The 159th anniversary of arguably the most famous conflict of the American Civil War is occurring as this story is published in early July, 2022. Of course, I am referring to a place just up the road from Frederick and across the Mason-Dixon Line, —Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

The Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town, by Union and Confederate forces under Major General George Meade's Army of the Potomac and General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. A Union victory resulted in halting Lee's invasion of the North, but also involved the largest number of casualties of the entire war. It is often described as the war's turning point due to the Union's decisive victory and concurrence with the Siege of Vicksburg.

I hadn’t made a trek to Gettysburg in quite some time, but that soon changed as I have made two trips there in recent weeks. One outing was for history, and the second for pleasure, as I saw Canadian music legend Gordon Lightfoot perform at the Majestic Theater on June 23rd. Now mind you, history reared its head at the concert as well, but it had nothing to do with the “high-water mark” of the American Civil War, and everything to do with dangerous waters of a non-proverbial kind involving “a legend that lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee.”

Two and a half weeks earlier, back on June 4th, I had the opportunity to chaperone my 15-year-old-son and his girlfriend on a private field trip for three. It was a beautiful day, and we could have done anything, anywhere in the tri-state area. I randomly suggested a trip to Gettysburg National Battlefield. They consented, and soon they were in for a special treat—that of listening to me ramble on as their personal battlefield guide.

​It was a day which brought back great memories for me of past visits. I shared with Eddie, and girlfriend Devyn, that our ancestor, John Greenwood, (my GGG Grandfather) had participated in this legendary fight as a private in the 96th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment’s Company D. I pointed out his name on the Pennsylvania State Memorial, and also showed them the iconic monument to the 96th located in the valley below Little Round Top. This unit participated in the bloodbath sector of the battle called the Wheatfield.
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This particular trip was made much more special to me as I was able to make connections (from the battle) back to Frederick. One such example resides in the fact that the Union commander, Maj. Gen. George G. Meade was given command of the Army of the Potomac just days before the battle at Prospect Hall. A monument, crafted from a piece of brown sandstone from Devil's Den (Gettysburg Battlefield), commemorates this fact along Himes Avenue, just down the hill from the mansion house used most recently as the location of St. Johns Catholic High School. This was placed here in 1930 by the Pennsylvania Historical Commission.

​Speaking of Union officers, I shared with my young tourists the stories of Brig. Gen. John Buford and his cavalry division at Seminary Ridge, and Col. Joshua L. Chamberlain and the 20th Maine’s gallant hold of the Union Army’s extreme left flank at Little Round Top. Both men were immortalized by actors Sam Elliot and Jeff Daniels in Ron Maxwell’s 1993 movie Gettysburg.

​This motion picture debuted on Ted Turner’s TBS Network and was based on Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book Killer Angels. I always make the suggestion to friends planning to make a visit to Gettysburg to watch this movie first. It will certainly make the battlefield touring experience more enlightening because you can view the current landscape while imagining the scenes as depicted in the movie version.

​Two other commanders with ties to Frederick that fought at Gettysburg include Gen. Jubal Early of Virginia and Brig. Gen. Daniel Sickles of New York. Early’s name should jump off the tongue as he was the commander who threatened Frederick’s well-being a year later (July, 1864) by demanding a ransom of $200,000 to be paid. Early and many of his soldiers likely passed by Mount Olivet’s front gates by way of Market Street and the Old Georgetown Pike to engage Union forces under Gen. Lew Wallace at the Battle of Monocacy. As cantankerous a guy Early has been said to have been, his match was certainly Dan Sickles.

​Daniel Edgar Sickles (1819–1914) was an American politician, soldier, and diplomat, born to a wealthy family in New York City. Upon the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, Sickles became one of the war's most prominent political generals, recruiting the New York regiments that became known as the Excelsior Brigade in the Army of the Potomac. Despite his lack of military experience, Sickles served as a brigade, division, and corps commander in some of the early Eastern campaigns. His military career ended at the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, after he moved his III Corps without orders to an untenable position, where they suffered 40% casualties but slowed Confederate Gen. James Longstreet's flanking maneuver. Sickles himself was wounded by cannon fire at Gettysburg and had to have his leg amputated. He was eventually awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.

We have a direct connection to Gen. Sickles here at Mount Olivet, and I would soon learn that many ghost tours in Gettysburg include a story that illustrates this point, yet not directly mentioning our humble burying ground by name. Dan Sickles was involved in a number of scandals throughout his time as a politician, most notably the 1859 homicide of his wife's lover, U.S. District Attorney (of Washington D.C.) Philip Barton Key II. Yes, the name should ring a bell, or evoke the vision of an American flag, because Philip was the son of our very own Francis Scott Key.

Once a confidante and close friend of the patriot songwriter’s offspring, Sickles gunned down Philip in broad daylight in Lafayette Square, across the street from the White House. In what was hailed as the trial of the century, Sickles was acquitted after using temporary insanity as a legal defense for the first time in United States history.

​After the war, Sickles devoted considerable effort in trying to gain credit for helping achieve the Union victory at Gettysburg, writing articles and testifying before Congress in a manner that denigrated the intentions and actions of his superior officer, Maj. Gen. George Meade. Sickles was appointed as a commander for military districts in the South during Reconstruction. He also served as U.S. Minister to Spain under President Ulysses S. Grant. Later he was re-elected to Congress, where he helped pass legislation to preserve the Gettysburg Battlefield.

On a ghost tour the night of our visit, the kids and I  learned that Sickles helped procure a much-needed fence around the perimeter of the Gettysburg National Cemetery. Apparently, Congress was against an appropriation, so Sickles urged the need for a new fence around Lafayette Square, the old “scene of the crime” between Sickles and Mr. Key years before. This was granted, and Sickles made sure the old fence would go to Gettysburg and the cemetery. Ghost tour guides tell this story, with the creepy takeaway being that one of these sections of fence, could possibly be the exact one that Philip Barton Key died against as he breathed his last breath. Supposedly his jacket became impaled by the fence. 

​In case you are curious, Philip Barton Key II was buried with his wife Ellen Swan Key in Westminster Burial Ground in downtown Baltimore. This is the same historic cemetery where Edgar Allan Poe's mortal remains reside.

While Sickles was not very hospitable to the Key family, he was a friend to the tourism industry because of all he did in bringing about this battlefield park, the most famous in the country. Like cemeteries, battlegrounds can find themselves full of mortal remains during the conflict. After proper burial, those who died within these hallowed grounds are forever memorialized by monuments depicting their brave deeds in life. Once again, I was able to use some of these monuments on the Gettysburg battlefield to make a few unique connections to others found in Mount Olivet Cemetery.

​I took the kids to my second favorite monument on the battlefield beside the fore-mentioned one of my GGG grandfather’s 96th regiment. This would be the 1st Maryland Monument at Culp’s Hill. The granite monument on the northeast quadrant of the battlefield stands 12 feet tall. It is capped with the star symbol of the Twelfth Army Corps and has a relief feature of a bayonet and cartridge box on its face, supported by rolled bedrolls. A round bronze Seal of the State of Maryland is inset in the center of the front. Just above the base (on the front) is a relief of a forage cap on top of laurel branches. The monument was dedicated on October 25th,1888 by the State of Maryland.

This monument includes the name of Col. William Pinkney Maulsby, a lawyer from Frederick, who commanded the 1st Maryland Regiment, Potomac Home Brigade. Maulsby was the owner of Prospect Hall during the war. He is buried in a family plot located in Mount Olivet’s Area G and is worthy of a full “Story in Stone.”

​The unique aspect of fighting at Culp’s Hill this pivotal spot of the Union Army’s right flank is the fact that Union Marylanders squared off against Confederate Marylanders here. A past subject of my blog participated at the fighting at Culp’s Hill under Col. Maulsby on July 2nd and 3rd. This was Captain Joseph Groff of the Potomac Home Brigade who was accompanied by his son David. Both men survived the battle and war. Capt. Groff was a local business and civic leader in Frederick who operated a few different hotels once located on N. Market Street. Along with other members of the Potomac Home Brigade, Groff is buried in Mount Olivet.

​To the northwest of the battlefield, the visitor will find the Eternal Light Peace Memorial. This was dedicated on July 3rd, 1938. It commemorates the 1913 Gettysburg reunion that marked the 50th anniversary of the battle in which surviving veterans came together as united Americans and not adversaries as they had done in battle. Here, a natural gas flame burns within a one-ton bronze urn atop a tower located on a stone pedestrian terrace. ​I learned that the eternal flame was the only one in the world for its first few decades. ​

​I learned a couple of extra sidelights on this monument. One such being that faulty Alabama limestone had been used for the base platform. With heavy pedestrian traffic, this began failing miserably within a decade of the monument's erection. This would require a major renovation. This monument was visited by President Jimmy Carter during the 1978 Camp David Accords between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. A decade later, the Gettysburg Peace Celebration committee had been formed for the upcoming 50th anniversary rededication of the memorial planned for July 3rd, 1988.

​Renovation projects are always going on, as I have a much deeper appreciation of what grave monuments experience due to age, weather and erosion. It is quite amazing to see the shape the battlefield is in considering the years and visitation that these sentinels have experienced.

A renovation project was being done at the Eternal Peace Monument in 1985 that would have a direct impact on our cemetery. Eleftherios Karkadoulias, a noted expert in both granite and bronze restoration and based in Cincinnati, was making repairs. This same gentleman was visited at this time by our cemetery superintendent, Ron Pearcey, who inquired Mr. Karkadoulias’ of his experience and talents. Ron's goal in doing this teamed from the need to properly restore our Francis Scott Key monument. Mr. Karkadoulias would perform this task for us in 1987. The bronze figures of Key, Columbia and two young boys were dismantled and delivered to Mr. Karkadoulias' studio in Cincinnati to undergo major restoration.

​Now, let's return back to Gettysburg, PA, shall we? Speaking of Alabama a few minutes ago in respect to faulty limestone at the eternal Peace Monument, a much better, and durable, selection of rock was used for the monument depicting the soldiers from this state. This is a few miles away from the Eternal Peace Light Memorial on the far southeast part of the battlefield below Big Round Top. Of particular interest here is the fact that this monument is primarily credited to an individual resting in peace here at Mount Olivet. His name was Joseph Walker Urner, and if you’ve been to Mount Olivet, you’ve most likely seen some of his other work. It’s literally and figuratively “head and shoulders” above the rest when it comes to examples of sculpture work in town.

​The State of Alabama monument is located south of Gettysburg on South Confederate Avenue. The Alabama Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy dedicated the monument in 1933.The monument stands where General Evander Law’s Alabama Brigade began their assault toward Little Round Top on July 2nd after a grueling 18-mile approach march. These were among the Rebels who were repulsed by Joshua Chamberlin and his 20th Maine as they held the Union left flank “at all costs.”  Alabama sent almost 6,000 men to Gettysburg with the Army of Northern Virginia. Most of them were in Law’s Brigade in the First Corps, O’Neal’s Brigade in the Second Corps, and Wilcox’s Brigade in the Third Corps. Alabama lost 2,249 casualties at Gettysburg.

​The Alabama monument features a large granite base, topped by a granite monolith, and fronted by a bronze figure group (fabricated by the Roman Bronze Company in New York City). The granite is from Gettysburg and Barre, Vermont, and was fashioned for this project at Hammaker Brothers, Inc., a monument and gravestone firm founded in 1874 and based in Thurmont.
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The monument was designed and sculpted by Joseph W. Urner of Frederick in conjunction with Ernest P. Hammaker, President of Hammaker Brothers, Inc. Of special interest here is the fact that Ernest’ uncle, Peter N. Hammaker (1856-1925), ran this same company from 1884 until his death, and is buried in Mount Olivet’s Area S/Lot 136.

​Mr. Urner’s bronze group composition features a female figure representing the Spirit of the Confederacy, flanked by a wounded soldier on her right and an armed soldier on her left. Her left arm gestures the armed soldier to continue fighting and her right lightly restrains the wounded figure from further combat. The top of the granite monolith is inscribed with the word "Alabamians!" and the base with "Your Names Are Inscribed On Fames Immortal Scroll."

​Joseph Walker Urner
In his 1956 work, The Old Line State A History of Maryland, author Morris Radoff, Archivist of the Maryland Hall of Records, states: “The reputation of Joseph Walker Urner, which is national, lies in the three related fields of sculpture, oil painting and architecture and in each he has attained an outstanding position. An unusual creative man in that he recognizes a direct responsibility to the community in which he lives, Frederick, he participates in civic programs, especially through community and fraternal organizations.”
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Joseph Walker Urner was born on January 16th, 1898, the son of the Hon. Hammond G. Urner (1868–1942) and Mary Lavinia "Birdie" Floyd (1872–1956). His paternal grandfather was Milton Urner (July 29, 1839 – February 9, 1926), a U.S. Congressman from the sixth district of Maryland who served two terms from 1879 until 1883. The family lived at 215 East Second Street.

​After his preliminary education in his native Frederick, Joseph spent 1918 at the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. From 1919-1920, he studied at Johns Hopkins and followed this with advanced education at the Maryland Institute College of Art from 1922-1925.

Joseph married Miss Irma A Bradshaw on December 31st, 1919 and the couple would have two children—Joanna Adlington (b. Feb. 22nd, 1923) and Joseph Floyd (b. December 15th, 1929). Joanna would go on to marry Gerald H. Smith of Sao Paulo, Brazil, while son Joseph graduated from MIT with Bachelor and Master of Science degrees and stayed in Massachusetts. (Note: the Smiths would return to reside in Frederick and are buried in the Urner family lot in Mount Olivet).

​Joseph Urner further used his artistic talents in painting portraits, but is best remembered for his work in the field of sculpture as has been demonstrated by the State of Alabama monument at Gettysburg Battlefield. He studied the artform under noted sculptor Ettore Cadorin (1876-1952). We have three of his works on public display here within our grounds at Mount Olivet Cemetery. These come in the form of three busts of past Fredericktonians who all made their mark on the history of our area, and in two cases, the nation.
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In 1926, Urner was commissioned to design and sculpt a bust of Thomas Johnson, Jr., a member of Continental Congress, Revolutionary War officer and Maryland’s first-elected governor. This completed piece was placed upon a pedestal in front of the former Frederick County Courthouse (today’s City Hall). As many know, the Johnson bust was moved here to the cemetery in early 2018.

​The call came for a like bust be created for Roger Brooke Taney, the most accomplished attorney in Frederick County’s history, who attained higher positions up to the very top of his profession. Taney served as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Not only was Taney the first Catholic to hold this position (at a time when there was much discrimination lobbied against members of this faith), he administered the oath of office to seven U.S. presidents.

​Of course, there is the Dred Scott Case majority decision which has been grounds for “cancellation” of his career and personal achievements but that has nothing to do with the artistic ability executed by Joseph Urner in crafting this art piece that graced Frederick’s Court House Square from 1931-1918. It to was moved here to Mount Olivet and stands across from Urner’s bust of Johnson on what we call “Star-Spangled Plaza” at the front of the cemetery, about a hundred yards behind the Francis Scott Key Monument.

​A third work came in the form of Amon Burgee (1865-1945), commissioned by Frederick High School’s Alumni Association to be placed over his grave here in the cemetery. This bust by Urner was unveiled in 1947 at a fine ceremony memorializing the former principal of Frederick’s Boys’ High School, the predecessor to Frederick High. Burgee served in this capacity from 1894-1916, and had Urner among his many students. The noted educator is responsible for the lasting team name of “Cadets” due to his insistence that his students take up military drilling as part of their schooling curriculum.

​​Speaking of cadets and military activity, Joseph Urner holds the unique distinction of serving in both World War I and World War II. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy in the summer of 1917. He currently holds a memorial page on our sister site entitled MountOlivetVets.com. The following information can be gleaned from this site that is being slowly built to include all of our 4,000plus veterans buried here.

​Joseph Walker Urner
Electrician 2C/US Navy: HQ, 5th Naval District

Military Information
1917-1919
                         Induction 7/24/1917, Apprentice Seaman,
                         Naval Reserve Fleet (MD Naval Militia) 
                         10/10/1917  Harvard Radio School,
                          Cambridge, Massachusetts
                          1/3/1918 Promoted to Electrician 3rd Class, Radio
                          1/3/1918 Promoted to Electrician 2nd Class, Radio,
                          5th Naval District Headquarters 
                          1/4/1918 Naval Aviation Detail, Ft. Worth, TX
                          2/25/1918 Receiving Ship, Philadelphia, PA
                          3/12/1918 Naval Air Station, Killingholme, England
                          11/30/1918 Pelham Bay Park, NY
                          Inactive 2/28/1919

​Joseph W. Urner also served in World War II as a Chief Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy Seabees. He returned home to continue his career as an architect. His vast community involvement ranged from the Frederick Chamber of Commerce, Elks Lodge, Kiwanis Club and Historical Society of Frederick. He and wife Irma also spent time in Braddock Heights where they had a retreat house on Maryland Avenue, built in 1901 and passed down from his parents. Of course a street in the "mountain retreat colony" still carries the family name. 

​Joseph Urner lived a useful and fruitful life, dying at age 89 on July 6th, 1987. He would be laid to rest in the Urner family lot in Area AA/Lot 117, roughly fifty yards down the central cemetery lane from the Amon Burgee bust sculpture. He would be buried within feet of his parents and other family members. His wife Irma would pass in November of the next year. His work here in Frederick, and at Gettysburg National Battlefield, are living testaments to his artistic talent and ability. 

​Our names—oh, those unique identifiers. They are varied. They are special. They are unique, unless, of course, you hold the moniker of John Smith. I say that only in jest, because not all John Smiths are created equal, and that is the ultimate beauty of individuality in a society that is slowly becoming more and more homogenized. That may be okay for milk, but I’m not a big fan of globalization and sameness among people, places and experiences. I like authenticity (the quality of being authentic or genuine) and diversity (the presence of differences within a given setting). That’s what makes Frederick so special, and in the same breath, the same can be said about Mount Olivet Cemetery.

Back to the name business, nowhere can the originality of the subject of diversity be seen more clearly than at a cemetery. Thousands of names are etched upon gravestones, markers and monuments, everywhere you look. In some cases, you may spot ones that are distinctly “Frederick,” meaning they have been handed down for generations from original settlers dating back to the town and county’s founding in the mid-1700s. Other times, enlightenment comes with a name you’ve never seen before. This usually pertains to surnames, but can surely include first names too.

A stroll through this place can supply expectant couples plenty of options. Don’t laugh, throwback names from yesteryear are just as great as the trendy names offered by today’s “social influencers.” The jury may still be out on Orville, Milton, Gilmer, Hiram, Viola, Hester, Cora, or Bertha, but I’ve got four sons with names that are a little different from their respective college and high school classmates. These include Jack (John), Nick (Nicholas), Vinnie (Vincent) and Eddie (Edwin).
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I’ve been asked what’s the strangest first name I’ve encountered during my time here. Up until recently, three immediately come to mind in Gamaliel Easterday, Lycurgus Hedges and Confederate Row’s Raisin Pitts. However, I have seen a new light with the discovery of the absolute, strangest first name in Mount Olivet—Strange. That’s right it’s actually the name “Strange,” itself. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present the gravestone of the decedent found in Area X/Lot 82.

The grave of Strange Hall Talbott surely will elicit a doubletake. I was curious to learn more, but could not find a definitive rationale for the name as there could be a clever story of association that has been lost in time. Maybe this individual looked “strange” as a baby? Maybe the pregnancy came under questionable (strange) circumstances? Was his birth unusual or abnormal?
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At first glance, I thought my subject was related to the local family connected to the oft-mentioned Talbott’s Tavern that once sat at the west end of West Patrick Street’s first block. This was purchased by Mr. Talbott in the 1820s from Catherine Kimboll, who had kept an ordinary here for quite some time. The site would continue its history as a popular inn as it  would eventually become the famed City Hotel.

Frederick Diarist Jacob Engelbrecht and our local newspapers of the time document the fact that notable historical figures would stay here while visiting our fair town. These included such persons as Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, Davy Crockett, James Polk and Zachary Taylor. Many of these distinguished visitors chose Joseph Talbott’s tavern for their personal lodging, which may indicate that it was one of the finer establishments in town.
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In the year 1824, Talbott’s Tavern/Hotel welcomed French general Marquis de Lafayette during his grand tour of the United States. While here, Lafayette received and greeted the public. Several celebrations were held, including a public dinner and ball for the great hero of the American Revolution.

​Joseph Talbott’s tavern was rebranded the City Hotel around 1831, and demolished in the 1920s to make way for the Francis Scott Key Hotel, which eventually became luxury apartments. Joseph can be found living in Baltimore in the 1850s and appears to be running a guesthouse. Interestingly, I took note that his next-door neighbor was merchant Samuel Hinks, who is buried here and the subject of one of these “Stories in Stone” back in April of 2018. Hinks would serve as “Mobtown’s” mayor from 1854-1856, and would later retire to the Landon House located in nearby Urbana.

​A final note regarding Joseph Talbott is that he would die in 1857, and is buried next to his wife Jane (nee Daniel) in an unmarked grave within Mount Olivet Cemetery in Baltimore. We have three of Joseph’s grandchildren buried here in Frederick’s Mount Olivet, all the children of Mahlon Talbott, who had a career as a lawyer both here and in Baltimore.

​Two of the three children died before Mount Olivet opened and were originally buried in All Saints Protestant Episcopal burying ground along Carroll Creek. These bodies were moved here by local shopkeeper/grocer Basil Norris, who is responsible for moving his own two daughters’ bodies to the Norris family plot (F9-12) when the cemetery officially opened in 1854. As a matter of fact, it was Mr. Norris who erected the very first monument here in Mount Olivet to the memory of his teenage girls.

​There are 28 Talbotts buried here in Mount Olivet to date. I recall  recently seeing the grave of Dr. Henry Thomas Talbott (1866-1909), a physician of Charles Town, West Virginia who married Lilian B. Hedges (1865-1892), daughter of the fore-mentioned Lycurgus Hedges. I pointed out Lilian’s beautifully carved stone with floral design to participants of a spring/garden-themed walking tour for our Friends of Mount Olivet this past April. Dr. Talbott’s father has a large monument on Area R/Lot 108. Henry Odel Talbott (1826-1913) was a former banker who spent most of his career in Charles Town as well.

​These Talbotts hailed from the Beallsville area just across the Montgomery County border to our south. Henry Odel’s father (Henry Warren Talbott 1780-1859) and grandfather (Nathan Talbott 1763-1839) are buried in the old Monocacy Cemetery located at the southern foot of Sugarloaf Mountain. Nathan was a Revolutionary War Patriot who apparently enlisted here in Frederick. His father (William Talbott 1715-1781) came to Frederick, (today’s Montgomery) County from Prince Georges County and established a plantation here near present-day Poolesville. He was among a group of white settlers who attempted to grow tobacco as they had successfully done in southern Maryland. The family had been in Maryland since the early 1700s, hailing from Yorkshire, England.

​Our subject, Strange Hall Talbott, had roots in West Virginia, and came to Frederick later in life. He spent his retirement at an iconic -looking house located on the southeast corner of East Third and East streets. This is diagonally across from St. John’s Catholic Cemetery.

​Strange Hall Talbott was born on May 27th, 1882 to parents David Wesley Talbott and Celise Ruth Rogers. In case you were curious, the meaning of Celise is “the one who takes God as the oath.” The family was living in Philippi, West Virginia, a town of 3,000 people, county seat of Barbour County and the site of a Civil War battle in 1861. Although a minor skirmish, the Battle of Philippi  is considered the earliest notable land action of the American Civil War.
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For over a century, Philippi has been home to Alderson Broaddus University, a four-year liberal-arts school affiliated with the American Baptist Churches. I was delighted to learn that Philippi also served as the childhood home to actor Ted Cassidy (1932–1979), who played the roles of two of the “strangest” characters in television history. These included "Lurch" and "Thing" on the 1960s TV show The Addams Family. Mr. Cassidy was raised in Philippi, graduating from Philippi High School around 1950.

​I couldn’t find much on Strange Hall Talbott and his life in Philippi outside of census records. I scoured his family tree and on original attempt couldn’t find “Strange” as a first, or last name. Upon further research, I found a few early (West) Virginia settlers who had the combination of “Strange Hall” in their names. In particular, I discovered a Jonathan Strange Hall (1797-1875) who settled in the “Collins Settlement” in what would later become Lewis County, WV. This was to the southwest of Barbour County. Jonathan Strange Hall had 12 children, with the sixth being Mary Hall, born at Skin Creek in 1827.  

Mary would wed David J. Talbott (1822-1898) in 1845. In looking into the Talbott family, which appears also as Tolbert, I found the couple living in Buckhannon, Upshur County, which neighbored both Barbour and Lewis counties. This group, the Talbotts, were also early settlers of this area in the 1700s when the region was still part of Virginia. West Virginia would not become a separate state until 1864.

There is a gray area in the genealogical record involving this family with a generation connection. Ancestry.com trees and a few census records show a man named Enoch Talbott as our subject’s father, however, our Mount Olivet cemetery records and those pertaining to our subject show his father as David Wesley Talbott (1852-1917), a resident of Philippi. My “David Talbotts” don’t simply have the “strange” connection I was hoping for. David Wesley Talbott (father of Strange) is shown to be the son of Enoch Talbott (1832-1901) and wife Susan O’ Neal.  Perhaps a relative can bail me out on this?

​Regardless, Strange Talbott worked on the family farm during his youth and attended school. He married Minnie Ella Rohr on November 25th, 1898, in Barbour County and lived south of Philippi in the village of Union for about 10 years. The family would have no children and relocated to Buckhannon, Upshur County by late summer 1918. Strange did not serve in World War I, but registered for the draft as was mandatory.

​The census of 1920 shows Strange running a truck farm. The same would hold true ten years later in 1930. Minnie would die in 1931, and our subject remarried Ora V. Linger (b. February 12th, 1904) in 1934. She was the daughter of a schoolteacher, John C. Linger and lived nearby outside Buckhannon. As a fitting aside, Ora is a name of Latin origin meaning "prayer.” The couple continued living off the Brushy Fork Road southwest of Buckhannon.

Strange retired in 1947 and would come to Frederick with his wife of 14 years. This move east could have been precipitated by Ora’s sister and parents living in nearby Hagerstown. Another brother lived in Martinsburg.

The Talbotts were deeded their property here on August 26th, 1947 by P. Luther Rice of Frederick. The 1950 US Census gives us a little clue to what the couple were up to, along with a few boarders found living with them at this time.

​Strange Hall Talbott did not make the papers as far as I can see. He didn’t get in trouble or do anything newsworthy either. His name finally appears in late June upon his death on 18 June 1959 at the age of 77. He would be buried in front of a row of Hemlock trees in Area X/Lot 82.

​Ora died a week shy of her 61st birthday on February 5th, 1965. I found it only fitting that the paper would boldly refer to her as "Mrs. Strange H. Talbott" in the header instead of Ora L. Talbott. 

Talbott Family History
In looking again at the Talbott family, I see a major branch in Maryland, and of course another in Virginia/West Virginia. Strange’s family was a shining example of the early “wild west” and westward migration, although he would reverse that trend with his move east 150 years later. I found out more about his ancestors in Barbour County from some old histories of the area republished online. There is even a community named Talbott in honor of founder Robert R. Talbott, who moved here in the year 1846. This is located off Route 48 midway between Elkins and Buckhannon. Robert R. Talbott came from a few miles north of Philippi and built his cabin before he brought the family of a wife and one small child. Supposedly, it took them two days to walk from their former home, and Mr. Talbott carried all of his property on his back while his wife carried their child. Earlier ancestors had come to this part of Virginia from Richmond County at the time of the American Revolution, likely as payment for military service.

“The first white settlement in present-day Barbour County was established in 1780 by Richard Talbott – along with his brother Cotteral and sister Charity – about three miles downriver from the future site of Philippi. At this time, the region was still a part of Monongalia County, Virginia. The region had had no permanent Indian settlements and so conflicts with Native Americans were relatively infrequent in the early days. Nevertheless, the Talbotts were obliged to leave their homestead several times for safety and twice found it necessary to retreat back east of the Alleghenies, returning each time. No member of this eventually large family was ever killed by Indian attacks.
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Over time, parts of the future Barbour County were included in the newly created Harrison (1784), Randolph (1787), and Lewis (1816) Counties. Barbour County, itself, was created in 1843 and named for the late Virginia politician and jurist Philip P. Barbour (1783–1841). (Barbour had served as a U.S. Congressman from Virginia, Speaker of the House, and Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.) The settlement of Philippi – formerly "Anglin's Ford" and "Booth's Ferry" – was platted, named, and made the county seat in the same year; it was chartered in 1844. By the 1850s, when a major covered bridge was constructed at Philippi to service travelers on the Beverly-Fairmont Turnpike, the county's population was approaching 10,000 people.”

​My assistant Marilyn Veek attempted to close the gap on the Talbott-Strange connection through Mary Hall and David J. Talbott as I mentioned earlier. She found a not-so-well documented familysearch.org tree which traced Mary’s father, Jonathan Strange Hall to his father Joseph Hall (1745-1824) and mother Mary Anne Hitt (1756-1813). Mary Anne Hitt had been previously married to a man named William George Strange (1760-1795). This would have made her the widow Mary Anne Strange who later married Joseph Hall.

Apparently, there is a legend about Mary Anne’s former husband, William George Strange. This was written by David Sibray this past January and published in West Virginia Explorer Magazine. It’s worth the read, although very “strange” as you can imagine.

Tuesday, June 14th marked "Flag Day," the annual observation that celebrates the day in 1777 when the United States approved the design for its first flag. Although not a federal holiday, the observance dates back to the 1880s, although there is a claim that it could have started with a first formal celebration in 1861. 

In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed June 14th as the official date for Flag Day, and in 1949 the U.S. Congress permanently established the date as National Flag Day. One more interesting fact is that Pennsylvania celebrates Flag Day as a state holiday.

Last year, in 2021, our Friends of Mount Olivet membership group thought it important to recognize Flag Day with some sort of commemoration on site at the cemetery within clear view of the US flag, the same that gave inspiration for our most famous decedent to write what, in time, would become our national anthem. Of course we are talking about Francis Scott Key.

We went one step further with creating a Flag Day lecture tradition in which we would feature a local author who has written something connected to Mount Olivet or those buried within. Last year, it was Lori Swerda who wrote a novel called Star-Spangled Scandal about the murder of Francis Scott Key's son, Phillip Barton Key. The dastardly act of 1859 was performed by a sitting congressman from New York, who would later lead troops at the Battle of Gettysburg. This was Daniel Sickles, who eventually beat the charge with the first successful use of the temporary insanity plea.

This year's lecture focused on a true Frederick patriot and one-time mayor, whose father came to Frederick in "literal" chains as a prisoner of the American Revolution. Jacob Engelbrecht's father was a mercenary soldier from the German state of Hesse, what we would call a Hessian soldier. He was housed only a block and a half from our cemetery at the Frederick Barracks, which have held the title of the Hessian Barracks since housing these soldiers in the early 1780s.

Within a century, the name of Engelbrecht would gain great reputation and respect in the Frederick community. Jacob had a big hand in "turning lemons into lemonade" through his work as a tailor and civic involvement. Interestingly, his neighbor Barbara Fritchie helped the public relations aspect of her last name as well because her father-in-law was on the wrong side of history during the Revolution as a Tory Loyalist. He unfortunately was executed for his treason, where the Hessian soldiers were welcomed warmly into the community with definitive German settlement origins dating back to the 1730s and 1740s.

June 14th, 2022 was a beautiful night to salute the flag and learn about a gentleman who kept a diary of Frederick events from 1819 up through his death in 1878. To recount his life story and achievements, Heritage Frederick docent and tour guide Jim Callear prepared a nice speech to share with our participants. It was so nice and original, in my humble appraisal, that I asked Jim, a professional antique appraiser, himself, if I could republish here as the crux of a "Story in Stone" article.

​The following is a transcript of Jim Callear's presentation on Jacob Engelbrecht.

I am honored to be speaking on Jacob Engelbrecht and his diaries on this special occasion.  Before I address Engelbrecht and his work, I want to acknowledge the work of those who ensured that his diaries could be printed and accessible to the public:  his family, who preserved the diaries and made them publicly available; Professor William Quynn who first published the diaries in 1976; Paul and Rita Gordon, whose tireless efforts led to the republication of the diaries in the current, expanded format; Mark Hudson, executive director of Heritage Frederick; and others who handled all phases of the editorial work that went into moving the words from Englebrecht’s handwritten diaries to the printed page.
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Even without the diaries, the Engelbrecht family would have merited our attention because of their role in the early settlement of Frederick.  Jacob’s father, Johann Conrad Engelbrecht, was born in Bavaria, fought for the British, and came to Frederick by way of Yorktown, where he became a prisoner of war in 1781.  After marching from Virginia to Maryland, he joined other prisoners at the Hessian Barracks.  After news of the peace treaty with Great Britain reached the colonies in 1783, the Hessian Barracks prisoners were given the choice of staying in this country or going back to Europe. 

​Engelbrecht stayed and soon married the daughter of a local schoolmaster.  They went on to have 10 children, one of whom was Jacob.  The story of Conrad, Jacob, and their succeeding generations embody the assimilation and success of many of the immigrant settlers in Frederick. 
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I want to turn to the diaries now.  In his forward to the diaries, Paul Gordan noted that Jacob Engelbrecht had several occupations – tailor, shopkeeper, cabinet maker, council member, and mayor – but had many other “preoccupations.”  We know of his passion for music – he was both a member of a choir and a band member, playing the French horn.  He loved to garden and he was an expert in the care and development of fruit trees, frequently telling us of his experiments in grafting the branch of one fruit tree to another.  He was a traveler going to other cities on the East Coast, where he would act as his own tour guide, finding churches, government buildings and historic sites to visit and observe.  And, of course, he liked wandering around Frederick. 

First and foremost, Englebrecht was a dispassionate recorder of facts, particularly when it came to the weather, prices of food items, deaths and marriages.  We might be told whether the bride or groom was an immigrant from Europe, or the son or daughter of a family in Frederick, and who the officiating minister was.  ​With regard to deaths, there are few character judgments and even less on how the individual deaths may have affected him. An exception to this was his diary entry regarding his daughter who died at the age of 6 from scarlet fever.  “Rest in peace poor darling.”  (9/14/1832).  His brief entry hides the real pain he must have felt because on September 14, 1861, he wrote, “This day it is 29 years since the death of my little daughter Ann Rebecca . . . . Were she now alive, she would be 35 years 6 months & 18 days old.  She died of scarlet fever.”  

​Another area where Engelbrecht  is very guarded in what he tells us is his work.  What is clear from the diaries is that Engelbrecht is very good about separating his work life from his personal life (or as Paul Gordan stated his “preoccupations”).  There are few entries that deal his work as a tailor or shop keeper.  One entry documents that Engelbrecht sold the contents of his shop and returned to tailoring with his brothers in the shop that his father formerly ran.  (5/7/1841).  Another entry describes how he had to stay up late to finish work on mourning clothes for a customer who had to attend a funeral the next day.  (11/26/1821).  But, Engelbrecht does not tell us much about who his customers were, where he bought his supplies, or whether he had help in his shop.   He had several apprentices, but he records only when they came to work for him and when they left.  

​Third, there were areas of Engelbrecht’s life that he was deeply passionate about:  politics, abolishing slavery, and preserving the Union.  He was a diehard Republican and kept score on wins and losses in both local and national elections.  Engelbrecht’s views on slavery were clear.  When the new Maryland constitution was adopted in 1864, Engelbrecht writes, “From this day forward and forever . . . Maryland is free from the foul blot of slavery – until yesterday there were more than 90,000 slaves . . .  (& about 80,000 free blacks).  ‘All men are created free.’” (11/1/1864).   

His view on the Union and its preservation are equally unequivocal.  Just prior to the Civil War, he recorded the secession of several southern states and stated, “Maryland will never leave our glorious union, at any rate not by my consent.”  (1/21/1861).  At a Union pole raising signifying opposition to secession, he wrote, “The Constitution and the Union, now and forever, one and Indivisible.”  (1/21/1861).  Four years later at the end of the Civil War, Engelbrecht noted that the cost of the war was $2,600,000.  He concluded, “the Union of this government is cheap even at that price . . .. In the gloomiest time, I did not believe that God would forsake our government & country.”  (8/8/1865).  

​Fourth, we see glimpses of his humor, his interests in entertainment, and his humanity in his diaries.  Engelbrecht’s efforts at humor were sporadic and subtle: “There is an eclipse of the moon . . . at twelve o’clock, but I can’t think of staying up to see . . . a corner of the moon off.  If I get sleepy, I’ll eclipse it to bed that’s better.”  (2/5/1822).  “Yesterday morning I bought a half ticket to the ‘Maryland State Lottery’. . . .   So I have half a chance to win nothing.” (7/31/1821).  

Engelbrecht showed us that Frederick was not just a place where people worked – they also played (at least a little bit).  There were domesticated snakes at Talbot’s Tavern (10/4/1822); there was rope dancing with Jacob Engelbrecht and his band providing the musical accompaniment (8/29/1822); and lions, tigers, and talking parrots on North Market Street (4/7/1835) – all available at low admission prices.  It seems that we must include in the entertainment category, public executions.  One in particular was noteworthy – John Markley, who murdered 6 people in the Newey house, was hung at the barracks before a crowd of three or four thousand, Engelbrecht estimated.  (6/24/1831). 

I am not sure whether this rates as humor or entertainment, but as I was looking through the index under Engelbrecht’s wife’s name, I saw “weight” listed as a diary item.  In fact, there were two entries.  Well, to my surprise, getting weights taken back then was no easy matter – there were no bathroom scales were there?  Jacob, his wife and their daughter made a trip to a local mill and were weighed, and if you need to know Jacob weighed in at 160 lbs. and his wife at 113 lbs. (4/18/1826). 

Humanity is defined as one’s compassion to his fellow man.   We see incidents of Engelbrecht’s humanity in his diary entries.  He tells us of an enslaved boy of 13 who was in his shop, and Engelbrecht learned that he did not have a name.  “I took the liberty with his consent of naming him  . . . .  I gave him the name on a piece of paper which he promised to preserve and be governed accordingly.”  (12/21/1824).  On another occasion, Engelbrecht appeared before a lawyer to verify under oath that an African American was free and had been born to parents who were free.  The purpose of this was to enable the man to obtain a certificate of freedom from the clerk of the Frederick County Court.  7/12/1825.    

Finally, where Engelbrecht excels as a diarist was in recording events in Frederick.  For instance, there are nine diary entries pertaining to the flooding of Carroll Creek.  Engelbrecht describes how Barbara Fritchie’s original house on the creek was torn down so the creek could be widened.  (4/8/1869).  Who knew the city’s flood control efforts started back them?  Engelbrecht used that diary entry to write that the flag waving incident, memorialized in the poem by Whittier, “is not true.”  (4/8/1869).  Another interesting event he recorded was the beginning of the McMurray Canning Co., which he said many had predicted would fail.  Engelbrecht’s response was that it might as well fail in Frederick Co. as else any other county.  (3/27/1869).  Of course, McMurray went on to employ nearly 1000 workers and produce 1 million cans of corn in one season. 

Of tremendous importance are his diary excepts that relate to the Civil War, Antietam, and the Battle of Monocacy, because they illustrate Engelbrecht’s view of major events going on around him that also affected the city, state, and nation. ​

​These diary entries reminded me of a program in the early days of television where news anchor Walter Cronkite would be at history-making events during the past centuries.  At the end of the program, after Cronkite summarized what had happened and stated, "What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times... all things are as they were then, except you were there."  That is the way these diary entries affect me. 
 
Jacob Englebrecht’s diaries are a gift to us, because they are our unique connection to the history of Frederick, Maryland, and the nation for a span of 60 years.  I have come to understand that my appreciation for the diaries rests on their being a very personal connection to Frederick’s past, more so than our historic houses and the antiques in them.  For this, we owe Jacob Englebrecht our recognition and gratitude. 
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In addition to giving us a connection to our history, he also shows us what it means to be connected to a community, not only through his words in the diaries, but through his life, his public service, his loyalty to his city and country, and his humanity. 

It is fitting that we honor him as we do today.  In conclusion, I will simply say as Engelbrecht did in many of his early diary entries, “So we rub along.”  5/22/1822

Jacob died on February 22nd, 1878 at his home in Frederick along Carroll Creek on W. Patrick Street. He would be buried in the family plot (Area H/Lot 276) alongside his wife and daughter. His son Philipp would take up the charge of recording this event in his father’s diary:

“My Father, Jacob Engelbrecht, died February 22nd, 1878 aged 80 years 2 months and eleven days. The immediate disease of which he died, inflammation of the bowels. He was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery on Sunday afternoon at 3 o'clock. Reverend George Diehl DD delivering a very able and interesting eulogy at the house and Reverend Bielefeld officiating at the grave. The funeral was largely attended. The Independent Hose Company attending in a body. A large number of colored persons came to pay their last respect, a class among whom he had many friends.”
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Philipp was to keep up his father’s diary, but died just two months after Jacob. Various family members continued to make journal entries up through January, 1882 at which point the famous diary ends.

After Jim's lecture presentation, participants were invited to take part in a special wayside interpretive marker unveiling at Jacob's gravesite. The honors (of unveiling) were done by Beth Molesworth, Jim Callear and the marker's graphic designer Ruth Bielobocky of Ion Design (Charles Town, WV). 

Ms. Molesworth shared that her uncle, also named Jacob L. "Jake" Engelbrecht was the one who inherited the diaries, and later donated them to the Historical Society. This gentleman was the grandson of the diarist and made this gift to the Society in 1958. In 1976, the diaries were transcribed and published for the first time. They would be republished in 2001.

Our story title is sure to attract attention, but won't likely make sense until you finish this article.

On the last day of April, we hosted a workshop in conjunction with Preservation Maryland.  Folks from around the region representing a number of cemeteries, big and small, were on-hand to learn best practices associated with cleaning and repairing gravestones. As many of our readers know, this certainly wasn’t our first “rodeo,” as we (ironically) “live and breathe” cemetery preservation here, usually holding annual workshops of this kind.

I relish the opportunity of having Mount Olivet play the role of “restoration classroom,” because we benefit greatly. Each session brings the promise of repairing a handful of our unfortunate collection of downed, and damaged, stones. They are either brought back to their original state, or at least, a highly acceptable one state based on the damage suffered over the decades.
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A great article on this workshop appeared the following Monday (after our Saturday session) in our local newspaper. It certainly helped raise awareness to not only the problem that besets old, historic cemeteries in regard to preservation, but more so, the message was conveyed that we can make a difference simply by an effort being made to garner time, money, know-how and volunteers. Gravestones can be cleaned, fixed and repaired if an effort is made.

​The News-Post reporter, Mary Grace Keller, was very enthusiastic during her short time with us, and I can say with surety that she perfectly captured the spirit of what we are trying to do. And how could she not with “yours truly” in one ear, and more so, the distinguished experts we had on hand to lead the workshop. Ms. Keller had the chance to briefly interview three others who are among the tops in the respective preservation game on a state and national level.
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The session on this day was being led by our old friends Jonathan Appell and Moss Rudley. As one of the nation’s foremost gravestone restoration experts, Jonathan operates Atlas Preservation out of his home headquarters in Southington, Connecticut. As I write this article, he is currently in Nebraska, as part of his “48 State Tour” in which he is presenting workshops of this nature in cemeteries in all 48 continental states of the country.

Based here in Frederick as the superintendent of the National Park Service’s Historic Preservation Training Center, Moss is well known both locally and nationally, and equally well-traveled throughout the U.S. and highly respected. For those not familiar with this unique NPS unit, headquartered here in Frederick, I will share this part of its mission statement from the center’s webpage:

“The HPTC utilizes historic preservation projects as the main vehicle for teaching preservation philosophy and building crafts, technology, and project management skills. Their experiential learning approach emphasizes flexibility in addressing the unknown conditions encountered during projects and ensures that the goals of preservation are met.”
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The operation serves NPS historic sites throughout the country and has its executive headquarters at the Gambrill Mansion on Monocacy National Battlefield, and a workshop facility on Commerce Street, immediately next to my old stomping grounds of the Frederick Visitor Center.

​Last, but certainly not least, we had Nicholas Redding here with us on site at the time Mary Grace observed the workshop. Nick is a Walkersville resident and also the individual primarily responsible for setting this special session up in the first place. He serves as president and CEO of Preservation Maryland, a non-profit based in Baltimore that works to protect the state’s heritage and historic structures.

​Mary Grace had a front row seat to view these master craftsmen and volunteers in action. At this time in the program, they were working on a gravesite in Mount Olivet’s Area C. Two large dyes (principal piece of monuments with information inscribed) had toppled, likely years ago. This commonly occurs due to unsound foundations. Today, grave monuments are usually placed atop substantial concrete foundations poured over well compacted earth. The same “terra firma” covers sound, concrete lined burial vaults which contain the caskets. Concrete vaults further improved upon the use of perma-crete vault liner kits introduced in the 1930s.

​However, in yesteryear, fixed compartments containing the casket were not always the norm. Interestingly, the absence of a vault for many graves in our historic parts of the cemetery doesn’t seem to cause many future issues. This is relative when you think about it due to the fact that if you had little to spend on the burial, you likely had little to spend on the grave monument. Small monuments cause small problems, as opposed to medium and large-sized gravestones. We commonly see vintage era children’s graves covered by small stones.

​However, gravesites with vaults and dirt shoulders are a potential problem, and, in many instances, have not been able to last an eternity. For an explanation, a dirt-shouldered grave is one in which a rectangular hole accepted the casket, and a piece of slatestone serves as a lid being supported by opposing ledges of dirt. A step up from this practice came with a request for a brick-lined vault, which called for a mason to build four walls to accept the casket. Sometimes cement was used to join the bricks, however there were many more that just had bricks stacked to form walls with no joining agent whatsoever. In some cases, a floor was actually laid, other times not. Regardless, a piece of slatestone was also employed here as a ceiling topper for this custom-made casket vault.

​After the graveside services and placement of the coffin in the respective vault, dirt was shoveled back in the hole to cover the slatestone and entirety of the brickwork up to surface level. Lastly, after allowing for settling and more compaction, a heavy monument was added in the same vein a cherry is added to a sundae. Over time, the slatestone covering of the vault, or the brick walls can fail, collapsing earth into the casket and vault cavity below.  With this ground shift, a monument above and once level, now leans or has fallen over. This may be enough to topple some large monuments, especially multi-piece structures that are simply stacked pieces relying on the laws of gravity.

​If the monument doesn’t collapse at first, the occurrence into an angled position, may allow water (in the form of rain or snow) to reach iron pins that traditionally connect a base stone to the upright backboard (called a dye).  The pins can expand and contract based on weather conditions and commonly fracture marble tombstones toward the base. These eventually will rust as more water reaches the pin at open fracture points. The pins become brittle and eventually break, causing the dye to fall over—hopefully not into another gravestone.

​After that laborious explanation, I will say that the repair at hand, captured in the News-Post photo in Area C/Lot 22, did not involve the level of complexity needed for the stone situations pictured above. Those would need extraction of old pins (which is pretty tricky), pin replacement, and filling fractures, etc. 

The current repair featured two stones that were not joined by pins. these had simply leaned to a point of toppling over. Our repair involved the addressing of the ground level foundation with dirt and gravel, first and foremost. With the base stone now put to a perfectly level position, a special tripod was used to lift the dye into place (atop the leveled base below). Lead strips were used to re-set the monuments.

Christian Eckstein
The reporter asked if I knew who the decedents connected to these specific gravestones were? I asked her to give me a minute as I had no idea, John and Moss simply decided to spotlight these graves for the afternoon repair. I did some quick, on the spot, research courtesy on my phone and learned that the plot owner was one Christian Eckstein, who died in 1874. His wife, Elizabeth, was to his right and had passed in 1892. A stone to the left of Christian was illegible, with the dye actually broken in half with a diagonal fracture. I would later find this to be William F. Eckstein (1856-1910). One more individual, Mary C. (Eckstein) Koontz (1856-1910) is buried to the right of Elizabeth and was a married daughter of the couple whose grave monument is in perfect shape.

​Both Christian and Elizabeth were natives of Germany. Christian was born on October 22nd, 1822 in Dernichein in Hesse-Kassel, Germany. His wife, the former Elizabeth Kepple, was also from Derniechein as well. The couple married on April 26th, 1841. Four years later in 1845, they immigrated to America, landing in Baltimore. This is where we find the Ecksteins in the 1850 US Census. They would welcome their first-born child, Christian Henry, on October 10th, 1845. The couple would go on to have even children from my research.

​Christian is listed as a milkman, a “milchmann” in the Eckstein’s native tongue. I would find his son Christian H. Eckstein’s biography in T. J.C. William’s History of Frederick County (published in 1910). It said that Christian Eckstein “successfully followed the dairy business until 1854, in which year he removed to Frederick.”

In the 1860 census, Christian is listed as operating a tavern. I learned that he may have started at the noted Dill House that once sat at the corner of West Church and Court Street. I did an earlier story on the origins of this location, now represented by a stellar, macadam parking lot serving the Paul Mitchell Temple and M&T Bank.  

​I was fascinated to learn that, although German, Christian was outspoken during the American Civil War. Where most Germans and Irish immigrants backed the Union, I don’t think many were particularly excited to fight a war. Just check out the 2002 Academy Award ® winning film of the year by Martin Scorsese, The Gangs of New York, for proof of this statement. The film includes a scene dealing with the infamous New York City Draft Riots of mid-July, 1863. This occurred a few weeks after Gettysburg as President Lincoln instituted a mandatory draft. This did not sit well with the Bowery Boys and others.

​Of course, dissenting stories of valor surround immigrants in local action such as the famed Irish Brigade (69th NY Infantry) at Antietam, and heroics of Paddy O’Rorke at Little Round Top in the Battle of Gettysburg. In this blog, I’ve also chronicled the bravery of Capt. Joseph Groff of Frederick, extremely proud of his German heritage, as he fought for the Union in the Potomac Home Brigade.

In doing more study, I theorize Christian could have seen war much the same as Leonardo DiCaprio’s character of Amsterdam Vallon. You escaped mayhem in the “old world” to come to this country, and you’re trying hard to eke out a living here. Then you get drafted and forced to fight a “rich man’s” war in which the politicians and wealthy, who have the most to gain, can get their son’s a replacement soldier to fight in their place.

Eckstein was from Hesse-Cassel, the German state known for the famed Hessian soldiers. These mercenary soldiers were rented out by Frederick II of Hesse to Great Britain to fight us in the Revolutionary War. Many of these Germans stayed here after the war instead of going back to a country. Why not, their former leader forced them into servitude. One such Hessian who stayed was Francis Klinehart, namesake of Klinehart Alley. He was a tavern keeper whose daughter married Joshua Dill, founder of the tavern that took his name.
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Anyway, Eckstein surprised me because he was outspoken in his support of the South. An article found in 1861 lays claim to this fact as Christian voiced his opposition to President Lincoln in a church service at the German Reformed Congregation (Trinity Chapel).

​Diarist Jacob Engelbrecht notes the following event in his diary on July 14th, 1862:

“Lager beer saloon—Mr. Christian Eckstein, who keeps a lager beer saloon at the corner of Market and 3rd Street, was called on by the Provost Marshal & his posse with a wagon, & took 21 kegs of lager beer other article in his line. Government reason, selling liquor to the soldiers. This happened on Saturday evening last 12th instant.”
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The war came and went, and I’m sure Mr. Eckstein sold plenty more alcohol to the various soldiers of both armies who visited our city along the way. Weeks after the surrender at Appomattox in April, 1865, Christian Eckstein embarked on a sojourn back to his native homeland (Germany) accompanied by a friend and fellow resident named Jacob Schmidt, who kept the Black Horse Tavern located on the famed bend in the second block of West Patrick Street. They left town by train on May 15th and returned on August 30th after a pleasant trip.

Upon his return, Eckstein saw his eldest son, the fore-mentioned Christian H. Eckstein (1845-1917), join the Frederick Bar in 1866, and pursue politics. Like is father, he was an ardent member of the Conservative Democrat Party who would become one of Frederick’s most outstanding citizens of his time as a longtime Justice of the Peace appointee.

​Our subject's son Christian H. Eckstein was appointed to the Board of Trustees to the Almshouse (Montevue Home) in 1866 and again in 1868. A clipping from a paper, that latter year, shows that the family came close to needing services from the emergency hospital at Montevue. This was certainly not  not the best weekend to frequent Eckstein's Saloon.

​Our subject Christian was a leading member of the International Order of Odd Fellows and assisted in starting a German Building Company here in Frederick. He also stayed busy as a lieutenant in a local militia outfit and took great pride in participating with this group in parades and special functions.

​In addition to slinging beer, Mr. Eckstein was an avid marksman. Jacob Engelbrecht makes mention to Herr Eckstein again in reference to an interesting purchase of land on Fredericks’ northwest side:

“Deutsche Scheutzen park—This park adjoining our city was sold at public sale on Saturday last March 12, 1870 to Christian Eckstein for fifteen-thousand one hundred dollars ($15,100). It contains 28 and ½ acres of sand and was formerly part of the farm of Mr. Stephen Ramsburg but lately to Doctor William Tyler from whom the “Scheutzen Gesellschaft” purchased it.”
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For quite sometime, I have had a particular interest in this curious organization of German origin. I first stumbled upon the Deutche Sheutzen Gesellschaft in context to the local German Civil War soldier Joseph Groff. His name would be applied to Groff Park which was synonymous with Frederick Scheutzen Park. You know this locale better today as the campus of Hood College, northwest of Frederick’s downtown center.

​The Deutche Scheutzen Gesellschaft was in essence a private membership stock company that featured shooting and drinking for its members boasting German heritage. Eckstein and Groff were leading organizers and members of this early example of the many German-American social clubs that can be found throughout our country today. Frederick has always been proud of its strong German ties, with origins dating back to the 1730s/1740s  with many of its first families of settlers hailing from Deutchland such as the Schleys, Steiners, Mantzs, Ramsburgs, Brunners and Getzendanners.

“Scheutzen” translates to shooting, and “gesellschaft” means organization. Frederick’s Scheutzen Park began as a shooting range, and what better means of celebrating cultural heritage are there than drinking and shooting—just hopefully done responsibly.

​I’ve read that Scheutzen Park was noted for its social events including fine dinners and dancing were available in a grand ballroom, especially German cuisine. The large social hall was constructed in 1868, and the local members were aided in laying the cornerstone for this impressive building with the help of the Adam Masonic Lodge and the mayor of Baltimore accompanied by a contingent of like organization members from “Charm City.”

​I was pleased to find that Christian delivered the opening remarks for this interesting event in July of that year. 

​Construction would be done over the summer and fall, with a grand opening gala in November. Take note that Christian H. Eckstein was on the committee of arrangements, but also held the position of "First Sheutzenmeister" (translates to first shooting master.)

​The Gesellschaft didn’t last long, but the main building still stands proud today on the Hood campus, and boasts plenty of revelry in the form of music played within over its life. This is Brodbeck Hall, home of the college’s music department, after serving as the clubhouse for the German social club, which came complete with an old-fashioned beer garden to accommodate stockholders.

​Something went awry as the Scheutzen Park was put up for public sale not long after its grand opening. Christian Eckstein would purchase this property in 1869, and sold it shortly thereafter to Capt. Groff, who was the former proprietor of the Arlington House Hotel on North Market, and later the Groff House Hotel on North Market Street at Seventh Street and by the fountain.

​This is when the property was renamed Groff Park. The grounds with its many lanes offered an oasis for scenic carriage rides and social and athletic events to be held on its spacious grounds. The Groff family would split time living here and used the vicinity to grow gardens of produce that would be used to feed guests staying in their hotel. The couple's oldest son, David, would grow flowers here for his successful career as a local florist. Eventually, Groff Park would be sold to Margaret Scholl Hood in the 1890s. Mrs. Hood would later deed the former Groff Park to Dr. Joseph Henry Apple and the Frederick Women's College and in 1915, this would comprise the newly named seat of higher education for women named Hood College.

In case you were curious, "Brodbeck" is an occupational name and translates to "Baker of bread."

​As for Christian and family, we find he and his wife still operating their saloon in the 1870 census. Son Charles would make an unsuccessful run for Maryland’s House of Delegates as a Democratic candidate in 1871. The saloon on North Market would continue to be  a favorite watering hole for members of the Conservative Democrat Party however.

Christian Eckstein died on April 5th, 1874. His obituary mentions a ten-year battle with Rheumatism, which resulted in him being an invalid in the few years preceding his death. I find it remarkable that he continued with his shooting and military ceremonial events amidst great pain.

He would be buried in Mount Olivet on April 7th. His gravesite would see activity upon the funerals of his wife and two children here, but there was quite a lull until our April 30th workshop and repairing his stone to its original glory as had been done 148 years before. 

Memorial Day weekend has passed us by, but it’s hard not to be in a patriotic mood when you work as the historian of a cemetery like ours that boasts nearly 4,700 veterans. We still have flag-covered gravesites for a few more days, as the grounds are still humming in the aftermath of fine annual ceremonies by our Daughters of the America Revolution chapters and the Francis Scott Key American Legion Post 11.

​Speaking of Francis Scott Key, the mortal remains of the man who helped “immortalize” the US flag are here in Mount Olivet, as is the great flag-waver, herself, Barbara Fritchie of Civil War fame, albeit a bit sketchy. We are only a week away from Flag Day (June 14th) and our annual patriotic lecture at the Key Chapel which kicks off at 7pm. (NOTE: This year, our subject will be Frederick diarist Jacob Engelbrecht, who will be the recipient of an upcoming “Story in Stone.”)

​When I think of the US flag and its relation to Frederick, how can FSK and Barbara Fritchie not come to mind? Perhaps this is a question easily answered by native and long-time residents only, but don’t worry Frederick newcomers, our goal is to indoctrinate you into this frame of thinking as well.
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Like Mount Olivet, Frederick is a very patriotic place. So much so, we made sure Francis and Barbara were strategically located by the front door entrance of the Frederick Visitor Center on South East Street. I know, because I worked on that project with my esteemed former colleagues of the Tourism Council of Frederick County in John Fieseler and Liz Shatto.

​One other hero who has the flag, per se, to thank for his fame, was Admiral Winfield Scott Schley (b. 1839). As a matter of fact, he named his memoirs Forty-Years Under the Flag, published in 1904. If you are not familiar with Admiral Schley, the namesake of Schley Avenue (between Rosemont and West Seventh Street), he was a rear admiral in the United States Navy. More so, Schley was the hero of the Battle of Santiago de Cuba during the Spanish–American War on July 3rd, 1898.

​His actions while in command of Admiral Thomas Dewey’s flagship, the USS Brooklyn, helped destroy the Spanish naval fleet, thus cutting off supplies and support to the Spanish infantry forces on land who were defeated by Gen. Joseph Wheeler featuring his legendary cavalry group— “the Rough Riders” under the command of one Teddy Roosevelt. Their eternal fame came with the Battle of San Juan Hill. One of these "Rough Riders" was Jesse Clagett, buried here in Mount Olivet’s Area P/Lot 36. (See Story)

​Back to Admiral Winfield Scott Schley, he can be found on a postage stamp and also had a fine drink (Admiral Schley Punch) named in his honor. He died in 1911 but is not buried in Mount Olivet, but rather Arlington Cemetery. I will tell you more about him in a later story I plan to write in context with his family as his parents and siblings are buried here in Area P/Lot 9. This is directly adjacent the grave plot of Jesse Claggett and his family.

​A few weeks back, I came across an article that mentioned Admiral Schley and the immortal "Rough Riders." Most interesting was the article’s description of Frederick as being the “Home of Heroes.”  This really resonated with me, but probably because I’m also used to hearing the fore-mentioned Francis Scott Key’s line, “Home of the Brave.” The Francis Scott Key monument  had been unveiled amidst great fanfare just a month after Schley and Clagett’s “heroics” in Cuba, and seven months previous to the article’s publication. I’m sure local residents were beaming with patriotism as their city and county were recognized on the national stage as being the home to Schley, Key and Fritchie.

The article in question makes mention to participants of the Spanish-American War. Overshadowed by the Revolutionary War, Civil War and World Wars to follow, the “Span-Am” War is usually relegated to B-League history along with the War of 1812 and Mexican War (which both preceded it). To give the Readers Digest version of this conflict, I present the Wikipedia synopsis:
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The Spanish–American War (April 21 – August 13, 1898) was a period of armed conflict between Spain and the United States. Hostilities began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, leading to United States intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. The war led to the United States emerging predominant in the Caribbean region, and resulted in U.S. acquisition of Spain's Pacific possessions. It led to United States involvement in the Philippine Revolution and later to the Philippine–American War.

The main issue was Cuban independence. Revolts had been occurring for some years in Cuba against Spanish colonial rule. The United States backed these revolts upon entering the Spanish–American War. There had been war scares before, as in the Virginius Affair in 1873. But in the late 1890s, American public opinion swayed in support of the rebellion because of reports of concentration camps set up to control the populace. Yellow journalism exaggerated the atrocities to further increase public fervor and to sell more newspapers and magazines.

This is an interesting passage, and gives us a unique lens in which to view current events that we continue to experience up through this day. It’s a recipe consisting of politics, power, money and the media. Author, astronomer, educator Carl Sagan (1934-1996) said it best when he wrote in his signature work Cosmos in 1980: “You have to know the past to understand the present.”

​In the local Frederick news article referenced earlier (from 1899), I was interested to see the names of the local boys in Company A. I also took note that Frederick’s greatest inventor on record was chosen as parade marshal. Today his name, McClintock Young, adorns a local distillery on East Church Street, not far from the Ox Fibre Company where some of his creations help produce fine palmetto hand brushes.

​Mr. Young is buried in Area H, not far from the toastmaster mentioned in this article for the banquet welcoming the soldiers back home. This was Douglas Henry Hargett (1846-1908) who rests only a short distance from the inventor in Area H /Lot 483. Hargett was a resident of East Church Street and a successful merchant. As the article mentions, he served as Clerk of the Frederick County Court in 1898. Interestingly, Mr. Hargett was the father of Lt. Earlston Lilburn Hargett (1892-1918), one of two men buried in Mount Olivet that were actually killed in battle during World War I.

​I found this particularly ironic, because this article pointed out to me the fact that we had two local boys die during the “Span-Am” War, and they both are here in Mount Olivet. They did not die in battle, but rather of sickness. Nine such World War I soldiers buried here in Mount Olivet died in this fashion during the war, and their malady was the Spanish Flu Pandemic. Alas, Spain is to blame in some form or fashion!
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The young gentlemen in question were George W. Morgan and Thomas Melvin Wolfe, Jr. You could not have two more different socio-economic backgrounds as what you have with these two boys. Finding information on both was a challenge to say the least, but they did appear in the 1880 census as youngsters. The 1890 census was lost, and they wouldn’t survive past the war year of 1898 to be counted among the living in 1900.

​George W. Morgan
George William Morgan was born September 4, 1871 here in Frederick, the son of Jennie and husband William V. Morgan (1840-1905). The elder Morgan was a veteran of the American Civil War, serving in Company H of the Union’s Potomac Home Brigade. In the 1880 census, six-year old George can be found living at what was 304 West Patrick St. with his parents and three siblings.

​Again not much can be gleaned from local resources aside from George entering military service into Maryland’s 1st Infantry Regiment, Company A. His name is among 26 who volunteered for military duty in this outfit in early May, 1898.

​A few weeks later, this group, comprising Company A militiamen, would be mustered into active duty on the national level. Morgan’s initials were erroneously typed as E. W. Morgan instead of G. W. Morgan.

​The soldiers would be sent to Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia for their initial training, before being transferred to Camp George Meade near Middletown, Pennsylvania in Dauphin County. Middletown is south of Harrisburg and conveniently located three miles north of the infamous Three-Mile Island of nuclear reactor meltdown fame when I was a kid.

​ I learned that Camp George Meade was established on August 24th, 1898, and soon thereafter was occupied by the Second Army Corps, of about 22,000 men under command of Maj. Gen. William M. Graham, which had been moved from Camp Alger in an attempt to outrun the typhoid fever epidemic. Camp Meade was visited by President William McKinley on August 27th, 1898. More on him in a little later.

​Camp Meade was inspected November 3rd and 4th, and found to be spacious and well laid out. The water supply was obtained from artesian wells, and was piped to every organization. It was both good and abundant. The hospitals were commodious, and well equipped and conducted. The bathing facilities for the men were ample. The sanitary and other conditions were of high order, and the camp, as a whole, was open to but little criticism. The testimony of a number of officers and men was taken, and the troops and camp inspected. In November this camp was discontinued and the troops—not mustered out—distributed to the various camps in the South.

The installation was abandoned about November 17, 1898. The 3rd Brigade of the 2nd Division of the Second Army Corps was relocated to Camp Fornance, Columbia, South Carolina, and a brigade of the 1st Division, Second Corps to Camp Marion, Summerville, South Carolina.

​George’s family members are buried in adjoining Lot 163, where a civilian headstone also bears the Span-Am War casualty’s name. I quickly recognized the name of another Spanish-American war vet buried in the "Sons of Veterans" lot and located to the immediate left of Private Morgan's gravesite. This is the burial spot of Walter J. Ely (1872-May 13, 1899). In the article above recounting Morgan's funeral, Ely is said to have accompanied the body from Camp Meade (PA) to Frederick, and was responsible for giving ceremonial bugle calls at the military funeral on September 28th, 1898 here in Mount Olivet.

​I was surprised to see that Ely would be occupying his own grave in less than six months. This piqued my curiousity, so I made a quick inquiry to learn of his demise at the age of 27. Forrest Gump said "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get." In doing research at a cemetery for "a living," I can attest to "death," also, being like a box of chocolates.

​Thomas M. Wolfe, Jr.
A more affluent upbringing involved Thomas Melvin Wolfe Jr, who died a little over a month before George W. Morgan. Wolfe was the son of Thomas M. Wolfe and wife Sydney and grew up in a fine residence on Record Street at Courthouse Square. His father was a veteran of the Civil War as well, having served as quartermaster of the Potomac Home Brigade. Mr. Wolfe was a successful businessman and civil servant having been appointed Postmaster by President Andrew Johnson immediately after the war. He would also serve as a Frederick Alderman.

​Our decedent in this case, attended local schools, likely the Frederick Academy, and enlisted for service in Baltimore where he served in Company A of Maryland’s Fifth Regiment. I found the following regimental history online on a site called spanamwar.com:

The Fifth Maryland Volunteer Infantry, apparently formed around a Maryland National Guard unit,  assembled at Pimlico, Maryland on April 25th, 1898. Several weeks later, on May 14th, the regiment was mustered into federal service. At the time of mustering in, the regiment consisted of forty-eight officers and 935 enlisted men.

​On August 18th, 1898, the regiment proceeded to Huntsville, Alabama. Again, its stay was short, and on September 5th, it was ordered home to Baltimore, Maryland. The regiment was furloughed for one month, beginning on September 11th. On October 22nd, the Fifth Maryland Volunteer Infantry was mustered out of service. At the time of mustering out, the regiment consisted of forty-nine officers and 1,229 enlisted men.
 
During its term of service, the regiment  had one officer and nineteen enlisted men die of disease. In addition, eight men were discharged on disability, one man was court-martialed, and three men deserted. The regiment has one of the lower desertion  rates experienced by regiments during the war.

We are lucky to have a photograph of Private Wolfe as this was taken shortly before his death and included with news of his death in the Frederick newspaper.

​Private Wolfe had become sick with typhoid fever, and was cared for in a Red Cross hospital that had been set up by Clara Barton herself.  Wolfe's mother and a sister had the means to travel to Tampa to assist in the care of him. News of his illness was printed in the local paper, and it appeared he would make a recovery. 

Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, and is a disease caused by Salmonella serotype Typhi bacteria. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often there is a gradual onset of a high fever over several days. This is commonly accompanied by weakness, abdominal pain, constipation, headaches, and mild vomiting. Some people develop a skin rash with rose colored spots. In severe cases, people may experience confusion.

Unfortunately​ Thomas M. Wolfe's rally was only temporary as he would succumb to this prevalent wartime ailment on August 21st, 1898.

​Private Wolfe was buried "a stone's throw away" from his brother in arms, George W. Morgan. He was laid to rest in the Wolfe family plot in Area Q/Lot 149. His father had been buried here since 1890.

​Wolfe’s name is among those soldiers lost to the Fifth Maryland during the war. It can be found on a bronze plaque hanging on a wall within the Fifth Regiment Armory located in Baltimore. This structure can be found between Preston, Howard, Hoffman and Bolton streets.

​I had earlier mentioned President McKinley who had visited Camp George Meade in Pennsylvania in late August, 1898, just three days after Thomas Wolfe's funeral here in Frederick on the 24th. I'm assuming that Private George W. Morgan had the opportunity to see, hear and possibly meet the chief executive on the occasion at Camp Meade that preceded his death by 28 days.

Interestingly, the president should have been here at Mount Olivet two weeks earlier on August 9th, as he was the recipient of a very important invitation to attend the unveiling ceremony of the Francis Scott Key Monument. He had been to Frederick before, but this was in wartime as a participant of the Battle of South Mountain. He served with an Ohio Regiment under his future mentor, and president, Rutherford B. Hayes.

I have included an elaborate newspaper article that discussed the circumstances of the Key monument invitation the previous winter by a delegation sent to the White House for the very purpose.

​Naturally, the events of the Spanish-American War likely precluded President McKinley’s visit on that 9th day of August, 1898. It would have made a great photo-op however. He would be assassinated just over three years later on September 6th, 1901. The 25th president of the United States, was shot on the grounds of the Pan-American Exposition at the Temple of Music in Buffalo, New York, six months into his second term. He was shaking hands with the public when anarchist Leon Czolgosz shot him twice in the abdomen. He seemed to have been making a recovery but died of a gangrene infection on September 14th—oddly enough, the 87th anniversary of the writing of “the Star-Spangled Banner” by Francis Scott Key. 

It’s Memorial Day weekend, and flags are planted on more than 4,000 veteran graves here in Frederick's historic Mount Olivet. For this week's "Story in Stone," I want to tell you about a new attribute to our garden cemetery, with roots of old. Before I get to that, I decided to take a nostalgic look back at a local commemoration that took place exactly a century ago. I found a few articles in the Frederick News-Post describing the special day here in Frederick with activity occurring in Mount Olivet Cemetery. This included the annual placement of flowers and flags on veteran graves, of course. The American Legion’s Francis Scott Key Post #11 held a ceremony here that day, but it was not at the base of the Post's  namesake monument as it will be again this Memorial Day, May 30th, 2022 at 12 noon.
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One hundred years ago, on May 30th, 1922, a large contingent of citizens and veterans came to the cemetery in the formation of a parade. The group started at the Old Armory building at the corner of N. Bentz and W. Second streets (today's Talley Recreation Center across from Memorial Park). V.I.P. guests in this parade included both Civil War and Spanish-American War veterans riding in automobiles. The throng traveled east on W. Second to Market Street, turning south to venture to “Frederick’s Other City” at the southern edge of town.

The main speaker of that day was Sherman Philip Bowers (1889-1962), a World War I veteran, who gave an address entitled, “The Origin & Significance of Memorial Day.” Sherman P. Bowers was a prominent lawyer and civic leader throughout his life and is buried in Area AA/Lot 11.

​The master of ceremonies for 1922’s Memorial Day program was post-commander Grayson Hunter Bowers (1897-1996), a veteran of World War I. “G. Hunter,” as he was more readily known, had earlier served in the US Army and was stationed at Fort Sam Houston during the Poncho Villa revolt of the Mexican Border Conflict. Mr. Bowers served on our cemetery’s Board of Directors from 1941 through his death in 1996. During this time, he was president for 26 years from 1968-1994. Fittingly a veteran’s memorial, located in front of Mount Olivet’s Chapel Mausoleum, was dedicated in his name in November, 1997. This ten-foot monument contains the engraved names of veterans entombed in the mausoleum complex, which was proposed and opened under Mr. Bowers tenure on our board.

​Memorial Day has held special significance here at Mount Olivet since the days of the American Civil War and Decoration Day. Over the last century and a half, three locations within the cemetery have emerged as signature places in respect to honoring soldiers and veteran affairs—especially at times of special military holidays such as Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day.

The first of these is Confederate Row, where over 700 Southern soldiers of the American Civil War repose in a line on the cemetery’s western boundary. These men perished, usually in the hospitals of town of wounds, injuries and sickness between 1861-1865.  As many know, we at one time had a similar “Union Row” in what are today's Area X and Area K, but most of these men were reinterred in Sharpsburg’s federally-sponsored military cemetery in the year 1867. This place became known as Antietam National Cemetery.

​The original Cemetery Commission's plan allowed for burial of soldiers from both sides. However, the rancor and bitterness over the recently completed conflict and the devastated South's inability to raise funds to join in such a venture persuaded Maryland to recant. Consequently, only Union dead are interred here. The Confederate soldiers were left here in Mount Olivet, as well as Rose Hill Cemetery in Hagerstown and Elmwood Cemetery in Shepherdstown (WV).

​There are still a few Union casualties of the war to be found here in Mount Olivet under military-issue headstones. We also have a few, small clusters of Union veterans in places like the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) Lot, found on the southern tip of Area C. Union and Confederate veterans who lived through the war are buried in varied lots throughout the cemetery under civilian style stones, with some exceptions.

​A second location of special remembrance here in Mount Olivet came in the midst of the Spanish-American War in late summer of 1898. This was the time of the unveiling of the Francis Scott Key Monument by our front gate amidst great fanfare. We have had many patriotic events here ever since, exemplified by the annual Memorial Day program sponsored by our local, Francis Scott Key Post.

​Twenty years later, some local boys who were at the vastly attended ceremony (of the Key Monument), found themselves in doughboy uniforms in the midst of a World War. We have 12 casualties of “the Great War” buried in Mount Olivet, and 600 who survived the conflict that would later be known as World War I.

​Unfortunately, another World War would follow some twenty years after that specific occasion in late May, 1922. We jump ahead to Memorial Day, 1942 and the mood was rife with the fact that our government had declared war on Japan and the axis nations of Germany and Italy five months earlier (December, 1941). Fifty-seven known interments would be made here of Frederick residents killed in the line of military duty during World War II. Thirty of these men are part of the third place of special significance here at Mount Olivet—the World War II Memorial.

​At the November 6th, 1945 meeting of our Board of Directors, a report on the sketches of the plan for a World War II section were discussed. A year later, (November 5th, 1946) the Board approved the construction and placement of a World War II Memorial in Area EE. The sum of $500.00 was indicated for the erection of the memorial. The superintendent was instructed to secure the names and addresses of the next of kin of all Frederick City and Frederick County residents who lost their lives while serving in the Armed Forces of the United States during World War II.

​​The proposed design by Presbrey-Leland, Inc. of New York was accepted at the December 9th meeting with the approval of Indiana Limestone as the material to be used. The project was estimated to cost $5,240.00.

​Formed in 1920 from the merger of two monument studios, the Leland Company and Presbrey Coykendall, Presbrey-Leland, Inc. became a leader in monument design between the two World Wars. While most of their production centered in the East, their designs can be found nationwide.

​On the high-end, they produced large, costly mausoleums at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, where the company had opened a showroom soon after their merger. The World War II Monument at Mount Olivet would be dedicated on Memorial Day, May 30th, 1948.

The central circular ground level monument contains all the Frederick County servicemen lost in the war. The bodies of thirty men help comprise a semicircle around an eternal flame centerpiece. The monument was redesigned and rededicated on Memorial Day, May 27th, 2002. Over the last four years, this memorial has been the site of our opening ceremony for “Wreaths Across America.”

​That brings me to a new location for veteran remembrance with the “reincarnation” of a former cemetery structure built in 1915. A Kiosk topped with a cupola once graced the center of Areas T, U, and S in the virtual midpoint of the cemetery. The cupola once adorned a structure known as the Public Vault. This was dismantled in 1911, and the present-day Francis Scott Key Chapel was built on its site. The cupola went into storage, but was eventually used to top the Kiosk. This colorful structure hosted lot-holders, visitors and a few reverent concerts in its day.

​After the Kiosk fell into disrepair in the 1940s, it was razed. Rumor has it that the cupola found a new home at the Maryland School for the Deaf. The original building had its own share of cupolas, and I recall one of which on display in the school’s Bjorlee Museum. They seem slightly different architecturally, but I am wondering if the story got confused somehow?

​Last March (2021), a few friends from the Carrollton Manor Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution requested to meet with our superintendent Ron Pearcey and myself. Ysabel Suarez, Audrey Flickinger Brkovich and Julie Holmes had come with the idea of a unique memorial to help commemorate the famed Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery. They would explain to us their desire to place a special garden marker, with the opportunity to surround it with a “Never Forget Garden" to honor the unknown veterans of past US military conflicts.

​The Tomb’s website includes the following explanation:

Through an initiative started in 2018, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier "Never Forget Garden" is a nationwide invitation to all Americans and freedom loving people to plant gardens as a visual way to represent America’s unwavering commitment to our sacred duty to recognize, remember, and honor our veterans, many who continued to serve as first responders, and their families now and for many years to come. There are many ways and traditions that are available to express patriotism, love, mourning and remembrance. A “Never Forget Garden” can provide an elegant expression of that which deeply resides in the heart of our fellow Americans: “I will Never, Ever Forget You — I am in it with you.”

"The Never Forget Garden" Marker, designed in collaboration with the artists at Carruth Studio, was inspired by the sacred duty of the American people to never, ever forget or forsake all those who have served and sacrificed on behalf of America in times of war or armed conflict. Its message beckons the visitor to pause in this special place, and with a quiet soul open your heart to allow these plantings to speak; to reflect upon the deeds of those who we owe a debt that can never be fully repaid; and to think about those immutable truths that define us as Americans secured by their full measure of devotion.

Occasioned by the Centennial of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a "Never Forget Garden" and this marker are intended to be a place to remember, to honor, and to teach. It is a place of remembrance and renewal of our commitment to say to the living, the dead, and those yet to serve our Country.

​The quote at the end of the marker is from the Declaration of Independence and is tied to America’s sacred duty to never ever forget. The very name of the Garden says : Never Forget —I am in it with you. The declaration is the document that speaks to why we fight and why citizens, from the very beginning of our Country, come forward to defend what defines us as American’s. 

​So, we were intrigued, and asked where the ladies envisioned placing the marker and garden. Naturally, the island surrounding the Francis Scott Key Monument was suggested. By the way, we will eventually embark on a project to boost this area’s visitor reach as we re-brand it “Star-Spangled Plaza”—stay tuned.

​Knowing our future plans, and the fact that we have a myriad of monuments already here by the 1898 monument, I immediately thought of the old Kiosk site which has been an empty circle for well over half a century. I explained the site to the ladies, and utilized an aerial shot of the cemetery to point to the actual location. I said it is here between areas T, U, and S—ironically an area that vaguely resembles the peace sign.

​The ladies appeared speechless, and I thought perhaps that they were disappointed that I was dissuading them from having said marker and garden close to Francis Scott Key. The ladies in unison gave their amazing approval of my suggestion and added that it seemed almost serendipitous because the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier often uses the acronym of T.U.S. It seemed meant to be at that very moment.
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Fast forward to late last summer and a planting of rose bushes—white Knockout Roses to be exact. These were in nice bloom when we had an official marker/garden dedication on Saturday, October 2nd, 2021. 

​In the months preceding this event, additional conversations included the genesis of rebuilding the Kiosk in the form of a gazebo, complete with cupola. Going one step further, I had contemplated this representing the creation of a World War I Monument to complement our World War II Monument a short distance away. Besides, many World War I vets are buried in the three areas surrounding the gazebo.

The idea had merit as we had recently conducted a World War I commemoration with the 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War—November 11th, 1918. This would become more commonly know as Armistice Day. We call it Veterans Day.

​​We introduced the idea of rebuilding the kiosk (in form of a gazebo) and framed this as a World War I memorial. It seemed appropriate as I found that the early American Legion exercises on Memorial Day were held here, before they moved to their spot by the front gate at the Key Monument. The last mention I found of the original Mount Olivet Kiosk was in conjunction with Memorial Day, 1938.

We talked up the idea of the gazebo during our "Never Forget Marker/Garden" unveiling ceremony and the idea was well-received. On behalf of our non-profit Mount Olivet Cemetery Preservation and Enhancement Fund, I followed up by submitting a grant submission for the project to the Delaplaine Foundation. Inc. In December, Marlene Young called me with news that the Foundation saw merit in the project and were prepared to make a gift of  $25,000 towards the purchase of a gazebo kit.
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Of course, we knew that we still needed additional funding to cover the cement foundation necessary and construction of the gazebo complete with applying a two-ply roof with shingles and applying a stain to the natural wood ceiling. Now for the World War I connection, we have a goal which includes a flag pole, benches, a custom "doughboy-inspired" weathervane and three table-top style interpretive exhibits.

​​I've thought about these specific exhibits for the cemetery since 2017, as information can easily be lifted from the pages of some of our past "Stories in Stone" articles. These can inform visitors of some of the interesting circumstances surrounding local men and women buried here who served in World War I.

​One such exhibit would talk about soldiers who lost their lives in the war itself, representing the essence of sacrifice for flag and country preached on Memorial Day across the nation. Some of our standout examples include individuals such as Earlston L. Hargett, John Reading Schley and Charles Shaw Simpson. There are also uplifting stories of valor such as that of Silver-Star recipient William T. Kreh, Sr. who served as a bugler and "runner." For those not familiar with the term "runner" in World War I, these were foot messengers, men whose primary role was to deliver critical pieces of information from one command unit to another. 

​Another exhibit can talk on the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. We obviously have an even greater appreciation for infectious diseases today after going through Covid-19.  In the adjoining Area T (west of the gazebo site), we have roughly 50 victims of this rare influenza buried, of which we have 100 total in our cemetery.  Area T was the current  area where lots were being offered in the fateful year of 1918-1919. Four servicemen are resting among them, all casualties of the pandemic. Private William Lee Dertzbaugh was one of these who died in France in the Argonne Center Sector on October 12th, 1918. His body would originally be buried there, but would be brought home to Frederick a few years later and placed in Area T's lot 147. Read more at "No Ordinary Flu Season."

In Area U, we have a lady named Lela B. Angleberger who served in the US Navy, the first of the Armed Forces branches to allow women to participate in military duty. Miss Angleberger held the rank of Yeoman (F), with the "F" denoting female. I have written earlier stories on three other ladies who served in the First World War in this capacity. These included Lola Motter (daughter of Judge John Motter and namesake of Motter Ave.), Henrietta Rosenstock (benefactress of Rosenstock Hall on the Hood College Campus) and Charlotte Berry Winters, who, at the time of her death in 2007, was the oldest living female veteran of World War I. She was 109. Read more "Striking Women of World War I."

​Some readers may remember an earlier Story in Stone entitled "Finding Private Burke." This is one of my favorite tales as it explored the curious circumstances surrounding a monument, about 50 yards east of Lela Angleberger's  on Area U/Lot 12. 

​Harry C. Burke was born on the family farm in 1894 in Pearl, near what is today part of the Spring Ridge planned housing community. Private Burke was a member of Company L of the 313th Infantry Regiment and would lose his life in an artillery explosion on September 29th, 1918 near Montfaucon. His body, however, was missing. He was known to be dead, but his remains would not be found for some time later. He became an "Unknown."

To assist with their grief, Private Burke's parents erected a large monument on Area U/Lot 12 along the lane that lead up to the old Kiosk from the east. This was placed simply as a memorial to the Burke's son as each parent would eventually take their place in the lot in later decades.

I’ve read early accounts as early as 1923 in which the American Legion decorated this grave as if it contained the veterans body. Eventually, Burke’s body would be identified, and can be found today in the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery located in Romagne, France, not far from where Private Harry C. Burke breathed his last breath. Not exactly the tomb of the unknown soldier, but we have the memorial gravestone of a local hero buried “Over There.” To read more: "Finding Private Burke."

​These interpretive exhibits will be placed around the gazebo/Mount Olivet World War I Memorial, providing strong visitor amenities, while adding to the memorial importance for generations to come.

In case you were wondering, we do actually have unknown soldiers in Mount Olivet. There are 29 unknown soldier gravestones standing in Confederate Row, and a mass grave that holds 408 unknowns. Regardless of what your feelings are in regard to Southern soldiers, these were human beings just the same and started their lives as US citizens up through the war. Although led by Jefferson Davis from 1861-1865, the Confederacy was never recognized as a sovereign nation. 

​So here is my pitch to you the reader. We need your help to make this memorial project a total reality. Please consider donating to our Mount Olivet World War I Memorial "Gazebo Project." Check out the sponsor form below. I am always open for questions as well, so feel free to contact me via email or phone as can be seen on the donation form. There is a printable copy available on the home page of this site (MountOlivetHistory.com).

The overarching theme of patriotism is on display here at the cemetery for sure this time of year with well over 4,000 flags marking veteran graves for Memorial Day. The four areas mentioned make for perfect stops of exploration should you want to share your gratitude to those veterans who made the ultimate sacrifice.

In addition, our two local Daughters of the American Revolution chapters (Frederick and Carrollton Manor) will be holding their annual Memorial Day ceremony recognizing vets entombed in the mausoleum. This event starts at 10:00 am and exemplifies the spirit of the G. Hunter Bowers Memorial mentioned earlier. The DAR service takes pace at the Mausoleum Complex, located to the rear of the cemetery. 

​To learn more about our military veterans, check out our website MountOlivetVets.com which is currently being updated with memorial veteran pages thanks to our Friends of Mount Olivet group. It currently has all World War I vets, along with Revolutionary War and War of 1812. Coming soon will be Civil War and World War II soldiers..

In late April, the Frederick County Association of REALTORS® celebrated its 100th anniversary as an organization with a joyous Platinum Jubilee Gala held at the Great Frederick Fairgrounds Event Plex. This was the signature event in a special year of activity which affords present-day members the opportunity to celebrate the contributions of past realtors in Frederick's history, and how they helped shape the Frederick we enjoy today. Many of these individuals are buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery.

​The Frederick Board of Real Estate was organized on February 8th, 1922 with founding principles created to promote the real estate profession and foster professional behavior in its members (including its own code of ethics) which still reign supreme today. For 100 years, this body, known today as the Frederick County Association of REALTORS®, has demonstrated important leadership in advocacy for a myriad of community issues relating to the real estate trade.

With over 1350 current members, FCAR stands as the county’s largest trade association. Holding tried and true all these years later, the overarching mission is that of serving as the “Voice for the Frederick Property Owner.”

Much discussion and planning would eventually culminate in the organization of a body of this kind in Frederick, Maryland in February 1922. It would be named the Frederick Real Estate Board. The group had received considerable guidance from Baltimore City’s Board of Real Estate and another that had been recently started in Cumberland. The first official announcement would take place at a meeting held on February 9th and the Frederick News shared information about this new group's start and exclaimed:

“Along the lines of recent developments towards the adoption of a more progressive method of doing things for the betterment of the community and conditions in general, the real estate agents of Frederick city and county have organized a real estate board which is in line with similar movements made elsewhere throughout the United States. Like the Chamber of Commerce and the recent campaign in the interest of the new community hotel, this organization is a step forward in the development of a better realty situation and it will reflect a corresponding benefit to the real estate owners and purchasers as well.”

The early goals of this organization included “the promotion and advancement of general real estate and house building interests of the city by cooperative effort; and, where possible, the discouragement and prevention of the introduction of other elements into the community which would have a depreciatory effect upon the surrounding real estate.”

Frederick’s Real Estate Board took aim at cooperating with the Frederick Chamber of Commerce and other civic and business organizations in encouraging public improvements to accommodate property owners and securing an equitable system of taxation.

​The new group set out to further promote Frederick as a location for new and desirable business enterprises, while making important strides to rid, or clean-up, existing “dirty industries” for the betterment of the community. Lastly, this body hoped to form equitable rules for the conduct of the various branches of the real estate business upon a high ethical plan. They sought to establish the fact that membership in the organization would be a guarantee of business integrity and responsibility to the general public.
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The Frederick Real Estate Board would eventually expand to cover the entire county. In addition, important affiliations would be made between this local Board and both The Maryland Real Estate Board (founded in 1906) and the National Association of Real Estate Boards (founded in Chicago in 1908). In doing this, Frederick’s members received the benefits of experience, advice and best practices from a network of real estate professionals elsewhere in the state, and country. Today, the Frederick Real Estate Board is known as the Frederick County Association of Realtors®.

​In the beginning, the initiation cost to become a member was $10, with an additional dues cost of $10/year. The local newspaper of February 9th concluded by saying:
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“An organization such as this cannot but result in great good to the community, and an advancement in the way of improvements, not only in the matter of attaining a city beautiful, but in business conditions generally.”

​The Inaugural Board
The driving force behind Frederick’s inaugural Real Estate Board was a talented group of experienced Frederick professionals. These 12 gentlemen would meet once a month in one another’s offices on a rotating basis. The first officers included Richard Potts (President), Markwood D. Harp (Vice President), Walker N. Joliffe (Treasurer), Markell H. Nelson (Secretary) and Noah E. Cramer. The latter, Mr. Cramer (1860-1930), had been Frederick’s leading realty professional and a well-respected businessman over the previous few decades.

​Noah E. Cramer was in great company with the initial Board of Directors for the Frederick Real Estate organization. Six years earlier, President Richard Potts was involved with the College Park development surrounding Hood College as a liaison of sorts between the West Virginia-based Swastika Realty firm who owned the building lots, the city officials of Frederick, and customers interested in buying into this subdivision. Potts recognized the importance of local knowledge, insight and connectivity. This prompted him to act in advocating for Frederick to have its own Board of Real Estate in the first place.

Although there were those that worked in the field of residential and commercial real estate before 1922, its important at this time to remember those industry pioneers who put the Frederick County Association of Realtors in play back in February, 1922 by organizing the Frederick Real Estate Board. Interestingly, all five founding officers are buried in Frederick's Other City, Mount Olivet Cemetery. 

​Mr. Harp’s brother, Reno S. Harp, was a leading attorney in town. In the Real Estate Board’s second year, Markwood Harp would take the reigns as president. Sadly, Mr. Harp would die just a few years later in late 1926 after a three-week illness attributed to heart trouble. He was 57 years old.

Markwood Harp would be laid to rest in Mount Olivet's Area C/Lot 142. His first wife, Ada C. Adams, had predeceased him in 1905 at the age of 35, leaving Markwood with two sons, Roscoe and Maynard.

A strong sense of solidarity within the Frederick Real Estate Board was exhibited at the time of Mr. Harp's untimely death. The members attended his funeral as a group and a touching memorial was published in the local newspaper. Also of note is the fact that all members replaced their real estate listings in the December 4th, 1926 edition of the Frederick News-Post with tribute memorials.

​Noah Edwin Cramer
Earlier in his working career, Noah Edwin Cramer (1860-1930) entered the business world in the dry-goods store of his brother, George L. Cramer. Here, he was employed as a clerk, and he remained with his brother for some time. While still a young man, he re-located to Frederick City, and established himself in the real estate and loan business. From the start, he met with much success, becoming one of the best known and most prominent businessmen of the city by the first decade of the 20th century. Cramer also possessed the general confidence of business and financial circles both here and statewide.

​​In 1922, Noah Cramer helped champion the Frederick Real Estate Board, while a partner in the firm of Cramer and Stauffer. Besides his real estate and loan business, Mr. Cramer was interested in various enterprises of the county. He also had a pretty interesting home for himself and family—the former home of Maryland governor, Continental Congress member and Revolutionary War veteran Thomas Johnson, Jr. He would also live at 117 Record Street.

​What a bad title for an internet blog focusing on cemetery preservation, right? Well, no need to fear, as it is all “tongue in cheek” so to speak. You will see by the end of this piece that I should have titled it “A Fairplay Family.”

So, last we were together, I was waxing poetic about a broken gravestone of a mysterious origin that recently made its way into our fine cemetery. Best of all, it came to us without a burial, or entombment of any kind. We don’t know who the stone belonged to, where it was formerly located, or who made it—but we sure as heck presented some college-educated guesses.

​There’s only one way to follow-up a story like that. Yes, I’ve decided to write a story about a family named “Stonebraker.” You heard me correctly—and I promise, in this case, that I have a gravestone in perfect condition, and can identify the decedents that it rests above.

The monument in question is quite robust. It stands in Area G/Lot 139, just across the lane from Mount Olivet’s “Confederate Row.” On the west face of this gravestone, one can find the names of several family members buried below. Topping the list is Daniel K. Stonebraker, born April 15th, 1853 and died on September 9th, 1909. Next, we have Daniel’s wife, Sophie E., who lived from May 17th, 1859-July 22nd, 1924. A son, Samuel E. Stonebraker is also here (January 24th, 1881-September 23rd, 1956), and finally, a daughter, Eleanor E. Stonebraker (February 29th, 1884-November 10th, 1884).

​The interesting thing about my consecutive “Stories in (broken) Stone” published in recent weeks is the simple lesson that so much about people can be gleaned from a single hunk of marble, or specifically granite, in this case. Memorializing in monument form “literally” preserves the stories of lives formerly lived, and ironically keeps alive the ability to unlock genealogy and history to the curious person who insists on taking the opportunity and time to learn more. Here, that individual would be me. I relish playing the role as conduit between the stone and you the reader. I want to pass on  various findings such as information from books, newspapers, internet sites and cemetery records all triggered by a cooled piece of lava with names and dates carved into it. In conclusion, gravestones are perfect portals to connections galore.

Daniel Knode Stonebraker was born near Fairplay, Washington County, a son of farmer Samuel A. Stonebraker and Sarah Rebecca Knode. The family is German in origin and trace back to Gerald “Garrett” Stonebraker (1742-1813), an early settler of today’s Washington County (which was actually Frederick County up through 1775).

​Daniel’s grandfather, Michael Stonebraker, was considered one of the largest landowners in Washington County in the early 19th century. His house remained in the family until 1867 and is located about a half mile south of Bakersville, not far from Fairplay to the north and Downsville to the west. Mercersville is better known as Taylor's Landing today. I would find that the Stonebrakers claimed all these villages as their place of origin.

​Daniel’s father, Samuel A. Stonebraker, moved to Baltimore in 1839 and was the founder of the Baltimore Corn and Flour Exchange and also a member of Sterling, Ahrens and Company Sugar Refiners. It appears that the Stonebrakers had residences in both the Fairplay area and Baltimore.

The family farm was situated near the C & O Canal which was a good thing, but was also located just northwest of the main scene of the single bloodiest one-day battle in American history—Antietam. I assume that their land was tramped upon by soldiers and utilized for military camping or caring for wounded.

​Daniel’s parents (below), along with a few siblings, are buried with earlier generations in Salem Lutheran Church Cemetery in Bakersville.

​Our subject Daniel would marry Sophia “Sophie” English, daughter of James J. English (1818-1880) and Jane Rebecca Hergesheimer (1821-1897), in the year 1880. Sophie was a Frederick girl who attended the Frederick Female Seminary on East Church Street, today’s seat of county government known as Winchester Hall. Sophie’s father was listed as operating a grocery store in 1850, a teacher in 1860, and a justice of the peace in 1870. Her parents are buried here in Mount Olivet in Area C/Lot 67.

​I must address the Stonebraker’s other son, Samuel English Stonebraker with the middle initial of E completing the pattern of Sophie giving all four of her children her maiden name.

Born in Downsville (Washington County) in January 1881, Samuel was the first-born child to the young couple. He would go on to practice law and have a successful career in real estate in his adult home of Montgomery County, living in Bethesda and Chevy Chase. He was active on county planning boards there as well.

Daniel and Sophie also had another daughter, and this one survived well into into adulthood. She was  named Florence English Stonebraker (1895-1977). Plenty more about her in a moment, but 

Back in Frederick, the 1880 census shows the Stonebrakers living at what is today 436 North Market Street. This is the home of the Mirage Hookah Bar and Lounge today, and many of my age may remember the famed appetite oasis of Casa Pizza which regularly helped facilitate late night bar crawls through downtown. The 1880 census shows Daniel and Sophie “pre-Samuel.” The census also lists Daniel’s occupation of that of a confectioner. I would assume this location served as the site of his business, and also was a home residence on the upper floors.  I found reference that the building was either altered or rebuilt by son Samuel in the 20th century.

​Interestingly, I believe that Mr. Stonebraker was brought to town by his sisters, thus allowing him to meet his future wife in “the City of Clustered Spires.” His sister Alforetta Rebecca (Stonebraker) McCardell (1848-1923) was married to Adrian C. McCardell (1845-1932), another native of Washington County. Mr. McCardell came to Frederick during the Civil War and eventually became prominent in the confectionery business. This man would go on to became a highly successful banker and active civic leader. You may be familiar with Adrian and Alforetta’s talented granddaughter—Claire McCardell Harris (1905-1958), the legendary fashion designer. All three are buried here in Mount Olivet.

​Another of Daniel’s sisters with a direct link to Frederick was Emma Alice Stonebraker (1846-1930). I had encountered this woman in an earlier Mount Olivet research pursuit in conjunction with white bronze markers and monuments. Emma was a Frederick resident in the early 1880s as she had married Rev. William Augustus Gring (1838-1889).

Rev. Gring was the son of Daniel Gring, a noted German Reformed Church minister in York County, PA. William Augustus was a native of Pennsylvania, and at the time of his death had charge of the church in Emmitsburg from 1881-89. Just for fun, I learned that Rev. Gring's brother, Ambrose, was the German Reformed Church's first missionary to Japan. The Grings and buried directly behind the Stonebraker stone, however their unique memorials are certainly not crafted from stone, but rather zinc.

​The white bronze marker is crafted in the shape of a traditional cross upon a pedestal and contains the name of Rev. Gring’s wife and also, his ten-year old daughter, Vida Rebecca (1875-1885). Emma appears to have been the last individual to have a name placed upon a white bronze marker because she died last (of all decedents) in the year 1930. If you look closely, you can see that Emma’s panel seems out of place as if it had to be specially crafted as the fad of monumental bronze had ended around the time of World War I when the Monumental Bronze Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut had closed.
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In 1886, I saw a small article announcing that former residents Daniel K. Stonebraker and family were in town visiting relatives here from their home in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Three years later, the Stonebrakers were living in Northwest Washington, DC. From Washington newspapers I also learned that Daniel was working as an agent of the Wilcox Sewing Machine Company with a store on Pennsylvania Avenue. Unfortunately, Daniel made news with the following unfortunate incident.

​In 1900, Daniel was working as an insurance agent, and the Stonebraker family can be found living at 645 Massachusetts Avenue, about six blocks northwest of the White House and a literal stone’s throw from Thomas Circle, named for Union Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas (1816-1870).

​In case you are curious (like me), Gen. Thomas won one of the first Union victories in the war, at Mill Springs in Kentucky, and served in important subordinate commands at Perryville and Stones River. His stout defense at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863 saved the Union Army from being completely routed, earning him his most famous nickname, "the Rock of Chickamauga."

Thomas followed soon after with a dramatic breakthrough on Missionary Ridge in the Battle of Chattanooga. In the Franklin–Nashville Campaign of 1864, he achieved one of the most decisive victories of the war, destroying the army of Confederate General John Bell Hood, his former student at West Point, at the Battle of Nashville.

Daniel K. Stonebraker would die in the nation’s capital on September 26th, 1909 at the age of 56. His cause of death given was rheumatism. He would be buried here in Mount Olivet two days later.

​Sophie Stonebraker can be found at the same residence on Massachusetts avenue in 1910, but in 1920, the former Miss English lived at 3433 Oakwood Terrace in NW Washington, DC.

​Sophia can be found living with daughter Florence, referenced earlier. The two were active in the social scene and circles of DC. Florence was a gifted musician and had employ in several government jobs including serving as a clerk for the Treasury Department.

​Samuel would join his mother here in Mount Olivet in 1956 upon his death in Bethesda. 

​Florence would spend most of her adult life in California, and can be found living in San Francisco in the 1930 US Census. She particularly sparked my interest by listing her occupation in that census year as that of a literary writer. Florence is said to have married a gentleman with the last name of Stuart, but divorced. This was interesting because I found her divorced in 1930, but married in the census records of 1940 and 1950 He husband in 1940 and 1950 was her supposed husband named William Stonebraker.

​This was puzzling, but maybe was it due to her celebrity that he took her name? I can’t see it being a cousin or the coincidence of finding another individual with this name. I’m going with William Stuart, who decided to take his wife’s maiden name as his married name. It is California, after all.

​Thus I went down the “Florence Stonebraker rabbit hole,” even though she is not buried here in Mount Olivet. I learned that she received a law degree from George Washington University in 1925 and passed the bar in December of that year. I also had my marriage riddle answered. Apparently Florence married William Morrison Stuart, who took her last name. Supposedly, this gentleman had left his second wife to be with her. They would move to southern California and never had children. 
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I soon learned that Florence has somewhat of a cult following by historians and enthusiasts of the pulp-fiction genre era. I found the following blog article on a website entited “Reading California Fiction,” by a gentleman named Don Napoli.

​“A FLORENCE STONEBRAKER UPDATE
The number of words published by Florence Stonebraker (about 4.4 million) will, of course, never be overtaken by the number published about her. Still, the dearth of information regarding California’s most prolific female novelist is startling. Except for one small entry in a Who’s Who compendium (rewritten for an earlier post), I’ve come up with nearly nothing -- no biographical data from reviews, no dust jacket blurbs, no obituaries. So, I was happy the other day when I returned to Google for another search and found a few tidbits from an online newspaper archive. It turns out that Stonebraker was in Washington as a teenager, played the piano, and performed in some amateur recitals. I also found a blurry newspaper photo that shows her in February 1914 helping to commemorate the deaths of sailors on U. S. S. Maine. Stonebraker was seventeen at the time and probably less than fond of this picture.”

This was an amazing find, and luckily there was an earlier blog about Florence on this very same website. Here it is:

“And now we come to Florence Stonebraker, who once was (I think) one of California’s busiest genre writers. For thirty years—between Pay for Your Pleasure (Phoenix, 1937) and Predatory Woman (Beacon, 1967) —she cranked out more than 80 novels of unsanctioned sex. Married or single, her characters were tempted by, and often surrendered to, their lustful desires. Stonebraker had a conventional side, too, and wrote a couple dozen stories of chaste young women finding love. But her forte was the risqué.

I haven’t done enough research to find out much about Stonebraker’s life. She was born in 1896. She married someone whose surname was Steuart. It’s anybody’s guess what she did before publishing her first book at the age of 41. Her early novels are set on the East Coast, so she may have lived there. She doesn’t start using California settings until the early 1940s, suggesting that she moved west during the war. Her most prolific year was 1952, in which she published eleven novels. She stopped writing in 1967. She was residing in Glendale prior to her death in 1977.

It’s unclear how many of her books are set in California. I’m sure about Private Practice (because I read it) and willing to bet on Frisco Dame and Love Life of a Hollywood Mistress (because of the titles). But I’m guessing the number is much higher. If she lived in the state and wrote a novel every three or four months, then she probably had little time to find exotic locales.

​She wrote eighty books and her most prolific year was 1952, when she penned 11. I loved this part of this week's story, and almost have felt a little dirty in presenting covers of Florence's saucy titles, many of which you can pick up on eBay for yourself—should you feel the desire. I did learn that most of these covers were specially posed by outstanding starlets and models of the day.

​As shown earlier through census records for Florence, I found the evocative pulp-fiction novelist living in San Francisco in 1930, Los Angeles in 1935, San Diego in 1940, and Laguna Beach in 1950. A writer must refresh his, or her, surroundings, or so says the guy who consistently writes from the confines of a cemetery.

All I know with certainty is that Florence Stonebraker died in Glendale, CA on August 20th, 1977. I have not found an obituary and the only grave close to what I've been looking for is this final resting place in Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens located in London, Middlesex County, Ontario, Canada. Could be too much of a stretch as I was assuming burial in California.

​Well, well, well I never saw that coming from the humble family with roots in Washington County. However, you can say that when it comes to genealogy and family history research, everything is in “Fairplay.” When you really think about it, one really shouldn't be all that surprised that one of the country's busiest romance novel writers of the mid-20th century has a direct connection to southern Washington County. Only ten miles east of the old Stonebraker family plantation sits Boonsboro, home to arguably the most prevalent romance writer of all time in Nora Roberts.

​April 18th commemorates the 157th anniversary of the death of an individual who I assume is buried here in the friendly confines of Frederick, Maryland, but I certainly cannot verify this as fact. The problem at hand—I don’t even know who this decedent is?

​You see, we have half of a vintage, marble gravestone in our possession at the cemetery, but it was found recently in a garage in downtown Frederick. All we know is that this individual was 17 years, 10 months and 15 days at the time of death. That claim is substantiated on the stone, itself, as there is a birth date of June 3rd, 1847 and a death date of April 18th, 1865. Do you think you can help us?

Typically, genealogists, family historians and tombstone tourists experience frustration and dismay when learning that the ancestor they are looking for is in an unmarked grave. Questions arise as to why a stone, plaque or other form of memorial was not placed on the final resting place. In most cases, money was the reason. Single or widowed individuals that were destitute, institutionalized or died intestate make up most of these cases, as some were buried in Potter's fields and others in mass graves.

In other situations, a surviving widow, especially a wife with children, may not have had the means to erect a memorial, needing the money to care for children and self. Still yet, another common cause lies in the fact that a person could have been the last living member of their immediate family, with no heir, next of kin or special friend to make proper arrangements for a monument to adorn a grave.

I have encountered interesting experiences of unmarked graves in my own family history pursuits. One such occurred in 2003, however none of the three reasons above could be blamed as the cause. I presented this cautionary tale in a Story in Stone back in January, 2019 titled: History Researchers Beware!

​Here’s a quick synopsis. My father, uncle and cousin spent multiple hours aimlessly walking the grounds of New St. Mary’s Cemetery in Bellmawr, New Jersey (a suburb of Camden, NJ and Philadelphia just across the Delaware River). We were looking for the grave of my Haugh great-grandparents who died in the 1930s/1940s respectively.  This odyssey took place on a hot and humid Saturday afternoon in mid-July. Unfortunately, we came up fruitless, "giving up the ghost(s)" so to speak, and cutting our losses. The cemetery office was closed, and all the stones in this Catholic cemetery were uniform in exact shape, size and style. It was a very frustrating experience as we had traveled 2.5 hours to get there.

​A call to the New St. Mary’s administration office the following Monday morning shed some surprising news—there was no stone as the Haugh gravesite had always been unmarked. Here was a lot that contained my great grandparents, and to my great surprise, my great-great grandfather Haugh (Irish immigrant/progenitor to America). The plot also contained my great-grandmother’s sister, and a handyman friend.

​Since it was unmarked, we felt better about ourselves not being able to find it, however disappointed that we wasted so much time and had a sour experience rather than a positive one which usually accompanies these family history quests.

Lesson learned, as it always is important to plan and research ahead, especially if coming from out of town and visiting on weeknights and weekends where one traditionally would not have access to cemetery staff or databases for guidance.  To remedy the situation for future descendants of ours, my father, who died the next year, instructed me to install a stone on the site we had so desperately searched for that hot and muggy day back in 2003. This became a reality in 2005.

Maybe my timing with this story has a connection to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and Easter? In particular, I recall the story of the empty tomb found in all four canonical gospels. The burial of Jesus was done in haste, after his body was removed from the cross and quickly dealt with in keeping with Jewish law. The body was wrapped in fine linens, and placed in a cave crypt outside of Jerusalem. A large stone was employed to seal the cave’s entrance. Jesus’ body lay in the cave, or so it was thought through Friday night, Saturday, and early Sunday—a period of three days, ending with Easter and the Resurrection.
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The gospels (MATTHEW 28:3-15, MARK 16:5-8, LUKE 24:4-12, and JOHN 20:2-18) vary a bit as to the next part of the story but a group of women, including Mary Magdalene and possibly St. Mary (Jesus’ mother), went to visit the cave and to their surprise and dismay, the rock had been moved from the entrance, and the body of Jesus was missing. I’m paraphrasing here, but shock and sadness took over the women but this eventually turned to joy when two angels appeared to Mary Magdalene, and then Jesus, himself, revealed himself to his old friend. He told herthat all was well, and that the son of Christ had been resurrected.
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So, there’s two circumstances, one of an unmarked grave with decedents within, and another with a marked grave (so to speak) with a missing decedent—due to resurrection of course. Back to our main topic, the conundrum of having a broken monument in hand, with no name of decedent, and no known grave location.

​So, where did this gravestone come from? That is a great question!

In early October, 2020, I received a call from my friend and mentor, John Ashbury, one of Frederick’s best historians, and author of several books including the ever important And All our Yesterdays: A Chronicle of Frederick County, Maryland (Diversions Publications, Inc, 1997). John manages several rental properties here in town, and one happens to be on 226 East Church Street. This dwelling is on the south side of the street and backs up to the Frederick Post Office.

​ John said that he  had found a broken tombstone in a detached garage out back. He was readying the property for new tenants, and asked if I was interested in bringing this partial gravestone to a more appropriate home—my workplace of Mount Olivet. John gave me the dimension measurements of said stone, along with the scant data carved on its face. We were both equally perplexed as to who this marker  once belonged to, and more so, what was it doing in this property’s garage? John hoped I may be able to solve the riddle with my seasoned research abilities, resources and experience with sleuthing gravestones.

​The only thing John was able to share with me was the fact that the gravestone had been in the garage for as long as the current owner (Theresa  Mathias Michel) could recall. Superintendent Ron Pearcey and I promptly went over and picked up the artifact and brought it back to the cemetery. We gave it a basic cleaning, and placed it outside our administration office in a mulch bed on the perimeter of the central chapel mausoleum building. It has been here ever since.

​Of course, I searched our cemetery database and interment files in the hopes that this gravestone was a simply a duplicate or cast-off associated with one of our 40,000+ inhabitants. I used both the birth date and death date given as the basis of my quest. I knew that when bodies were re-interred here in Frederick’s “Garden Cemetery” from earlier downtown burying grounds, strict rules prohibited the placement of broken or unsightly monuments on our pristine grounds. Most of those stones wound up in the grave hole itself with the decedent. I'm sure others were "adaptively reused" by family in rare cases.

We have plenty of unmarked graves in Mount Olivet, and perhaps this stone was stolen as a prank and subsequently broken? Or perhaps it left the grounds for a repair that was never completed? These situations have happened in cemeteries elsewhere, so why not? There is also the practice of setting memorial stones to an individual whose mortal remains were lost (as in a disaster or warfare such as an MIA), buried elsewhere, or cremated with ashes spread at a location like a forest, canyon, bay or beach.

I specialize in those buried in Mount Olivet cemetery, of which I am historian and historic preservation manager, but I truly can’t verify if this individual is here, or not after a long study. I’ve also tried researching the records of the last surviving original downtown burying grounds in old St. John’s Catholic Cemetery  (located between E. Third and E. Fourth Streets). Again, I've had no luck.

I immediately started rifling through other databases such as Findagrave.com and Ancestry.com to check against the two vital dates which I could make out.  I also asked my trusted assistant Marilyn Veek to run a property background check in case so we could gain clues for possible family connections to our mystery decedent.

I had found a couple of "people of interest," but nothing definitive. I needed to take a deeper dive into research.  Well, the best place naturally was to take a look at old Frederick newspapers. I checked the two local newspapers of 1865 in the Frederick Examiner and the Maryland Union. Unfortunately, I came up empty in regard to obituaries and news stories possibly implicating my 17-year-old decedent. I did, however, have an interesting  situation with the Examiner edition of April 26th, 1865 which still casts a cloak of gray on my search not being definitive. Someone had removed out two-thirds of the obituary section before this paper was microfilmed. Could my mystery decedent's obit been summarily clipped on purpose or as collateral damage?

What I did find in the newspapers of mid-late April of 1865 was plenty of coverage relating to a terrible event in our country’s history. Four days prior to our decedent's death date of April 18th, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater. In case you are interested, here is how our local newspaper covered the event in their weekly edition dated April 19th, 1865.

​​I left the newspaper research angle and next consulted Jacob Engelbrecht’s diary. Many are familiar with this former resident's chronicling of both national and local Frederick events from 1819-1878. Jacob, a tailor by trade, was also the current mayor in spring of 1865 and certainly had his hands full in announcing the horrific news of Lincoln’s death and comforting townspeople in this melancholy time. Mayor Engelbrecht would lead the citizens through the streets of town in a solemn mourning procession.

​I found nothing in Engelbrecht's book regarding our subject at hand. I wasn't all too surprised as I'm sure our famed diarist was quite occupied in mind, body and spirit on the day of April 18th, 1865 when our decedent breathed his or her last breath.

I soon received a new direction to go as Marilyn now  shared with me a long list of property owners dating far before our stone’s death and birth dates. She went the extra step and gave me the unfortunate news that based on census record research, none of the late 19th century owners (Ritter, Miller, Cramer, Fahrney) had children who would have been the right age to have died in the time period when each (family) owned the house.

To give an idea of one property’s ownership over time, here is a list of owners of this parcel located at 226 E. Church Street. It begins with most recent and goes to the earliest when Tasker's Chance was developed into Frederick Town. The first number on each line is the Courthouse folio locator, followed by the date of deed transfer,  and then seller to buyer. 

​5389/63                (2005)    Theresa M Michel to Michel Property Management LLC
1220/967             (1983)    PR of Emma Aumen to Theresa Michel
481/282                (1949)    Bruce and Evelyn Aumen to Emma Aume
380/578                (1931)    Frank L Stoner to Lillie Aumen
380/578                (1931)    Lillie Auman to Frank Stoner
368/289                (1928)    Ada and Allen Lampe to George and Lillie Aumen
HWB 310/566  (1915)    J Welty Fahrney and wife to Uriah Lough (who gave to his daughter Ada Lampe)
HWB 308/274  (1913)    Peter and Katie Fahrney to J Welty Fahrney
AF 7/162              (1883)    George Wm and Mary Cramer to Peter D Fahrney
CM 3/419            (1869)    Jos G and Sarah Miller to Geo Wm Cramer
JWLC 4/42          (1866)    J Alfred and Catharine Ritter to Joseph Miller
ES 3/55                 (1853)    Charles Mantz surviving partner of Charles A Gomber and trading under the name style                                                        and firm of Gomber & Mantz and Mary Mantz, wife of Charles Mantz, to J Alfred Ritter
WBT 7/184         (1848)    Peter and Mary Goodmanson to Gomber & Mantz
HS 16/120           (1842)    Henry Lare to Peter Goodmanson
HS 11/99              (1840)    Caspar Quynn to Henry Lare
HS 7/303              (1838)   George Rice as trustee of Samuel B Lewis to Casper Quinn
JS 33/336             (1829)   Charles Peters to Samuel B Lewis- the NE quarter of original lot 276
WR 17/559         (1798)    Abraham Adams from Allen Quynn, trustee of Valentine Adams deceased - lot 276
J/367                       (1764)    Daniel Dulany to Valentine Adams - lot 276

​I have included the property ownership in its entirety for your viewing pleasure as Marilyn took it back to the very beginning with Frederick founder Daniel Dulany selling to Valentine Adams in 1764. We have Mr. Adam’s grandson of the same name buried here in Area H/Lot 326—Valentine Adams (1799-1860).
​
The stone could be connected with any of those listed after our mystery decedent’s death in 1865. I took particular interest in the house’s ownership by Charles Mantz who apparently held the property from 1853-1866 in connection with a Charles Gomber. The Mantz family goes back to the 1740s here in Maryland.

I took particular interest in this information  because the Mantz and related Gomber families may provide the key to the gravestone’s presence simply because they owned the property through the lifetime of our mystery decedent. Another factor also plays heavy on my mind as the Mantz and Gomber families buried their dead in a small family burying ground that had been located along Klinehart’s Alley at West Fourth Street.

This sacred ground once held the mortal remains of Mantz and Gomber ancestors who fought in the American Revolution. Peter Mantz and John Gomber along with many other relatives would be relocated here to Mount Olivet after its opening in 1854. Perhaps the broken stone has a connection to the Mantz Graveyard? Most , if not all, of the bodies came to Mount Olivet, but a definitive record of the Mantz graveyard does not exist to my knowledge. (Note: click here to read more about the Mantz Cemetery). 

As for Charles Mantz, he ran a hardware store, found in the 1859 William’s Directory. He lived from 1807-1879 and his wife, Mary, lived from 1816-1860. Both are buried here in Mount Olivet up on Area E/Lot 134. There was a relationship, both familial and business-wise, between Mr. Mantz and cousin Charles A. Gomber (1805-1849). Both bought the house at 226 E. Church together in 1848, the year prior to Mr. Gomber’s death. This latter gentleman is also buried here in an adjoining lot to Mr. Mantz (Area E/Lot 136). As a side note, since we are talking about gravestones, I find both to be beautiful examples of craftsmanship, but neither exhibiting the same style of the stone we are searching for in terms of owner.

​Did the Mantz family or associated members live on the premises of 226 East Church? Or was it used for some business related purpose? I don’t have any answers, but spent several hours this week trying to uncover a connection. The Mantz family appears to have lived closer to Courthouse Square and West Church Street.

​I searched each of these folks in our Mount Olivet database and did not find anyone to fit our vital date description. My best bet was 13 year-old Mary Elizabeth Mantz listed in 1860. I would find that she married a gentleman named Samuel Bean (1840-1883) and moved west. In doing internet research, I stumbled upon an archive at the University of Wyoming's American Heritage Center in Laramie. Attached to the library aide finder info online, I found the following abstract which holds a great deal of information on Charles' children who had moved westward including the fore-mentioned Mary:

"The Mantz family settled in Frederick, Maryland, around 1747. Charles Mantz (1807-1879) lived his entire life there and with his wife Mary Ann had children Isabel, Laura, Emma, Mary E., John E., Charles Gomber and Horatio McPherson ("Makie"). Charles G. Mantz (1853-1924) began his career as a bookkeeper in Omaha, Nebraska, was involved in the cattle business in Wyoming, conducted an investment and loan business in Fort Collins, Colorado from 1884-1892, and finally settled in Denver, Colorado. He married Caroline E. Armstrong, daughter of Andrew Armstrong of Fort Collins in 1891, and had children Charles A., Florence and Anna E. Mantz. Charles A. Mantz (1892-1970) was a successful Denver attorney. Horation McP. Mantz was a cattle dealer in Rock Creek, Wyoming in the 1880s.
 
Isabel Mantz married Dr. John Johnson; Emma Mantz married a Mr. Hottel; and Mary E. Mantz married Samuel Bean (1840-1883). Bean was involved in various business partnerships with Hottel, George Bean, Charles G. Mantz, and Horatio McP. Mantz in Omaha, Nebraska."

Mr. Bean is buried in Omaha's Mount Prospect Cemetery under a prestigious monument, but Mary's gravesite is not listed, at least on Findagrave and Ancestry.com. I conjecture the possibility of a remarriage or her name not being inscribed on her husband's monument. She's not the first person to not have a stone marking her gravesite now is she?

​Back to Frederick, Maryland, it also appears that Charles A. Gomber’s brother, Ezra Mantz Gomber, could have lived directly behind this property with a home that fronted on East Patrick Street at one time. In the 1860 Williams Directory, I found Ezra's widowed wife, Margaret, and daughters Minerva and Sarah who would both marry and live long lives.

After combing through the Mantz and Gomber families, I realized that I should give the Ritters a good once over as they were really the ones that lived at 226 East Church Street in 1865, selling a year later. The family is buried in Mount Olivet as patriarch John Alfred Ritter (1822-1892) was a prominent businessman/grocer in town. In seeing the grave lot, I was intrigued with the fact that there is a large, group stone with multiple family members names. Could this have served as a replacement for an individual stone originally erected for a family member? 

​The 1860 was also a tease as Mr. Ritter had a daughter in 1860, Ann,  who was 12 in 1860. I excitedly thought to myself, "Wait a minute, hold the phone!," this young lady would be 17 years-old in 1865! I next searched Ancestry.com for the Ritters in the 1870 census, selfishly hoping not to find her with the family, although I knew she could also be married at the time. When I came to the record, I found the following. 

​Drat, she was alive and well to my immediate dismay! Ann S. Ritter wasn't my stone recipient and would go on to marry Samuel I. Thompson. I did find that she would die in 1891, and is buried in Mount Olivet's Area G under a fine granite monument. Feeling guilty over my ill-will towards this lady, I do want to express here that despite a miraculous discovery in connection with the identity of my stone holder, I am very pleased that the former Miss Ritter experienced an additional 26 years of life in this world instead of passing on April 18th, 1865.

​Henry C. August Schraeder (1823-1889), was here through the Civil War era that much is known and he would marry Mary Zentmeyer of Wolfsville in 1856.  August can be  found in the 1860 US Census with his wife, infant daughter and has his mother-in-law and sisters-in-law Eliza and Lena) living with him.  Lena Zentmeyer, age 13 in the census record, makes her a candidate for being 17 in 1865.

I did a little search into August' father-in-law, Jacob Zentmeyer (1784-1854), and found him to be  buried in St. Mark's Lutheran Graveyard in Wolfsville. His wife Mary (b. 1796) would join him there in 1876. The method to my madness was in looking at the gravestones of these individuals. As you can see, the style is very similar to our mystery stone.  Could they be the work of son-in-law August Schraeder?

August' wife, Mary, died in Baltimore in 1875 and he  would marry a second time. This woman, Johanna Schraeder (1842-1894) is buried in Mount Olivet next to her first husband, Carl P. Adolph Lauer (1820-1874), in Area H/Lot 264.

Could August Schruder/Schraeder be related to Frederick Schroeder the carpenter, coffin-maker and undertaker. I think they were brothers and a business relationship between both gentleman is not far-fetched. It does not explain the letters found on our stone, however.

​As for the "ke" (possibly "lke")as the last letters of Schraeder's business partner carved on the stone, my mind keeps telling me the name"Roelkey," which could have been spelled Roelke. There were several leading businessmen,  of this name in town, all related, and all immigrants from Hesse-Cassel and practically the same age as August Schruder/Schraeder. Some of these Roelkeys specialized in metal work, and early monuments depended on iron pins to hold the dye part of the grave monument upright. Also no strangers to grave plots, iron fencing was regularly used to enclose family lots. I venture the guess that this could possibly have been a short-lived, co-partnership between these individuals whose name could have been spelled dozens of ways.

​I do, however, believe this stone marked a specific grave at one time. If you look close at the photo above, you will note this breaks on the lower right base of the gravestone. This is common as the iron pins that hold the upright dye (main stone panel) will expand and contract if affected by water. This usually happens to older stones that have become tilted or leaning because of ground shift and movement beneath. This eventually leads to the pin rusting and becoming brittle. A good wind, or continued fight against gravity while leaning will snap the pin right off. Note the rust discoloration and trace of a broken pin still within the stone.

​Inspiration for these “Stories in Stone” comes in various forms. It could be a picturesque monument, or perhaps a familiar personage of Frederick’s past. There are unique names to be researched, while sometimes this same research causes me to stumble upon an interesting happening, or tragic event.
When embarking on these history explorations to learn more about an individual, I always brace for enlightenment because I never know where the journey may take me. I love learning about other places and events outside of Frederick, but my favorite topics are those that connect to Frederick somehow. Of course, I get that chance automatically when connecting the dots to anyone buried in our historic Mount Olivet Cemetery.
​
For this particular edition, my eye was recently caught by the mention of a strangely-named town on a stone—one I was certainly not familiar with, but perhaps many of our readers may be. The moniker is carved into a large monument that can be found in Mount Olivet’s Area C, one that today offers a commanding view of the Grove Stadium parking lot and, on any given evening without a baseball game, showcases dozens of young people learning how to parallel park with the help of driving school instructors.

​In doing some state geography exploration, I soon learned that the Dakota Territory consisted of the northernmost part of the land acquired in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, as well as the southernmost part of Rupert's Land, which was acquired in 1818 when the boundary was changed to the 49th parallel. The name “Dakota” refers to the Dakota branch of the Sioux tribes which occupied the area at the time. Most of Dakota Territory was formerly part of the Minnesota and Nebraska territories.

​When Minnesota became a state in 1858, the leftover area between the Missouri River and Minnesota's western boundary fell unorganized.  That would soon be remedied. The Territory of Dakota eventually became an organized, incorporated territory of the United States on March 2nd, 1861. This would last until November 2nd, 1889, when the final extent of the reduced territory was split and admitted to the Union as the states of North Dakota and South Dakota. Our pivot point, little Eugenie Goff, died nearly three years earlier in January 1887.

​Rapid City is the second most populated city in South Dakota and the county seat of Pennington County. Named after Rapid Creek, where the settlement developed, it is in southwestern South Dakota, on the Black Hills' eastern slope. Today, Rapid City is known as the "Gateway to the Black Hills" and the "City of Presidents" because of the life-size bronze president statues downtown. The city's western and eastern parts are split by a low mountain range. 

​I rapidly learned that this town is home to Ellsworth Air Force Base, and boasts a bevy of tourist attractions such as Art Alley, Dinosaur Park, the City of Presidents walking tour, Chapel in the Hills, Storybook Island, and Main Street Square. The historic "Old West" town of Deadwood is nearby as well. In the neighboring Black Hills are the tourist attractions of Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Memorial, Custer State Park, Wind Cave National Park, Jewel Cave National Monument, and the museum at the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research. To the city's east is Badlands National Park.

​Let’s get back to Eugenie Goff. Her life was but a fleeting moment in the grand scheme of things: "5 years, 3 months and 8 days" as is inscribed on her “tombstone” panel. So how, or why, did this little girl die in early 1887? And why was she buried here in Frederick, as opposed to her native home in today’s South Dakota—a distance of 1,565 miles away?

Eugenie Darlenie Goff was born October 15th, 1881, the daughter of George Henry Goff and wife, Grace Christine Erickson. Neither of Eugenie’s parents were natives of the Dakota Territory. Mr. Goff, born in 1845, hailed from Warren, Rhode Island which I found is the smallest city, in the smallest county (Bristol) in the smallest state in the US. He was the son of a cabinetmaker from Massachusetts (Hiram Goff), but lost his father at the time he was 14 years old. His mother, Martha Galusha (Smith) Goff (b.1815), continued raising her son and a daughter, Elizabeth Eugenia (b. 1841), into adulthood. They lived in the home of Martha’s widowed father, Jonathan Smith, in Warren, Rhode Island.

​Apparently, George began his sojourn west somewhere in the 1860s, but I failed to find if he participated in military duty during the American Civil War. He was enumerated in the 1865 Massachusetts state census and found living in Springfield, roughly two hours northwest of his native Warren, Rhode Island.

Two years later, we find George in Lincoln, Wisconsin getting married to a woman named Ellen J. Oliver. Kudos to my research assistance Marilyn Veek for finding this missing puzzle piece as the gap exists for Mr. Goff and the 1870 census on most family trees. The research difficulty level comes with the spelling of "Goff" as "Gough."

For one reason or another, the marriage fizzled as Ellen J. (Oliver) Goff married Oliver Hollenbeck in Lincoln (WI) in 1873. George eventually can be found in Eau Claire, Wisconsin at which place he would marry Grace Christine Erickson on August 30th, 1876. The new Mrs. Goff was a Norwegian immigrant who had come to this country with her parents in 1872, eventually settling in Wisconsin.

I had difficulty tracking the young couple’s movements in the late 1870s into the 1880s. I deducted from a later census that George and Grace stayed in Wisconsin at least until after the birth of their first son, Charles A. Goff in August of 1879. The trio moved to the Dakota Territory sometime before 1881, and the birth of Eugenie.

​Rapid City
The public discovery of gold in 1874 by the Black Hills Expedition, led by George Armstrong Custer, brought a mass influx of European-American miners and settlers into this region of the Dakota Territory. A group of unsuccessful miners founded Rapid City in 1876, trying to create other chances for their fortunes. It was eventually named for the spring-fed Rapid Creek that flows through it. The frontier village was promoted near and far as the "Gateway to the Black Hills.”

​The land speculators measured off a square mile and designated the six blocks in the center as a business section. Committees were appointed to recruit prospective merchants and their families to locate in the settlement. Such merchants soon began selling supplies to miners and pioneers. The city's location on the edge of the Plains and Hills and its large river valley made it a natural hub for the railroads that were constructed in the late 1880s from both the south and east.

​The Goffs were cattle farmers, as far as I can tell, but perhaps George began as a merchant, tradesman or speculator in keeping with the narrative of Rapid City? Regardless, having railroad access readily available, or should I say, “rapidly available” in their new home, it’s easy to see how the Goff family traveled to Frederick in advance of their daughter’s untimely death in early 1887. But, why did they come here in the first place?

The answer likely lies in my theory that the Goffs were visiting family here in Frederick for, or immediately following, the Christmas and New Years holidays. You see, George’s mother, Martha, would eventually remarry a Frederick resident, a widower named Alexander Woodward (1821-1910). They met in Chicago as Mr. Woodward had volunteered his services to help rebuild the city after the devastating fire of  October, 1871. Mr. Woodward was a brick mason turned greengrocer who lived at the northeast corner of W. 4TH and N. Bentz streets. I’m placing this as the property at 133 W. 4th today.

​Eugenie’s obituary is brief, but her illness seems to have come about quickly. I found scant information this in the January 24th edition of the Frederick News.  

As the article recounts, her funeral was the following day after her death, and our cemetery records suggest that she was actually placed in our public vault, and awaited burial at a later time when there were more favorable conditions due to weather and frozen ground, minus the modern era digging equipment that would come in subsequent years. Once interred in the Woodward family lot in Area C, she joined Alexander Woodward’s first wife (Ellen).

I read that Taylor’s poem was in part inspired by the bible’s second verse of the Book of Job, Chapter 14. In case you are curious, Job 14 goes as follows:

 “We are all human beings.
    Our life is short and full of trouble.
2 Our life is like a flower that grows quickly and then dies away.
    Our life is like a shadow that is here for a short time and then is gone.
3 God, do you need to keep an eye on something so small?
    Why bother to bring charges against me?
4 “No one can make something clean from something so dirty.
5 The length of our life has been decided.
    You alone know how long that is.
    You have set the limits for us and nothing can change them.
6 So stop watching us; leave us alone,
    and let us enjoy this hard life until we have put in our time.
7 “There is always hope for a tree.
    If it is cut down, it can grow again.
    It will keep sending out new branches.
8 Its roots might grow old in the ground
    and its stump die in the dirt,
9 but with water, it will grow again.
    It will grow branches like a new plant.
10 But when a man dies,
    he becomes weak and sick, and then he is gone!
11 Like a lake that goes dry
    or a river that loses its source,
12 so people lose their lives,
    never to live again.
The skies will all pass away
    before they rise from death.
The skies will all disappear before
    anyone wakes up from that sleep!”

​With limited space on a monument face, the quote used certainly conveys the point at hand in a swift and dare I say rapid, way. I next started to look at other people buried in this grave plot of Area C/Lot 88. This exercise ultimately allowed me to better see the relationships of decedents buried within. In addition to Eugenie’s panel on the principal family monument found at this site, the other three sides correspond to her step-grandfather, Mr. Woodward, along with his first wife, Ellen (Burrall) Woodward, and Eugenie’s paternal grandmother Martha (Smith) (Goff) Woodward. 

​Surrounding the monument are the graves of Alexander Woodward’s son William and adult daughters—Sarah Catherine Fraley and Mary Jane Lewis. Mrs. Lewis’ husband, George Thomas Lewis (1842-1915), a former Union soldier in the Civil War, is also buried here, as is her sister-in-law and mother-in-law. The Lewis' were  former residents of Leesburg, VA.

​One additional person of special interest is residing here as well. This is the namesake for little Eugenie Goff— Eugenie Elizabeth Goff. As mentioned previously, Miss Goff was George H. Goff’s older sister and lived out her life in Frederick with her mother and step-father (Mr. Woodward). Our cemetery records note that she served as a housekeeper, and likely caretaker, for Mr. Woodward following her mother’s death in 1893. I found them living at 409 N. Market Street in the 1900 US Census. Street numbers have changed and this would be 209 N. Market today which is likely the building that serves home to Bushwaller's Tavern today, or the building to the immediate north of it at.

​By this same year of 1900, Rapid City had survived a boom and bust and was developing as an important regional trade center for the Upper Midwest. However, I found the Goff family living elsewhere in a place called Maxwell in Meade County, South Dakota.

​This locale is in a neighboring county named for Gen. George G. Meade, who by the way, was given charge of the Union Army of the Potomac here in Frederick just mere days before the Battle of Gettysburg.
Meade County is located in the ranching area of western South Dakota, and I’m assuming that this was the farming performed by the Goffs. The county is the largest in the state, encompassing more than two million areas and surpasses the states of Delaware and George H. Goff’s native Rhode Island in land size.

​In addition to the agriculture industry, Meade County can boast of having Ellsworth Air Force Base in its southern boundary adjacent Rapid City and nearby Box Elder, SD. Meade County’s county seat is Sturgis, known for the annual motorcycle rally and home to Fort Meade Veterans’ Administration Medical Center. This VA facility transitioned from one of our country's earliest frontier cavalry posts which was home to both the Fourth and Seventh cavalries. It was at this very military installation that the “Star-Spangled Banner” was first required to be played.

​Well, aside from learning the colorful history and geography of Meade County, I couldn’t find the village or environs of Maxwell anywhere on a map. The area of the famed Badlands is quite desolate and population centers are far and few. As I explored further, I actually found a location named Goff Ranch near a place noted as Mud Draw on a Google map. Maxwell and Mud Draw sound a bit similar, and I think this could be it because I found an obituary of one of George and Grace’s other children who was born on a ranch homestead near the Tepee Creek, adjacent the Cheyenne River.

​This property was recently for sale and was listed as being 2600 acres in the Badlands and located where the prairie begins, just a few miles northeast of Black Hills. I’m assuming the accompanying photo paints a nice picture of the Goff Ranch.

I found next to nothing on the Goffs in South Dakota, but due to them basically "living off the grid," it really comes as no surprise. I did find an article in the Frederick newspaper in 1891 that must have entertained the local citizenry here.

​I next set out searching for White Owl, also in Meade County, South Dakota, which contains the final resting places of Eugenie Goff’s parents. This is about a 30-minute drive (26.5 mi) via SD-34 E and County Hwy MC-39 if you are ever inclined to make the trip.

​A remote and tranquil place, this is the eternal repository for the mortal remains of George Henry and Grace Christine (Erickson) Goff. Judging from the photos found on FindaGrave.com, the burying ground certainly oozes that rustic, frontier charm. White Owl Cemetery is roughly 1,554 some miles from Mount Olivet—the separation from a child’s grave to her parents. I’m sure for the Goffs, it must have been a true comfort knowing that Eugenie’s grandmother and aunt could easily visit their little daughter’s gravesite, perhaps to place flowers as well.

As for Miss Eugenia Elizabeth Goff and her stepfather, Alexander Woodward, the two would die just seven months after George Henry Goff who died in August, 1909. Interestingly, both individuals would die exactly two weeks apart in March, 1910. 

​Thanks to the work of Findagrave.com and Ancestry.com volunteers and family historians, I learned a bit more about the lives of Eugenie’s six siblings. In contrast to her own short life, most of these lived to be quite old, a cruel irony I’d have to admit. There is Arthur Henry Goff (1892-1978), a World War I vet who died at age 86. Another sibling, Clarence Galusha Goff (1886-1981) participated in World War I, but reached the ripe old-age of 94, as did kid sister Adelaide D. (Goff) Quinn who is buried near her parents in White Owl cemetery.

​Nellie (Goff) Tivis is also interred in White Owl, as she lived to be 102 (1883-1985). Not to be outdone, brother Charles Alexander Goff (1879-1983) attained 103 years on planet Earth. “Charley,” as he was known, was born in Wisconsin as earlier mentioned, and had accompanied his sister Eugenie upon her ill-fated trip to Frederick in 1887. I would learn that he had a special connection his youngest sister, Martha “Mattie” E. (Goff) Newcombe (1899-1997), 20 years his junior.
​
While living along Tepee Creek, Mattie’s oldest brother (Charley) apparently put her on a horse at the tender age of 3. This led to a lifetime love of horses as Mattie successfully began riding broncs, and later parlayed her natural talent into trick and relay riding, becoming extremely good at both and billed as a "World Champion Trick Rider." The self-taught horsewoman participated in her first major event in 1921 in Sioux Falls.
​
Mattie (Goff) Newcombe standing on her horse with the moniker of “South Dakota’s Girl Trick Rider” was named All Around Cowgirl in 1927, the same year she performed for President Calvin Coolidge during his summer stay in the Black Hills.

​In 1927, she married a neighborhood cowboy, Maynard Newcombe and became a true ranchers' wife in eastern Meade County. She would retire riding professionally in the 1930s but is forever enshrined by a museum she helped create in Fort Pierre, South Dakota. This is the Mattie Goff Newcombe and Casey Tibbs Center—a facility that hosts both an event arena and multi-purpose conference center. It also includes a historical museum devoted to the riding and rodeo sport of South Dakota. The museum  displays many of Mattie Goff Newcombe’s belongings and memorabilia from her days as a trick rider.

​Mattie Newcombe was one of the first inductees and charter members of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City in 1961. She was inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame in 1989 and was elected to the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Texas in 1994. In 1995, she received the Pioneer Award from the Black Hills Stock Show. Mattie passed away in July, 2005 at what newspapers said was the age of 98. However, in seeing her age in various census records from the early 20th century, I have her born in December, 1899, making her 105 by my calculations. Now that’s a trick as impressive as her riding stunts!

Both Mattie and Charley are buried in Elm Springs Cemetery in Elm Springs, South Dakota about a half hour ride to White Owl and the old family homestead.

​We can only imagine the life experiences that little Eugenie Goff could have experienced in the wild west had she not passed at the tender age of five. It again harkens the question to be asked, “What is life?” We are all delicate flowers, and like flowers, and cattle for that matter, some are just hardier than others I guess.

​Well April Fool’s Day has come and gone once again, and I wracked my brain trying to find a timely story to tell about someone in our cemetery, but settled on a decedent who wasn’t a fool or deceiver, but did spend a portion of his career “clowning” around.
​
Speaking of April Fool’s Day, I came across an interesting connection to Ukraine which I seem to recall has been in the news a time or two here of late. Aside from this year I assume, April Fools' Day has been widely celebrated in the city of Odessa with the special, local name Humorina. This holiday arose in 1973 and involves April Fool pranks being revealed by saying "Pervoye Aprelya, nikomu ne veryu" — which means "April the First, I trust nobody" — to the recipient. The festival includes a large parade in the center of the city, free concerts, street fairs and performances. Festival participants dress up in a variety of costumes and walk around the city fooling around and pranking passersby. 

One of the traditions on April Fools' Day is to dress up the main city monument in funny clothes. Humorina even has its own logo — a cheerful sailor in a lifebelt — whose author was an artist named Arkady Tsykun. During the festival, special souvenirs bearing the logo are printed and sold everywhere. Since 2010, April Fools' Day celebrations include an International Clown Festival and both celebrated as one.

April Fools and Clowns remind me of a recent visit I made to see my uncle in Delaware last fall. He told me in advance that he had found a very special family heirloom for me. I was quite intrigued as the official family historian. My uncle Bob lives in his childhood home in Delaware City, Delaware. My late father spent most of his childhood here as well, and is buried in a cemetery directly across the street. The basement of this one-story rancher is an eclectic storage pit of items from my father and family’s past— half represent family treasures, while the other half contains junk.
​
On this particular sojourn, I would soon find myself in possession of a custom art piece, estimated to be at least 70 years old, and created by my father’s own hands! This was from a short-lived period in which my father took up painting as a hobby. From having a few of his other pieces, he was no Michelangelo or Florence Doub, but he wasn’t all that bad. My brother has an old barn painting that he did, and I have an original Edwin A. Haugh masterpiece in the form of a rendering of my GGG Grandmother’s house in Delaware City. This framed piece hangs prominently over my home office computer desk.
​
This was the introduction my uncle gave me as he handed to me what seemed to be a framed object, roughly 17"x21" and cloaked in a plastic, black trashbag. I excitedly opened the bag and removed my prize. To my shock and chagrin, I was somewhat horrified to see the subject of this vintage artwork. It was a clown, and a creepy one at that! I looked closer and eerily saw features of my dad in the piece, which made me wonder (or question) the piece even more. 

I felt as if this gifting by my uncle was at least in the spirit of April Fool’s Day. Either way, it’s safe to say that I was definitely “clowned” as the kids say these days. On my two-hour trip home from Delaware, I resisted the urge to throw the clown art out the car window at multiple times starting at the point I crossed the Millard Tydings bridge, and ending as I crossed the I-70 bridge over the Monocacy, just east of Frederick.

I guess you could say that I’m simply not a big fan of clowns. I understand their purpose, and respect their acting ability and stunts in accompanying circuses, a thing of the past these days of course. I just try not to think about them in my day to day activities, all-the-while knowing that I could see a group of 20-30 piling out of a Volkswagen Beetle anywhere I go. As for my clown artwork, it has been conveniently tucked away between a file cabinet and wall in my basement. I pulled it out the other day for the sole purpose of this story, and nothing more.

Actually, I took up a special interest in clowns a few weeks back in preparing a lecture on Mount Olivet ties to St. Patrick’s Day. This was for a Friends of Mount Olivet soiree event we held at the Key Chapel back on March 17th. I was interested in learning the background of 10 distinctly Irish names, and finding examples of each here buried within Mount Olivet.

One of these was Thomas Joseph O’ Neill (1879-1944), whose final resting place can be found in Area X/Lot 27.

​I looked in our cemetery’s electronic database and found the following entry for this gentleman:

Occupation: Brush Maker.  Thomas was born in Portland, Maine.  For several years he was employed as a clown by the Ringling Brothers Circus.  He died at the YMCA where he resided for about 20 years.

I was intrigued, primarily because this gentleman worked as a clown, but more so, he was an entertainer associated with the legendary Ringling Brothers Circus. I immediately wanted to learn more about the origins of this famed touring company as I had seen the Barnum & Bailey and Ringling Brothers Circus on two different occasions in my childhood. I found the following background on the Wikipedia website for the Ringling Brothers, and their eventual affiliation with legendary showmen Hachaliah Bailey and P. T. Barnum:
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"Hachaliah Lyman Bailey (1775 – 1845) was the founder of one of America's earliest circuses. In 1808, he purchased an Indian elephant which he named "Old Bet" and which was one of the first such animals to reach America. With "Old Bet" as its main attraction, he formed the Bailey Circus, which also included a trained dog, several pigs, a horse and four wagons. This was the impetus for what in time evolved into the Bailey component of what became the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus."

​In 1837, Bailey moved from his home in Somers, NY to Northern Virginia, buying the land surrounding the intersection of Leesburg Pike and Columbia Pike in Fairfax County, Virginia near Falls Church, Virginia. The intersection of these two roadways would take the legendary circus leader’s name—Bailey's Crossroads. The locale then became the winter quarters for his circus.

In 1845, Hachaliah returned to Somers for a visit and died from the kick of a horse while there. He is buried in Somers' Ivandell Cemetery.

​Several of the next generation of Baileys performed in circuses, carrying on the tradition and bringing it to Frederick. Maryland in June, 1858. Jacob Engelbrecht wrote of this in his fabled diary under an entry dated June 2nd, 1858.

“Bailey & Company (circus and menagerie) were in our town yesterday afternoon & night.—they had 2 large elephants, which were harnessed in the wagon that contained the music. They exhibited in Mrs. Phebus’ old brick yard Battletown—full tent of natives. They came from Emmitsburg yesterday and today go to Clarksburg, Montgomery County.”

​in 1884, five of the seven Ringling brothers had started a small circus in Baraboo, Wisconsin. This was about the same time that the Barnum & Bailey Circus were at the peak of its popularity. Similar to dozens of small circuses that toured the Midwest and the Northeast at the time, the brothers moved their circus from town to town in small animal-drawn caravans. Their circus rapidly grew and they were soon able to move their operation by train, which allowed them to have the largest traveling amusement enterprise of that time. 

Meanwhile, Barnum and Bailey would split up in 1885, but came back together in 1888 with the "Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth." This set the stage for these two gentlemen to have their entertainment juggernaut tour the world as the Barnum & Bailey Circus. In 1891, P. T. Barnum died as a result of a stroke, leaving A. G. Bailey at the helm as he continued touring overseas.

Bailey's European tour gave the Ringling brothers an opportunity to move their show from the Midwest to the eastern seaboard. Faced with the new competition, Bailey took his show west of the Rocky Mountains for the first time in 1905. He died the next year, and the circus was sold to the Ringling Brothers. 

Although the Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus would not make a visit to Frederick, several other circus shows would present programs here up through recent years where this style of entertainment in its original form has faded away for a variety of reasons most of which center on animal safety/cruelty issues. Today, many entities are re-launching their brands as animal-free circus programming.

​Clowning Around
When it comes to clowns, the mission of this circus performer is to employ physical humor in an effort to entertain the audience. They often wear colorful clothing, makeup, wigs and exaggerated footwear. The word “clown” comes from the Icelandic word “klunni” which means “a clumsy person.”
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According to Wikipedia, I found that the first known clowns date from the time of the Fifth dynasty of Egypt, around 2400 BC:

"Later civilizations also knew about clowns. Early clowns were also priests and their roles were almost indivisible. Clowns of ancient Greece were bald and wore padded clothes to appear larger. Ancient Roman clowns wore pointed hats and were the butts of the jokes. Italian commedia dell'arte of the 16th century introduced masked characters Arlecchino (Harlequin) and Pierrot (Pirouette).
​
In time, a few standard types of clowns developed:
 
The Whiteface clown was originally designed by Joseph Grimaldi in 1801. It has its face and neck covered with white makeup, mouth painted in a grin, and black eyebrows. His clothes are extravagant and he is a sophisticated character. He has the highest status in the clown hierarchy.

​Some of famous clowns from the history are still remembered as legendary pioneers in the history of performance such as Joseph Grimaldi. Grimaldi even has a park named after him as he was an English artist who practically invented the modern clown. Even today, clowns are called “Joey" (after him) and just feet away from his enclosed gravesite, visitors are invited to "dance" on an area symbolic to be his grave.

​Matthew Sully was the first circus clown in the United States. He performed in Ricketts's circus and was a Harlequin, tumbler and singer. Lancaster, Pennsylvania's John Durang (1768-1822) was the first "American-born" circus clown. He also performed in a traveling show known as Ricketts' circus.

​Jean Baptiste Casmiere Breschard brought back circus clowns into United States in 1804 after a short dry spell (when no circuses worked). Clowns would grow in popularity throughout the 19th century as the interest and demand in traveling menageries and circuses grew among the masses. 

The heyday, of course, would come in the 20th century and gave us arguably the most famous clowns in US history. These gentlemen even shared the same name and DNA. They were Emmett Kelly Sr. and son, Emmett Kelly, Jr. Another son, John Patrick Kelly, would also perform as a clown but did not reach the heights of his father and brother.

​A world famous circus clown during the 1930s and 1940s, Emmett Kelly, Sr. is best remembered for his sad-faced, silent "Weary Willy" hobo clown, who as the perpetual underdog never gave up, and for his comic act of sweeping the spotlight. Born in Sedan, Kansas (where a museum honors him today), his parents worked for the Missouri-Pacific Railroad, where his father, Thomas Kelly, was part of a railroad crew, and his mother, Mollie, ran a boarding house for the Railroad.

About 1905, Emmett's parents moved to a farm in southern Missouri, to provide a better life for their children. For a while, Emmett worked as a cartoonist for a silent film company in Kansas City, Missouri, although he had always dreamed of joining a traveling circus. Eventually, he joined the Howe's Great London Circus, initially painting the circus wagons, and then becoming a trapeze artist.

​In 1922, he met and married Eva Moore, another trapeze artist. Together they worked the trapeze and high wire acts. In 1923, Eva became pregnant with their son, and Kelly tried to increase his salary by working between acts as a clown. He conceived the hobo clown "Weary Willy" but it was not accepted until the Great Depression, which made hobos, tramps and unemployed scruffy men more acceptable to the audiences. In 1933, Weary Willy made his appearance, and quickly grew to become an American icon. At the end of his performance, rather than take a break, Weary Willy would often wander into other acts, and steal the limelight with his silent parody of the other performer. Audiences loved it.

While performing in London in 1942, he came to the attention of John Ringling North, who signed him to the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus. He stayed with Ringling Brothers for 14 seasons, worked as the mascot for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1956, and was in several movies.
​
Son, Emmett Jr., with the encouragement of his father, took over the "Weary Willy" costume and act in 1960, and kept the act going for another new generation of fans. Kelly, Sr.  published his autobiography, "Clown" in 1954, and died of a heart attack in 1979 in Sarasota, Florida. He was inducted into the Clown Hall of Fame in 1989.

​Sarasota, Florida is the home of the Ringling Circus Museum, and yours truly visited this repository back in 1983 while on a family vacation to the Gulf Coast as a teenager. I asked my research assistant, Marilyn Veek, to reach out to the museum in hopes to find any information on our “clown” and theirs, Thomas Joseph O’Neill. The staff was very friendly and immediately searched records on our behalf, but did not come up with anything for us. Our quest will continue, but sadly we can only guess that he likely performed with the Ringling Brothers likely sometime between 1900-1920. 

​Information is equally scarce on the rest of Thomas O’Neill’s life as well. With our records claim of his birthplace being Portland, Maine, and his gravestone claiming 1879 as his birthdate, I searched Ancestry.com for clues. The closest matching record I could find came in the form of a World War I Draft Registration Card.

​Dating from September 12th, 1918, the Thomas Joseph O’Neill listed here was a resident living at 805 Middle Street in Bath, Sagadahoc County, Maine, a suburb of Portland. The birthdate listed is May 25th, 1879 and states that this individual is native born. If this is our “clown,” he lists as his present occupation that of shipyard worker for the Texas Shipbuilding Company. He lists no “nearest relatives” and also reported that one of his eyes was defective.

​I found some O’Neills , O’Neils, O’Niels and O'Neals in the greater Portland (Maine) area in the 1880 census but none seemed quite right as the family of our subject. 

I only found Thomas O’Neill mentioned a few times in our local Frederick papers. These give proof, however, to his background as a performer.

​According to his obituary in local papers in 1944, it appears that Thomas O’Neill arrived in Frederick around 1922. These same reports say he lived at the YMCA, however, he lived with Mrs. Raabe at least in 1940. I’m wondering about his financial condition, was he a real-life hobo or tramp in the same vein as the clown characters he portrayed for Ringling? We are talking of a span starting with the “Roaring Twenties,” ending with World War II Era and sandwiching the Great Depression.

The obituary did mention that he was employed by the Ox Fibre Brush Company as many were here in Frederick during its operation. For those unfamiliar with this company, the Ox Fiber Brush Company, Lisa Mroszczyk Murphy wrote a great Preservation Matters article for the Frederick News-Post explaining its history back in August, 2018 which can be accessed with this link:

​Thomas Joseph O’Neill died on May 29, 1944—one week before D-Day. At the time, he was living at the YMCA. I truly wonder if he was destitute and just barely getting by. Regardless, he would be buried in Area X, not far from our Key Memorial Chapel on June 1st. I’m thankful that our mysterious former clown actually has a marked final resting place—especially considering his birth and early life are such gray areas.

​As I was researching for this story, I found a Mount Olivet Cemetery (also known as Olivet Cemetery) in Colma, California. Here, in this 65-acre burying ground of 100,000 interments, exists a very special grave memorial that remembers the Showfolks of America. This national organization, made up of circus or carnival people, held conventions in nearby San Francisco after 1945.

​The area around the clown-faced monument is known as Showmen’s Rest. The monument was originally erected in 1945, and to this day, the plot has been occupied with the interments of many clowns and other circus and carnival performers.

​So, here’s an interesting riddle for you, based on a recent, true event.

We had some special visitors roaming through the cemetery last week (Friday, March 18)—actually one could describe them as a small, well-behaved herd. These “tombstone tourists” can arbitrarily be said to hail from the Cervidae family, and here I’m not talking about a specific surname, but rather a family of animals. You may recognize this as the deer family, however I will throw you another curveball in saying that our guests certainly did not possess four hooves, antlers or bushy tails. Looking back on my time spent among this group, I’d say they were benevolent, protective and orderly, exactly what I expected from this collection of elk coming here from various parts of the country.

I would love to wax poetic about elk, also known as the wapiti, one of the largest species within the deer family and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America. The name "wapiti" is sometimes used for this creature as it originates from the Shawnee and Cree Indian word “waapiti,” meaning “white rump.” This is insignificant, I guess, because I need to confess that our visitors to the cemetery last week, although mammals, were 100% of the human variety. In addition, they all held membership in an American fraternal order founded in 1868 as a social club in New York City—The Elks.

I was tasked with giving a brief tour of Mount Olivet, in which I would show a few historic points of interest to a small delegation of Elk members. The V.I.P.s of this group included the Elk organization’s top official, T. Keith Mills and wife Amy from Caldwell, Idaho. Mr. Mills is the National President of the Elks and holds the distinguished title of Grand Exalted Ruler. His term began in July, 2021 and runs through July, 2022.
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We also had on hand Mr. Paul D. Helsel, the Maryland/Delaware State Sponsor of Elks. He was accompanied by his wife Jane, and both call home my old college stomping ground of Newark, DE. Paul is a Past Grand Exalted Ruler, serving his term in 2008. With him was another official in Frank Kane (Laurel Lodge), Vice President of the North Central District of MD DE DC Elks Association. This group was traveling the region and had a local guide in Warren Johnson and photographer in Paula Larson, both members of Frederick’s local Elks Lodge #684. Mr. Johnson is a past Exalted Ruler of the Frederick Lodge and a MD DE DC Elks Association Past President. He originally contacted me last month to set up this special visit by the country’s top Elk.

The Francis Scott Key Memorial and gravesite has received thousands of visitors since its unveiling back in August, 1898. I can now gladly add two Grand Exalted Rulers in Mr. Mills and Mr. Helsel to a list that includes the likes of US President William Howard Taft, telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell, President General of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution Dorothy Ritchie McLean and singer-songwriter Lee Greenwood (“God Bless the U.S.A.”).
​
Grand Exalted Ruler Mills was in the midst of a multi-week tour across the country, visiting local Elk Lodges and nearby points of interest along the way. Before coming to Frederick, he was in the nation’s capital taking in pertinent sights and experiences. It was now, my pleasure to show off our historic, “garden cemetery” that has immediate ties to the Elks organization as the membership includes our Board of Directors president, George T. “Tim” Horman and Cemetery superintendent (of 56 years) J. Ronald Pearcy. In my capacity, I had the opportunity to recount the stories of our cemetery’s two most famous historical figures in Francis Scott Key and Barbara Fritchie—individuals whose fame came via a song or poem written about the US flag under attack by an invading enemy. 

While at the Barbara Fritchie Monument and Memorial, I made sure to share the unique connection between our patriotic nonagenarian and the Elks through the portrayal of the legendary Frederick Dame by Bullwinkle T. Moose. This occurred within a "Bullwinkle's Corner" segment that originally aired on February 13th, 1960. (Click the cartoon image below to view this classic short.)

​Our local Elks Lodge holds the distinctive number of 684, meaning that it was the 684th lodge to be chartered by the national organization of the BPOE (Benevolent Protective Order of Elks) in the country. This occurred on April 2nd, 1901 with 35 founding members from the Frederick community. The first meeting was at the Red Men's Club, originally located in Kemp Hall on the corner of North Market and East Church streets. Their first home was on the second floor of this building that still stands and today serves home to The Candy Kitchen and Isabella's Restaurant.

​By 1920, the club outgrew its space and built a new headquarters at the corner of West Second and Court streets. This also became too small, and a longtime headquarters was built at 7 West Second Street. This building was destroyed by fire in January 1970, prompting the present lodge on Willowdale Drive and Shookstown Road to be constructed. The former lodge site is a small, public park site these days called the  "Healing Garden at Bonita Maas Park" and is dedicated to victims of child abuse and administered by the  Friends of the Child Advocacy Center.

​Although not a member myself, I have given a few history lectures here at this facility. I’ve also met with members here and partaken in food and beverage from their fine in-house bar/kitchen. Our Frederick Elks Lodge is one of the country’s most active, and raises tens of thousands of dollars each year for charity, thanks to its nearly 1,400 members.
 
The group supports three Boy Scout troops, and youth sports teams. Special projects have also been tackled, such as raising $50,000 one year to help start Frederick Memorial Hospital's mobile health van, and giving $10,000 to the National Museum of Civil War Medicine to sponsor an exhibit on the history of flags. The national Elks organization helped initiate the June 14th Flag Day holiday, and every year, local Elks clubs are mandated to have a Flag Day ceremony. They used to head up one here at Mount Olivet, but that waned a while back, however we worked together to recreate the tradition with a flag day program here in June, 2019.

​The Frederick BPOE Lodge also supports veterans’ programs and provide volunteers to drive veterans to the Martinsburg Veterans Administration Hospital several days each week. On Christmas morning, anywhere from 30 to 80 Elks will go to Montevue and Citizens Nursing Home to sing Christmas carols for the residents and pass out gifts. The organization gives money to The Arc, Goodwill, the Salvation Army, the Jeanne Bussard Workshop and many other local charities. Members also volunteer time to these organizations.

​I brought my tour group of Elks to Confederate Row and told them about the story of Frederick’s role as "One Vast Hospital" during the American Civil War. I also explained why we have over 700 Southern soldiers here that died during the war.

​We also stopped at the grave of Robert Downing in Area M. A Washington, DC native, Mr. Downing was one of the top stage actors of the late 1800s and is best remembered by theater afficionados for his recurring role as “Spartacus the Gladiator.” He performed this character over 3,000 times for audiences all over the country. 

Speaking of stage actors of the late 1800s is the perfect seque to explaining how the B.P.O.E. come about? I learned the following story by visiting the organizations website at elks.org

“In New York City, a small group of actors and entertainers, wishing to continue their social gatherings on Sundays, when New York's blue laws prevented the opening of public establishments, began to meet regularly as the "Jolly Corks," a name derived from a bar trick introduced by the group's organizer. While the meetings were held with regularity, apparently no form nor substance resulted, except for the adoption of a toast to members of the group not in attendance."

​Shortly before Christmas in 1867, only a few months after the fellows began to meet, one of their number died, leaving his wife and children destitute. This event gave rise to the notion that, in addition to good fellowship, the Jolly Corks needed a more noble purpose in order to endure, and serving not only their own in need, but others as well, would be appropriate. Two months later, on February 16, 1868, with a statement of serious purpose, an impressive set of rituals, a symbol of strength and majesty and such other elaborate trappings that might be expected of a group of actors and musicians, the new fraternal order was launched.”

​I rounded out my tour to Grand Exalted Ruler Mills by making a stop in Mount Olivet’s Area L, at a grave site located directly beyond the Key Memorial Chapel. This was the final resting place of Clara Elizabeth Hauer Myers (1860-1931). I can best describe Clara as a Doe between two Elks because she is buried be in the middle of two former husbands in Area L’s Lot 82—both held membership in the BPOE. As a matter of fact, there is a dead giveaway (sorry about the word use here) to this being the gravesite of an Elk member. One just needs to look at the monument. 

​I was already familiar with this beautiful monument boasting a picturesque Elk carved on its face, and paying homage to Lodge #15, located in Washington, DC. This was the home lodge of Charles Nicholas Hauer who was a member in nation's capital chapter of the organization, as he would die one month before Frederick would open up Lodge #684 in 1901. I wrote about Mr. Hauer in an earlier “Story in Stone” from May, 2020 featuring Frederick’s early oyster saloons and eateries.
​

Charles Nicholas Hauer was born October 5th, 1859, the son of George N. and Lucretia (Poole) Hauer. He was one of nine children and spent most of his life living on South Market Street. I did not find much about his childhood here in Frederick but he eventually found himself in the hospitality business of restaurants.
He got the chance to learn from a great teacher with a very similar name, Charles E. Haller. ​

​In 1883, Charles N. Hauer, took charge of the Haller Dining Rooms establishment at Church and Market when his boss (Charles E. Haller) relocated to the Green House a few blocks to the south.
 
This was quite an opportunity for young Mr. Hauer, a distant relative of Frederick's famed heroine, Barbara (Hauer) Fritchie. Just a few years prior he was working as a cigar maker, along with his brother, Fritchie Hauer. The boys' late father had also been a cigar-maker.

​Now at the helm of a restaurant, Charles N. Hauer took the opportunity to rename his eatery on the corner of Church and Market streets called "The Gem Restaurant."

​Charles continued to run The Gem for a few years at this locale before moving to Washington, DC where he was the manager of the Brightwood Hotel in the northwest area of the District, located on Brightwood Avenue.  He married Clara Filby of Gettysburg in 1887, but the couple had no children.

Mr. Hauer resided in Washington, DC at least though 1890 and sometime soon after returned to Frederick. While there, he was initiated into the Washington, DC Lodge of Elks, #15. This number is proudly displayed on his gravestone as well.

​Charles would experience a strange degree of fame in the form of a medical testimonial he would give for Hood's Sarsaparilla in the year 1892. His face would appear in newspapers coast to coast. The following ad appeared in the March 2nd edition of the Philadelphia Times.

​
Perhaps if one had bad blood, the tempting intake of raw oysters and alcohol, readily available at work, may not have been the best career choice. But what do I know?
 
Charles would eventually leave The Gem. I believe this was the time period in which he took a job at the establishment on West Patrick Street named The European House. Ironically, this was the original "Gem" location for those keeping score at home. Actually, the City Hotel next door would receive a makeover under new ownership after the death of Frank B. Carlin. It became the New City Hotel. The European changed hands as well and would come to be known as "The Buffalo Hotel and Restaurant." ​Wisely, Charles Hauer soon brought in his mentor with like name to help him manage the new venture.

​Hauer's widow (Clara) would remarry a man named William Myers. Mr. Myers belonged to our local Elks Chapter here in town. Clara passed in 1931 and was laid to rest next to her first husband and the fine Elks grave monument. As an aside, Clara's obituary below claims here to be a descendant of the famed Jennie Wade, the only civilian killed during the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg. (She was shot while kneading dough in her sister's kitchen on East Cemetery Hill).

And speaking of death (the common theme of these stories), Clara's second husband (William W. Myers) would die three years later. Both Clara and William had their respective funeral services held in Mount Olivet's mortuary chapel (Key Chapel). These services were attended by Elk members, and this chapel completed in 1913 is just steps from their eventual gravesite with Charles N. Hauer.

As I reported earlier, the Frederick Lodge, BPOE #684, opened in 1901. I was interested in seeing if the local lodge's first Exalted Ruler was buried here in Mount Olivet? Sure enough, it was a man named Wilbur H. Duvall, and he is here in Area G/Lot 130. Sadly, Mr. Duvall was only 54 at the time of his death in 1906. Like Mr. Hauer, he had but a short time in the Elks organization. Many more Elks would follow over the next 120 years.

As a final note, I came across the following news story regarding a carnival that the Frederick Elks brought to town in 1902, one of the very first events in their history in the community. It appears to be "In the Street" and the Great Frederick Fair wrapped up in one for the ultimate in old-time, downtown Frederick fun. Oh "deer," what a time it must have been.

“Many of our smaller schools have unique features, and I feel that one of the unique features of the Maryland school is our art department. We have in Miss Doub a lady who has been with us for over 30 years, and who has given her whole life to the study of art. I hope that you have given some attention to the exhibit that we have of our art work in the art workroom. If you have not, I would like to call your attention to that exhibit.”

This was an introduction given for Florence W. Doub at the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf held in Belleville, Ontario, Canada on June 27th, 1923. It was spoken by Doub’s boss, Ignatius Bjorlee, superintendent of the Maryland School for the Deaf from 1917-1955.  
​
Miss Doub could not attend this important event in person as her only sibling was seriously ill back home in Frederick. Instead, her paper on art curriculum for deaf students was read by a colleague named Miss Elizabeth Anderson. (Note: I’ve included a transcript of Doub’s paper at the end of this article.) She was not only one of Frederick’s most talented artists, but Florence Doub was an extraordinary educator, one who would spend her entire teaching career of 51 years in the confines of Frederick City.  

​Florence W. Doub
Known locally as “Miss Floy,” Florence Doub was born on August 27th, 1851. She was the daughter of William H. Doub and wife Marietta Staley. Miss Doub would reside on N. Market Street all her life, save for one move at the age of one, from 344 N. Market Street to 413.

​Mr. Doub was a wholesale and retail merchant of dry goods and groceries, and ran his business out of the family home on the southwest corner of N. Market and E. 4th streets during the 1850s and 60s. He survived the Civil War era, but eventually would file bankruptcy in 1868. That same year, Florence would have her name in the local paper for a much more positive achievement as she was recognized for her artistic talents while a student at the Frederick Female Seminary.

​Florence went on to graduate from the Frederick Female Seminary in spring 1868. ​The following November, a published list of premium winners at the recent Frederick Agricultural Society’s annual fair would give testament to Floy’s early talent. Her acquisition of ribbons and prize money at the Great Frederick Fair would continue throughout her lifetime. Miss Doub would eventually be asked to help design the annual arrangement of the Art Department for the fair years later.

A biography of Miss Doub states:

“Early on, amidst the natural beauty that was abundant in the community, she developed a love for nature and art that reflected it.” 

She is said to have taught art to locals beginning with the children and grandchildren of her prominent uncle, James H. Gambrill, Sr. Mr. Gambrill was married to Floy’s maternal aunt, Antoinette Frances Staley (1838-1894). An ironic connection is that the famed mill on Carroll Creek that was built and operated by Mr. Gambrill, and his son of the same name, would become synonymous with local art as the home of the Delaplaine Arts Center on Carroll Street. 

She would perfect her talents in art and instruction over the next few years. In 1878, she took up employment at a state school that had been founded here in Frederick a decade earlier for deaf children. Originally known as the Maryland Institute for the Deaf & Dumb, Miss Doub would be associated with this specialized place of higher learning until her death. Here she managed to work art and sketching into the curriculum.

​Floy’s talents became more and more sought by the local population leading her to open an art studio out of her family residence. Miss Doub also taught art to children in her own studio and added parents and other adults to her student roster. One young student recalled that Miss Doub permitted her pupils to study only one component of art at a time, with extensive practice of the techniques and study of the development of that element before she would allow them to advance.  Inspiration, cooperation, joy, and happiness in the studio described Miss Doub’s character and approach to teaching.   

​Within a few short decades Miss Doub would be regarded as one of the finest artists in Maryland. It would not be long before her “old school” would come calling. In 1893, Floy began a 27-year tenure as head of the Art Department at the Woman’s College of Frederick. She found herself teaching art in the building that formerly housed the Frederick Female Seminary and was named after the founder of that school Hiram Winchester. Today, Winchester Hall on E. Church street in downtown Frederick, serves as the seat of Frederick County Government. In 1893, the former female seminary came to be known as Woman’s College of Frederick under the leadership of Dr. Joseph Henry Apple. This institution would take the name of Hood College in 1913.

​​Florence Doub kept busy with her three jobs in teaching art. She would never marry and continued to live with her mother and brother, Cornelius, a year younger than she. Her father had died in 1894, and was buried in the family plot next to the Gambrill family in Mount Olivet.

​It has been said that Miss Doub wanted to give back to her beloved Frederick in a way that would expand an appreciation and understanding of the arts among women. In the late 1890s, she approached her friends with the idea of starting a local art club. She received an enthusiastic response and a group was formed with the goal of “expanding the knowledge of the arts among club members, and to use art to encourage the Frederick community to absorb the beauty that surrounded it.” The year of 1897 marked the birth of the Frederick Art Club. Florence would serve as the club’s only president for 35 years up until the the time of her death. 

Florence and her brother, Cornelius Staley Doub, assumed co-ownership of the family home upon the death of their mother in 1914. She is a woman equally recognized for her kindness, compassion and generosity, as Miss Doub has been regarded as an inspiration to many. Her opportunity to be recognized on an international stage came in early 1923 as she was chosen to present a paper on the importance of art instruction to deaf students at the 23rd Meeting of the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf to be held June 25-30th, 1923 in Canada. This honor in front of a group of peers from across the country, Canada and other countries throughout the world would take place at the Ontario School for the Deaf located in Belleville, Ontario.

​Unfortunately, Floy’s duty to family would take precedent as she had to remain home to care for her dying brother. Cornelius Staley Doub would pass six weeks later in August. Floy would handle the burial arrangements as well as her brother was placed in Area C/Lot 173.

At the onset of this story we mentioned the paper/speech Miss Doub had prepared for the conference. Here is a facsimile of that program.

​Florence herself was getting older, but was just as active as ever. She continued teaching and participation in civic duties such as the women’s suffrage movement. She stayed active in art and all other pursuits until the afternoon of Saturday, January 16th, 1932, when she was felled with a paralytic stroke. Miss Floy rallied that particular Saturday and is said to have apologized to her friends and family around her that evening that her physician had forbidden her to resume her teaching duties for the upcoming week.
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Florence W. Doub would pass in the confines of her life’s home on N. Market Street in the early morning hours of Tuesday, January 19th, 1932.

​As her body was laid to rest with other family members at a very well-attended funeral service, those on hand likely thought that this humble woman’s life work and influence was a much greater masterpiece than any of her single art pieces or associated prizes. A memorial tribute was published by the Frederick Art Club in the form of a pamphlet shortly after her death claims:
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“Though her life was confined to Frederick, she held a wide-ranging view of what constituted art and felt that everyone had some sort of creativity if it could be identified and nurtured.”

Miss Doub's position with the Frederick Art Club would be filled by Miss Helen Smith. The club continues to go strong, now in their 125th year.

(Author's Note: I was unsuccessful in finding Florence W. Doub's middle name. Secondly. I could not find any visuals of Miss Doub's artwork, but am sure that many residents and repositories such as MSD and Hood College have valuable pieces within their collections. Feel free to send me jpgs of her work and I will add these to the story for further enhancement. )

As one of the most risqué titles in my five plus years of writing this humble “Stories in Stone” blog, I can assure you that this week’s offering has nothing to do with Indiana-born, singer-songwriter John Cougar Mellencamp. I simply took poetic license from a song featured on this Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s eighth album entitled Scarecrow—released in the waning months of my senior year of high school (1985). You may recall Mellencamp’s catchy salute to 1960’s music with “R.O.C.K in the U.S.A.,” the third single from the fore-mentioned Scarecrow which reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It followed two other Top 10 songs previously released from the same album in “Lonely Ol’ Night” and “Small Town.” Where did the last 37 years go, as it truly seems like only yesterday, right?

Gravestones come in all shapes and sizes. While some take the shape of the standard rectangle, others have been crafted into ornate obelisks, crosses and beautiful angels placed upon pedestals. This is a far cry from early, or more primitive grave markers still found in family farm burying grounds and remote places once considered on the frontier of American civilization. Here, rocks and boulders were used to memorialize the decedent. Of course, one can find this with surviving graves of native aboriginal peoples and former slaves of the Colonial period.

There are over 40,000 monuments and markers here in Frederick’s historic Mount Olivet. Interestingly, I know of at least two instances in our cemetery where we have large boulders marking gravesites in lieu of traditional tombstones and fancy works carved in marble or granite. Although rustic in appearance, both of these examples are just as artistic and meaningful in their purpose of memorializing their respective decedents.

The first of these can be found in Area E, one of the oldest and most prestigious sections of the cemetery as it constitutes the eastern slope of “Cemetery Hill.” Of course, the symbolic and spiritual aspect of graves facing eastward added to the popularity of this locale, especially at a time long before Costco and the truck stop that predated it. You could view from this vantage point a scenic and pastoral landscape, boasting a rolling countryside south of Frederick Town and dotted with farms and forests surrounding the old Georgetown Turnpike. In time, of course, would come intersecting superhighways in the form of I-70 and I-270, sparking the grand commercialization of Evergreen Point. While beggars can’t, or shouldn’t, be choosy, the baseball field complex (and adjoining parking lot) is a favorable neighbor here as it could be a shopping plaza or the highway itself. Thankfully when these lots were first bought, utilized and visited by immediate family members and those of the next few generations, the location afforded a greater sense of peace and tranquility, but such is growth and progress. A salute to the atmosphere of the 1860s instead of the 1960s as John Mellencamp’s song memorialized.
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A collection of prominent early Frederick families are buried here in Area E with names such as Ross, Worthington, Goldsborough, Johnson, Brengle and Tyler. You’ll also find former subjects of this blog in the personages Margaret School Hood, Elihu Rockwell, Peter Mantz and Dr. Charles McCurdy Mathias. A reminder of earlier times of our “Garden Cemetery” roots, comes with an odd and eye-catching monument found on grave #4 within Area E’s Lot 102. The mortal remains of one Harriet Catherine Hanshew were placed here on October 29th, 1883.

Outside of Academy-Award winning actress Halle Berry, I was unfamiliar with this name and the different spelling utilized upon this rock. This prompted me so to do a little research. On a website entitled ohbabynames.com, I found the following etymology regarding the name Hallie:

“Hallie was in regular usage during the late 1800s and at the turn of the 20th century. It turns out that Hallie is actually a diminutive form of the old-lady name Harriet (much like Hattie). Harriet is actually a female version of Harry which itself is an English diminutive of Henry. Henry is the English form of the German Heinrich meaning “ruler of the home”. Harry is also sometimes considered a short form of Harold which is also Germanic for “ruler of the army." So over 100 years ago when we see Hallie in use, we understand this as an independently given name derived from Harriet. In which case the name would be pronounced HAL-ee instead of HAY-lee (as In Halle Berry). Today, however, Hallie is just another commonplace respelling of Hailey (a tremendously trendy and currently overused female given name). Hailey is derived from an Old English surname meaning “hay clearing” to describe a topographical location. The etymology of Hallie as derived from Harry is much more powerful (meaning “ruler”) so we like this origin better.”

According to our cemetery records, I found 18 decedents with the moniker of Hallie. One of these can be connected to this rock, but may not be under it. Hallie Cecelia Hanshew was born on December 21st, 1841 here in Frederick. She was the daughter of Henry Hanshew (1785-1862) and wife Catherine Susan Stover (1801-1892). Henry was a private in the 1st Regiment of the Maryland Militia from August 25th-Sept 27th, 1814. He served under Captain Henry Steiner and his Artillery detachment. According to the 1850 US Census, the Hanshews can be found living with Mrs. Hanshew’s mother, Margaret (Hauer) Stover. Margaret was a sister to the famed Barbara (Hauer) Fritchie, making Catherine (Hanshew) a niece, and our subject Hallie a grandniece of Frederick’s famous flag-waver. 

Hallie was the ninth of nine children. She and her siblings helped in the family business of skin dressing. Certainly not a glamorous profession, skin dressers are involved with the preparation and dying of furs and skins to make them suitable for the manufacture of clothing. More specifically in our case, the 1860 US census lists Hallie’s dad, Henry Hanshew, as a glove maker, and a neighbor to the Fritchies. He worked with Barbara’s husband, John Caspar Fritchie, also known to be a glove maker.
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In my research, I was only able to uncover two references to Hallie, one in childhood and one in adulthood. The first is from lecture delivered to the Lancaster County Historical Society in the early 20th century. This speech was later published under the title: A Lancaster Girl in History, written by John H. Landis, and published in 1919. Below is the portion of that work which briefly mentions Hallie and a supposed role in the Barbara Fritchie incident of September, 1862:

A second mention regarding Hallie Hanshew came within a biography on Dr. Franklin Buchanan Smith (1856-1912) that can be found in a book entitled Men of Mark in Maryland (Vol. 3), by David H. Carroll and Thomas H. Boggs. The passage from this book, published in 1911, reads as follows:

“Doctor Smith had the advantages of an excellent education. His rudimentary education was received under Miss Hallie Hanshew, niece of Barbara Fritchie. He attended Frederick College, and then went to  Princeton University, where he was graduate in 1876. After deciding to enter the medical profession, he took up his studies in the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania and was graduated in  1878, being one of the three prizemen of that year, i.e., that in Anatomy; and began the practice of his  profession at Frederick in that year, after being substitute resident physician for six months at Blockley  and Presbyterian Hospitals, Philadelphia.”
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This bears witness to the fact that Hallie Hanshew worked as a teacher at the Old Frederick Academy, once located on Council (formerly Counsel) Street in downtown Frederick. Just as she had in life, many of her Courthouse Square neighbors surround her in death here in Area E. I’m assuming Miss Hanshew’s career here at the school took place in the early 1870s, although it is not verified by either the 1870 or 1880 census records.

Hallie was buried in Mount Olivet in the Hanshew lot, however upon further review, I found two stones bearing her name. The first of these is quite peculiar and puzzling. Atop this supposed grave, would be placed a monument that resembles a boulder more than a traditional tombstone. On its face, the carved letters that form “Hallie” look as if they are formed of trees or plants. It’s the only one of its kind in a large Hanshew compound consisting of four lots and boasting 34 individuals surrounding a principal obelisk featuring the family name in the center.

​In studying our cemetery lot cards, I found another grave site accredited to Hallie C. Hanshew. This was immediately to the right of her father’s grave, however it is not pictured on the popular www.Findagrave.com site that we often talk about on in this blog. Perhaps the reason that I missed this stone, along with Findagrave volunteers, lies in the fact that the traditional marble gravestone is down and off its pedestal. It seems to be a straightforward repair, as the pins are still intact to the dye of the monument, but need to be properly fastened back in place and leveled. I did my best to hold up the stone in its upside-down state so I could get a picture. Without additional information, I’m assuming this latter stone marks Hallie’s original gravesite, however, I have no earthly idea about the Hallie boulder stone just up the hill in the Hanshew lot.

​“A Wish Fulfilled”
A much more pronounced boulder memorial than Hallie’s can be found a few hundred yards south in Mount Olivet’s Area Q. Here, under the shade of a large tree at the base of Cemetery Hill, you can find more descendants of the famed Johnson family originally hailing from southern Maryland’s Calvert County. Of particular curiosity is the grave monument of Dr. William H. Johnson’s first-born son, William Channing Johnson (b. 1866) and his wife Laura Fauntleroy Johnson.

​Not a direct descendant of our first governor and local high school namesake Thomas, William Channing Johnson and his father and four siblings found in this cemetery lot are direct descendants of T.J.’s brother, Roger Johnson. Roger Johnson was a major in the American Revolution and had established an early iron furnace in southern Frederick county in the late 1700s at the foot of Sugarloaf Mountain. This operation was located just east of where MD route 28 (Dickerson Road) crosses the Monocacy River. Johnson had built a house in 1812 up the hill to the northeast of this furnace site on this estate he named Rock Hill. Its location can be reached by Dr. Belt Road.

The Rock Hall mansion was built of red and white quartzite rock, also used to build the nearby C&O Canal aqueduct over the Monocacy River and quarried on the property. The oldest section remains stone, and the addition has stucco over stone. Records show the stone mason was paid $550 for building the shell of the house. The home would be owned by Magill Belt a century after its original construction and was among the musings of author William Jarboe Grove in my favorite Frederick heritage-related work entitled: The History of Carrollton Manor (published in 1921). Mr. Grove states in his book:
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“Pig iron from Johnson’s furnace was processed into bar iron, the article of commerce, at the Bloomsbury Forge near Urbana, the two operations being connected by barge along the Monocacy and Bennett Creek, and by Mount Ephraim and mountain roads built by the early enterpriser.”

Roger Johnson’s principal home is still standing about a half mile from Rock Hall. He died in 1835 at the age of 82 and may, or may not, be buried in Mount Olivet. Our records refute this claim, however there is a memorial stone for him here in Area H, supposedly erected at the time of a re-interment around 1915. Roger Johnson was originally buried in a small family cemetery at Bloomsbury, which no longer exists. I mentioned this in a story written back in May of 2017 on Roger Johnson’s grandson, Dr. James Thomas Johnson, Jr. (1828-1899). This gentleman’s father of the same name (Dr. James Thomas Johnson, Sr. (1794-1867)) would inherit Bloomsbury mansion house (on Thurston Road) the principal residence of his father Roger Johnson. James Thomas Johnson, Sr. was the brother of Joseph A. Johnson (1790-1835), the father of the fore-mentioned Dr. William Hilleary Johnson. Joseph would acquire Rock Hall, perhaps at the time of its building.

Dr. William H. Johnson was born in 1827 at Rock Hall and spent a great deal of his adult life in Adamstown. He spent his childhood at Rock Hall, owned today by Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources. The old dwelling has walls that are eighteen inches thick, and the wood-work is in perfect condition.

​After his graduation from the University of Maryland, Dr. William H. Johnson married Laura Brashear in 1860 and, like his brother James Thomas Johnson, served in the Confederate army during the whole period of the war as a physician. At one point, his young family was positioned in Missouri where he was stationed during the Trans-Mississippi campaign. Dr. Johnson continued in the medical profession after the conflict, and for many years was associated with his son Thomas, Jr. at Adamstown.

​The couple had five children, all of whom are buried in Mount Olivet. Mrs. Laura B. Johnson died in 1895, and Dr. Thomas H. Johnson would join her here in 1901. Two years later, an adult daughter, named Laura Brashear for her mother, would be buried next to her parents in Mount Olivet’s Area Q/Lot 243. In time, Laura’s sister, Mary Louisa Johnson, would share the same gravestone upon her death in 1952.

​A few feet away is the final resting place of Anne Elizabeth “Lizzie” Johnson, who had married Robert Moffett. Mrs. Moffett was the mother of four and died in 1917. Behind her grave is that of brother Dr. Thomas Brashear Johnson, Jr., who had a very good reputation as being one of the best surgeons in western Maryland. He passed in 1925 and has an ornate Celtic Cross monument over his grave. Both stones are as artistic as they are beautiful.

​That leaves one remaining stone in this interesting collection of rocks that vary drastically from one another like chocolates in a Whitman sampler. The last monument to talk about is the most unique of all. While it lacks physical beauty, it more than makes up for it in personality. I only know this fact because of a special iron plaque screwed into this boulder’s backside. It begins with a title: “A Wish Fulfilled.” While it differs from every stone in the lot and section, it is one of the most fascinating in all of Mount Olivet. You see, this memorial to Mr. and Mrs. William Channing relates to the family heritage site of Rock Hall in more ways than one. We better understand by perusing the affixed placard.

Mr. William Channing Johnson was born on March 7th, 1866 according to Ancestry.com, although a plaque on his stone gives 1865 as a birthdate. The obituary below from the Frederick Post (Dec 11, 1933) paints a nice picture of the life of William C. Johnson.

William Channing Johnson died on December 10th, 1933 at his home in northwest Washington, DC. His funeral service would be held there. Mr. Johnson's body would be transported to Frederick and placed in the family lot in Area Q. I’d be curious as to the preparation of Mr. Johnson’s burial boulder. Was it in storage for years before his death, or was it gotten at or around his time of passing? Regardless, it was a special “wish” this gentleman had, and was successfully fulfilled. This stone not only represents a special geographical location, but more so a Frederick County familial heritage going back three generations.
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“Rock On!,” as they say!

​About an hour’s drive of Mount Olivet Cemetery is an old graveyard in the northeast corner of Carroll County, just below the Mason-Dixon Line. This hallowed ground began as the burying location for Zion Union Church, formed in 1760, long before the surrounding town of Manchester came into being.
The original log church house is long gone as it served two congregations over its first century of existence—German Reformed and Lutheran. Each group worshiped on alternate Sundays and buried their dead here. New immigrants, many of whom were Germans from Pennsylvania, arrived in the area and caused church membership to grow. This eventually led the two congregations to amicably separate in 1862. 

The Reformed Congregation became the Trinity Reformed Church, today known as the Trinity United Church of Christ. The present building was begun during the Civil War and completed in June of 1864. Located on the corners of York and Church Streets, the steeple is the highest point in Manchester and appears on the town’s logo. The 700-pound bell within the steeple was purchased at a cost of 55 cents a pound and continues to summon people to worship each Sunday. The sound reverberates out across the many grave monuments that pepper the adjoining landscape. One of these belongs to William A. Stultz and his wife, Edna (Wink) Stultz.

​The cemetery is filled with Edna’s Wink family relatives boasting stones of various shapes and designs. In contrast, the Stultz’ final resting place is punctuated with a marker about as plain and simple as a memorial monument can possibly be. It’s a footstone including both decedents’ names, but devoid of birth or death dates. This is a true oddity. The Findagrave.com website does, however, remove some of the vital mystery of this grave plot. It provides Edna’s birth year as 1877, and death year as 1948. William A. Stultz’ year of birth is listed as 1876, but no death year is given.

I question why no one could find Mr. Stultz’s date of death, because I discovered the event as “front-page news,” being highly publicized, and personally eye-witnessed by hundreds of people.

​You see, William A. Stultz became the last person executed at the old Frederick County Jail. The building still stands and is just a few blocks away from Mount Olivet on West South Street. Today, this location serves home to the Frederick Rescue Mission, positioned at 419 West South Street.

​Although William is buried in Manchester, instead of here in Mount Olivet, another individual is proverbially “resting in peace” within our peaceful confines as a result of Stultz’ callous actions. This gentleman was a beloved citizen who worked as one of our early policemen. His name was John Henry Adams. Before I get to “Johnny” Adams, I want to take an opportunity to paint a brief picture of the guilty party who literally “hung his head” through an ill-fated response to law enforcement officers paying a visit to his home at 135 W. 4th Street on August 9th, 1922.

​William Alexander Stultz was born February 6th, 1876. My research is not definitive, but I believe he was born in the Uniontown/Union Bridge area of Carroll County, MD, the son of William Stultz (a laborer and fence-maker) and wife Ann.

​After attending local schools in Carroll County, William seemed to follow in his father’s footsteps as a laborer. He would marry Edna Mae Winks on June 15th, 1899 and can be found living on Westminster’s West Main Street in the 1900 US Census. His parents also lived in Carroll County’s “county seat” at this time. Interestingly, our subject (William) is listed as having the profession of that of a bicycle dealer.

​By 1910, the William A. Stultz family was living in downtown Frederick on W. 4th Street with the addition of two children: Josephine age 7, and Belschner age 6. William’s occupation is shown as that of a plumber and I found several mentions of him being an active member of the Junior Fire Company.

​Nothing much changed throughout the following decade safe for the occurrence of World War I and the Spanish Flu Pandemic. I found William’s draft registration, but he was too old to be drafted at 42. A city commercial directory shows Stultz as a plumber who worked out of his own home, a fact proved again by the 1920 census.

​Somewhere along the way, Mr. Stultz became fascinated with “plumbing” of another kind—that of the items used in the making moonshine. Unfortunately, this would wind up being the death of him.
That leads us to that fateful day in August of 1922. To set the scene, we should jump back a few months to June of that year. William A. Stultz was arrested for bootlegging and fined $200. In lieu of the fine, our subject opted for a 40-day imprisonment.

​One week later, an article in the local newspaper provided information that William and wife Edna were living separately, and the couple’s 17-year-old son, Belschner, had been ordered by a local court to live with his mother in Baltimore while his father was serving his sentence. Signs of impending trouble were certainly in the air as Mr. Stultz would be chastised by court officials for apparently encouraging his son to run away from home (to avoid being sent to Baltimore to live with his mom).

By my calculations, William A. Stultz would have served out his sentence by mid-July. Once released, it appears that he was understandably in dire straits for money, exemplified by him actually serving time instead of paying the assessed $200/fine. While in jail, however, he had no opportunity to make money through his plumbing business, or in any other way. As bills mounted, so did his troubles.
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In early August, a civil judgment of $30 was served to Stultz, resulting from him not paying rent for his home at the corner of Bentz and Fourth streets. Refusal, or inability, to pay this fine led to officers being dispatched to take possession of Stultz’ car on the morning of August 9th, 1922.

Deputy Sheriffs Charles W. Smith and Allen Bartgis paid a visit to Mr. Stultz and informed him of the reason for their visit. Things did not go as planned, as you can probably guess. My friend, and history mentor, John Asbury succinctly picks up the story from here in his book …And all our Yesterdays: A chronicle of Frederick County, Maryland published in 1997:
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“Stultz objected strenuously, perhaps because he had three stills in his house and feared a search of his property. He grabbed a shotgun, and opened fire on the deputies, wounding both with buckshot. A call went out immediately to Frederick City Police for assistance. Officers John Henry Adams, Martin J. Walsh, and James P. Painter answered.

Adams went to the front door and called out to Stultz. Receiving no answer, he kicked in the door, and he and Walsh entered. Stultz opened fire, hitting Adams in the neck. The officer staggered into the street and fell, mortally wounded. Stultz surrendered an hour later, after several more shots were exchanged.”
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The front page of the Frederick News shared details of the tragic event and the subsequent arrest of Stultz.

​In the days and weeks to follow, the papers carried editorials and more details associated with Officer Adams untimely death, funeral, and the plight of his family. Readers also learned of the conviction and steps towards an administration of justice for defendant William A. Stultz.

To give a little more background on the victim, John Henry Adams was born on August 3rd, 1874 in Frederick, the son of Henry Andrew Adams and Margaret (Fishbach). He grew up on North Bentz Street and attended local city schools. He can be found in the 1880 US Census living with his widowed mother and siblings on the east side on North Bentz between Sixth and Seventh streets.

John's father, Henry Andrew Adams, had died tragically earlier in this year while performing his job. He too was a Frederick City policeman, and only 30 years of age.  Apparently he was struck in the back of the head by an assailant who had wrapped a brick in a handkerchief. This info is in our cemetery records but I couldn't locate in newspapers.

​Our records also state that Henry Adams had suffered with heart disease, and this is given as the true cause of death.  Mr. Adams would later succumb to the wounds received from this unfortunate event or the heart disease. Regardless, this loss widowed "Johnny's" mother and took a father away from John and his younger brothers.

​Henry Andrew Adams was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery's Area H/216 on April 26th, 1880. This was two days after his death. His grave site boasts a very nice marble monument, that today includes the names of parents (Andrew and Catherine) and son, Charles who died In October, 1881.

Before I get back to the tragedy that beset Officer Adams, I wanted to share a small sampling of the many newspaper articles that can be found on him in the local papers of the early 20th century. He appears to have started his career in law enforcement around 1913.

​Adams was buried in his family plot in Area Q/Lot 177. I found it interesting to learn that Frederick City mayor Lloyd C. Culler and his Board of Aldermen were listed as the party responsible for handling the arrangements for Officer Adams’ service. John H. Adams would be laid to rest in a plot that contained his first wife Anna “Elizabeth” (Biser) Adams (1879-1916), five-month-old daughter Annabelle Biser Adams (1916), and son Leon Henry Adams (1899-1903). The children’s gravesite is marked with a beautiful cherub monument, a popular style that can also be found elsewhere throughout our cemetery as well.

​At the time of his death, Officer Adams would leave five children and a widow in second wife, Rubie Adams. The town rallied to raise nearly $5,000 to assist this family in need. In the days to follow, it was reported that authorities found three stills belonging to Stultz, and a Grand Jury began a probe which led to a Montgomery County petit jury being recruited to try the defendant for murder.

On August 29th (1922), the Frederick News announced that 11 jurors were impaneled to try William A. Stultz at Rockville in what would be a one-day case. A day later, the 46-year-old defendant would be pronounced guilty and sentenced to death by hanging by a three-judge panel consisting of Hammond Urner, Glenn H. Worthington, and Edward C. Peter. The defendant would be removed to the Frederick County jail to await his execution.

Throughout September and early October, efforts were made to have Stultz pronounced insane and another included the circulation of a petition to have his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment. Neither strategy worked, and the same can be said with a late October order by Maryland governor Albert C. Ritchie calling for an evaluation of Stultz by the State Lunacy Commission.

The death warrant was read to William A. Stultz on October 13th. Defense attorneys held out hope for the chance for a new trial, but this was overruled on November 8th. 

Six of the leading players in the court case and hanging are buried in Mount Olivet. These include: Albert Gannon who drove the defendant to Baltimore in an effort to avoid a possible lynching; two of the court justices who handed down the sentence of death in Hammond Urner and Glen Worthington; Stultz's counsel Sherman P. Bowers;  Sheriff James Alonza Jones who pulled the lever to open the trap door of the gallows; and States Attorney Aaron Anders whom Stultz blamed for not only Adams' death, but also his own.

​On January 1st, 1923, a new state law became effective, mandating all executions be conducted at the Baltimore penitentiary. Meanwhile, the Adams family was initially cared for by the community, however, wife Rubie would re-locate to Sykesville in Carroll County, and shortly thereafter brought suit against the family in order to take up her share of the Adams estate.

​William Stultz’s children were raised into adulthood by their mother, Edna. She would be buried next to William in 1948 completing this sad tale about a plain and lonely grave in Manchester, Maryland.

Meanwhile, here in Mount Olivet, the grave space of John Henry Adams was occupied much sooner than it ever should have been. The same could be said for two of John Henry Adams’ sons who would follow him to the grave shortly thereafter with Marshall Earl Adams (1907-1925) and Leon Maynard Adams (1904-1928). Their final resting places are marked by a simplistic footstone, not unlike that of the man who murdered their father, however, vital dates are included.

​John Henry Adam’s other son, John Quincy Adams (1910-1991), can also be found in Area Q/Lot 177 with his wife Nannie. (Note: Read last week’s “Story in Stone” entitled “Hail to the Chief.”) Officer Adams’ oldest daughter Lulu Ella (1902-1988) can be found in Area FF/Lot 75 with husband Walter Hugh Wills, Sr. His youngest daughter, Margaret Louise (1914-1955), married Harry Lee Wachter and is buried in Area X/Lot 65.

​Lastly, I found the gravesites of Deputy Sheriff Charles W. Smith (1883-1948) and police partner Allen Spencer Bartgis (1887-1962). These were the deputies who came to impound Stultz’s car. I also located the gravesites of Johnny Adams’ colleagues with the Frederick City Police who accompanied the slain officer on that fateful morning. These were James Pascal Painter (1876-1943), and Martin Joseph Walsh (1880-1935), a native New Yorker also shot by Stultz who would go on to serve as Frederick’s chief of police for seven years. Walsh is not in Mount Olivet, but was laid to rest in an old churchyard much like Stultz—Charlesville’s Old Zion Reformed Cemetery, (today known as Faith United Church of Christ Cemetery) located off Opossumtown Pike.

​Unlike Officer John H. Adams, these gentlemen were lucky not to come to Mount Olivet (or Zion Reformed) much sooner thanks to the rage that manifested itself in William A. Stultz in early August, 1922.

Presidents’ Day, officially Washington's Birthday, is a holiday in the United States celebrated on the third Monday of February to honor all persons who served in the office of president of the United States. The federal holiday specifically honors George Washington, who led the Continental Army to victory in the American Revolutionary War, presided at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and was the first president of the United States.

From 1879-1971, Washington's Birthday was celebrated on February 22nd. Thanks to the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, it was moved to the third Monday in February, which can occur from February 15 to the 21st. The day eventually also became known as Presidents' Day and is most often an occasion to remember all United States presidents, or to honor Abraham Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays together.

Twenty-five years before the first observance of the first Presidents’ holiday, Mount Olivet Cemetery opened its gates to burials. This was late May of 1854, interestingly occurring during the presidency of Franklin Pierce. Mr. Pierce, a New Hampshire native, had started his term in March of 1853, beginning what historians regard as a time of apparent tranquility (1853-1857).

The ”presidential” website, Whitehouse.gov, says of our 14th president:

“By pursuing the recommendations of southern advisers, Pierce—a New Englander —hoped to ease the divisions that led eventually to Civil War. But his policies, far from preserving calm, hastened the disruption of the Union.”

I was intrigued to learn that President Pierce came into office with a heavy heart. Just two months before his inauguration, he and his wife saw their 11 year-old son killed before their very eyes when the train they were traveling on wrecked. Grief-stricken, Pierce entered his term in office “nervously exhausted.”

Franklin Pierce was born on November 23rd, 1804 in Hillsboro, New Hampshire in the southern part of the state. Thirty years later, he would marry Jane Means Appleton, a minister’s daughter. Jane Pierce has been described as shy, devoutly religious, and pro-temperance—encouraging Pierce to abstain from alcohol. She was somewhat gaunt, and constantly ill from tuberculosis and psychological ailments. Mrs. Pierce despised politics and especially disliked Washington, DC, creating a tension that would continue throughout Pierce's political rise.

​Sadly, the Pierces were no strangers to death and cemeteries as all three of their offspring died in childhood. Franklin Jr. (1836) succumbed in infancy, while Frank Robert (1839-1843) passed at the age of four from epidemic typhus. The cruelest blow of all was the fore-mentioned death of Benjamin (1841 –1853) in the train accident.

On January 6th, 1853, weeks after his election, the President-elect and his family were traveling from Boston by train when their car derailed and rolled down an embankment near Andover, Massachusetts. Both Franklin and Jane Pierce survived, but their only remaining son, 11-year-old Benjamin, was crushed to death in the wreckage, his body nearly decapitated. Pierce was not able to hide the gruesome sight from his wife. They both suffered severe depression afterward, which likely affected Pierce's performance as president according to historians.

​Franklin Pierce began his presidency in mourning. When he departed New Hampshire for his inauguration, Jane chose not to accompany him. It has been said that she often wondered if the train accident was divine punishment for her husband's pursuit and acceptance of high office. Mrs. Pierce even wrote a lengthy letter of apology to "Benny" for her failings as a mother. She would avoid social functions for much of her first two years as First Lady, making her public debut in that role to great sympathy at the annual public reception held at the White House on New Year's Day, 1855.

Franklin Pierce, then the youngest man ever to be elected president, hailed an era of peace and prosperity at home in his inaugural address, and urged a vigorous assertion of US interests in its foreign relations, including the "eminently important" acquisition of new territories. "The policy of my Administration", said the new president, "will not be deterred by any timid forebodings of evil from expansion." Avoiding the word "slavery", historians believe he emphasized his desire to put the "important subject" to rest, while maintaining a peaceful union. In his inaugural speech, he also alluded to his own personal tragedy, telling the crowd, "You have summoned me in my weakness, you must sustain me by your strength."

​Leaving office in 1857, the Pierces returned home to New England, and spent the next few years traveling the world. Jane would die of tuberculosis in 1863. As for the former president, his health began to decline in mid-1869 and he resumed heavy drinking despite his deteriorating physical condition. Pierce returned to Concord that September, suffering from severe cirrhosis of the liver, knowing he would not recover. A caretaker was hired on his behalf.

In his final days, none of his family members were present. He would die at 4:35 am on Friday, October 8th, 1869, at the age of 64. President Grant declared a day of national mourning, while newspapers across the country carried lengthy front-page stories examining Pierce's colorful and controversial career. Franklin Pierce was interred next to his wife and two of his sons in the Minot enclosure at Concord's Old North Cemetery.

​Looking back, my first encounter with the name Franklin Pierce was the television show M*A*S*H, the comedy-drama that centered on a group of doctors and their respective support staff during the Korean War. The lead character was lovingly known by his nickname "Hawkeye," but his real name was Capt. Benjamin Franklin Pierce. 

Here at Mount Olivet, we have three people reposing on our grounds who were named in honor of President Franklin Pierce. The first born of these was Franklin Pierce Benner (1853-1946). He came into this world on January 1st (1853) just five days before the ill-fated train wreck that claimed his presidential namesake's young son. I found Mr. Benner’s obituary in an old paper, and his gravesite is in Area D/Lot 10.

​I found a second, and third, decedent possessing Franklin Pierce’s name. These are a father and son duo: Franklin Pierce Miller, Sr. (1904-1939) and Franklin Pierce Miller, Jr. (1925-1980). These gentlemen are both buried in Area LL/Lot 197. Mr. Miller, Sr. was taken in the prime of life, as a heart attack apparently felled this popular barber who once practiced his tonsorial trade on N. Market St.

​I read recently that there are plenty of reasons for choosing a particular name for an infant, from honoring a relative to merely liking a sound. In early American history, Puritans often named children after virtues such as Faith,  Patience or Hope. They also utilized family surnames as first names. This eventually expanded to include people who did not have a personal relationship with the parents.

I’ve always been interested in the naming of children after famous people from history. Typically, this occurs in the form of first and middle name preceding a family surname. A while back, I wondered about the most common "historical personage name" found in Mount Olivet? If you guessed  George Washington, you are correct.

We have 35 definitive cases. However, our records show a great number of George “W’s,” thus lending cause to the fact that we possibly may have the  opportunity for up to 103 such instances. By George, I cannot tell a lie—I really didn’t feel like putting in countless hours researching this angle for an exact final number.

“After the Revolution this became a way to honor famous men,” wrote Cleveland K. Evans in the Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming. The author goes on to say, “Presidents like Jefferson and Madison; statesmen like Franklin” and others “provided popular male names.”

​As far as Mount Olivet is concerned, the earliest born individual named for our first president is George Washington Ent, a veteran the War of 1812. He was appointed as a captain of a company in the 16th Regiment of the Maryland Militia on August 1st, 1814. He also served as captain of the Frederick Town Blues Company of Infantry in the 3rd Regiment of the Maryland Militia from August 24th to September 30th, 1814.
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Capt. Ent was born on November 29th, 1777 in Germantown, Pennsylvania, located merely six miles from Philadelphia’s Independence Hall. His life’s journey brought him to Frederick and late in life to western Ohio. He died in early 1856 in Cincinnati. Capt. Ent's body was brought back to Frederick and placed in the Ent vault within the new Lutheran Graveyard--once located near the intersection of East Street and E. Church St. extended, today the site of Everedy Square. His remains would be moved to Mount Olivet in 1906 and buried in Area B/Lot 1. In 2014, Ent's burial site finally received a marker as part of a War of 1812 "Home of the Brave" grant project.

​George Washington Beall was born in mid-April 1801, exactly 16 months after his namesake had died. Beall was part of the prominent family of northwestern Montgomery County.  He lived until 1887 and is buried in Area H/370.

​A familiar name associated with newspapers in Frederick is Delaplaine. Although the spelling on his gravestone differs a bit (likely an error), George Washington Delaplaine was born in 1808 and worked as a miller, as did his brother, Theodore Crist Delaplaine. George's nephew, William T. Delaplaine (1860-1895) was the man who started publishing the Frederick Daily News in 1883.   His obit appeared in this publication in April of 1892. He is buried in Mount Olivet’s Area D/Lot 50.

​This lifelong educator in the public schools and his own church was a resident of Buckeystown. Born  February 29th, 1832, George Washington Blessing was a resident of Buckeystown, located within  Carrollton Manor, an early land grant that appears in name on the Declaration of Independence thanks to one of Gen. George Washington’s compatriots of 1776, fellow Declaration signer Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Charles grandfather (Charles Carroll) supposedly "purchased" the land from native peoples and had the 10,000 initial tract surveyed in 1723.

​Speaking of the Declaration, the famed day of Independence, July 4th, was the birthday of George Washington Pole in the year 1821. Mr. Pole was laid to rest in Mount Olivet’s Area E/Lot 83. He was a member of Maryland’s Constitutional Convention of 1867. He died in 1886.

​Another Carrollton Manor resident with the first and middle names mirroring the moniker of the father of our country is George Washington Padgett. Born in 1812, Padgett was viewed as an outstanding agriculturalist and performed civic duties to his community including a stint as a county commissioner. Mr. Padgett’s final resting place can be found in Area Q/Lot 185.

Born in 1817, George Washington Warfield was a successful dry goods merchant who spent most of his career serving customers along the National Pike. His first shop was in New Market, and he later conducted business in Middletown. He eventually went to Keedysville in Washington County.

​One more “G. W.” to highlight for you is  George Washington Thompson who can be found in Area B/Lot 33. Thompson was a Union soldier in the American Civil War. He served as member of Company C in the 1st Maryland Regiment’s Potomac Home Brigade Infantry. 

​In the United States, presidents have long been seen as exemplars of national values, which made their names particularly meaningful, as they were both familiar and carried positive associations. Frank Nuessel, author of The Study of Names: A Guide to the Principles and Topics, says that sometimes a famous person will have “caught the consciousness of the public, and a lot of people name their children after a famous person hoping that by giving them this name they’ll have some of the characteristics of the person.” In a sense, says Nuessel, it’s sort of like “name magic, by using the name of a famous person, that will rub off on their child.” The idea that a name could provide a link between a newborn and a great man continued at least until the mid-20th century.

I was a little surprised to find only 10 individuals tied to the name of our beloved 16th president, he of copper penny fame—Abraham Lincoln. We have only two instances of people that used Abraham as a first name with Lincoln as a middle name The remaining eight had Lincoln as a middle name.

Other standout presidents, in name only I must add as they come with some baggage, include Andrew Jackson, our 7th president, and Woodrow Wilson (# 28).