those in the profession hanging their proverbial "shingles." An online search for an early visual showed me the law office of our fifth US President, James Monroe, whose grandson and other descendants rest in our cemetery. I also thought of the alleged law office of our most famous legal duo in Frederick history annals. These two were not only "in-law," but were also in-laws, more specifically, brothers-in-law.  

Rinaldo C. Walters
He was born on February 28th, 1868 and given a masculine Italian name (with German and Latin roots) which crudely translates to "wise power." Rinaldo was born in West Virginia, the oldest of six children to parents John Wesley Walters (1833-1916) and Annie Cecelia Pampel (1845-1928). Berkeley County was the likely home of Rinaldo's birth and paternal relatives as some records infer.

Rinaldo spent his youth in both Frederick City and  Shepherdstown, WV. and likely received little advanced schooling. He did, however, learn a trade — that of his father. He would work as a carpenter for the balance of his life, while his maternal uncles (Henry and David Pampel) would make their mark crafting iron instead of wood. The Pampels' father, Frederick (1800-1876), hailed from France and this surname can still be seen on several existing iron grates throughout town. We will look into their story at another time.

Rinaldo and his parents would eventually move to Frederick in the early 1900s and lived on West Patrick Street according to an obituary for Rinaldo's youngest sister, Violet, who died in Baltimore at 20 years of age in August, 1908. We also learn from this obit that three other siblings lived in Baltimore at this time (Ira, Eugene and Mary "Mamie"). I also saw records that another brother, Harry, married in Boston and eventually lived in New York City.

​Violet would be laid to rest in Mount Olivet's Area K/Lot 26. Interestingly, I found two other family members here in a lot where Violet never received a gravestone. Charles L. Walters, an infant nephew of Rinaldo and Violet (and son of brother Ira) had been buried here in February, 1896. Sadly, the child died on his first birthday. Twenty years later, on March 11th, 1916, Rinaldo's father (John W. Walters) would be buried here next to Charles.

In the first decade of the twentieth century, Rinaldo is listed as working as a carpenter in a blacksmith operation. This could likely have been the Pampel Foundry, once located on West South Street. Regardless, this would be the last census record I could find for our subject as he was living with his mother at the time at the family home on North Market Street. Meanwhile, Rinaldo's father was residing in the county home at Montevue. In 1915, he is listed as a blacksmith in a Frederick City directory and his exact address was 210 West Patrick Street.

A newspaper article from 1919 states that Rinaldo was living on East 5th Street.  The 1920 US Census backs this claim up by showing Rinaldo as a boarder of widow Jane Renner at 128 East 5th Street. Interestingly, a next door neighbor was William R. Diggs, namesake for the municipal pool located off West All Saints Street and the limousine driver for prominent banker, et. al. Joseph Dill Baker (namesake of Baker Park).

By 1928, Rinaldo is back to being called a carpenter in the Frederick City directory and can be found living closer to Diggs Pool than Mr. Diggs, himself, as he was residing as a boarder at 26 West All Saints Street. This would be the year that Rinaldo's mother would pass as well. She is not buried in Area K with her husband, daughter and grandson, but rather in Baltimore where she had lived her final years with a granddaughter. 

I failed to find our subject in the 1930 census, although he died in 1934. I surmise that he was a patient at the Montevue Hospital located northwest of town on West 4th Street extended towards Yellow Springs on a road destined to hold the name of Rosemont Avenue. This institution was built in 1870 and catered mostly to wayward men giving it the moniker "The Tramp House." One year after the Stock Market Crash of 1929, and ushering in the Great Depression, Montevue served an array of transients including what have been described as "idle vagabond paupers, a recent class of professional vagrants, transients or "tramps" often sought out almshouses like this and jails for temporary room and board." 

​​Either by design or heavenly provenance, Rinaldo C. Walters had already found himself  here as a resident since around 1928. As you may recall, his father lived his final years at Montevue as well. And here is where our life story ends for a well-marked "stranger" in Mount Olivet's "Strangers Row."  Apparently, he was on his way either to, or from, Frederick City, but was found in an adjoining field.

My surprise lies in the fact that he was brought to Mount Olivet for burial in a pauper's lot. Perhaps this was dictated by family, as he did receive a gravestone, something his sister and father don't have. I would assume that he would have typically been buried in the "potter's field" at Montevue, a burial ground for hospital residents which we have discussed in an earlier "Story in Stone."

Frederick E. Rashland
A month ago, I wrote about two other "strangers" in Mount Olivet's Area M that bookend the grave of Robert L. Downing, one of the greatest stars of the theatrical stage in the late 1800s. To Mr. Downing's left, is buried Eli G. Jones, MD (1850-1933). This man practiced for over 50 years, selecting methods he found truly useful from conventional medicine, Physio-medicine, Biochemic, Homeopathic and Botanical (Herbal) medicine. Dr. Jones wrote many excellent articles and books including Cancer:  Its Causes, Symptoms and Treatment (originally published in 1922), in which he describes specific and different approaches to each type of cancer then known laying great stress on individualizing the course of treatment for each patient.

The story of Dr. Jones directly led me to learn who the decedents were who occupied graves to his immediate left. The nearest grave monument belongs to Rinaldo C. Walters, whom we just chronicled. However, the nearest individual (in a grave) and actually placed beside the mortal remains of Dr. Jones is one Frederick E. Rashland with no marker or monument.

I would soon learn that Rashland had an acting career like Robert Downing, but was nowhere near as famous. However, on a smaller stage in the field of education and oratory later in life, Mr. Rashland had quite the reputation that brought many to see and, most particularly, hear him. Funny how a man intent on leaving his mark on communities throughout the country with his talents, is buried in a cemetery without anything to mark and identify his final resting spot and an adventurous life seemingly well-lived. 

Frederick E. Rashland was born a year and three months before Frederick carpenter Rinaldo C. Walters. This occurred somewhere in New York on November 12th, 1866. I have experienced hardships in trying to find any specific information on this gentleman prior to the 1890s. From later census records, I learned that his father, John Rashland, was a traveling salesman from Baltimore, and his mother was from France. I found City Directories from 1890 and 1895 that show Frederick Rashland as an actor living in Syracuse.

​​My only source of information prior to the US Census of 1900 has been newspapers which further talk of our subject's profession as an actor. The earliest I found was from 1891. 

In 1894, Fred Rashland starred in the lead role in a comedy play entitled "The Private Secretary." A review of a performance in Hamilton, Ontario specifically called him out for his "grotesque" portrayal.

The clipping below introduced me to the woman I would eventually learn to be Rashland's wife. Anita Richards of Perry, New York, was born July 14, 1873 and would go by the stage name of Anita Leslie in her early years as an actress. The couple would marry on August 11th, 1898.

Fred's big break seems to have come around the time of his nuptials as he was cast in a play titled "The Air Ship," billed as a farce comedy. This impressive traveling production would play to audiences around the country. I found advertisements of it being performed on stages in the northeast, mid-west and far west including: Anaconda, Montana; Dallas, Oregon; Laramie, Wyoming; Boulder, Colorado; Spokane, Washington; North Platte, Nebraska and Vancouver, British Columbia.

​This musical may have been prompted by widespread reports of a mysterious airship seen flying over California in Nov-Dec 1896 and throughout the Midwest in April 1897. It was something of a precursor to the UFO sightings of the postwar era, although most of those who saw the airship assumed it was the creation of a human inventor rather than an extra-terrestrial craft.

​"J. M. Gaites' musical opened with an inventor flying his airship to Alaska and discovering a lake whose shores were literally coated in gold. Sadly his heavy-laden craft went down on the way back, along with all knowledge of the lake's whereabouts. Undaunted, the inventor's nephew decided to try his hand at aeronautical adventure. Reaching Dawson City with a farcical crew of comic characters and buxom beauties, they eventually manage to find the gold and return home in a harrowing thunderstorm.

Critics decried what they perceived as a lack of plot, the show being carried by the music, dialogue, and effects. That is a familiar critique even today. Audiences, on the other hand, loved it. After its initial run in New York, The Air Ship went on tour and continued drawing full houses well into the 1910s. Of particular note were the air ship itself flying through the thunderstorm and the wintry scenes in Dawson, many celebrating these as masterful and as realistic as one supposes that a stage play can get.

With the advent of The Great War and the widespread use of military aircraft, attitudes towards fanciful flights from before the Wright Brothers changed. Like with Jules Verne and Georges Méliès, the public was no longer interested in Scientific Romanticism. The hard reality of industrialized warfare dashed those aspirations. J.M. Gaites' greatest fame still lay in his future though, writing Vaudeville routines for the Marx Brothers."

It seems as if "The Airship" had made its run by the summer 1899, but a few more shows in the Mid-Atlantic region were performed late in the year and early 1900. In the late summer/fall of 1899, Fred Rashland could be found in another production called "The Wyoming Mail." I had found mention of this in respect to a performance in Carlisle, PA, but our subject was well-acquainted with the imagery of the west that this production portrayed as he had recently traveled it.

​I found the Rashlands the following year in the 1900 US Census in Nettie's hometown of Perry, New York. The two are both listed as actors and living with Mrs. Rashland's parents, Albert and Eleanor Richards.

Apparently the two were conducting their own productions that year under "the shingle" of the Rashland-Leslie Theater Company. The brief article below informs the public that the couple were canceling shows for the spring season due to a personal illness experienced by Nettie, but they were not sidelined for long. By 1903, they were traveling together performing benefit shows. One such was called "A Modern Match" and was performed in the greater New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut region.

From exhaustive newspaper research, I noticed a shift beginning in 1909, during a permanent residency in  New York City. The twosome are not acting on stage, but Fred Rashland now possesses a Ph. D. and is working for Columbia University, or so say a few articles I read. He seems to be instructing elocution and oratory skills and is held on retainer by neighboring New York and New Jersey public school systems to train students in this fine art. Of particular interest is his inferred work under philanthropist Helen Gould.

These lectures kept Fred busy throughout the decade, and into the next. Sadly, this line of work would be responsible for his death. More shocking than that statement is the fact that he would die here in Frederick County! More on that in a moment.

In 1920, the Rashlands were living on Mount Vernon Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mr. Rashland's occupation was listed as instructor. 

And that brings us to Frederick Rashland's final "curtain call" here in Frederick County. The year was 1926 and the couple were supposedly residing at 100 Third Street in Washington, DC. Lectures and benefit readings were being performed in regional schools in the winter and spring months leading up to the fateful day of May 27th. 

​On this occasion, Mr. Rashland would make an impromptu visit to the Walkersville School and offer his services for a lecture. As you will learn, the performance was never made.

Frederick Rashland's visit to Frederick, Maryland would be a permanent one for his mortal remains. As I've said at the outset, he would be buried here at Mount Olivet in Area M. He preceded Rinaldo Walters, Dr. Eli G. Jones and fellow actor Robert L. Downing  to the grave. I wonder if he knew Downing at all in the realm of acting? 

Regardless, I was fascinated with the story of this gentleman, however, I would further learn of two evocative anecdotes involving the seemingly struggling actors. The first involves Nettie's plight in Frederick. It is said that sympathizing friends helped Mrs. Rashland bury her husband in our fair cemetery. "Strangers Row" had been set for that same reason, however very few in this location have back stories like him, and Dr. Jones and Mr. Downing as I have shared. More mimic that of Rinaldo Walters.

Mrs. Rashland found herself with no money, and decided to stay. I would learn that she was aided by our local Sisters of the Visitation here in Frederick. I didn't have time to explore this more fully, but I couldn't recall seeing any ties of this couple to the Catholic Church per se, or even religious at all. However, they did appear to be a bit crafty in terms of performing benefits with the seemed end game of benefitting themselves even if it was for daily survival. It seems that Nettie Rashland lived here through the Great Depression era. In 1931, a Frederick City Directory shows her living at the Colonial Hotel at 2 East 2nd Street and working as a waitress. A newspaper article the following year announced that fortunes were about to change for the former actress. Her name would appear on the front page of the Frederick Post.

This was quite mind-blowing to me so I decided to go down the rabbit hole and found a follow-up article and the actual patent design in the 1932 edition of the Official Gazette of the US Patent Office.

Unfortunately, that's as far as I got with the patent. I couldn't find anything further and don't know if the Visitation Academy received the money or not for Mrs. Rashland's invention of the first non-glare automobile headlights—something all of us certainly appreciate to this day.

I could not find Nettie Rashland in the 1940 US Census, but I would learn that she spent the years around that time living at the Montevue Home. I wonder if she knew Rinaldo C. Walters, the man who would be buried next to her husband in 1935? 

​Nettie requested the opportunity to move into a veterans' nursing home for women by proving that she was the daughter of a Civil war veteran. This was in Oxford, New York and was the same home her mother had lived in until her death in 1925. 

Anita (Richards) Rashland would be accepted for residency at the New York State Relief Corps Home in Oxford. She died four years later at age 75 on September 11th, 1948 and is buried at the New York Veterans Home Cemetery at Oxford in Chenango County. Like her husband, she didn't have to pay for her burial spot either.

The last piece of information I "dug up" on this tandem is from a biographical history of citizens of Perry, New York. One such individual written about was Arthur Richards, Mrs. Rashland's father and veteran of the Civil war. I took a moment to read it and an article I had found on the man from a 20th century paper. I was saddened to read a bit about how our acting couple could have been involved in a case of "elder abuse" regarding Mrs. Eleanor Richards after the death of her husband. It reads as follows:

A sad story indeed, but the validity is not proven as far as my research took me. It does hold some credibility however based on the day to day financial struggle of this ever-transient couple to find work for survival, including Fred Rashland's final proposed performance in the Frederick, Maryland vicinity.

​It also speaks to the possible remorse that Nettie felt when her patent for the non-glare automobile headlight was certain to yield a great payout. Maybe that is why she gave the money to those who had helped her in her deepest hour? It would be a decision that would explain why she died penniless and continuing to rely on the charity of others for her residency at our Montevue home, followed by the Oxford Nursing Home, and finally her final resting spot four and a half hours away by vehicle, some 230 miles, from that of her husband's in Mount Olivet.

In keeping with our theme about "hanging up shingles," I will leave you with this quote from Italian actress and model Monica Bellucci:

“I think the lawyers are such incredible actors. Can you imagine the performance they have to do every day?”

This summer, our Friends of Mount Olivet membership group started a project to re-plant our collection of “cradle graves” throughout the cemetery. These unique funerary markers are also known as bedsteads. I wrote a Story in Stone article on these back in October of 2020 entitled “From Cradle to Grave.”

A cradle grave consists of a gravestone, a footstone, and two low stone walls connecting them, creating a rectangle designed to hold plantings while memorializing the person buried below. It resembles a bed, with a headboard, footboard with bedrails on each side connecting them. Flowers planted resemble a lovely blanket of color and texture.

​We have several cradle graves in Mount Olivet, with some marking the graves of children. Popular in the Victorian era, cradle graves were first utilized as early as the 1840s, with most of ours ranging from the 1850s-1870s. Originally, most of these personalized gardens would have been planted and maintained by the family of the deceased. Over the last century, all have been abandoned, in many cases due to families moving away, or dying out.

That said, I checked on a few of these cradle graves last month as we were preparing to feature them as part of our programming for Celebrate Frederick’s annual “Beyond the Garden Gates” garden tour. 

​A little bit further out in the cemetery, a double cradle grave was under repair in Area H. It was for two young daughters of Perry Beall McCleery and wife Mary Jane (Doub) McCleery. Here, sisters, Ida Beall McCleery (January 31st, 1854-August 26th, 1854) and Esther Doub McCleery (Feb 25th, 1858-January 25th, 1859) are buried side by side with this twin version of a cradle grave placed above.

​After taking pictures of this site, I saw a few other monuments of interest just about 30 yards distant to the left and across the lane in neighboring Area G. I was struck by the design of two primary monuments at the front of this family lot belonging to the Bantz and Dukehart families in G/224. These were definitely not cradle graves, but a later “re-boot” on a bed-themed marker over the final resting places of Merle Bowman Bantz (July 3rd, 1850-March 14th, 1899) and Minnie Cecelia Dukehart (March 28th 1860-January 5th, 1906).

​I was perhaps just reading more into these monuments because I had “beds on my mind” thanks to the cradle grave exploration work I was conducting at the time. Upon closer inspection, these really seemed to “fit the bill” as the old expression goes. No flowers could grow out of these elevated granite markers, however, beautiful hand-carved plant-life is depicted on the face and sides of a faux slanted headboard.

​My next point of fascination came with the family names here. I was well-acquainted with the Bantz family of Frederick and patriarch Gideon Bantz, Jr.—grandfather of our subject Merle. Gideon Bantz, Sr. was the first president of the Farmers Club of Frederick County which eventually became known as the Frederick Agricultural Society. This is the same group that gives us the Great Frederick Fair each year. Mr. Bantz served as vice president for the first agricultural fair of the society which was held at the Frederick “Hessian Barracks” grounds in the fall of 1853.

​Gideon Ernest Bantz was born on February 9th, 1792, the son of Henry and Catherine Bantz. He owned farmland both inside, and outside, the town limits, plus a quarry east of Frederick on the National Pike. Bantz was best known for operating a tannery in downtown Frederick on “Brewer’s Alley.” It was positioned north of Carroll Creek along the west side of South Court Street (between the creek and West Patrick Street). Today this location is home to the Citizens Truck Company’s fire station, adjacent the Frederick County Courthouse and its parking lot.
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In October, 1854 Gideon Bantz found himself serving as acting president of the Frederick County Agricultural Society due to an illness to president Col. Lewis Kemp.  This occurred when the Agricultural Society's Board of Trustees met on October 7th, just prior to the opening of their Exhibition on Wednesday, October 11th.  Gideon Bantz attended opening day of the fair, but would travel to Baltimore on Thursday the 12th to represent Frederick County by attending the Maryland  State Fair. While there, he contracted a sudden illness, blamed on oysters he ate for dinner. Mr. Bantz returned home, but died just 24 hours later stunning the community.

​Now this Gideon Bantz is buried in Area G, but further down the driveway to the west from Merle and Minnie who I am spotlighting here. He is buried under a very large obelisk across from Confederate Row. However, this plot (where I have found my later bed monument models) was bought by Gideon Bantz, Sr.’s son Gideon Ernest Bantz, Jr., born October 4th, 1813.

After his father's death, Gideon Jr. carried on the tanyard and mill business, along with other civic roles in the community. He served as a bridge inspector and spent the American Civil War working with Col. Lewis Steiner (buried close by) under the United States Sanitary Commission.

Gideon Ernest Bantz, Jr. apparently died quite suddenly like his father. This occurred on July 21st, 1887 here in Frederick. Heart disease, not oysters, was found as the culprit for his demise.  

​That brings us to Merle Bowman Bantz and Minnie. At first glance, I assumed that Minnie was Merle's wife and this is what brought the Bantz and Dukehart families together in this burial plot. I would soon learn that I was mistaken.

​As stated earlier, Merle was born July 3rd, 1850. He grew up in Frederick, the son of the fore-mentioned Gideon Ernest Bantz, Jr. and wife Julia Ann (Hartman) Bantz.

​As a young man, Merle attended the Frederick Academy here in Frederick. Around the year 1869,  he re-located to Winchester, Virginia to assist his brother Theodore Marion Bantz in a mercantile business. T. Marion was a free-lance journalist who was very interested in politics and ran what has been called the oldest shoe establishment in Winchester at 14 N. Loudoun Street. He was a very close friend of Charles Broadway Rouss, a Woodsboro (MD) native who spent his formative years in Winchester and made it big in New York City to become a wealthy merchant.  Their personal friendship made the Bantz family very popular in Winchester. Another brother, Julius Alton Bantz (1853-1920), would also help with the shoe store. 

​The Dukeharts

Until I read Merle Bantz' obituary, I thought he married Minnie C. Dukehart because the beautiful monuments are identical.  I was also confused in figuring out family members because a neighboring gravestone in this plot belongs to Merle’s aunt Julia Ada (Bantz) Dukehart, sister to his father (Gideon, Jr.) and Gideon Sr.’s only daughter. Julia, born in Shrewsbury, Pennsylvania, married a fellow named Capt. John Peck Dukehart of Baltimore. (More on him later as he has an interesting story as well).
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Anyway, Minnie Cecelia Dukehart is the daughter of Capt. Dukehart and the former Julia Ada Bantz, making her Merle’s first cousin. As I’ve said before, I had no judgment if they had been married, as I know that kind of thing happened regularly back in the day, especially between prominent families. I didn't learn much about Minnie at all through my research attempt. However, I did find her in the 1870 and 1880 census records living in Baltimore.

I double-checked our cemetery records and they state that both Merle and Minnie were single. She was living with her mother in the 1900 US Census. Both Merle and her father had passed the previous year (1899), and the 1890 census is not available to check her whereabouts, but it was likely that she was living at home with her folks her whole life.

Minnie’s sister, Julia Bantz Dukehart, died as an infant in 1858 at 2-months old. This child and Minnie's brother, Eugene, are both buried in this plot here as well.

​I said earlier, I wanted to explain further my findings regarding Capt. John Peck Dukehart, Minnie’s father. He was a native of Baltimore, born July 31st, 1824, the son of an early Baltimore insurance agent named John Dukehart. I found John and wife Ann Dukehart in the folds of Baltimore’s Quaker Church. Capt. Peck was raised in the Society of Friends, along with his sister Sarah. I noted that the family also made frequent trips to Columbiana, Ohio in his youth but I could not establish exactly why.

​In the 1850 census, I found 25 year-old John Peck Dukehart employed as a hose maker. In subsequent censuses he would work for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. As a conductor, he garnered the respect of both passengers and his colleagues by his actions on the job during a terrible blizzard in 1856.

Capt. Dukehart continued working for the railroad until his death on September 27th, 1899. Instead of being buried with his parents in Baltimore, the decedent would be brought to Frederick for burial in the Bantz family plot.

​Thirty-one years later, Capt. Dukehart’s wife, Julia Ada (Bantz) Dukehart died in Baltimore in December, 1923. This woman had outlived her entire immediate family and had them buried in Frederick's Mount Olivet, all in the same family plot with her parents and siblings. She, too, would join them here in death and  would be placed in a grave next to her husband.

​That pretty much wraps up my review of this plot, entirely influenced by me seeing those bed-shaped markers while observing a cradle grave a short distance away. After writing the piece, I found this article in a local newspaper from 1965 which sheds a little more light on this interesting family of Bantzes and Dukeharts.

​As I was walking the western border of the cemetery a week ago, I passed Confederate Row and the over 700 Southern soldiers buried therein—casualties of the American Civil War. These men died during a time range of 1861-1865, and their gravestones once formed a makeshift wall separating the burial ground and surrounding farmland, once part of a plantation known as Birmingham. This part of Mount Olivet comprises the midsection of Area M, a linear section only 12-feet in width. The swath continues north and south of Confederate Row along a chain link fence with houses on the other side belonging to residents of the Carrollton development that has grown out of the Birmingham estate over the last half century.

Just beyond the Confederate graves, and to the south, the topography suddenly dips down. The next 50 yards or so of Area M consists of a hodge-podge of single gravesites, some marked, and others not. This is somewhat of a pauper’s location, and formerly carried the moniker of “Stranger’s Row” in the distant past. Here, one can find many infant and child mortalities, along with indigent residents as we’ve discussed in an earlier “Story in Stone” with focus on the section of Area M  north of Confederate Row.

​As it always does, a familiar stone came plainly into view for me while on this walk, one of my favorite individuals in Mount Olivet because of his unique “life story.” He surely wasn’t indigent, and I've often questioned why he is buried here in this part of our 100-acre burying ground. It is an understated memorial which basically sits like an elevated footstone. Our interment books show this as Area M’s plot #13, and there are only a few grave monuments sitting over a collection of 13 individuals in this roughly 12’x12’ plot, with four interments being those of children.

​This is the grave of Robert Lindley Downing (1857-1944), one of the most successful stage actors of the late 19th century. He was fondly called "America's Tragedian." This Shakespearean-trained performer from Washington, DC shared the stage with some of the greatest actors of his day including Edwin Booth. He was best known for his depiction of “Spartacus the Gladiator,” a role he played thousands of times on stages across the US in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In 1907, he abruptly retired from the stage to become an evangelical minister and toured the country in that vocation. Afterwards, he lived a simple and reclusive life in Middletown, devoid of the great fanfare enjoyed in early life.  (Click for original "Story in Stone.")

​This humble plot of Area M/Lot 13 seldom has visitors, but rather plenty of passersby who have no idea that they are in the midst of a bonafide entertainment legend from an earlier era before motion pictures. I will note that this vicinity is, however, under the watchful eye of a dutiful German Shepherd on the other side of the fence.
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No other Downing family members are here, which is interesting considering Mr. Downing had married four times. He was widowed twice, and divorced once from his second spouse, Eugenie Blair, a noted stage actress in her own right. Downing’s third wife, Helene Kirkpatrick (1864-1930), is buried several hundred yards away to the north (and along this same cemetery lane) in an unmarked grave in Mount Olivet’s Area L/Lot 183. Downing’s parents, siblings and grandparents are buried in Washington, DC's Glenwood Cemetery.

​The answer to my question of, “Why here?” can be explained by the fact that Area M once afforded families and benevolent groups the opportunity to purchase or obtain single gravesites at a cheaper rate than the usual spaces for sale . Mr. Downing’s fourth wife, and widow, simply decided that she may want to be buried elsewhere instead of by his side.

That is what I believed when I wrote my story back in March of 2017, and recalled this fact again upon my impromptu visit last week. This time around, I took special notice of Robert L. Downing’s immediate neighbors, wondering who they were, and thinking of whether their descendants have knowledge of their respective "loved one's" proximity to such an interesting celebrity?

My observation soon commenced as I saw the gravestone of a man named Harry Wilson to the right of Mr. Downing. According to his monument, Wilson lived from March 18th, 1850 to May 25th, 1932. Closer inspection of our cemetery records showed that he actually died on June 25th of that year, a fact proven by his obituary stating so (as it appeared in the June 27th, 1932 edition of the Frederick News.)

​I didn't learn much at all on this man. As the article states, Harry Wilson was a resident of the Montevue Home for the aged at the time of his death. I found him there in the 1930 US Census, and he was also living at Montevue a decade earlier in 1920. However, the 1920 Census lists Mr. Wilson in the employ of the Montevue Hospital, and greater facility, as a “fireman.”  Sort of interesting that the Montevue would undergo a later demolition by way of fire as a training exercise, but I digress.

The only thing I could find was information claiming Harry was a native of Pennsylvania, and his parents were both immigrants from Scotland. The responsible party for Mr. Wilson’s burial was a Miss Alice Mull on behalf of Montevue Hospital.
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Unlike Mr. Downing, Harry Wilson never married. I assume his burial here, as opposed to the potter’s field at Montevue, was a gesture honoring his dedicated service to the county almshouse facility.

 I had no earthly idea who this former physician was, but would soon learn that he, too, would marry four times like the stage actor buried beside him 11 years later. Dr. Jones would also be widowed twice and divorced once.

Dr. Eli G. Jones possesses a stone that is also that of a footstone variety, but it is not elevated substantially like that of Mr. Downing’s. 

​The similarities, however, don’t stop there. Both men were one-time residents of Middletown. This fact could be explained by further exploring a major connection involving a woman from the nearby piketown to the west who had loved, and been loved by both of these interesting gentlemen. She was the one who was responsible for choosing the gravesites of both men.

This woman was not a cemetery employee, or county almshouse representative as we saw in the case of Miss Mull handling Harry Wilson’s burial. No sir, this woman was wife # 4 for Dr. Eli Jones, and wife #4 for Robert Downing. Meet Mary Shafer Jones Downing. Her previous husbands lie side to side, but she is nowhere to be found, so to speak.

That’s right, Dr. Jones and Robert Downing share a common link in the form of wife Mary, the former Mary Eleanor Shafer of Middletown.  She was the daughter of a teacher, former Frederick tax collector,  and ten times elected Burgess of Middletown. In fact, Mr. Peter W. Shafer was also a co-organizer of the Hagerstown & Frederick Trolley system. Her sister Eva was an accomplished artist and both sisters participated in the Washington social scene.

Mr. Shafer and wife Anna L. (Young) are buried in Christ Reformed Burying Ground in Middletown, just east of Mary’s former family home (spent with both husbands) on the west side of South Jefferson Street.

​Through additional research, I found that Mary Eleanor Shafer was born July 19th, 1870. She grew up, and was educated, in her native Middletown. She graduated from Allentown College in Allentown, PA. Mary became a drama and literature teacher and did considerable writing for various professional publications. She would continue to teach while married to both husbands, who were considered accomplished teachers as well.

​Since I told you a bit about Mary’s second husband, (Robert), let me tell you about her first. I don’t know how, or where, she met Dr. Eli G. Jones, but the couple were married at Wayne, New York on August 27th, 1923. At the time, Mary was 53 and the good doctor was 20 years her senior. 

​So, Dr. Eli Gresselt Jones moved to Maryland, and moreso, Middletown with his “young” bride (relatively speaking, of course). While Mary advertised her skills in preparing young students for careers in public speaking and the like, her new husband was often mentioned in local newspapers of the period as receiving visits from medical graduate students that he had taught. In fact, Dr. Jones ran a private school for cancer treatment on Middletown's Main Street. This was his latter life’s work, that of an instructor and author of several books that are still widely used today.

​To my amazement, I soon learned that Dr. Jones not only had an incredible ancestry, but also had made quite a name for himself professionally, rivaling that of his marital replacement in Robert L. Downing who would eventually become husband to Mary E. Shafer.

Eli G. Jones
Eli G. Jones, MD (1850 - 1933) practiced for over 50 years, selecting methods he found truly useful from conventional medicine, Physio-medicine, Biochemic, Homeopathic and Botanical (Herbal) medicine.  He developed such skill in treating difficult cases, that he became known as a "doctor's doctor," assisting his fellow physicians on up to 2,000 cases a year. He wrote many excellent articles and books. 

There are countless online references to Dr. Jones’ work, especially in regards to cancer research and therapies. He was one of the first to do so, and made the claim that he could even cure the terrible disease. In Cancer:  Its Causes, Symptoms and Treatment (originally published in 1922), he describes specific and different approaches to each type of cancer then known  laying great stress on individualizing the course of treatment for each patient.

Dr. Jones even has his own Wikipedia page with his biographical information therein:
"Jones studied conventional medicine and practiced for five years before deciding that the medicine of the day was harmful, because of its dependence upon harsh cathartics like calomel. He then turned to eclectic medicine, which relied upon herbal extracts including those of the Native Americans, went back to school, graduated, and practiced eclectic medicine for another five years. He decided to learn homeopathy, went back to school, and then practiced as a homeopath. He next turned to Physiomedicalism and, after studying, practiced that for another five years.

And finally, he studied Dr. Willhelm Heinrich Schüssler's biochemical cell salts, which is similar to homeopathy, but relies upon salts found in the body and practiced that. After his forays into the various medical schools of his time, Jones developed a syncretic practice using all the schools he had learned. He tended to use a low dosage herbal tinctures or homeopathic mother tinctures in high doses. His Definite Medication proposed low dosage herbal extracts and engendered opposition from non-homeopaths."

As mentioned earlier, Dr. Jones wrote Cancer – Its Causes, Symptoms and Treatment – Giving the Results of over Forty Years' Experience in the Medical Treatment of this Disease, and Definite Medication. He also published “A Journal of Therapeutic Facts for the Busy Doctor,” which gave doctors the pro and con experience of various treatments. The 1912 and 1913 issues have been transcribed by David Winston.

I next stumbled upon a website of a gentleman named Donnie Yance, an internationally known master herbalist and nutritionist. He is the author of the book, Herbal Medicine, Healing and Cancer and Adaptogens in Medical Herbalism. Specifically, Mr. Yance writes a blog, and one such article from June 25th, 2015 is entitled: “The Wisdom of Dr. Eli Jones, One of the Greatest Physicians of All Time.” I will share the link to this blog in a moment, but this is how Mr. Yance’s article begins:

“In my opinion, one of the greatest physicians of all time—and perhaps the person that has influenced me more than any other in my clinical practice and pursuit of doing all that I can to help those with cancer—was Dr. Eli Jones, an American Eclectic physician. He was a master of knowing the specific actions and indications of each herb, and especially the applications of herbs for cancer.

The basic principles of Eclectic medicine can be distilled to these simple precepts:

Nature is the great physician who, if permitted and not interfered with, provides for our physical requirements.
Disease (dis-ease) of whatever nature is caused by a lack of equilibrium (an imbalance), the result of an abnormal condition in the body, or the result of congestion due to poor elimination.

Dr. Jones was a true Eclectic in that he read all medical textbooks of that time, including allopathic, Physiomedical, homeopathic, and of course, Eclectic. He believed in the exploration of every system of medicine, regardless of its origins, to discover and apply the most useful principles for the wellbeing of humanity. He combined his own botanical formulations (internal and topical) with simple Nature Cures such as hydrotherapy, and he also used some homeopathy.

Eli Jones practiced from the late nineteenth century into the early twentieth century and was the most successful doctor ever to treat cancer. He believed that a tumor is only a local manifestation of a constitutional (or blood) disease and that the underlying cause—a weakened constitution—must be addressed to successfully cure the cancer. Cancer, like most diseases, affects the whole organism, and should be treated as such. Modern conventional medicine fails to recognize this, and instead focuses on removing the cancer through surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, all of which further weaken the constitution.

Eli Jones gave these four main reasons for the increase of cancer in America, England, and most of the modern world (note that he made these observations a century ago):

Stress: he called this “worriment of the mind.” Worrying weakness the nervous system, lowers vitality, and opens the way for the invasion of cancer.

Vaccinations: In all states and countries where vaccinations are mandatory, you find cancer on the increase.

Diet: Overeating meat coupled with a low intake of vegetables and fruit increases the incidence of cancer. In England, where cancer increased 4 ½ times over the last fifty years, meat consumption rose to an average of 131 pounds per year per person. In the La Grande Trappe monastery in France, where the diet excludes meat, tea, coffee, and other stimulants, there was not a single case of cancer for twenty-seven years.
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The abuse of stimulants: This includes tea, coffee, alcohol, tobacco, etc.”

(Read Blog on Donnie.Blanche.com)

​Like other Mount Olivet residents I have met by researching and writing these “Stories in Stone,” I love reading quotes from our decedents. The cliche is true, as these rare opportunities help bring people back alive. Dr. Eli G. Jones wrote in the early 20th century the following passage:

“In America we are becoming a nation of nervous, hysterical people.  You must realize that if the nerve power falls below the normal standards there is danger of the invasion of cancer. What our people need to be taught is how to live.  Good pure water, good pure air helps you make good healthy red blood. Unadulterated food, mostly vegetables which are easily digested, keep the nervous system strong and vigorous. “STOP WORRYING and return to the simple way of life.”

​Dr. Eli G. Jones was the son of a Quaker preacher (named Eli Jones) and grew up in the Society of Friends, himself. Both father and son were born at China Lake, Kennebec County, Maine, about twelve miles from Augusta. Our subject was the grandson of Abel and Susannah (Jepson) Jones, a direct descendant of Captain Christopher Jones (1570-1622), who commanded the legendary Mayflower, that brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth Rock in November of 1620.

In 1833, Eli Jones (the physician’s father) married Sybil Jones. They were the parents of several children including our subject (Eli Grelett), who was born July 26th, 1850. He had aspirations of becoming a lawyer, and excelled on his school’s debate team, but his mother wanted him to stay in medicine. Eli would be sent to Friends Boarding School in Dirigo, Maine for schooling, and eventually studied under a homeopathic doctor named Dr. Frances Roberts. Here is where he learned the Materia Medica.

Eli Jones next studied under David P. Bolster and attended Oak Grove Academy in Maine before attending the Eclectic Medical College in Pennsylvania,  and University of Pennsylvania College of Medicine and Surgery in Philadelphia.

​By age 20, the US Census of 1870 shows his profession as that of a physician. He was practicing in his hometown, but still continued his learning by attending Dartmouth University, graduating in 1871.
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A decade later, Dr. Eli G. Jones was living in Amesbury, Massachusetts, the hometown of John Greenleaf Whittier who wrote the legendary Ballad of Barbara Fritchie. Although Dr. Jones would not have personal familiarity with Frederick at that time in 1880, I’m certain he knew all about our Civil War heroine Barbara Fritchie, and Frederick’s “Clustered Spires” long before moving here over 40 years later.

In the 1880 US Census, Dr. Jones is married to first wife, Cynthia Sophia Roberts from Sharon , NY. They had wed in 1872 and she was a college-educated woman who first worked as a teacher, and later as a nurse. The couple had a 6-year-old daughter named Cassina Mae (1874-1941) at this time. A second daughter, Mabel Florence (1882-1971) came next.

Interestingly, Cynthia and Eli Jones' marriage would not last. In fact, she would not die  before Dr. Jones as I had assumed, but instead would do so just ten months after his death in November, 1933. This was puzzling for multiple reasons. I learned that Dr. Jones would marry again in the year 1883. This was to a woman named Hannah "Hattie" Emma Little (1853-1907). Dr. Jones had two additional children with Hanna: Walter Grelett (1885-1951) and Sybil May (1893-1974).

​This new iteration of the Dr. Jones family lived in Ohio and New Jersey, but by 1900, they could be found living in a boarding house on 33rd Street in Manhattan, New York and Hannah’s profession was that of a stock-broker.

As for Dr. Jones’ first wife, Cynthia , she was living with her mother and daughter (Cassina) in Hanover, New Hampshire in the 1900 US Census and working as a nurse. Her own marital status reads “widowed” in the census of that year as well. I jumped up a decade to 1910 and found Mrs. Jones and now 28-year-old daughter Mabel Florence working and living in Indianapolis, Indiana.  

Cynthia Jones would eventually move to Tulare, California in 1914 to live with now-married daughter Mabel Florence (Herd).  I checked for Cynthia in the 1920 census, and her own marital status reads “widowed." She lived here for the next 13 years. I was still curious as to the reason of their marriage dissolution going back to the early 1880s, but have been told that many people simply used the widow moniker to avoid the scrutiny and shame associated with divorce in those early days.

​Meanwhile,  Dr. Eli G. Jones would endure his second wife Hannah’s death in 1907, and raise his children into adulthood. He can be found in Burlington, New Jersey in 1910. Interestingly,  Dr. Jones’ marital status in 1910 simply read that he was engaged in his second marriage with a new woman named Merie (Marie), who ran a boarding house where the physician also lived as her husband. Shouldn't this be his third marriage? Perhaps an annulment wiped out that marriage with first wife Cynthia, or his secret (divorce or an abandonment by one party or the other) was easy to conceal as he regularly moved from place to place around the country?

In 1912, Dr. Jones found himself at the helm of a new national medical society called the American Association of Progressive Medicine. As it's founder, the following editorial appeared in early July, 1913:

Our Association is a Grand Brotherhood, composed of the best, the brainy men of all schools of medicine; men who want the best there is in medicine; men who are doing things in their profession, whose heart and soul are in the work of saving human life. This is a call for every man who loves his fellow-man and his profession, and who wants to do his whole duty by his patient. We want you with us! Will you come and will you do it now.
 
A PHYSICIAN'S DUTY TO HIS PATIENT.
I have always felt that a Doctor's duty to his patient was the paramount issue, that it overrides every
other consideration. Your patients have shown their confidence in you by employing you; they expect
the best medical treatment that you can give them, and they have a right to it.

In this enlightened age, no Physician can afford to plead ignorance of the most common remedies
used in the different schools of Medicine. In his ignorance of these remedies he is handicapped in
dealing with diseased conditions. When a Doctor refuses to consult with another Doctor because he
doesn't happen to belong to his particular School of Medicine, or if he refuses to use a remedy because
it doesn't happen to be in. the Materia Medica of the School of Medicine that he is identified with, then
I say that he is not doing his whole duty down to an early grave, because their Doctor followed blindly,
slavishly the 'Authorities' of his particular School of Medicine. It is a pity that many of our Physicians
born under the shadow of "Old Glory," rocked in the cradle of Liberty, yet they are cowed down by a
slavish fear of the "Powers that would be" of their particular School of Medicine.

Brothers! Are we freemen or are we slaves? If we are freemen, then let us use the brains God has
given us to use for suffering humanity, and not depend upon Some one else's brains to tell us our duty
to the sick. When I graduated at Dartmouth Medical College, N. H., one of our Professors said to the
class, 'Boys, you want to be Captain of them all.' I understood what he meant and took his words to
heart, and resolved then and there, that I would be 'Captain of the whole.' To do this I decided first
that I must rid myself of all prejudice against any School of Medicine; that I would study the Materia
Medica and Practice of all Schools of Medicine to fit myself to heal the sick. I took up one School of
Medicine at a by his patient.

To refuse the help of a brother Physician is a greater responsibility than I personally would dare to
take upon my shoulders. We should remember that there is a remedy somewhere for every diseased
condition, and it is your business and mine to find the remedy and use it. If not, then we have not done
our whole duty."

Dr. Jones outspoken nature played out in several newspaper articles I came across in my research.

​Sadly, Dr. Jones lost third wife Marie sometime between 1910 and 1920 because the census of the latter shows him living alone as a boarder in Erie, New York. He still had his professional life, and like Robert Downing, continued honing his craft as he traveled through life. An article in an Ohio newspaper from 1919 referred to him as the eminent physician of the Buffalo, New York area. This tipped me off to the move from New Jersey.

Dr. Jones traveled the country, appearing at medical conferences all over. In 1921, I found a reference to him serving as the official statistician of the American Medical Association, something he had been doing at least since 1915. As said earlier, Dr. Jones would next marry Middletown’s Mary E. Shafer in 1923, and soon became a resident of Frederick County and Maryland where he continued in his profession, gave lectures and read books.

That brings us to late January, 1933. The front page of the Frederick Post published word of Dr. Eli G. Jones’ death. He would then be buried in Mount Olivet’s Area M, Lot 13. Little did he know that his wife would marry again in 1936. This was to Robert Downing. Eight years later, Mary would be widowed in 1944, and had to bury her second husband in an 11-year span. She placed "America's Tragedian" in a grave right next to her third husband. Both of these highly accomplished men are resting in peace within Mount Olivet's  Stranger’s Row. And to me, that's the "strangest" part of this story.

Robert L. Downing and Dr. Eli G. Jones had eight wives between them. However, that final wife for each, is  not here in Mount Olivet, but buried in an unmarked grave in southeastern Pennsylvania. I could not find an obituary, but I did locate a particular death certificate from the Keystone state. 

Mary died on June 5th, 1951 in Norristown State Hospital. The document shows that she had been residing in West Chester, PA and that her cremains were placed within West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, PA.

I assumed that I would find her final resting place on Findagrave.com but that was not the case. There is certainly no shortage of Downings here in this famous garden cemetery, as I suddenly recalled nearby Downingtown, PA. My search for Mary was fruitless, telling me that her grave is likely unmarked. What a disappointment and shame, because Mary had wed two very prominent men during her lifetime, and was the daughter of outstanding locals. If anything else, her remains should be honorably memorialized in Middletown's Reformed Cemetery in the plot with her immediate family.

My last point of business for this story was confirming her burial, which I was able to do thanks to Laurel Hill's impressive cemetery website: laurelhillphl.com. Using a locator tool on the site, I found the location of Mary's burial (River 582/Site 2). 

Mother’s Day is the single busiest visitation day for cemeteries near and far. Saying this, it is a bittersweet one for many as they come to the cemetery to celebrate the memory and adoration for a mother, grandmother, step-mother, or maternal-figure. It also ends a high stress period for cemetery superintendents as they have been scrambling to have their respective grounds looking their best at a time when May showers can play havoc with maintenance crews’ ability to mow and trim grass.
​
Burial grounds like Mount Olivet serve as vivid reminders of how people feel about their maternal figures, who these women were in life, and how the family chose to remember them after death through grave markers and memorial headstones. Like a mother herself caring for her children, cemeteries are regarded as sacred places entrusted with respectfully caring for deceased individuals, along with the preservation of shared history.

A couple years back, I spotted a particular gravestone in Mount Olivet that gave me inspiration for a great Mother’s Day FaceBook post, which I made the following day. It was perfect, as it boldly caught my eye by having the pronouncement, “To My Mother,” on its face. This beautiful work in marble featured a hand-carved flowers shaped like a wreath surrounding the above memorial sentiment. It is located in the historic section of Area H/Lot 397.

The decedent here is a woman named Catharine Michael who died on February 28th, 1858. Research findings were scant.  Catharine was born January 4th, 1804, as Catharine Bernhart, but our cemetery records do not list her parents’ names. On the website Geneanet.com, I found a Catharine Bernard with a birthdate of 1808, the daughter of Luke (1761-1816) and Rebecca Barnard (1770-1826). Could this be her, regardless of birthdate accuracy and spelling of surname?
​
Not much else could be gleaned of her birthplace, or about her early life, however I soon learned that in addition to being a mother, our subject was a wife three times over. She first married a man named John Coe on June 2nd, 1820. With a little searching, it appears Mr. Coe died in 1833 at age 41 and is buried at Israel’s Creek Meeting House Cemetery in Walkersville. I found his gravestone and memorial page on FindaGrave.com.

There is a woman buried to the immediate right of Catharine by the name of Ann Rebecca Norris (1822-1868). I believe this to be the daughter of Catharine and John Coe, even though our records do not list her parents’ names either. However, the responsible party for Catharine’s burial was a son-in-law named J. Lawson Norris. This man is buried next to Catharine—James Lawson Norris (1810-1882) was the husband of Ann Rebecca. The Norris gravestone, of a more recent make and model, states that Mr. Norris was a one-time editor of the Republican Citizen newspaper. This also gives potential support to Catharine giving that name of Rebecca (to her daughter) as a tribute of honoring her own mother (Rebecca Bernhart/Bernard) if that be the case. 

​Catharine next married a gentleman named John Baker. I could not find a date of marriage but I am assuming sometime in 1835 or 1836. A second daughter was born to Catharine on December 13th, 1836 in the form of Caroline Matilda Baker. This woman would marry a man named Albert Mory, and lived later on North Charles Street in Baltimore. She and her husband are buried to the immediate left of “Mother Catharine.”

The maternal rose between two thorns you could say, but with the sentiment expressed on Catharine’s gravestone, I deduct that they were loving daughters. 

I learned that Catharine lived in Middletown, and was a one-time owner of the west half of Lot#26, now 112 West Main Street. George C. Rhoderick, Jr. in The Early History of Middletown, Maryland states that Catharine Baker purchased this property from a James Cook on March 15th, 1845. (At the time of her death, this property was bequested to Caroline Mory, her daughter. Caroline and husband Albert would eventually sell this to Samuel Brandenburg in 1864.)

John Baker died sometime in the 1840s as Catharine married for a third, and final time, on March 3, 1850. This was to a man named Isaac Michael. Mr. Michael moved took up residence in the former Baker household. She appears with him in the 1850 US Census.

​I could not locate an obituary for Catharine, but saw that there was a little wrangling over the estate of Mrs. Michael between her daughter and third husband. Looks like Caroline won out from what we know, especially in terms of keeping the house in Middletown. 

One more stone is here in this lot, and it has the name Bibbins on its face. Here lies Catharine's granddaughter Ruthella Bernard Bibbins (nee Mory). This is Caroline's daughter,and the most telling discovery here is that middle name of Bernard.

Mother’s Day has been all about paying tribute to mothers both on earth and those who have passed since its inception. From a little online research, I learned that starting in ancient times, the Romans and Greeks both had their own festivals to pay tribute to mother goddesses. The Celtic tribes of Europe would honor Brigid, their mother goddess figure. This pre-Christian day of honor was less dedicated to individual mothers and more about mythical figures. The switch came back in 1870 in post-Civil War United States, when author and poet Julia Ward Howe first attempted a celebration with her “Mother’s Day Proclamation.” Her goal was celebrating the mother figures in our lives.

On May 10th, 1908, a lady named Anna Jarvis (1864-1948) picked up where Julia Ward Howe left off by holding a memorial for her mother at St. Andrew’s Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia. Her mother had passed three years earlier. Ann Reeves Jarvis was a social activist during the Civil War, and was a founder of Mothers' Day Work Clubs. Anna was inspired by her mother’s kind and giving nature, seeing that reflected in mothers across the country, stating a mother is “the person who has done more for you than anyone in the world.” 

In 1876, twelve year-old Anna had stated in a prayer after a Sunday school lesson:

"I hope and pray that someone, will found a memorial mothers day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life. She is entitled to it." 

Thirty-eight years later in 1914, Anna petitioned Congress to create a holiday honoring all Mothers. President Woodrow Wilson signed Mother's Day into law and the rest is history.

Today, St. Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church is the International Mother's Day Shrine, located in Grafton. This 1910 event marked the first official observance of Mother's Day. ​Jarvis continued to fight for the deeper meaning of the day years later, protesting companies that wanted to make Mother’s Day a for-profit holiday, even getting arrested for “disturbing the peace” while she protested the sale of carnations as gifts for mothers. Her greatest wish was for people to visit their mothers, visit cemeteries, and write letters that came from the heart.

Speaking of letters, about 20 years ago I came across some old letters written by a first cousin to my Great-great grandmother who lived in Delaware City, Delaware. These were written in the 1880s by a Margaret "Maggie" (Gallaway) Davis who also lived in Grafton. My ancestor was much younger than the letters' author and both women's mothers were sisters. Interesting the content of these letters talked primarily about the state of the current mothers, along with other family info as the family was disjointed on account of geography and living so far apart.

I had the opportunity to stay at a place called Terra Alta, WV in October of 2022. This is about 10 miles west of Oakland, MD, not all to far from Deep Creek Lake. Ironically, this was the last place my own mother lived before her death in February, 2019. I decided one afternoon that I would drive an hour southwest to Taylor County and try to find the cemetery that Margaret "Maggie" Davis was buried in hopes to visit her grave. This led me to Bluemont Cemetery in Grafton.

Once there, I started my search for Margaret's grave without knowledge of its location. It was a Sunday, and no one was in the office. Bad planning on my part. As I wandered through hundreds of gravestones on the steep slopes of the mountainside cemetery, I stumbled upon a fascinating memorial. It was that of Ann Reeves Jarvis, Ann's mother. This is where I first learned the story of Mother's Day which I just recounted for you. So very fitting since the my weekend trip was filled with memories of my mom, as this was the first time I had been back to her former home, and place of death since 2019. It's like she was there guiding me through that cemetery, and Mrs. Jarvis' grave perhaps.

In case you were wondering, I did find the gravesite of my distant relative, Maggie Davis, in the cemetery about 100 yards up on top of the hill, and about a half hour later. Through her letters, this woman helped shed a bit of light on my Great-great grandmother, and more so, on that woman's mother, my Great-great-great grandmother.

Taking a walk through a cemetery, especially ones that have older headstones and memorials, it is not difficult to see how women have been defined through motherhood in the past.  Many headstones and memorials are adorned with the word "Mother," along with poems and quotes that reflect who the particular woman was in life, and what she means to the family in death. In older times, simple inscriptions about her character were common, such as “God-fearing homemaker” or “Hardworking caregiver." Over time, these became more eloquent and many people chose Bible passages exemplifying their role as mother, or using an original poem written by a family member.

This is the story of Catharine Michael and countless others in Mount Olivet in Frederick, Maryland, Bluemont in Grafton, West Virginia, and everywhere else. Good luck with your visitation on Mother's Day if you are making one. If not, keep the memory of yours close, not just on this day, but everyday.

Inscription on Catharine Michael's grave: 

"For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." (Phillipians 1:21)

(NOTE: Can't make that last passage out, please place in comments below if you can.)

If "April showers bring May flowers," what do May showers bring?

Well, it appears we can expect either continued or future blooming of trees and flowers, or the abrupt end of the annual blossom cycle as can be attested by many places in the cemetery, as well as my back patio and yard at home. A recent onslaught of rain, after a mild spring and winter, has put more than a damper on outdoor events and activities over the last few days. The precipitation and blustery conditions have altered the vibrant spring landscape of just a week or two ago. Colorful petals  and important seeds from  neighboring trees and bushes have fallen to the ground, some traveling several yards away.

Meanwhile, bees of the Megachilidae family have been working overtime, busily transporting pollen between plants, while some of us have been sneezing up a storm because of the powdery substance. It's all part of the plan when talking of angiospermous trees such as dogwoods, redbuds, Japanese magnolias, flowering plums and cherries. All of these are among the season's earliest bloomers. It appears, that I may be a week too late to capture optimum photographs, but there is still some hope for the present and days ahead.

​Speaking of blooming, it's been an interesting spring here already at Mount Olivet. We recently unveiled a new "Tree & History" Walking Tour with the Frederick County Forestry Conservation Board. We designed the tree sojourn last fall and winter, and its been so refreshing to see the trees covered in leaves and flowering once again. Our inaugural guided tour of this occurred on Arbor Day (April 26th) and it seemed like the perfect spring day at the height of color and blossoming trees.

While I'm on the subject, this Tree Walk follows others the Frederick Forestry Board has done for Baker Park and Hood College in recent years. Like those offerings, we now have 19 specimen adorned with small signs containing a QR code. With a simple capture of the code using the smartphone's camera  feature, users will have access to a comprehensive website, packed full of information, images and maps that will virtually aid the trail follower.

​Hedges and bushes throughout the grounds are still looking looking robust, and in different stages of bloom, while flowers of many varieties have been popping up as well. One particular place to look in our cemetery is in the middle of Areas S, T, and U. This is where we have the World War I Memorial Gazebo and Never Forget Garden. Here, one will find 11 white "Knock Out" Roses in a bed of poppies that encircle the memorial. Poppies are synonymous with World War I, (read the poem "In Flander's Fields") and are often used as a symbol of sleep, peace and death. It's very fitting that these flowers are in full bloom in the weeks leading up to  Memorial Day.

Some of these have been recently planted as part of a new project our Friends of Mount Olivet group has taken up by beautifying our unique collection of "cradle graves," located throughout the historic section. These burial monuments were popular around the American Civil War era of the 1850s-1860s and were designed to look like bedsteads with a headboard, footboard, and side rails. In days of yore, flowers and evergreen woody vines like ivy were planted in these beds, both  literal and figurative.

We'll be discussing these new offerings of our "garden cemetery," in a few weeks on May 18th and 19th (1-5pm) as we will again be a stop on the Beyond the Garden Gates Tour. A favorite of residents and visitors alike, this particular Celebrate Frederick event has grown to draw over 800 visitors annually, and has raised thousands of dollars for local garden clubs and multiple beautification projects around Frederick. Special thanks to this year's major partner and facilitator of the event, the Tasker's Chance Garden Club. 

On those particular Saturday and Sunday afternoons (18th and 19th), the Key Memorial Chapel (behind the Francis Scott Key monument) will be open to participants and boasting  info and exhibits, as will our greenhouse. This latter structure is the temporary home each year for many lilies destined for  Carroll Creek and the wildly successful "Color on the Creek" initiative. We hope to have some lily ponds of our own in the near future. ​

​On a recent walk, just over a week ago, to check on our legion of historic gravestone cleaning volunteers, aka "The Stoners," I stumbled upon a most fitting burial plot on a sunny day prior to the recent stormy weather that I referenced at the onset of this article. This was in Mount Olivet's Area H, and I later learned that I had found myself taking special note of Lot 385. Six family members reside here in the proverbial shadow of a large granite marker that announces their name as "Blum."

This impressive gravestone, simply stating the family surname, "sprouts" out in the center of the lot, with individual member foot stones located around its perimeter. For those of you with an understanding of the German language,  Blum translates to "bloom" in English. The noun "die Blume" is the word for flower. Ironically, no flowers can be found in the lot or surrounding lots, but I was taken with the beauty of a pink Dogwood tree standing proudly in the distance behind the plot. 

The head of this household was a longtime Frederick tailor named John Nicholas Blum, born January 1st, 1845. From the limited info I found on this gentleman, I learned he was a native of Hanover, Germany. His wife Elizabeth, better known as Elsie (nee Biene), was also a German immigrant hailing from Hesse Cassell. She lived from 1838-1921. 

I found this couple in the 1870 and 1880 Federal Census records. In both, they were living at 100 W. All Saints Street. The couple had four known children, all of whom are buried here in this plot: Louise Christine (1870-1930), George Nicholas (1871-1872), Augusta (1874-1932) and Bertha M. (1876-1932).

From what I could learn, Mr. Blum was an active member of Frederick's German Reformed Church. He appears to have changed careers by the early 1880s as I found him working at the toll gate house east of Frederick City by 1883. A series of interesting articles speak to a few newsworthy events our subject was involved in. These are all from the Frederick Daily News, a publication in its infancy at this time.

In 1884, Mr. Blum moved his family out of downtown Frederick after buying a 31-acre farm near Monocacy Junction. The purchase price was $2,800.  In keeping with this week's theme, I found it interesting that the Blum's new home is referred to (in the article) as a "garden farm."

Unfortunately, Nicholas Blum would die less than two years later on Valentine's Day, 1886. He was only 40 years old. Mr. Blum would be buried in this lot in Area H, where his son George had been laid to rest 14 years prior in late July, 1872. 

Footstones would accumulate here in the Blum lot, much like petals under some of our trees this week. added to the space as additional family members passed from among the living. This group whose names and lives were captured and duly counted in the 1880 census record I shared above, would now gather here in death (in both body and name). Nicholas Blum's wife lived a good, long life into her 80s, dying in 1921. However, the three Blum daughters would be gone by the end of 1932. They each died in their late 50s which seems sort of representative of those pretty flowering trees loosing their leaves a bit prematurely as it seems. All three sisters (Louise, Augusta and Bertha) are buried here, but Bertha, the last to die, does not have a footstone.

​I had gone back the other day to take a picture of Bertha's gravestone, before knowing she didn't have one, and was surprised to see how differently the landscape looked just a week after I had last been there. The Dogwood (behind the plot) was devoid of all pink petals. Of course, the sky wasn't a brilliant blue as I had seen earlier, but now was cloudy and ominous looking, and the grass was understandably wet from rain.

​However, there was some good news and a silver lining. The stone cleaning team had been here during my absence. Water and our D2 cleaning solution, compounded with additional rains had worked their magic on the Blum grave markers. I could now read the footstones clearly! Just one week, and they looked so much better, dare I say "new." The central Blum family stone even glowed, as if it was in "perfect bloom," if you will allow me to say. 

​So, what have we learned this week? First off, springtime colors, like that of fall, come fast and furious. Enjoy them while you can because the season cycle is always turning. Second, gravestones can magically "re-bloom," like buds and flowers, into the beautiful memorial originally placed over a loved one's grave, even if it was a century ago like Mrs. Blum and her daughters, or Nicholas Blum and son George 140-150 years ago.

Most of all, both entities, nature and gravestones, are here to remind us that life is such an amazing gift, and it sadly passes by too quickly, doesn't it? Quit worrying over dumb stuff, and focus on the beauty of all things big and small. I saw a quote recently, and it seems to speak to this thought perfectly: 

“It is true, as they say, that the blossoms of spring are all the more precious because they bloom so briefly." 

-Murasaki Shikibu (973-1014) from her work The Tale of Genji.

A few weeks back, I had the opportunity to visit another beautiful “garden/rural cemetery” like ours at Mount Olivet. This was Oak Hill Cemetery in Northwest Washington, DC, located at 3001 R Street next to Dumbarton Oaks Park. This area, near historic Georgetown,  can be seen by travelers using the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway. And when I say this is a cemetery "like ours," I mean there are a lot of common features and elements, but just as many differences based on a natural topography affording the opportunity for more trees and private family crypts. 
​
For those unfamiliar with this brand of burying ground, here is an explanation. A garden, or rural, cemetery is a style of memorial burial ground that became popular in the United States and Europe in the mid-19th century due to the overcrowding and health concerns of urban cemeteries. They were typically built on the outskirts of major cities—far enough to distance itself from town centers, but close enough for visitation. They often contain elaborate monuments, memorials, crypts, chapel spaces and mausoleums in a tree-filled and landscaped park-like setting.

​The garden cemetery movement mirrored changing attitudes toward death in the nineteenth century. Images of hope and immortality were popular in rural cemeteries in contrast to the puritanical pessimism depicted in earlier churchyards. Statues and memorials now included depictions of angels and cherubs as well as botanical motifs such as ivy representing memory, oak leaves for immortality, poppies for sleep and acorns for life.

From their inception, “garden cemeteries” were intended as civic institutions designed for public use. Before the widespread development of public parks, the garden, or rural, cemetery provided a place for the general public to enjoy outdoor recreation amidst art and sculpture previously available only for the wealthy.

The popularity of rural cemeteries decreased toward the end of the 19th century due to the high cost of maintenance, development of true public parks and perceived disorderliness of appearance due to independent ownership of family burial plots and different grave markers. Lawn cemeteries would soon become the norm.

​Oak Hill Cemetery was founded by Mr. William W. Corcoran, banker and founder of the Riggs National Bank, which is now known as PNC Bank today. A man of many tastes and philanthropies (e.g. the Corcoran Art Gallery), Mr. Corcoran purchased 15 acres along Rock Creek in 1848 from George Corbin Washington (a distinguished lawyer and a great-nephew of our first president) and his son Lewis W. Washington.

When the Oak Hill Cemetery Company was incorporated by an Act of Congress on March 3rd, 1849, Mr. Corcoran contributed the land for the cause. Captain George F. de la Roche, a master engineer, supervised the grading, including the creation of a grand wall along Rock Creek, and the plotting. James Renwick, Jr., architect of the Smithsonian Building and the original Corcoran Gallery (now the Renwick Gallery), designed the iron gate pillars and the onsite mortuary chapel. Oak Hill calls itself "a major example of the 19th Century Romantic movement, the natural and not formal English garden, an acceptance and blending of nature rather than a geometrical imposition."

​Interestingly, this location was originally granted by Queen Anne and the British throne back in 1702. The recipient was Ninian Beall (1625-1717). It would later be owned by the Hammond family who built the first house that one day would serve home to Sen. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. Eventually, the Bliss family came into ownership and donated the beautiful historic home and grounds to the National Park Service.

​Both Dumbarton Oaks and Oak Hill were part of Maryland before they became assets of the national capital. As a matter of fact, from 1748-1776, this land was actually Frederick County!  We had Frederick a much bigger county at the time of our founding in 1748. Over time, Montgomery, Washington, Garrett, Allegany and Carroll would be carved out of the original Frederick “super county.” Turnabout, however, is fair play as our land mass was originally part of Prince Georges County when Frederick Town was established in 1745 and before.

​But wait, just like the land, there are plenty more connections to Frederick County here, and more so, Mount Olivet Cemetery that I’d like to share with you. First off, I want to tell you of my purpose for this particular trip to Oak Hill. I was attending a cemetery walking tour sponsored by the Politics and Prose Bookstore and based on a book titled Lincoln in the Bardo.  Written by George Saunders, this 2017 experimental novel is its author’s first full-length novel, and was The New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller for the week of March 5th, 2017.

​I was introduced to this book by a gentleman named Jerry Webster , Ph. D., who has taught numerous courses in literature for the University of Maryland and Montgomery County Public Schools. Currently, he teaches ongoing programs for Frederick Community College, but also Johns Hopkins University and Washington College in Chestertown. The novel takes place during, and after, the death of President Abraham Lincoln's son William "Willie" Wallace Lincoln and deals with the president's grief at his loss. The bulk of the novel, which takes place over the course of a single evening, is set in "the bardo"—an intermediate space between life and rebirth.

​The term (bardo) comes from Buddhist teachings and is a Tibetan word that translates to “gap, interval, transitional process, or in between.” In the Tibetan School of Buddhism, there are three death bardos: the painful bardo of dying, the luminous bardo of dhartma, and the karmic bardo of becoming. According to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Afterlife Guide:

“While in the bardo between life and death, the consciousness of the deceased can still apprehend words and prayers spoken on its behalf, which can help it navigate through its confusion and be reborn into a new existence that offers a greater chance of attaining enlightenment.”

Lincoln in the Bardo continues to receive critical acclaim, and won the 2017 Booker Prize. Many publications later ranked it one of the best novels of its decade. The majority of the work takes place in Oak Hill Cemetery, an evocative setting, as home to the central characters of this fictional story which showcases “ghost residents” interacting with each other against the backdrop of the Lincoln family’s personal loss during the American Civil War era of the 1860s.
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Willie Lincoln died of typhoid fever in February 1862 at the tender age of 11. His death was a devastating blow to his parents, and cast a dark shadow over the remaining years of the Lincoln presidency. Willie’s body would be laid to rest (temporarily) in the mausoleum vault, or crypt, of William Thomas Carroll, cousin of Charles Carroll of Carrollton and clerk of the US Supreme Court. Of course, our Carrollton Manor takes its name from William Carroll’s great-grandfather, Charles Carroll the Settler who surveyed and patented his 17,000 land grant in the lower Monocacy River Valley in 1723.
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Abraham Lincoln actually made trips to the Carroll crypt to visit Willie’s body directly after the initial funeral ceremony and entombment. This plays out within the book. 

Well, I certainly don’t want to give anything away, but I recommend George Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo, and you can order it from Politics & Prose Bookstore. It was a nice read, and included plenty of “cemetery color.” Best of all, Jerry Webster took the tour as well, and provided me with great insight as we drove down to DC together.

​I had planned to do a little more Oak Hill exploration once the formal walking tour had concluded. There are plenty of notable graves to visit ranging from the aforementioned William Corcoran to former Ohio senator and governor Salmon P. Chase. Lincoln connections include his domineering secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, and assassination conspirator Mary Surratt’s lawyer, Frederick A. Aiken (1832-1878). You may remember him if you saw the 2010 movie The Conspirator with James McAvoy playing Aiken and Robin Wright in the role of the lone female accomplice to the death of the president.

More modern decedents include Madeleine Albright (first female US secretary of state)(1937-2022) and Katharine M. Graham (1917-2001) former editor and president of the Washington Post. A slew of former politicians and Union Civil War officers are buried here too.
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I actually did some advance work in researching a few interesting connections between specific individuals interred here in Oak Hill and others back home in Frederick at Mount Olivet. I will share five of these with you, although I’m sure many more exist. Getting back to the concept of the bardo, I wonder if their was such an experience for any of the following "souls" within either respective “garden cemetery?” In many cases, relationships or interactions actually took place between these individuals as mortals, shortly before the respective death of one, or the other.​

​Philip Barton Key (1757-1815)
Here lies the beloved uncle of Francis Scott Key—Philip Barton. Mr. Key sacrificed his inheritance to fight for a Loyalist regiment in the American Revolution and was eventually captured, paroled and sent to England, where he studied law at the Middle Temple of the Inns at Court in London. He returned to Maryland in 1785  and was one of few disgraced Tory Loyalists to resurrect his career and reputation. Admitted to the bar, he first practiced law in Leonardtown and Annapolis. In 1801, Key was appointed by President John Adams to the Fourth United States Circuit Court, and served until 1802, at which time the court was abolished by political rival Thomas Jefferson.

Philip Barton Key would re-locate his law business to Georgetown. He would build a mansion, calling it Woodley, on land originally owned by Ninian Beall. Today the neighborhood where the home still exists is called Woodley Park. You may know it as a Metro stop, and the home of the National Zoo.

Key would eventually serve counsel to Associate Justice Samuel Chase during Chase's impeachment trial in 1805, and later became a United States Representative to Congress from Maryland, serving from 1807 to 1813. Most pivotal for our discussion, Philip Barton Key is responsible for mentoring his “soon to be famous” nephew, and beckoned him to take up residence in Georgetown, not Frederick, because this was the new home of the national capital.

If Francis Scott Key had stayed in Frederick with his family and professional law career, would he have participated in trying to gain the release of Dr. William Beanes in September, 1814? Would he have had the opportunity to personally eyewitness the fierce attack on “Charm City” and Fort McHenry with her Defenders of Baltimore? Without need to write an ode to the American Flag, would this man be compelled to put pen to paper in writing what would in time become our national anthem?

​Great questions to ponder in the bardo or out. The elder Key died in 1815, nine months after his nephew gained eternal fame for penning the "Star-Spangled Banner." Philip Barton Key was originally buried on his nearby Woodley estate in Georgetown, but was later reinterred at Oak Hill Cemetery.

Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte (E.D.E.N.) Southworth (1819-1899)
The most popular American female novelist of her day, Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth was an American writer of more than 60 novels in the latter part of the 19th century. She was a supporter of social change, abolition of slavery and women's rights. In Ms. Southworth’s novels, her heroines often challenge modern perceptions of Victorian feminine domesticity by showing virtue as naturally allied to wit, adventure, and rebellion to remedy any unfortunate situation.

Ms. Southworth would live in a Georgetown cottage for most of her later life. The schoolteacher turned professional writer was well acquainted with Harriet Beecher Stowe and other New England luminaires. In 1863, she would communicate an interesting event to John Greenleaf Whittier of Amesbury, Massachusetts. This fireside poet was a member of the Quaker religion and also an ardent Abolitionist. In July of 1863, Mrs. Southworth wrote two known letters to Whittier, retelling a story that she had heard second-hand. It involved a spunky senior citizen said to have taunted invading Confederate troops in her hometown of Frederick by waving her Union flag out of an upstairs window of her house located on Patrick Street, one of the principal routes through town.

Southworth told Whittier that a neighbor had shared the story with her, and upon hearing it, knew it was “specifically made for Whittier’s pen.” In response, Whittier wrote:
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“I heartily thank thee for thy kind letter and its enclosed message. It ought to have fallen into better hands, but I have just written out a little ballad of “Barbara Frietchie,” which will appear in the next “Atlantic.” If it is good for anything thee deserve all the credit of it.” ​

Whittier’s poem would be published in the Atlantic Monthly Magazine’s October, 1863 edition. The rest, as they say, is history. This Union propaganda “hit piece” on Gen. Jackson and the Southern Army was fast-tracked into the New England-based publication of literary and cultural and nature (Atlantic Monthly), while simultaneously making Frederick’s Barbara Fritchie into the definitive female heroine of the American Civil War. Much like Francis Scott Key in the War of 1812, Barbara Fritchie quickly became a household name by the end of the American Civil War.
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I had the opportunity to personally peruse Southworth’s 1863 letters to Whittier. They reside in the collection of the Friends Historical Library Reading Room of Swarthmore College outside Philadelphia. While conducting additional research (about 15 years ago), I found that Ms. Southworth was friends with a real estate broker named Cornelius Stille Ramsburg (1839-1915). This Frederick export was the gentleman who originally told Southworth the flag-waving story of Barbara Fritchie during the Maryland Campaign of fall, 1862. He apparently heard it while visiting his hometown on the tail-end of his honeymoon trip of the Northeast. Mr. Ramsburg was a relative of the Fritchie family, and supposedly heard tall tales of Barbara’s bravery at the funeral of his great aunt, here in Frederick.

​Speaking of funerals, Mr. Ramsburg was here in Oak Hill on the occasion of E.D.E.N Southworth’s funeral in early July, 1899, and performed duties as one of the decedent’s pall bearers. 

​The validity of the Fritchie “flag-waving” legend has been challenged ever since it first went into print in fall, 1863. Spoiler Alert: It is highly doubtful that Barbara waved the flag at the Rebel Army and, more so, generals Jackson and Lee on September 10th, 1862. However, it is known that the following days could have featured Barbara waving a Union flag in support of Gen. McClellan and the pursuing Union Army.
One account specifically mentions a rising military star who would unfortunately become an interred member of Oak Hill before his rightful time. This Union officer from Wheeling, Virginia (later West Virginia) had become the division commander of the Union Army’s IX Corps before the famed Maryland Campaign of 1862. This was Maj. Gen. Jesse Reno. 

Jesse Reno (1823-1862)

Jesse Lee Reno was a career US Army officer who served in the Mexican–American War, the Utah War, the western frontier, and finally as a Union General during the Civil War. Known as a "soldier's soldier" who fought alongside his men, Gen. Reno had recently opposed his former West Point classmate and friend, Stonewall Jackson, during the Second Battle of Manassas (or Bull Run) just over three weeks earlier.
It’s ironic that both of these men, Reno and Jackson, are alleged to have had poignant conversations with Frederick’s famous nonagenarian, Ms. Fritchie, in September, 1862. It has been reported that Reno actually spent time with the patriotic maven just a two days removed from her alleged “wrangling” with Gen. Jackson.
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When passing through town on the 12th, Reno and his brother are said to have encountered Barbara waving her flag in front of her home on West Patrick Street. The Union Army was heading west after the  Confederates on the National Road. While seeing Barbara holding her flag on the south side of the street, and Rev. Joseph Trapnell, a resident also in his 90s on the north side directly across from Barbara, he is said to have cheerfully called out to his soldiers: “Behold the Spirit of ’76!” He then told his brother Frank that the aged civilian reminded him of his deceased mother. With that, the Renos apparently stopped to visit with Barbara at her house by Carroll Creek.

​Barbara is said to have given the officer currant wine, along with supplying an opportunity to write a letter home from her family desk. As a parting gift, Dame Fritchie would present Reno with a flag, perhaps the one she supposedly waved at Jackson the previous day. Ironically, it would be this flag that would accompany Reno’s dead body on its trip home to Massachusetts for proper burial a few days later.

​Gen. Jesse Reno died atop South Mountain on September 14th, 1862 while leading his men against Rebel forces in the vicinity of the Wise Farm at Fox’s Gap. This was the result of a sharpshooter’s bullet as Reno was surveying the field prior to twilight after a long day of battle.

​Jesse Reno’s funeral would be held at Boston’s Trinity Chapel. The Fritchie flag is said to have draped his casket. His body was placed in a vault in the church with the intent of reinterring it at some future date. Reno’s widow eventually moved back to her hometown of Washington, DC at the end of the war and purchased a large circular burial plot in Oak Hill Cemetery. She chose a centrally located knoll that commanded a view in all directions. On April 9th, 1867, Jesse Reno was placed here under a memorial in the form of a draped shaft. Three days later, Mary Cross Reno had three children, who had all died in youth, reinterred in this plot with their father.

​Mary is said to have kept her husband’s uniform, sword and the Barbara Fritchie flag in an army chest. She would join them upon her death in 1880. The year prior to Mary Reno’s death, the pro-Union Society of the Burnside Expedition and IX Army Corps dedicated a monument atop Fox’s Gap on South Mountain to the memory of Gen. Jesse L. Reno. This occurred on September 14th, 1889. The monument is said to mark the location where the prominent Union commander was felled on that fateful day of September 14th, 1862.

As a reminder, we still have the aptly named Reno Monument Road atop the mountain. The 39-year-old Gen. Reno is remembered by the naming of “Reno County, Kansas,” “El Reno, Oklahoma,” “Reno, Nevada,” “Reno, Pennsylvania” and Fort Reno in Washington, D.C. after him.

By January 1863, the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) had begun laying tracks east from Sacramento, California, eventually connecting with the Union Pacific Railroad at Promontory, Utah, to form the First Transcontinental Railroad. Land was deeded to the CPRR in exchange for its promise to build a depot at a place called Lake's Crossing. Once the railroad station was established, the town of Reno officially came into being on May 9th, 1868. CPRR construction superintendent Charles Crocker named the community after Major General Jesse Lee Reno, the Union officer killed in the American Civil War at the Battle of South Mountain.
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The flag would be handed down to descendants of the family and was at Fox’s Gap for the 100th anniversary of the general’s death in September, 1979.

​Mary Eleanor Addison Tyler (1824-1881)
The former Mary Eleanor Addison Tyler was the daughter of Dr. William Tyler and wife Mary Belt Addison. Dr. Tyler (1784-1872) lived at the intersection of Record and Counsel streets and was a prominent physician in Frederick. He was heavily involved in local and state politics, and is best remembered for his work in banking—as a founder and the first president of the Farmers and Mechanics National Bank, a branch of the Westminster Bank. F&M was founded in 1817 and chartered in 1823 as a separate bank. Tyler would serve the bank for 54 years up through his death in 1872.

​Eleanor, or “Nellie” as she was also referred to, was born September 20th, 1824 and grew up in Courthouse Square in Frederick. She still lived in the family home when the Tylers experienced a terrible fire in 1842 that would become the subject of a well-known local art-piece by itinerant Frederick painter John J. Markell.

​Four years later, Eleanor would marry James Murphy Ramsey of Georgetown on April 14th, 1846. They went on to have six children. The family lived in Northwest D.C. as James Ramsey, Sr. worked as the chief clerk for the First Controller’s Office of the federal government. 

​The widowed Mrs. Ramsey can be found living in Washington in the 1860 census on the eve of the American Civil War. However, she would re-locate to what was thought to be a safer environment during the war, itself, as the Union capital was thought to be a prime target for a Confederate attack. Mary Eleanor came back to her hometown of Frederick and resided in a commodious dwelling (likely owned by her father) just a few doors north of her childhood home.

​Mrs. Ramsey would earn a degree of “historical fame” during the Civil War. She didn’t wave a flag like Frederick’s Barbara Fritchie or Mary Quantrill, but she did care for a prominent convalescing military officer in the fall of 1862. In doing so, she would briefly play host to that unique grieving visitor to Oak Hill Cemetery I mentioned earlier—Abraham Lincoln.  

Three days after the Battle of South Mountain, the conflict responsible for the death of Gen. Jesse Reno at Fox’s Gap near Boonsboro, another Union general would be shot in the early morning action in David Miller’s cornfield during the Battle of Antietam in nearby Sharpsburg, Maryland. This man would be much more fortunate than Reno, as he would survive from his wounds—and some of that credit should be given to Mrs. Ramsey. The patient was Gen. George Lucas Hartsuff, one of the luckiest “unluckiest” guys to wear the uniform.

​George Hartsuff (b. 1830) spent the first twelve years of his life in the small western New York village of Tyre, in Seneca County before moving with his family to Livingston County, Michigan, in 1842. He received an appointment to West Point six years later, graduating in 1852 and ranked nineteenth in a class of forty-three. Two slots behind him, ranked 21st was Ulysses S. Grant.

Upon graduation, Gen. Hartsuff was commissioned a second lieutenant by brevet in the 4th U.S. Artillery and assigned to frontier duty in Texas where the young officer fell seriously ill with yellow fever. In 1855, after recovering from his sickness, he was sent to Fort Myers, Florida. Given command of a surveying expedition in December of that year, George Hartsuff led ten soldiers into Seminole Territory near the Big Cypress Swamp. During a fight with Seminole Indians, Hartsuff was wounded three times. The most serious injury was a musket ball buried deep in his chest. The officer told the surviving members of his party to save themselves and then sought shelter. Stumbling through the forest, he fell into a pond.

Neck-deep in water and suffering from his two wounds, Hartsuff had a difficult time getting out but was eventually able to do so. Without food or fresh water, the soldier laid on his back for three days before being rescued by American troops sent out from Fort Myers. Doctors cared for Hartsuff but were unable to remove the bullet that entered his left breast and struck his lung. He would recover and rejoin his men less than two months later.

Having sufficiently recovered from his wounds, George Hartsuff, by this time a first lieutenant, was appointed as an instructor of artillery and infantry tactics at West Point in 1856, and held this position for three years. His next assignment was to the frontier post of Fort Mackinac, Michigan. 

With misfortune seemingly his lot, Hartsuff was on board the steamship Lady Elgin on the storm-tossed night of September 8th, 1860, as the boat made its way across Lake Michigan traveling between Chicago and Milwaukee. With visibility poor and the waters rough and restless, the Lady Elgin was struck by the schooner Augusta. A total 373 passengers of the Lady Elgin were lost as the steamer sank. Lt. Hartsuff was one of the 155 survivors.

On March 22nd, 1861, George Hartsuff was appointed assistant adjutant general with the brevet rank of captain and was assigned to duty under Rosecrans in West Virginia. He held under staff positions, eventually serving briefly as chief of staff of the Mountain Department. Hartsuff became a brigadier general on April 15th, 1862. He served in third corps Army of Virginia and then in the Army of the Potomac.
 
Gen. Hartsuff was severely wounded in the hip at Antietam while leading a brigade in second division I Corps at “the infamous Cornfield.” Reports vary as to whether Hartsuff was felled by a sniper’s bullet or shell fragment. He tried to remain in the saddle, but he soon grew faint and had to be helped off his mount. Carried off the field, Hartsuff was taken to a nearby home where a doctor examined his wound. All efforts by him and other doctors later in the day to locate a bullet were unsuccessful and they surmised that the bullet had come to a stop deep within the pelvic cavity. 

​Hartsuff recovered from his “Antietam inflicted” wounds here in Frederick at the house of Mrs. Eleanor Ramsey on Record Street in Frederick.  A few weeks later, Gen. Hartsuff was visited by an old friend in President Abraham Lincoln. This occurred on October 4th, 1862. His full recuperation would take eight months. The Frederick Examiner of October 8th, 1862 explains the visit by Willie Lincoln’s father.

​By war’s end, Gen. Hartsuff was a major general, commanding all the Union forces on Bermuda Hundred. Following Gen. Lee’s evacuation of Petersburg, (VA),  Hartsuff made his headquarters at Center Hill, Virginia. He was visited here by Abraham Lincoln on April 7th, 1865—just eight days before the president’s dramatic death.
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After the Civil War, ill health would keep George Hartsuff in office jobs in Washington, DC through the remainder of his military career. He resigned in 1871 due to intense pain and moved to New York City. Early in May 1874, he developed a cold that quickly developed into pneumonia. He was dead just one week later, passing away on May 16th, two weeks shy of his forty-fourth birthday. His remains were taken to West Point for burial. An autopsy revealed that Hartsuff’s pneumonia was caused by the infection on a scar on his left lung. The scar was itself caused by the wound he received nineteen years earlier battling Seminoles in the swamps of Florida. Remarkably, neither this bullet nor the one that entered his hip at Antietam were ever located.

​As for our subject, Mrs. Eleanor Ramsey, she returned to Georgetown after the war where she resided at 1341 Q Street, Northwest by the intersection with 14th Street.  She would die on July 22nd, 1881 and was buried in nearby Oak Hill, instead of Mount Olivet with her husband. Two daughters would eventually join her in Oak Hill (at the location of Van Ness/Lot 240 East). These were Minnie (Ramsey) Bradenbaugh (1855-1884) and Susan Elizabeth (Ramsey) Gassway (1851-1926).

Today, a plaque and visitor trail sign can be found marking the home where she cared for George Hartsuff, and welcomed President Lincoln in early October of 1862.

​William Tyler Page(1868-1942)
My final grave “haunt” to find on this particular day at Oak Hill was that of Mrs. Ramsey’s nephew, William Tyler Page. He was the son of her sister Anna Christiana “Nannie” Tyler. Nannie Tyler married Walker Yates Page of Virginia, a direct descendant of Carter Braxton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

​The couple went on to have five children. Interestingly, two of these were conceived during the American Civil War period, which is surprising as Mr. Page fought for the Southern Cause of his native state as a member of Mead’s Confederate Cavalry, Company K. The youngest of the Page children was born well after the war on October 19th, 1868. This was William Tyler Page, named for his physician/bank president grandfather. 

​William Tyler Page was appointed a Congressional "page," ironic as it sounds, in the House of Representatives at a young age. He then served as a clerk of the House of Representatives and would spend 50 years working for the federal government.

​In May 1917, during World War I, Baltimore’s Mayor James Harry Preston announced that a contest would be held to find the best American’s creed. The mayor offered a prize of $1,000. Our subject received divine intervention while walking home from church on a particular Sunday. He would put pen to paper and submitted an entry. Meanwhile, other offerings came from every state in the Union. The award committee picked an entry that was less than 100 words. This was the one written by Frederick native William Tyler Page.

On April 3rd, 1918, the House of Representatives accepted Page’s paper as the American Creed on behalf of the American people. It reads as follows:

“I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic; a sovereign nation of many sovereign states; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American Patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.

I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to live it; to support its Constitution; to obey its laws; to respect its flag; and to defend it against all enemies.”

​William Tyler Page is said to have used the money from the award to purchase a liberty bond. He lived the following 25 years of his life as a pseudo celebrity while residing at 220 Wooton Avenue in Friendship Heights in Bethesda.

Just like that of his aunt's temporary home down the street, William Tyler Page's birthplace on Frederick's Record Street is marked with a plaque and trail sign. Frederick's links to patriotism and connections to Oak Hill are boundless, spanning the War of 1812 to the Civil War and up to Mr. Page's contribution for World War I. He even has an elementary school named in his honor in Silver Spring (MD).

​What a fabulous cemetery to visit, filled with plenty of history and historical figures. Best of all, for me, I was able to gain a greater appreciation for our Frederick history and that of Mount Olivet Cemetery thanks to some of those individuals interred in this beautiful garden cemetery located in Northwest DC above meandering Rock Creek. I look forward to a return trip, as I have more Frederick connections to make.

Learn history from this author with two cemetery separate tours coming up over the next month. "Frederick History 101" walking tours in Mount Olivet will feature two different versions and two date opportunities to take each:

"Early history 1700s/1800s"
(Sat, May 4th @10am  or Tues, May 21st @6pm)

"1900s -Current Day"
(Tues, May 7th@ 6pm &or Sun, June 2nd @1pm)

$20 for each of these 2+hour tours. Learn more below!

​A “Fisching” Expedition
Area D in Mount Olivet is an interestingly-shaped section towards the front of the garden cemetery, smack dab in the middle of areas A and H. The northern edge commands a beautiful vantage point of the Key Memorial Chapel, and is about as narrow as one of our cemetery sections can get, with two driveways on either side. Here, on this swath quite reminiscent of a little island, one will find the burial plot of an aptly named family (if my geographical description of an island holds true)—the Fischers.

​An occupational surname denotes the country of origin of this family due to the German spelling, meaning fisherman. I was surprised to learn that the name Fischer is the fourth most common German surname. In area D’s grave lot #3, one can find 15 decedents occupying the space, with 12 actually carrying the name through descendancy or by marriage.

I have come across the progenitor’s moniker in my distant past dealings of studying the history of Frederick. Adam Fischer has his name on the south facing side panel of the large monument on this lot. He was born October 25th, 1773 and died on October 2nd, 1835, nearly 20 years prior to Mount Olivet’s opening in 1854. Adam’s wife, Elizabeth Rowe (August 2nd, 1777-April 11th, 1860), is buried here next to her husband, with her name carved in stone under his on the stately, marble obelisk.

​There appears to be a bit of confusion regarding records for this Adam Fischer and his birth on the website Ancestry.com, or else his tombstone is wrong. A birth eight days earlier on October 17th is listed in records that claim Adam (born Johann Adam) was christened in Frederick’s German Reformed congregation on December 6th, 1773. This event would have most likely occurred at Trinity Chapel in the first block of West Church Street.

Apart from this fact, I would be at the beginning of a difficult journey to find anything substantial about this particular gentleman. On October 2nd, 1835, Frederick diarist Jacob Engelbrecht noted his death simply:

“Died this afternoon in the 62nd year of his age, Mr. Adam Fischer of our town. Buried on the German Reformed graveyard.”

This burial ground was on North Bentz and West Second streets, where Memorial Park sits today. Adam’s remains would later be moved to Mount Olivet on September 20th, 1855, a year after the “new cemetery” opened on 30 acres south of town.

Dr. Fischer obtained a university education in his native Germany and was trained as a surgeon. He built an extensive practice here in Frederick and held important positions in the community during his lifetime. These included leadership roles during the American Revolution in which he served on Frederick County’s Committee of Observation (1776) and was deputy of the committee to recommend officers for the two German companies and lieutenants for a rifle company.

​Dr. Adam Fischer represented his county in the State Constitutional Convention of 1776 and as a delegate to the Lower House of the General Assembly from 1778-1779. He was later elected Frederick County Sheriff in 1782 and served from 1782-1785. In 1785, he became Frederick county’s collector of tax, a job he still possessed at the time of his death on August 16th, 1787. Tragically, Dr. Fischer died from a kick from his horse in Reisterstown, leaving son Adam and four siblings (1 brother (John) and 3 sisters) to be raised by wife Margaret (1739-1799).

Multiple descendants of Dr. Adam Fischer would be known in medical and business circles in not only Frederick, but also Washington, DC and Baltimore. Of particular interest was the family profession of operating what we would call old fashion pharmacies eventually boasting a confectionery component and like the CVS and Walgreens of today, were purveyors of cosmetics and a variety of household goods and necessities. Two sons of our subject Adam were responsible for novel enterprises in town that you could best say reflect the spirit of Downtown Frederick’s most celebrated “First Saturday” event of “Fire in Ice.”
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I was interested in the real estate holdings and transactions of the family, hoping it would shed more light on the physician’s son Adam Fischer. I pressed my assistant Marilyn Veek for any info that could have told me where the family lived and worked. Here is what she came up with:

In 1767, Dr. Adam Fischer had bought a sizable parcel on the northwest corner of Market and Patrick streets, extending 78.5 feet along Market Street and 60 feet along Patrick Street. His widow Margaret was forced to sell the property in 1790 after his death, due to a “writ of fieri facias” against Dr. Adam Fischer for not performing the duties required of him as tax collector for Frederick County. The property was sold to Lawrence Brengle, John Cronise, Adam Keller, Henry Garnhart, Henry Zealer, Richard Butler, Peter Mosser, John Shower and Ludwick Ritter. In 1792, the members of this group executed a deed of trust to Lawrence Brengle so that the property could be sold. An agreement was made whereby Brengle sold the property to the physician’s eldest son, John Fischer, but this sale was not completed until 1801, after Brengle's death. A future commercial landmark would eventually arise here.

​John Fischer immediately divided the property in half and sold the south half to George Baer and the north half to Daniel Hauer. George Baer sold his half to Frederick County Bank in 1818, and it remained bank property until 2002. Daniel Hauer's half was sold to George Hauer, who sold it to Abraham Shriver. It was eventually sold by his Shriver's heirs to the bank in 1909.

From what I have been able to find, John Fischer followed in his father’s profession as a physician. Brother Adam, our primary subject in this story and buried here in Mount Olivet’s Area D, is listed in our cemetery records as having a profession as “a hatter.” Unfortunately, I can’t substantiate this claim with census records because he died before the more extensive reporting found in 1850 and afterwards. I did see an article that mentioned Adam being a member of the Mechanical Sun Fire Company in 1823.

I found Adam in the census records living in Frederick, and I assumed he could have resided on East Patrick Street after finding his widow, Elizabeth, in the Williams’ Frederick Directory City Guide of 1859/60 living “on the north side of Patrick between Love Lane and Chapel Alley.” Now I’m sure you are familiar with Chapel Alley, but Love Lane was the original name of what we call East Street today. So, think of the Fischer home once standing on the site of today’s Frederick Post Office property.

I soon learned that this was likely never the home of our decedent Adam thanks to more investigation from my assistant Marilyn.

Elizabeth Fischer, wife of our subject Adam, bought part of Lot 163 (east side of what is now Ice Street) in 1810. Tracing the deeds is complicated, but it appears that the property that Elizabeth Fischer bought in 1810 is where she, Adam and their children lived during the following decades of the early 19th century. This is what is now 120-122-124-126 (formerly 100-104) Ice Street. This property was mortgaged to their son William Fischer in 1825. That same year, William Fischer leased property at the northeast corner of Ice and South Street from Elizabeth Hauer, for 15 years, during which time he was to build and operate an ice house utilizing nearby water from Carroll Creek to the north and a pond to the south.

​It can be theorized that Adam and Elizabeth Fischer lived here in this vicinity up until Adam’s death in 1835. The couple’s son, William, bought the house on East Patrick Street in 1830, and this was the same in which his mother could be found in the 1859 directory. She would move there in 1848.
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William Fischer (1797-1852) appeared regularly in the early Frederick newspapers and began operating a pharmacy in 1821 on West Patrick Street across from Talbott’s Tavern. This is in the vicinity of the Patrick Center on the south side of the street near the intersection with North Court Street. He took this over from his brother-in-law Dr. William Gunton (1791-1880) whom he credited for teaching him the ropes of the business.

​William would eventually leave Frederick for Washington, DC and enjoyed a successful career at that place. He is buried in Congressional Cemetery with his wife and former mentor, William Gunton who once ran a pharmacy in Frederick.

​That brings us to William’s brother, George Jacob Fischer, another child of Adam and Elizabeth Fischer. George Jacob was born in Frederick on August 10th, 1809. He married the former Isabella Johnston of Washington County in February, 1835. Remember her name as it will come into play for another business venture.

George Jacob likely learned the pharmacy business from his older brother, and perhaps took over his Frederick operation upon the latter’s departure to the nation’s capital in the 1830s. I found advertisements galore for George Jacob Fischer’s “drug store” in an old edition of the Frederick Town Herald dated October 13th, 1837.

​George Jacob Fischer would become known for something completely different, although totally illuminating on the eve of 1850. In November, 1849 he would kickoff construction of Frederick’s first gas street light system. George Jacob Fischer began laying down pipes through several of Frederick city’s principal public streets, starting with Patrick and Court streets. His crew’s hard work would supply town with “cheap, beautiful and desirable light.” This was the beginning of gas lighting in Frederick which made it possible to see on nights where moonlight was obscured by clouds. Mr. Fischer called his company the "Isabella Gas Works" after his wife, and 35 initial iron lamp posts would go on to make Frederick a pioneer among cities of its size in the realm of street lighting.

​All the while, Fischer appears to have continued the operation of his drugstore business. At the time of the gas works endeavor, his commercial location was at today’s 5 West Church Street in the first block of West Church Street (site of Sapporo II restaurant). I know this because he would sell this business to Dr. Fairfax Schley in 1855, at which time Fischer relocated to Baltimore. Fischer’s advertisements for the Baltimore location would appear in the Frederick Examiner in 1858. The Steiner family would have a long run into the 20th century at this location.

​George Jacob Fischer died on February 21st, 1866.

George Jacob Fischer’s body would be brought back to Frederick for burial on the plot that it appears he was responsible for purchasing back in 1855 to re-inter his father and two children who died as infants. His mother (Elizabeth) would be laid to rest here in 1860, and his wife Isabella in 1885. Also here are sons George Jacob Fischer, Jr. (1846-1931) and William C. Fisher (1842-1892) and a few grandchildren and great grandchildren.

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A couple weeks back, I had the great opportunity once again to spend time on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal towpath. It was a beautiful, and unseasonably warm, Sunday in early March and I wasn’t the only one out there as you could imagine.

The week prior, I had found myself thinking intently about the canal while researching one of these “Story in Stone” blog recipients. However, my reading, as opposed to my glorious walk, dealt with a dark day along the Potomac River back in July, 1895. On the day of July 12th of that year, a former resident from a prominent Frederick family would meet an early demise over an old argument regarding stolen beer. This altercation would send the Fredericktonian to an early grave in Mount Olivet.
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My interest in the death of David Jacob Markey was piqued while writing about a talented quilt-maker named Anna Catharine (Hummel) Markey Garnhart. I became amazingly struck (perhaps not the best word choice) by the demise of her reclusive grandson in 1895. David Jacob's sister, Lucy, another grandchild of “the quilt-maker,” died seven years earlier by suicide. This may have added to his desire for peace and solitude along the shores of the Upper Potomac.

With a murder and a suicide, you can imagine my hesitance to hold out these "Stories" as not to take away from positive vibes generated by my exploration into Grandmother Anna’s sweet life and talent as an early craftswoman and lasting recognition by museum curators and other experts in the field of textiles. Somehow, I was reminded of the ironic expression involving "a wet blanket" in this particular case.

David Jacob Markey
Born October 27th, 1847, David Jacob Markey was one of eight children born to David John Markey (1809-1885) and wife Susan Bentz (1810-1887). He was a native of Frederick, and his family was of German descent. David Jacob grew up on the southwest corner of N. Bentz and W. Third Street. Our subject's father’s lumber mill was directly behind (and next door) his home and located where Calvary Methodist Church sits today on the corner of N. Bentz and W. Second streets.

David Jacob Markey’s corpse would be brought back to Frederick where he would be buried in the Markey family plot in Mount Olivet’s Area F/Lot 86. This was within feet of a quilting grandmother and his parents who had died in the previous decade. As this was a case involving a leading local family, the papers were abuzz with news of Markey’s supposed assailant, Theodore Leopold.

However, it would be quickly discovered that Point of Rocks’ resident Theodore Leopold was wrongly accused, for the person of interest was George William Leopold of Knoxville. Sources corrected the first name, but a few printed “Lapole” instead of Leopold. If anything else, it would eventually be straightened out.

The story made it into the Baltimore Sun as well. I too, got caught up in the hoopla, and wanted to better understand what seemed to me at first glance either an accidental, or senseless killing. I soon learned that it was a combination of both. But, how would justice be served?

To summarize the story, former Frederick resident David J. Markey went to Sandy Hook, MD at Lock #33, immediately across from Harpers Ferry. This is accessed by the railroad bridge over the river of today, and sits at the base of Maryland Heights along the old Sandy Hook Road road that parallels the C & O Canal.

Our subject was said to be stocking up on additional fishing provisions in town. On his return journey from Harpers Ferry via the river crossing by the railroad bridge, Markey would run into an old acquaintance named George W. Leopold. Leopold was piloting his own canal boat. Apparently, David Jacob invited Leopold to have a libation or two with him at the Sandy Hook saloon/store of Albertus Spencer. ​

A bit inebriated after a few drinks, Markey receives transportation from Leopold to his home a few miles upriver. They would not make it that far because a heightened quarrel between both men erupted over the lonely mile trip from Sandy Hook and Lock #33 to Lock #34. Mr. Markey was apparently in the act of berating boatman Leopold over a theft of beer that occurred three years earlier when Markey worked as a store clerk in Sandy Hook. This resulted in Mr. Markey receiving repeated blows from Leopold, prompting Markey to request being taken ashore to leave Leopold's company. This would be done near Lock #34.

Our Mount Olivet records say that Mr. Leopold followed Markey off the boat and retaliated one last time by striking his "verbal aggressor" in the back of the head. The inquest would find that Markey was sucker-punched from behind, basically knocking him out. David Jacob Markey hit the ground, which most likely occurred on the rocky tow-path itself, or an adjacent trail that had some large stones scattered about. The victim's head hit something on the way down which fractured his skull.

​David Jacob Markey  would not regain consciousness from Leopold's ill-fated strike. Meanwhile, Leopold had left the scene of the crime as he continued his boat run with family members "in tow" upriver. Markey showed signs of trauma, and onlookers jumped into action, albeit a slow action. David Jacob Markey would be brought back downriver to "the Stone House" of Mr. Spencer at Lock#33. This is the location where our subject would perish around 2:00 in the morning of July 13th.