Investigating a Ruin, Ocean City Storm, May 1962, A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B498(4)M, MdHS.

“This is the worst disaster in the history of Maryland in my time,” declared Maryland Governor Millard Tawes in March of 1962 as he surveyed the remnants of Ocean City by helicopter following one of the most destructive storms to ever hit the eastern seaboard of the United States. The nor’easter that bombarded the Atlantic coast for five days beginning on March 5 – known variously as the Great Atlantic Storm of 1962, the Storm of the Century, the Five High Storm, the Great March Storm of 1962, and the Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962 – devastated beaches and communities from North Carolina to New York, and caused damage as far north as Maine.

The unexpected and unusually powerful storm was caused by the confluence of two intense pressure systems off the coast and a “spring tide,” which resulted in  record high tides, heavy rains, hurricane force winds, tidal surges, and massive flooding. On Long Beach Island, New Jersey more than 80 percent of the structures were damaged or entirely destroyed. Waves over 40 feet in height were recorded at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware and off New York City. The U.S. destroyer Monssen, which was being towed along the New Jersey coast, was run aground. Over the course of five days, the storm claimed more than 30 lives, left more than 1200 others injured, caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, and left countless homeless.

For the some 1500 residents of Ocean City, the storm was a nightmare. On the evening of March 5, residents were taking shelter from what they thought was a typical nor’easter, which generally move through an area fairly quickly. But this storm proved unique – it remained parked off the coast for some 36 hours.  By the end of Tuesday, the winds had picked up and the protective dunes had been washed away by the first of what would be five high tides over the duration of the storm. At the storm’s peak on March 7 – Ash Wednesday –  the high tides were nearly nine and a half feet above average low tide. (In comparison, the highest tides of the powerful hurricane that hit Ocean City in 1933 were just over seven feet.)

Along with the high tides came a continuous hard rain, 60 mile an hour winds, and 25 foot waves – Ocean City was soon torn apart. Cars were buried in up to five feet of sand. Houses were ripped away from their foundations and into the sea. Up to eight feet of sand was washed from the beaches in some areas. More than 350 businesses and residences were damaged, with 50 establishments completely leveled. Assateague Island, the slender 37 mile barrier island that stretches from the southern tip of Ocean City into Virginia, along with Chincoteague Island in Virgina, were completely submerged by the storm surges.

On March 7, the first of the National Guard units arrived on the scene to help with the rescue and cleanup operations and also to prevent the possibility of looting. They set up headquarters in the Ocean City Elementary School. The townspeople also rallied to help their neighbors reach safety. An ad hoc network of CB radio hobbyists helped coordinate rescue efforts, communicating with rescue volunteers and sending out messages to trapped residents directing them to hang white sheets from their windows as signals. Most of the residents were evacuated by Wednesday evening. Many of those whose houses were not entirely swept away returned home to find their furniture gone and their living rooms and kitchens completely submerged.

Despite the utter destruction, the town made a quick recovery through the determination and hardwork of residents, volunteers workers, and state and federal agencies. On Memorial Day, less than three months after the disaster, Ocean City was open for business.

The repercussions of the ’62 storm are still evident today. Like the 1933 hurricane, which refashioned Ocean City into a major Atlantic fishing port, the storm that hit in 1962 had far reaching consequences, ushering in a period of rapid expansion that turned the town into the vacation destination that today sees more than 8 million annual visitors. It also simultaneously led to an increased public awareness about the environment.

In 1964, the Citizens Committee for the Preservation of Assateague Island was formed to garner support for the establishment of Assateague Island as a National Park.
Flyer, Citizens Committee for the Preservation of Assateague Island Papers, MS 38, MdHS.

Prior to the storm, plans had been in place to build a private resort community on Assateague Island. In the 1950s, a group of investors from Baltimore and Washington, DC purchased a 15 mile stretch of the island with designs for a resort community to be called “Ocean Beach.” By the early 1960s, 5850 lots had been sold, although only 30 buildings were ever actually built, along with one paved road dubbed “Baltimore Boulevard.” The storm washed out most of the road and wiped out nearly all of the houses, and along with them, any further plans for development. In 1965, after three years of Congressional deliberations and renewed pressure by private developers to acquire the land, the U.S. Congress passed an act establishing the Maryland section of the island as the Assateague Island National Seashore.

On a lighter note, without the storm, a sequel to one of Maryland’s most celebrated children’s books may not have been written. In 1947, Wisconsin born author Marguerite Henry penned her Newbery Honored book, Misty of Chincoteague. The book relates the semi-fictional tale of Misty, a wild horse raised on Chincoteague Island by a local family, the Beebes. During the storm of 1962, the real Misty was forced to wait out the storm in the family’s kitchen after her barn was flooded. A few days after the storm, the horse gave birth to a foal, which the Beebes named Stormy. The following year, Marguerite Henry wrote  Stormy, Misty’s Foal, the third in a series of books about the wild horses of Assateague. (Damon Talbot)

Click on the slideshow below to see more photographs of the aftermath of the storm taken by A. Aubrey Bodine.

Guard in tilted house, Ocean City Storm, May 1962, A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B498(4)N, MdHS.

Submerged Auto, Ocean City, March 6-7, 1962, A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B498(2)G, MdHS.

Flattened Cottage, Ocean City Storm, May 1962, A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B498(4)C, MdHS.

Interior Damage, Ocean City Storm, March 6-7, 1962, A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B498(2)LL, MdHS.

House Upset, Ocean City Storm, May 1962, A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B498(4)G, MdHS.

Crowd, Ocean City Storm, March 6-7, 1962, A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B498(4)QQ, MdHS.

Guard by upended building, Ocean City Storm, May 1962, A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B498(4)K, MdHS.

Emergency furniture, Ocean City Storm, March 6-7, 1962, A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B498(2)T, MdHS.

Emergency Housing, Ocean City Storm, March 6-7, 1962, A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B498(2)Y, MdHS.

Investigating a Ruin, Ocean City Storm, May 1962, A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B498(4)M, MdHS.

Sources and Further Reading:

Avedissian, Eric, “The March Storm of 1962″, Ocean City Sentinel, February 29, 2012.

Citizens Committee for the Preservation of Assateague Island Papers, 1964-1965, MS 38, MdHS

Corddry, Mary, City on the Sand: Ocean City, Maryland, and the People Who Built It (Tidewater Publishers: Centreville, Md, 1991)

Dance, Scott, “50 years ago Ocean City was washing away,” The Baltimore Sun, March 5, 2012.

History of Misty of Chincoteague

National Park Service – History of Assateague

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – The Greatest Storms of the Century in the Greater Washington-Baltimore Region

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/lwx/Historic_Events/StormsOfCentury.html

Salvini, Emil R., “The Great Atlantic Storm of 1962,” NJTVOnline, March 6, 2012.

Samenow, Jason, “Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962: 50 Year Anniversary,” The Washington Post blog, March 6, 2012.

http://www.njtvonline.org/njtoday/2012/03/06/the-great-atlantic-storm-of-1962/

Maryland’s most famous witch: The Blair Witch… on VHS. The Blair Witch Project & The Curse of the Blair Witch, Moving Image Collection, MdHS.

The perilous waters of the Atlantic Ocean condemned Maryland’s first witch. The Charity of London set sail for the New World in 1654 from England with her crew and small group of passengers looking to settle the new colony. Mary Lee was one such passenger, but she never set foot on Maryland’s shores.

Travelers knew that the trip across the ocean was a dangerous endeavor, but this crossing proved particularly hazardous. Choppy seas and violent winds plagued the Charity of London’s journey from the start. An attempt to make land in Bermuda had failed due to crosswinds, “and the Ship grew daily more leaky almost to desperation and the Chiefe Seamen often declared their Resolution of Leaving her if an opportunity offered it Self….”(1) The passengers and crew grew more agitated as the ship weakened and the weather refused to yield. Rumor took hold amongst the crew that a witch had conjured the storms. Father Francis Fitzherbert, a Jesuit traveling to Maryland aboard the Charity, recalled the sailors reasoning that the foul weather “was not on account of the violence of the ship or atmosphere, but the malevolence of witches.”(2)

The sailors decided that Mary Lee was that witch and petitioned the captain to put the woman on trial. The storms delayed the proceedings, so two seamen decided to take matters into their own hands. They seized Lee and searched her body for the Devil’s markings. They found a damning mark—a protruding teat from which the Devil and his familiars could supposedly feed—a well-known sign of witchcraft at the time. She was subsequently hanged and her corpse and belongings dumped overboard. The Charity landed in St. Mary’s City, Maryland worse for wear but in one piece and without a witch.

Accounts of witchcraft, such as the story of Mary Lee, were common in the 17th century. An anti-witch hysteria had recently swept across Europe, and the English crown enacted several statutes criminalizing sorcery. The Devil and black magic were real and present dangers in everyday life, and witches could summon that dark power with the mere mumbling of a curse.

These old world superstitions and religious convictions immigrated with the colonists. Witchcraft left an indelible mark on Maryland’s early court cases and became embedded in local folklore. Maryland never saw witch hunts on the scale of Salem, Massachusetts, but men and women alike were accused and convicted of witchcraft. Sources vary on the exact number of prosecutions, but only about 12 people were brought to trial over a hundred year period, compared to 19 executed in Salem in 1692 alone.

Text from Violl’s trial documents. Notice that she was “seduced by the devill wickedly & diabolically….” “Witchcraft, trials for, in Maryland. [manuscript] : Document, 1702/3 1712,” MS 2018, MdHS. (Click to enlarge.)

Accusations of witchcraft often arose from town disputes. These cases typically unfolded in the same manner. An argument would erupt between neighbors, and shortly thereafter one of the begrudged would fall mysteriously ill or his or her chickens would be suspiciously killed one night. Such is the story of the last witch ever tried in Maryland—Virtue Violl of Talbot County. Violl found herself on trial in 1715 in Annapolis after a quarrel with a fellow spinster, Elinor Moore. Moore accused Violl of cursing her tongue, which rendered her unable to speak. The jury however was not convinced of her guilt and acquitted her of all charges. Falsely accused witches were not without recompense. They could sue for defamation of character, and a few were awarded damages, which was often a few hundred pounds of tobacco.

Moll Dyer Rock, not dated. (not part of MdHS collection)

While few witches met their untimely end in Maryland, local folklore is rife with legends of evil sorceresses and superstitious antidotes for bewitchments. Glass bottles containing sharp objects, such as pins, and urine were buried under the entrance of a home to prevent a witch from entering the property or cursing its inhabitants. These so-called witch bottles have been unearthed in archaeological digs across the state. The urine “was the most important ingredient in witch bottles, as it is the agent with which the spell is turned back upon the witch.”(4) They were also buried upside down to reverse the black magic. Another trick to keep witches at bay was to place a broomstick across the threshold of a home’s entrance. A witch supposedly could not exit the dwelling without counting the broom’s bristles, thus revealing his or her identity.

Many tales of witches have surfaced over the years. Each county seems to have its own wicked woman who tortured the innocent townspeople and met a gruesome death for it. The legend of Moll Dyer out of Leonardtown in St. Mary’s County has endured the centuries. The details of Dyer’s story have changed and been embellished over time, but all accounts agree that in February of 1697 she was chased from her home by torch-bearing townsfolk. She fled into the woods where she froze to death after cursing the town. Dyer died kneeling upon a rock, which still bears the imprint of her hands and knees and can be viewed in front of Leondardtown’s circuit courthouse.

The dreaded book on display at MdHS. “The Blair Witch Cult,” blairwitch.com

No story about witchcraft in Maryland would be complete without mentioning the Blair Witch. The Blair Witch, Elly Kedward, terrorized the town of Blair, now Burkittsville, during the late 1700’s and was executed for her crimes. The following year, her accusers as well as many of the town’s children disappeared without explanation, and as a result the town was abandoned. Other weird happenings continue to plague the area and are attributed to the restless spirit of Kedward. The frightening occurrences culminated with the disappearance of three student filmmakers who visited the town to investigate the haunting. The footage found from their exploit was released as the film, The Blair Witch Project.

The legend of Kedward and the associated murders was, of course, pure fabrication. The Blair Witch Project holds a special place in our hearts here at the library, because of a connection, albeit false, to our collection. The film claimed that The Blair Witch Cult, a book published in 1809 which recounted the tale of the town doomed by Kedward’s curse, was held at MdHS and even featured in a exhibit. The movie’s website points out that the book was returned to private hands before the film was released but that didn’t stop curious moviegoers from inquiring about the dreaded book. Our wonderful reference librarian, Francis O’Neill,  fielded phone calls about the fictitious tome from all over the country and even from as far away as Belarus for many years after the movie came out. Each time, he would kindly and dutifully explain that book was entirely made up for the movie and never resided in our library. The movie itself is now a part of our growing Maryland-related film collection, along the films of John Waters and other local filmmakers. But please for Mr. O’Neill’s sanity, please don’t call about the Blair Witch! (Lara Westwood)

 Sources and Further Reading:

(1):Alison Games, Witchcraft in Early North America (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010) 133.

(2): William H. Cooke, “The Maryland Witch Trials.”

(3): Francis Neal Parke, “Witchcraft in Maryland,” Maryland Historical Magazine 31 (1936):283.

(4):Rebecca Morehouse, “Witch Bottle.”

“Witchcraft, trials for, in Maryland. [manuscript] : Document, 1702/3 1712,”  MS 2018, MdHS.

One of Maryland’s most famous ice cream brands: Hendlers Creamery. Moses Advertising: Hendlers sign, Hughes Studio, 1955, PP30-225F-55, MdHS.

July in Maryland can be truly miserable. The temperature sizzles at over 100 degrees for days on end. Humidity weighs down the most ardent of breezes. Luckily for the sweaty masses, July is also National Ice Cream Month. So in honor of the vaunted occasion, here’s the scoop on the history of the frosty treat in Maryland.

Ice cream has always been a favorite summertime treat for Marylanders. Ice cream companies grew out of dairy businesses located across the state, and the country’s first ice cream factory was opened in Baltimore in 1851 by Jacob Fussell.

Fussell peddled dairy products in the city, but often found himself left with a surplus of cream.  Instead of letting the leftovers go to waste, he decided to make ice cream with it. He began to sell ice cream for 25 cents per quart, and Baltimoreans gobbled up his decadent yet inexpensive product. Ever the enterprising businessman, Fussell’s success inspired him to produce the sweet stuff on a commercial level. He founded the very first production facility at the intersection of Hillen and Exeter Streets in Baltimore and Maryland’s ice cream industry was born.*

One of Maryland’s most famous ice cream scions, Lionel Manuel Hendler, seized upon a similar opportunity when he founded Hendler Creamery Company in Baltimore. Hendler learned the dairy business from his father Isaac by working at the family-owned dairy store in East Baltimore, where he saw firsthand the popularity of ice cream. In 1905, at the young age of twenty, he decided to go into the ice cream business on his own and teamed with Louis Miller. The partners made the ice cream in the basement of Miller’s home and sold it to local stores. The product was a hit, and they soon moved production out of Miller’s house to a larger facility on Lloyd Street in East Baltimore. The business relationship between Hendler and Miller eventually fizzled, and in 1907, Hendler bought out Miller.

Hendler Creamery Co. building at 1100 East Baltimore Street. American Sugar Refinery, Domino Sugar tank truck, Hughes Company, 1955, PP30-144-51, MdHS.

Under Hendler’s tutelage, the ice cream company quickly outgrew the production capability at the Lloyd Street plant. In 1912, Hendler purchased a grand brick building at 1100 East Baltimore Street to serve as the company’s new headquarters. The Richardsonian Romanesque building, built in 1891, located near Baltimore’s Shot Tower, had many other lives before being converted into an ice cream factory. It had first been home to a powerhouse for the Baltimore City Passenger Railway Company, the oldest streetcar system in the city. When the streetcar company joined with the United Railways and Electric Company, it continued to operate as a powerhouse and trouble station.

The streetcar company eventually sold the building to the American Amusement Company, when the cable and pulley system that operated the streetcars was replaced with electricity. Architect Jackson C. Gott transformed the building into a lavish theater that could seat 2,000 people. The Convention Hall, as it came to be called, ran a variety of entertainments, including exhibitions, vaudeville acts, and theatrical performances. Carl Hagenbeck’s circus performed for a period of time at the Hall, spurring his rival Frank Bostock to bring his own show to the city as well.

The building changed hands several times over the next few years, though it remained a theater, operating under the names the Bijou Theatre, Baltimore Theatre, and the Princess Theatre. Vaudeville, operas, theatrical plays, silent films were all played and performed at the location. Its years as a Yiddish language theater, appealing to East Baltimore’s significant and growing Jewish population, proved the most successful, but even that was short lived. Only the Hendlers Creamery would stay in the building for more than just a few years. In fact, it served as an ice cream production plant until the 1980’s.

From its new headquarters on Baltimore Street, Hendlers ice cream grew into an iconic brand. Horse-drawn wagons delivered the frosty confection for many years until they were replaced by a fleet of trucks. After the switch, some of the horses remained loyal employees. Hendler’s son, Albert, recalled the return of one such horse, “We had sold some of our horses to Western Maryland Dairy. One afternoon in comes one of them pulling a wagon loaded with milk. It had come home. (1)”

Ice cream truck drawn by horse–Hendler Creamery, Hughes Company, 1941, PP30-54226, MdHS

Refrigerated delivery trucks further expanded the business. The trucks could be spotted crisscrossing the state, delivering ice cream to more and more stores. They were emblazoned with the slogans: “The Velvet Kind” and “Take home a brick.” The angelic, little kewpie became the symbol of the brand, and advertisements featured the chubby cherub enjoying a bowl of Hendler’s ice cream. The ice cream was virtually everywhere in Maryland, as it was distributed to over 400 stores at the company’s peak, which kept the production lines humming. The factory ran six days a week with vanilla ice cream being made almost everyday.

Vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry were production mainstays, but the creamery dabbled in more exotic flavors as well. Hutzler’s department store sold several varieties, including ginger and peppermint. For the Southern Hotel, Hendlers supplied a tomato sorbet which was served as a side dish rather than dessert. The eggnog ice cream produced each year at Christmastime, which  Hendler made with real rum, was a major hit. The factory also cranked out other holiday-themed products, such as an Independence Day treat made with vanilla, strawberry, and blueberry ice creams and a Mother’s Day cake topped with a silk screen of James McNeill Whistler’s portrait of his mother.

With all of the inventive flavors being churned out at his company, one would have expected Hendler himself to be a great lover of ice cream. But, this wasn’t the case, as his son Albert recounted: “As a child I remember Dad bringing home each day a couple of pints of ice cream of different flavors….Since he wasn’t a big ice cream eater, we’d do the tasting for him, and if a flavor wasn’t up to par we’d let him know in no uncertain terms. Someone was sure to catch hell the next day.(2)”

Hendler’s true passion lay in innovating and improving sanitation in the food production industry. The factory at Baltimore Street was fully automated. He invented and patented several machines that limited human contact with the product and developed one of the first air conditioning systems to keep the building cool. The delivery horses and their stable brought unwanted pests into the factory which forced him to close off the building. This caused the plant to be too hot in the summer, so he devised a system that cooled the place by pushing air through ducts, thus creating rudimentary air conditioning. He also used only tuberculosis-free or pasteurized milk from the earliest days of the business to prevent the passage of bovine tuberculosis through his product, which at the time was an uncommon practice.

Hendler discovered that success has a price when he and his family became a target of criminals. Several extortion attempts were made to scare Hendler out of some of his fortune. On one occasion he received a note which threatened, “We will not try to kidnap you or your son; a few bullets from a passing automobile into your or your son’s car is one way of paying our unsatisfactory business debts. It will also serve as an example in our remaining business matters with our clients in Baltimore and Washington….(3)”

Most of these attempts were thwarted, but in 1932 three men succeeded in kidnapping young Albert. The kidnappers planned to extort $30,000 for his safe return. Hyman Goldfinger, Samuel Max Lipsizt, and Harry Surasky snatched Albert after a school dance at Johns Hopkins University, where he was a junior. Albert was blindfolded and driven to a house in Anne Arundel County, where the kidnappers questioned him about the possibility of securing a ransom for his release. Albert’s noncommittal answers gave the men cause for worry that they would not get any money after all. They began to argue about their next move. Goldfinger suggested that they kill the young man, convinced that their identities had been compromised, but the others didn’t want to escalate the situation. Surasky recalled the event at his trial: “[Goldfinger] insisted at first on choking him and then he took out his gun and wanted to blow his brains out. He already had his gun right near Hendler’s temple.”(4) They eventually decided to free Albert, so they dropped him off at the Hanover Street bridge. They took all the money he had in his pockets, but then reconsidered and gave him back a dollar for cab fare to get home.

Albert returned home shaken but relatively unharmed. He decided against reporting the incident to the police or his family. The kidnappers could have stopped there, but they decided to push their luck once again. Lipstiz sent a note demanding that Hendler send $7,500 to an address in New York City. Hendler agreed to do so but could not wire the cash, because of the Good Friday holiday. A second letter arrived with same stipulation, but the police were already on the case. He was apprehended, which led to arrest of his cohorts, all of which were sentenced to lengthy prison sentences.

These events did not derail the Hendler family or the ice cream business. The Hendler Creamery Company continued to grow, and in 1929, the Borden Company purchased the company. It continued to operate under the Hendlers Creamery name until the late 1960′s. Hendlers, and later Borden’s, ice cream became household staples, known for its thick and creamy texture and wide variety of flavors.

*Some suggest that Fussell actually founded the first ice cream factory in Seven Valleys, Pennsylvania. This does not appear to be true, because the York County town did not yet exist when Fussell began his business. He purchased milk from the local dairy farmers, which he had shipped to Baltimore via railroad. Fussell did own some land in the area, but he never built on the site.

Sources and Further Reading:

(1), (2): Albert Hendler and Amalie Ascher, “Ice Cream Days: Even Before Albert Hendler Started Working at the Plant, He Got a Taste of the Business at Home,” Baltimore Sun, July 26, 1981.

(3): Frederick M. Rasmussen, “Exhibit recalls Hendler kidnapping of 1933: Hopkins student and son of Baltimore creamery owner was freed unharmed after a day,” Baltimore Sun, June 20, 2013.

(4): “Suraksy Found Guilty in Hendler Plot,” Baltimore Sun, May 23, 1933.

Mary Bellis, “The History of Streetcars-Cable Cars.”

Edward N. Dodge, ed., “Hendler, L. Manuel,” in Encyclopedia of American Biography, Vol. XXXIII (New York: The American Historical Company, Inc., 1965), 403-405.

Charles Glatfelter, “Seven Valleys ice cream claims melt under scrutiny,” York Daily Record/York Sunday News, August 17, 2012.

Robert K. Headley, Motion Picture Exhibition in Baltimore (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 2006), 247-248.

Brennan Jensen, “I Scream, You Scream,” City Paper, April 29, 1998.

Jewish Museum of Maryland, Hendler’s Creamery Collection, MS 147.

Maryland Historical Trust, Hendler Creamery.

Gilbert Sandler, “Hendler’s: The Man, the Legend, the Ice Cream,” in Jewish Baltimore (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 87-89.

Since the film discovery came late, we didn’t have enough time to digitize it and add it to the previous post. This week it gets our full attention. The chilling footage captures the destruction and offers a view of the city most living Marylanders have never seen.

We initially suspected the footage was somehow affiliated with Stark Films, a bygone local production house. The addition of title cards to the homemade footage suggested a professional touch and, since MdHS holds a number of the company’s reels, it seemed a reasonable guess. We have since learned from newly found provenance records that the film was shot by S. Watts Smyth of St. Louis, Missouri, who may have had editing experience or at least access to a production house.

According to Bunny Connell, daughter of S. Watts Smyth, the family “spent each summer in Ocean City from 1926-’33.” Until 1933, the family made the more than 900-mile journey by train from St. Louis. However that August, they made the 15-hour drive in their new Cadillac LaSalle. This was the Smyth’s last summer spent in Ocean City before moving to Wyoming. Connell entrusted the film to MdHS in 1987.

This clip has been edited down to two minutes from the 11-minute original. To view the complete film or for more information about using or licensing it, please contact  specialcollections@mdhs.org

If you’d like to read some background about the storm check out the references in our previous post or read the following article from the Baltimore Sun. You can also read about a similarly destructive storm that hit Ocean City in 1962 that had it’s own historic repercussions for the vacation town.  Enjoy! (Eben Dennis and Joe Tropea)

These people were having more fun than you are right now.
(click to enlarge)
Beach Scene, Ocean City, Md, Robert Kniesche, not dated, PP79.754, MdHS

How does the small underbelly editorial team cope with colleagues traveling to the beach, mountains, and parts unknown while we’re stuck here running the blog and tending to our many other duties? We travel vicariously through photographs and post cards! While real beach-goers are dealing with staggering crowds, the oppressive sun, crawling traffic, and marching through a sea of sticky popsicle wrappers on the way to the boardwalk, we’ll stay here in the air-conditioned library and take a little trip back in time…we really need a vacation.

For this week’s post we’ve decided to write the definitive history of Maryland’s favorite vacation spot, Ocean City. Not really…but please enjoy the slideshow of postcards below and a brief tale of the storm that altered the course of the city that, during the summer months, becomes Maryland’s second most populated town. (For those interested in Ocean City’s rich history,  please visit here or here. For further research, readers can check out Ocean City (volumes 1 and 2) by Nan Devincent-Hayes and John E. Jacob or City on the Sand by Mary Corddry.)

Greetings from Ocean City, Md, 1943, Postcard Collection, MdHS.

The Atlantic Hotel. The first Atlantic Hotel opened on July 4, 1875, regarded as the founding day of Ocean City. Located on Wicomico Street, it was destroyed by fire in 1925. The hotel was rebuilt in 1927 and still stands today. The New Atlantic Hotel, ca 1940s, Postcard Collection, MdHS.

Board Walk showing Atlantic Hotel and Pier, Ocean City, Md., ca 1940s, Postcard Collection, MdHS.

Boardwalk and Beach and Cottage Line, Ocean City, Md, ca 1940s, Postcard Collection, MdHS.

Ocean City Pier and Boardwalk, Ocean City, Md, ca 1940s, Postcard Collection, MdHS.

Bathing hour on the beach, Ocean City, Md, ca 1940s, Postcard Collection, MdHS.

Originally called the Ocean City Life-Saving Station, the United States Coast Guard Station was built in 1891 by the U.S. Treasury Department for “the saving of vessels in distress and lives in peril upon the water.” In 1915 the U.S. Coast Guard took over the operations of the building until moving to a new facility in 1964. The building was relocated to its present location at 813 South Boardwalk in 1978 and converted to a museum. United States Coast Guard Station, ca 1940s, Ocean City, MD. Postcard Collection, MdHS.

Air View of Ocean City, Md., looking north from Inlet, 1947, Postcard Collection, MdHS.

Greetings from Ocean City, Md, 1947, Postcard Collection, MdHS.

Greetings from Ocean City, Maryland, 1944, Postcard Collection, MdHS.

One of the defining events in the history of the self-proclaimed “White Marlin Capital of the World” is the great storm of 1933, captured by A. Aubrey Bodine in the images below. On August 22 after four days of saturating rain, heavy winds picked up, battering the boardwalk, pummeling the city with large waves, and destroying the town’s railroad bridge and fishing camps. The storm’s greatest and most lasting impact was a 50-foot wide, 8-foot deep  inlet, that was carved through the barrier island by a  continuous four day ebb tide, flowing from the bay out to the ocean. Three entire streets were submerged at the south end of the town.

Ironically, the resulting scar connecting the ocean to the sheltered bay was exactly what turned Ocean City into the ideal port for fisherman and caused it to flourish as a vacation spot. In fact, for several years prior to the storm, Senator Millard E. Tydings had been fighting to get funding for a man-made canal five miles south of Ocean City. His hope was that the bay side would provide a calm harbor for up to 1,000 fishing boats which could easily access the Atlantic, and from there the markets of Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. Though the storm caused approximately $850,000 of damage, the main discussion in the immediate aftermath revolved around appropriations for constructing seawalls to make the canal permanent. Within two years $781,000 was spent on concrete to stabilize the inlet. Not only did these seawalls keep sand from the channel, but they diverted it towards the beaches, greatly expanding their size and making the boardwalk even with ground level.

This inlet made Ocean City the state’s only Atlantic port. The resulting commercial and sport fishing boom greatly shaped the character of the Ocean City we know today, as vacationers content with more modest accommodations flocked in large numbers to crab and fish, and dozens of hotels and restaurants sprang up to meet their needs. (Eben Dennis and Damon Talbot)

Ocean City, MD. View of the damage after the hurricane of 1933, A. Aubrey Bodine, 1933, MC8230-A, MdHS.

Ocean City, MD. View of the damage after the hurricane of 1933, A Aubrey Bodine, 1933, MC8230-E, MdHS.

Ocean City, Md. View of the damage after the hurricane of 1933, A. Aubrey Bodine, 1933, MC8230-C, MdHS.

Ocean City, Md. View of the damage after the hurricane of 1933, A. Aubrey Bodine, 1933, MC8230-D, MdHS.

Sources and further reading:

Corddry, Mary, City on the Sand: Ocean City Maryland and the People Who Built It (Centerville, MD: Tidewater, 1991)

DeVincent-Hayes, Nan & Jacob, John E., Ocean City- Volumes 1 and 2  (Charleston: Arcadia, 1999)

Ocean City Life-Saving Museum

This detail is taken from an invitation to the National Inauguration Ball on March 4, 1865. Political Ephemera – Series R, MdHS.

On Monday, May 13, the FBI and NARA returned twenty-one of the documents stolen from the Maryland Historical Society Library on June 15, 2011.* Among the invitations and announcements were several pieces of political ephemera, including tickets to President Andrew Johnson’s congressional impeachment trial in the spring of 1868.

Johnson (1808–1875), seventeenth president of the United States, rose to the nation’s highest office following Abraham Lincoln’s assassination on April 14, 1865. In the uncertain aftermath of the Civil War, when the complicated issue of what to do with the former Confederacy loomed, three questions demanded resolution. On what terms should the defeated states be readmitted to the Union? Who should set the terms, the president or Congress? What should be the role of blacks in the political and social life of the South?

The national debate over reconstruction had begun during the war with Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan that offered pardons to all southerners, except Confederate leaders, who took an Oath of Allegiance to the Union and supported emancipation. When ten percent of a state’s voters had taken the oath, they could draft a new state government. Designed to weaken the Confederacy, the plan also spoke to Lincoln’s commitment to ultimately restoring the Union, “a fledgling republic in a world of monarchs, tyrants, and kings.” The radical Republican faction deemed the plan too lenient and called for harsher terms. Maryland’s Henry Winter Davis and Ohio’s Benjamin Wade introduced the Wade-Davis bill, by which readmission would be delayed until a majority of southern voters had taken the oath. Some believed that equal rights for former slaves must be part of the plan.

Would Johnson follow Lincoln’s restoration plan or, declaring his contempt for traitors, support the more radical proposal? During his first month as president, with Congress out of session, Johnson issued a series of proclamations, including pardons for all southern whites (except Confederate leaders and wealthy planters). Beyond abolishing slavery, he established no rights or protections for the newly freed black population who quickly fell under the control of local authorities—nor did former slaves have any voice in politics.

Tensions escalated between the president and Congress, culminating in 1867 with the Tenure of Office Act, a congressional attempt to curtail Johnson’s power. Congress had drafted the Reconstruction Acts, dividing the South into five military districts, actions that Johnson bitterly opposed. He could have blocked that power by removing radically inclined appointees, specifically Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, and replacing them with more moderate advisors. The president did attempt to remove Stanton and replace him with a “secretary ad interim,” a clear violation of the act, and the House of Representatives immediately passed a resolution of impeachment. Johnson’s opponents failed to gather the two-thirds votes for conviction and the Senate acquitted him by one vote. Why? How did Andrew Johnson remain in office?

The hatch marks for yay and nay are visible on the back of this impeachment ticket. The W-2 penciled on the bottom right was written by Jason Savedoff, the second of the two thieves. It stood for “Weasel 2.” Barry Landau referred to himself as “Weasel 1.” Political Ephemera – Series R, MdHS.

The answer rests on the fact that Johnson had no vice president. So who would be the next president of the United States? Per the constitution, next in the line of succession was the President pro-Tempore of the Senate, and Ohio’s Benjamin Wade, Radical Republican and co-architect of the Wade Davis bill held that position. In that all-so-close vote, after hearings and a trial that lasted two-and-a-half months, the nation’s leaders acquitted Johnson, the majority believing it better to endure a few more months with the president than hand Wade the White House. Also an election year, Johnson’s enemies knew the politically battered president would not seek another term.**

Admission to Johnson’s impeachment was by ticket only, different colors for each day of the proceedings. The ticket pictured here shows the hatch marks an unknown spectator recorded on the final day of the proceedings, the yays and the nays carefully drawn—145 years ago this week.

And although we do not know who carried the ticket to Washington we are grateful that its owner saved this little eyewitness souvenir. Its return has prompted an interest in the turbulent post-war years and also raised the question of exactly how many impeachment tickets are in the MdHS collection.*** (Patricia Dockman Anderson)

Dr. Patricia Dockman Anderson specializes in U.S and Maryland History, Nineteenth Century; Social and Cultural History; Catholic History; and Civil War Civilians. She has served as a member of the History Advisory Council for the Women’s Industrial Exchange, the Baltimore History Writers Group, and the Maryland War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission. Dr. Anderson is the Director of Publications and Library Services for the Maryland Historical Society, editor of the Maryland Historical Magazine, and a professor at Towson University.

Each distinctively colored ticket to the impeachment proceedings represented a different day of the spectacle. Political Ephemera – Series R, MdHS.

* The remaining 138 documents will be returned later this year. Special Collections archivists caught Barry Landau and Jason Savedoff when they returned for a second hit less than a month later. The thieves are currently serving time in federal prison. We thank the Baltimore City Police, the FBI, NARA Investigators, and the U.S. Attorney’s office for their commitment to this case.

** The definitive work on Reconstruction remains Eric Foner’s Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (2003, New York: Harper Collins, 1988)

*** Check back later this summer for a follow-up post answering this question.

Jessie Key Habersham, circa 1910, MdHS, MS 1906.

In 1904, Baltimore was buzzing with scandal – Jessie Key Habersham had disappeared again. This was not the first time that Habersham, the daughter of a Baltimore canned goods broker, had gone missing. The young debutante had once escaped to Europe for several months with family friends, before her father convinced her to return home. But she had never given her family too much cause for worry, always returning home eventually. This time, however, Habersham left behind no trace, and her family was left to worry and wonder for two long years.

Finally, a letter arrived at her childhood home addressed to her father, Alexander Wylly Habersham. The Baltimore belle informed her father that she had run away with a clan of Gypsies. She explained that she had grown weary of society life and longed for the excitement and adventure that her former life of debutante balls and fine mansions could not provide her.(1)

Habersham did not simply join the band of Gypsies, she became “Queen” and matriarch when King Jorgas Michele, the clan’s chief, took her as his wife.(2)  She informed her father that she had fallen in love, and would now spend her life traveling the United States as part of King Jorgas’ caravan of nomads. In a letter to her father, she wrote that, “Where lies most peace in choice between/ A queen of fashion or a Gypsy queen.” Habersham spent over six years wandering the states with her new family.

She had become enamored with the Gypsies’ nomadic lifestyle after a chance encounter with a caravan one day after school. The capricious youth and some friends from her private school in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. decided to go for a stroll when they came upon a nearby Gypsy encampment. The Gypsy women invited them into the camp and dazzled the girls with tales of their travels. Habersham made many more visits to the camp, befriending its inhabitants, until her teachers banned her from returning, worrying about the effect of the Gypsies’ stories on her impressionable mind. They were also concerned with possibility of kidnapping, which the Gypsies often found themselves accused of. The intervention, however, came too late. The group moved on, but Habersham would not soon forget the time spent in their company.

Her fate to enter a life of wandering was sealed on her return voyage from Europe, a year or so prior to her departure. According to an April 5, 1910 Baltimore Sun article, Habersham met a “Hindu,” on the ship who taught her fortune-telling techniques and “interested her in the occult.”

When she joined King Jorgas’s clan, she used these new premonitory skills on the road, predicting the future for paying customers as the clan traveled across the United States. In her role as Queen, she also helped her husband organize the fairs hosted by the group in each new city, promoted the events, and ensured that all of the proper permits were secured. Among the Gypsies, the young woman stood out – in a letter to her father she recounted that “The white-faced society women [came] to her to have their fortunes told and wonder at her pale skin and beauty.”

Habersham seemed to find the life she was hoping for among the Gypsies. She wrote in her diary that there “is more love and truth beneath the canvas of a Romany tent than in any mansion. There is no sham and no hypocrisy here. I love my husband and he loves me. If our very tents are taken from us, we could live under God’s generous skies and we would be happy.” Her words paint a romantic picture of the Romany people’s world. However, life in Maryland for the wandering people was far from easy. They often faced discrimination and persecution when their travels brought them back to the state.

The first accounts of Gypsies in America date back as far as 1580. Before the boom in the African slave trade, they were sent along with other criminals to work the tobacco plantations in the Maryland and Virginia colonies. In lieu of execution, local sheriffs in England, Scotland, and Ireland would round up those convicted of offenses – ranging from vagrancy and petty theft to murder – and send them across the ocean. Queen Elizabeth I passed several anti-vagrancy acts in the late 1500s to quell a rising tide of wanderers, migrants, and beggars. Many Gypsies and other nomads, such as migrant workers, found themselves in violation of these laws and were subsequently impressed into labor. Several records show men and women, identified as Gypsies, embarking at such ports as Greenock, Scotland, and London and Middlesex, England.

Bampfylde Moore Carew, from “The life, voyages and adventures of Bampfylde-Moore Carew: commonly called, King of the beggars,” 1745, MdHS.

Notorious English mischief-maker, Bampfylde-Moore Carew, was one such Gypsy criminal sent to Maryland for his misdeeds. The King of the Gypsies, as he became known, was exiled in the mid 1700s for the misdemeanor of frightening a Justice’s horse while dressed as a beggar. Carew had been initiated into the Gypsy society as a schoolboy after encountering a group of them at a tavern. He and some friends had taken shelter in the tavern to avoid the wrath of a local headmaster after chasing down a prized deer owned by a Colonel who resided nearby. The deer had ended up dying of exhaustion and several fields were destroyed during the chase. But instead of facing the music, the young men ended up partying all night with their new Gypsy friends, where “flowing cups of October, cyder, &c. went chearfully round, and merry songs and country dances crowned the jovial banquet….” The more booze the boys imbibed, the more enamored they became with their new companions – “in short, so great an air of freedom, mirth, and pleasure, appeared in the faces and gestures of the society, that our youngsters from that time conceived a sudden inclination to enlist into their company….”

Carew rose quickly through the ranks of the motley crew. His crooked prowess scammed many out of money and he gained admiration and infamy for his wily ways. He stole; he begged; he tricked; and, the Gypsies elected him king. His crimes eventually caught up with him though, and after a trial in 1739-40, he was banished to Maryland.

In the young colony, Carew remained true to his troublemaking ways. He reportedly twice escaped sale to Maryland plantation holders. On one occasion, Daniel Dulany, a prominent Maryland lawyer, intended to purchase Carew to work as a gardener, but found him lacking the necessary abilities. Instead of returning to the convict ship, Carew caused a ruckus and escaped into the forest. He traveled north with the help of a tribe of Native Americans, swam the Delaware River, and weaseled his way onto a ship returning to England. On board, he faked a case of small pox to avoid being arrested once again. He pricked his face and hands with a knife and rubbed salt and gunpowder into the wounds to affect the blisters caused by small pox. Though his time in Maryland was short, he apparently enjoyed his stay in the colony, stating that Maryland “not only affords everything which preserves and confirms Health, but also all Things that are charming.”(3)

The veracity of Carew’s tale remains a mystery. While he certainly existed, his legend most likely grew larger than his actual misdeeds, and the “Gypsies” he led may have simply been a group of vagrants, beggars, and thieves. The incorrect terminology reflected views of the Gypsy culture that are still pervasive today – to many, the Gypsies were and continue to be tricksters and low-lifes living off of ill-gotten gains.

Gypsy encampment, circa 1890, MdHS, Hopkins Album.

Newspapers from the late 1800s to the mid-1950s are filled with wild accounts of Gypsies stealing the life savings of nice, old ladies and kidnapping women and children to be slaves. Headlines such as “6 Fighting Gypsies Seized,” “Gypsy Women Snatch $255 from Banks,” and “Stolen by Gypsies” were commonplace. Locations of encampments were frequently publicized to warn people of the Gypsy presence in the area. Letters to the editor and op-ed pieces attested to the evil of the Gypsies. One such article, published by the Sun on February 26, 1931, claimed that “there are many things which make Gypsies undesirable neighbors. They are generally reported to not care much for soap and water. Also they have the reputation of not knowing as much as they should know of the difference between tuum and meum (thine and mine).”

When Jessie Habersham died in a Cincinnati hospital shortly after giving birth to a daughter named Lincka in 1910, similar wild stories arose about her disappearance and family life. The nation was once again enthralled by the Gypsy Queen’s unusual life. Rumors flew about the circumstances of her marriage to King Jorgas Michele. The Oswego Times, out of New York State, ran an article claiming that she had been sold to her husbandfor $900. Her adopted family had held her “under hypnotic influence” and she was “compelled to be the slave and wife” of the Gypsy King. This account appears to be pure fiction. A. W. Habersham told reporters that his departed daughter had gone with her husband out of love, pure and simple.

A Caravan Camp and Dancing Bears, New Market, circa 1890, MdHS, Hopkins Album.

Habersham is only the most famous of Maryland’s sizable Gypsy population. During the 20^th century, the highest concentration of Gypsies was in Baltimore, but encampments were reported across Maryland. Caravans settled under the Hanover Street Bridge or in the neighborhood of Cherry Hill. They also stationed themselves along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad tracks. In 1931, the city passed an ordinance directed at the Romany that required those camped within city limits to pay a fee of $1000 for each entrance. The Federation of Labor had proposed the measure to the City Council on behalf of the local coppersmiths, who claimed that the Gypsy smiths created unfair competition. This was most likely just an excuse to pass the ordinance. The state government had earlier enacted similar anti-Gypsy laws, but the city had no such rules. According to the state law, anyone caught in violation of the anti-Gypsy law not only had to pay a fine or face jail time, but surrender all of their property, including in some cases, that of others traveling with the offender. To encourage enforcement, the arresting sheriff was awarded ten dollars if the entrance fee was paid upon arrest. These laws were challenged as unconstitutional, but they remained on the books until 1976. Gypsies continue to face discrimination into the 21^st century. In 2009, a Gypsy fortuneteller, with help from the ACLU, successfully fought a Montgomery County law that prohibited making a profit from fortune telling.

Despite a history of persecution, Gypsy people continued to travel to Maryland – some even settled here permanently. They blended into the melting pot of nationalities in Baltimore City and spread across the state. In a 1978 interview, Mary Anna Halenski, a Polish immigrant to Baltimore, fondly recalled the diversity of her Fell’s Point neighborhood while growing up during the Great Depression. Among the tiny neighborhood alleys and narrow row-homes, Gypsies lived alongside African-Americans, immigrants from Germany, Poland, and Russia, and other groups. The Gypsies faded into the American landscape just as many other persecuted groups had before them. (Lara Westwood)

*Editor’s Note - In this post we adhere to the common historical usage of the terms Gypsy or Gypsies while acknowledging that the word can be considered pejorative or derogatory. There is no other term that we are aware of that adequately describes the number of different groups that have historically been referred to as “Gypsies.” The terms Roma and Romani, which today are often used in place of the term, describe only one of groups of people historically labeled as “Gypsies.”

Footnotes:

(1)Miss Habersham’s famous pedigree only added to the scandal – she was a relative to many eminent Marylanders, including Francis Scott Key, composer of the “The Star Spangled Banner,” and Roger Brooke Taney, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1836 to 1864, through her paternal grandmother, Jessie Steele. Habersham’s grandfather, Alexander Wylly Habersham, opened a canned goods company in 1865 in Baltimore. He attended the NavalAcademy in Annapolis and rose to the rank of lieutenant before resigning in 1860. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he joined the Confederacy and was imprisoned at Fort McHenry for several months. Habersham’s father, also Alexander Wylly Habersham, followed in his father’s footsteps and worked as a canned goods broker.

(2)Several different spellings for the Gypsy King’s name were discovered while researching. Newspaper articles have him as Jorgas, Jorges, Georgas, among others, but Jorgas was used most commonly. Several articles used the last name Mitchell, but this also appears to be an error.

(3)From an account of Carew’s life, “The Life, Voyages, and Adventures of Bampfylde-Moore Carew,” compiled by Thomas Price.

Sources and Further Reading:

“As to Gypsies,” Baltimore Sun, February 26, 1931.

Callahan, Edward William. List of officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900; comprising a complete register of all present and former commissioned, warranted, and appointed officers of the United States Navy and of the Marine Corps, regula. New York: Haskell House, 1969. (REF V11.U7C2)

Carew, Bampfylde-Moore, and Thomas Price. The life, voyages and adventures of Bampfylde-Moore Carew, commonly called the King of the Beggars: being an impartial account of his life, from his leaving Tiverton School, at the age of fifteen, and entering into a society of gipsies, to his death … :. London: Printed for J. Barker ; 1785. (Rare E 162.L72)

Coldham, Peter. English convicts in colonial America 1617-1775. New Orleans: Polyanthos, 1974. (CS 61 .C63)

Dobson, David. Directory of Scots banished to the American plantations, 1650-1775. Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1983. (E184.S3D6)

“Federation of Labor Goes on Record Against Gypsies,” Baltimore Sun, February 26, 1931.

“Gypsy Queen Dies in Childbirth,” Oswego Daily Times, November 14, 1910.

“Gypsies Win First Tilt in Council,” Baltimore Sun, February 25, 1931.

OH 8297.028, Halenski, Mary.

Judge, Arthur. Souvenir of the 7th annual convention of the National canners’ and allied associations, Baltimore, Feb’y 2 to 7, 1914, consisting of original articles and statistical data, illustrating the practical development of the various branches of the canning industry and showing the present magnitude of the business a history of the canning industry by its prominent men. Baltimore: The Canning Trade, 1914.

“Man Challenges Ban On Fortunetelling,” Washington Post, August 17, 2009.

“Md. Gypsy Laws Repeal Supported,” Washington Post, January 29, 1976.

“Mr. Habersham Explains,” Baltimore Sun, April 13, 1910.

“Society Girl a Gypsy,” Baltimore Sun, April 5, 1910.

“‘Queen’s’ Child Coming,” Baltimore Sun, November 15, 1910.

“What Will be the Fate of This Little ‘Transplanted’ Gypsy Princess?“ The Spokesman-Review, December 11, 1910.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/poverty_01.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/myths_legends/england/devon/article_1.shtml

http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/spring05/scots.cfm

Mysterious photo no. 1. Scroll to the end of the story to see no. 2. SVF Animals Elephant Hanging, 1900,  no. 1, MdHS.

One persistent rumor floating around the library goes that the elephant was hanged to death as punishment for killing or harming a handler. Noted skeptic H.L. Mencken, then a rookie journalist writing for The Baltimore Herald, covered the event, which as it turns out actually took place on June 7, 1900.* Mencken unfortunately adds to our confusion in his memoir, Newspaper Days 1899-1906, where he wrote offhandedly about the episode in a passage on the tenacity of press agents:

“The [incident] I remember best was the hanging of a rogue elephant, for I was assigned to cover it. This elephant, we were informed, had become so ornery that he could be endured no longer, and it was necessary to put him to death. Ordinarily he would be shot, but Bostock [the elephant's owner and well-known animal showman], as a patriotic and law-abiding Englishman, preferred hanging, and would serve as the executioner himself.” (Newspaper Days 1899-1906 [1941] 33-34.)

Frank C. Bostock, the “Animal King.” Image taken from eBay. This tag sold for nearly $400!

In part Mencken’s memories were accurate. Frank Bostock, the owner of Bostock’s Zoo or Wild Animal Show as it was alternately known, was an Englishman and he did in fact oversee Sport’s hanging. The rest of Mencken’s memories, undoubtedly jumbled over time, do not align with the facts.

Part of the confusion can be explained by the fact that, as disturbing as it sounds, there were actual punitive elephant executions in the early twentieth century. Topsy the elephant was electrocuted to death in 1903 for allegedly killing three men—one of them a severely abusive trainer who reportedly fed him a lit cigarette. Thomas Edison even filmed Topsy’s gruesome execution for posterity. The fact that electricity and moving pictures were relatively new and novel inventions can only partially explain why Edison would have filmed this horror. In 1916 Mary the elephant was hanged for allegedly killing her trainer. The heavily doctored photo evidence of this murder pales in comparison to the photos of poor Sport.

After searching through microfilm of Baltimore’s major newspapers at both the H. Furlong Baldwin and Enoch Pratt libraries, the mystery of the photos is now solved and it’s unlike anything I could have expected. The truth of Sport’s sad tale is as follows.

In 1900 when crowds still got excited about world fairs and expositions, Frank Bostock, internationally known as a top animal trainer in Paris, London, New York, and Chicago, was transporting his Wild Animal Show from New York to Baltimore. Bostock, known as “the Animal King,” had recently started a zoo at the old Cyclorama building at Maryland and West Mount Royal Avenues, now the site of University of Baltimore’s Gordon Plaza. (Baltimoreans today also know this as the plaza where the Edgar Allan Poe statue sits.) The Cyclorama building once housed a giant painting of the Battle of Gettysburg, but by the 1880s visitation slowed and the art was removed. Before Bostock took over, the building served as a roller rink, a bike riding school, and as a venue for evangelical revivals.

The only known photo of the Cyclorama which housed among other things Bostock’s Zoo until it burned down in January 1901. Unknown photographer, Sunday Sun Magazine, April 18, 1965.

“Bostock’s Zoo would not have been anything like what we think of today as a public zoological garden,” says Dr. Nigel Rothfels, author of Savages and Beasts: The Birth of the Modern Zoo. Though many of his animals were trained, most were simply stored in cages as they would have been in circus menageries at the time. Bostock was also involved in the Elks’ Exposition located at North and Greenmount Avenues. The Elks planned to open their attraction in June. It was to include a veritable greatest hits of the 1893 World Columbian Exposition: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, Barnum’s Circus, an exact reproduction of the Chicago World Fair Midway, and Bostock’s Wild Animal Show which replaced Hagenbeck’s Zoo in the Baltmore midway.

In mid-May 1900, on a train bound for Baltimore, somewhere in New Jersey, two of Bostock’s elephants, Jolly and Sport, began to roughhouse. By all accounts this wasn’t unusual for the two pachyderm friends, but on this day and on this train there were grave consequences. Sport backed into the door of his boxcar, which gave way to his considerable weight, and was ejected from the moving train. According to The Sun, “He emitted a terrible scream that drowned the locomotive whistle and the clatter of the train and startled the brakemen into instant activity.” His spine irreparably damaged and unable to get up on his own, Sport was lifted by a derrick back onto the train to continue his trip to Baltimore.

Once at his destination, veterinarian Dr. Robert Ward examined Sport and advised ending the animal’s life as the most humane option. The recommendation opened a debate on methods. A precision rifle shot to the brain was ruled out as too risky in the case of a miss. Poison was deemed too dangerous as some believed elephants could go violently out of control, harming or even killing those nearby. The final choice came down to hanging by rope or electrocution, the latter ruled out at the last minute for unspecified reasons. Most accounts portray Bostock and his staff as highly distraught over the loss of Sport and firmly in favor of hanging as the least horrific form of execution. He even took care to consult with the local Humane Society who agreed that hanging was the most merciful way to end Sport’s suffering.

“The Hanging of Sport” by Tom Barg, The Baltimore News, June 8, 1900, page 12.

In a strange twist of fate, further misfortune beset Bostock’s enterprise when Jolly mysteriously dropped dead the day before the hanging. According to his handlers, Jolly, a seventeen-year-old Indian elephant had been very depressed since his friend Sport’s accident. On Tuesday evening Jolly was given half a gallon of rye whiskey, on Bostock’s orders, in an effort to lift his spirits and the following morning died within minutes of his daily exercise routine. Heart failure was the diagnosis.

When the day arrived to end Sport’s suffering, Baltimore newsmen flexed their typewriters. “Misfortune of elephantine proportions” began the account in The Baltimore American. The Baltimore News led the morning with the least accurate headline on the matter, “To Be Electrocuted.” The Herald‘s cub reporter Henry Mencken went on in true tabloid style, ”Like a common murderer, James W. Sport, the Asiatic elephant of the Bostock Midway Carnival Company, was hanged… at the Bolton freight yards of the Northern Central Railway, where he had been incarcerated since his condemnation.”

Accounts differ on the extent to which Sport suffered. The Baltimore American reports that he went quietly, “…if [Sport] felt any pain after the first tightening of the fatal noose, it was not discernible.” But The Sun and Herald told of how he “trumpeted wildly” and “struck dismay to the hearts of those about him.” Most agree that he was gone within nine minutes, hanged from a freight yard derrick able to support his two tons of girth. An estimated two thousand spectators gathered for the hanging, some on rooftops. At first authorities attempted to hold the crowds back, but the Bolton Street yards proved too porous. Despite Mencken’s retelling in his memoir, there seems no proof that Bostock or any promoter touted the hanging beforehand. No tickets were or could have been sold given the freight yard venue and it seems unlikely that it was a stunt to promote Bostock’s business, already operating in the confines of the wildly popular Elk’s Exhibition.

Jolly and Sport were taken to the Elk’s grounds where their remains were sold to local furriers Messrs. Dumont & Co. of 318 Light Street. An autopsy revealed that Sport’s spine was broken, confirming that a mercy killing was in fact the kindest thing to do for him. Nothing revealed why Jolly met his end. Although young for an elephant, zoo-kept elephants during this time period often only lived just seventeen to nineteen years.**

The only known photo of the remains of the Cyclorama building a.k.a. Bostock’s Zoo. Unknown photographer, Sunday Sun  Magazine, August 2, 1953.

Business resumed as usual for Bostock who still had two elephants left, Big Liz and Little Roger. But it didn’t go on in Baltimore for much longer. On a freezing cold night at the end of January of the following year, Bostock’s Zoo caught fire due to faulty electrical wiring located in the ceiling and burned to the ground. Some 300 animals including lions, polar bears, pumas, jaguars, monkeys, and others perished in the flames. Bostock refused to open the pens to free the animals at the expense of the public, but that did not stop rumors of wild animals running amok from flying around the city. It was a gruesome thing that the picture at right cannot even begin to capture. Despite the carnage, many old enough to remember have fond memories of Bostock’s as evidenced in the old “I Remember…” series the Sunday Sun Magazine used to run in the inner cover. Bostock left Baltimore for New York City and in 1904 the animal king opened Bostock’s Arena at Dreamland in Coney Island. It too burned down, along with the rest of Dreamland, in 1911—the day after he reportedly sold his interest in the business.

Bostock’s  short-lived Baltimore enterprise operated concurrently with the Baltimore Zoo, though the latter  got its start at Druid Hill Park in 1876 by an act of the Maryland state legislature. Newspaper men and advertisements of the day used the term zoo to refer to both, but we should not mistake them as similar entities. Bostock was a showman who trained and worked his animals for entertainment purposes. He regularly moved exotic stock around the country, not unlike a traveling circus. Although news accounts portrayed him as a man who cared deeply about his livestock, this should be weighed against the fact that some of his animals, like Jolly, were valued at $10,000. But neither should Bostock be remembered as a man who sold tickets to an elephant lynching.

Two bears and a camel. Residents of the Baltimore Zoo at Druid Hill Park. Reference imagess, photographer unknown, ca. 1927, MC7785-1 and MC7785.

Similarly we should not put the Baltimore Zoo on too high a pedestal.  By the 1890s, the public zoological garden boasted a modest collection including sheep, deer, camels, monkeys, an alligator, and some birds.*** The Baltimore Zoo, which did not become the Maryland Zoo in name until 2004, grew its collection at a much slower pace. It didn’t get its first resident elephant until 1924. Her name was Mary Ann and she is reportedly buried somewhere on the Druid Hill grounds. While the public zoo provided somewhat more stable environments for its animals than Bostock, zoological practices in the 1900s were still lacking by today’s standards.

The tale of Sport’s untimely demise was reduced to the words “elephant 1898 hanging” on a mislabeled photograph folder. Inaccurately remembered by a famous newspaper reporter, the elephant that apparently never hurt anyone could have been remembered as a rogue or killer of man as rumors and mistakes innocently become facts—such is history. Mencken, writing his memoir some forty years later, would certainly have more clearly remembered Sport’s hanging had he reviewed his own coverage in the pages of The Herald. Today thanks to microfilm and historic newspaper scanning, we are able to piece together what really happened to Sport. (Joe Tropea)

Formerly mysterious photo no. 2. Sport the elephant was euthanized on June 7, 1900.  SVF Animals Elephant Hanging, 1900,  no. 1, MdHS.

* Accounts in the following major newspapers confirm that these photos are from 1900, not 1898: Baltimore American, Baltimore Morning Herald, The Baltimore News, The Baltimore Sun, and The New York Times. Unequivocal proof is found in the Baltimore American of June 8, page 12, where a nearly identical photo to the one above can be seen. This article is based on accounts in the above mentioned publications from June 6-8, 1900.

** Mott, Maryann, “Wild Elephants Live Longer Than Their Zoo Counterparts,” National Geographic News, December 11, 2008. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/12/081211-zoo-elephants.html

*** Hoage, R.J. and William Diess editors, New Worlds, New Animals: From Menagerie to Zoological Park in the Nineteenth Century.

Special thanks to Dr. Nigel Rothfels and The Maryland Zoo for invaluable help and guidance with this article.

Sources and further reading:

Jensen, Brennen. “Beastly Night,” City Paper, July 2, 2003.

Hoare, Ruth Mohl. “I Remember … The Enchanting Old Bostock Zoo,” Sunday Sun Magazine, October 2, 1960.

Mencken, Henry Louis. Newspaper Days 1899-1906 (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1941.)

Rothfels, Nigel. Savages and Beasts: The Birth of the Modern Zoo (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP, 2002.)

Shaffer, F. Ward. “I Remember … When Fire Swept Bostock’s Zoo,” Sunday Sun Magazine, August 2, 1953.

“Rare & Vintage: Souvenir of Frank Bostock’s Coney Island”

Vannorsdall Schroeder, Joan. “The Day They Hanged Mary the Elephant in East Tennessee,” May 1, 1997.

On March 9, 1963, Sgt. Richard T. Davis and his Baltimore County Police force exited Jervis Marshall’s barn having made two arrests, written 67 summonses, and seized 11 dead chickens. The chickens or more appropriately, gamecocks, were the unfortunate victims of the Chinkapin Game Club (CGC), an illegal gambling ring operating in various barns around Baltimore County. When the police raided the barn at 11 p.m., there were an estimated 130 people present, some of who slipped out of back doors or squeezed through broken windows to avoid getting pinched. The other 65 who did not get away had their names printed in the pages of The County News Week, a Towson-based weekly that then served Baltimore County.

The scene of the crime: Interior and exterior of Jervis Marshall’s Barn. Note the nine gamecock carcasses in front of the barn. Photo #4 and Barn, Subject Vertical File, unidentified photographer, MdHS, SVF (Sports – Cockfighting – Chinkapin Game Club).

While today cockfighting is not thought of as an issue in Maryland, the sport is in fact a prevalent part of the state’s darker history. Cockfighting in Maryland dates back to its colonial youth, as the sport travelled along with European migration. The sport seemed to diminish in popularity during the 19^th century due to its gruesome content. However, a Baltimore Sun article published in 1937 highlights that cockfighting was still flourishing in Maryland’s farmlands. John Arnold wrote that the fights were, “part of an elaborate well-organized sport… with small arenas holding as many as 500 spectators.” He also noted that authorities were well aware of the rings, but imposed little to no resistance against the organizations. Arnold noted this oversite was most likely due to the sport’s popularity amongst Baltimore County’s elite.

Like horseracing, cockfights were planned in advance, leaving time to make schedules like these. Cockfighting schedules, Chinkapin Game Club, 1962-63. MdHS, Sports Ephemera Collection (V1, folder 2).

Cockfighting rings operate much like horseracing. People of means purchase a bird or several birds and pay a handler or “feeder” to mold them into gamecocks. Roosters of particular breeds are selected by handlers based on strength, agility, and aggression (the Baltimore Top-knot was bred specifically for cockfights). These men then trained the birds in a fashion similar to boxers via sparing matches, exercise, and diet. Once a feeder determines a cock ready to fight, usually around 2 years old, they will enter the bird into a wagered fight. Gamecocks are generally retired by the age of 4 (the average lifespan is 15-20 years), but this is of course if they are lucky enough to win all of their battles as any loss means immediate death.

In the weeks before a fight, the feeder will pluck body feathers, trim tail and wing feathers, and clip the wattle (the flappy red jowls) as a means of increasing its chances of victory by decreasing areas the other bird can attack. The feeder’s final fight prep is the addition of the spur. Roosters have natural bone spurs on the backs of their legs and to make these weapons more lethal, feeders file the spurs down and attach metal ones. Again like horseracing, money can be wagered by spectators on the outcome of each match. In ’63, the CGC had enough local popularity that it handed out schedule cards and even scheduled memorial fights for one Harry Keller (unknown).

Photo of a Baltimore County cockfighting pit from a police raid. Subject Vertical File, unknown photographer, March 9, 1963, MdHS, SVF (Sports – Cockfighting – Chinkapin Game Club).

For his involvement in the CGC, the court fined Jervis Marshall $150 (about $1000 today) for “maintaining a disorderly house and animal cruelty.” Marshall’s accomplice Joseph Woolford received a similar fine of $100 for animal cruelty. Of the other 67 men summoned, none appeared in court. All simply paying the fine of $11. Current Maryland state law deems cockfighting a felony and punishable by three years in prison and a max fine of $5,000. Possession of a gamecock is a similar offense, while spectators are charged with a misdemeanor. (Ben Koshland)

A photo taken during a police raid. Interior of barn showing holding coops. Subject Vertical File, unknown photographer, March 9, 1963, MdHS, SVF (Sports – Cockfighting – Chinkapin Game Club).

The good news is that CGC was stopped before its next “derby.” Subject Vertical File, unknown photographer, March 9, 1963, MdHS, SVF (Sports – Cockfighting – Chinkapin Game Club).

Notes:

Arnold, John. “Cockfighting In Baltimore County: In the Darkened Barns Of The Gentry The Mains Still Continue,” The Baltimore Sun, May 30, 1937.

Crews, Ed. “Once Popular and Socially Acceptable: Cockfighting,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal, Autumn 2008.

“Cockfighting Charge Laid To Two Men: Police Surprise 130 In Raid On Heated County Barn,” The Baltimore Sun, March 11, 1963.

“Feathers Fly as 69 are Arrested in Police Raid of Cockfight Here,” The County News Week, March 14, 1963: p.1.

“2 Are Fined In Cockfight: 67 Others Forfeit $778 In Collateral In County,” The Baltimore Sun, Mar 23, 1963: p.32.