Winter Memories in Chesapeake City

Memories of Winters gone by in Chesapeake City, part 1

The Lift Bridge with the canal filled with ice, circa 1940.

The clear ice of Bunker Hill Pond, with Liane Hazel Kropp in top skating form

In some ways it’s nice that our winters in the 21st Century are not nearly as cold as the ones I remember in the early and mid-20^th century. But in a way our warmer winters are not nearly as much fun. I recall how we used to wait impatiently for the temperature to drop so we could ice skate on the Back Creek mill pond and especially on the Bunker Hill pond. That was back in the 1940s through the 1970s. The Bunker Hill pond was a wonderful place to skate. It was about 50 yard wide and 300 yards long, with over-hanging trees and, at the far end, an array of cattails interspersed with muskrat houses.

We played ice hockey with old soda cans and tree branches. Our toes would be numb from the cold until we warmed them next to the inevitable bonfire. Some times, when we skated down towards the end, we’d be the first to arrive there, and the ice would be clear and smooth as glass. At times, when we least expected it, the ice would emit a prolonged crack, with an eerie, hollow, echoing sound. And I would think, “Wow! I hope it doesn’t break through.” There were also frozen side streams to explore, always with a stimulating sense of adventure. It’s so different now; instead of a pond we have to go to an indoor rink and skate around in circles.

Many of the senior citizens whom I talked to over the last ten years also remember those icy winters of long ago and have told me about them. One person talked about how her grandfather used to race his horse and sleigh on the frozen canal. Another told about playing “crack the whip” on the ice and the time her father drove his car out over a pond. Still another explained how his father had to shovel snow off the Chesapeake City lift bridge so it would rise to let a ship pass through the canal. The span was piled so high with snow that it wouldn’t lift.

What follows are other memories by Chesapeake City folks who recall those harsh winters: “I remember how we used to bring our sleds to school and, after eating a quick lunch, we bundled up and took our sleds across the field as far away as we could. Our teacher, Miss Ferguson, had a large hand bell and she used to ring it at 12:50. Of course, we could never hear it! So she would bundle up and come across the field to get us. Several times, as I recall, we pulled her back to the schoolhouse on a sled.” Miriam Burris

“We used to ice skate on the Back Creek Mill Pond. Sometimes we'd skate right out here on the canal. When the locks were here the canal was all fresh water, and when it froze up the iceboats would come up and break up the ice so the barges could get through. Then, the next day, we'd go out and skate up and down where they had been. There were big chunks sticking out because of being broken up, but we'd skate around them. There were times when we'd skate down Back Creek almost as far as Welsh's Point.” Walter Cooling

“In the wintertime I would walk out on the ice. My father told me that years ago the ice would be so thick that you could walk to Baltimore.” Grason Stubbs. “I recall one time in the winter when the government had a big steam tug called the Deland, and they would come over and hook on to that ferry and tow her across the canal in the ice. The Deland would break up the ice as she went, drop the ferry off in close as it could to the slip, work her way around, and then push the ferry up into the slip.” Morrison Watson

 “I grew up in Port Herman and I can remember when the old steamers used to come up from Baltimore when the river froze over. One time a side wheeler came up as far as the Town Point wharf, and she would ride up on the ice until the weight of her would break through. Well, one day she rode up there and the ice didn’t break; she sat there for two weeks. They had to carry food out to the crew. My father used to say that he rode a team of horses across the ice there. Years ago, that’s how thick the ice got.” Frank Ulary

“I remember when the steamer, Annapolis, used to come up to break up the ice. It was an old side wheeler. I was just a teenager at the time, and in 1934, the year I graduated from high school, the canal was frozen over. We used to walk across the ice, right there from below the school to Schaefer’s.” Albert Clark. “Now, talking about ice, I remember when my brother pulled me up the canal on a sled, up to Schaefer’s from Hog Creek, which was down below the old Burnt House. That was back in 1934 when the canal was frozen over.” Pete Swyka. “One time we were late getting to school because the ferry had trouble getting through the ice in the canal, but when the ice got too bad it couldn't run at all. I remember taking pictures of the ships stuck in the ice. They brought ice-breakers up when it was that bad.” Merritt Collins, Sr.

“My grandfather Pyle had built an icehouse near Court House Point. He dug it into the North Bank, which kept ice solid for a long while. He walled it up with logs on top of one another. He then ran a long chute down the bank right out onto the frozen river. Then he took a long rope and a set of ice tongs and went out on the river and sawed a huge chunk of ice. He hooked the ice tongs into it, ran the other end of the rope through a hole in the back of the icehouse, and had a horse pull it all the way up into the icehouse.” Ralph Pyle

“I came to live in Chesapeake City in the winter of 1936, and there was so much ice that the canal was completely closed; no vessels could get through here. As a matter of fact, a tug sank in there trying to break the ice. I walked across the canal that winter.” Harold Lee. “The thing I recall best is how we used to ice skate on Mallory Toy’s fish pond. We'd walk or ride our bikes out there and skate all day. It was nice because you were protected from the wind in there because it was low and surrounded by trees. I also walked across the canal on the ice one winter. I started down there by the old lift bridge and walked straight across to Schaefer's. Winters were cold back then. I used to skate all around in the basin in those days.” Cliff Beck

        Oh yeah, it certainly was cold back in those days. I recall one of those bitter mornings when our cow was nearly frozen in her stall. When we milked her, instead of the milk tumbling into the pail it came down as icicles and we had to snap off the squirts. We had a devil of a time churning butter that evening. But it was especially hard on our laying hens. Why, every evening we’d have to place hot water bottles in their nests so we’d have eggs for breakfast instead of ice cubes. Well, anyway, I’m certainly sorry, imaginative reader, if I’ve made you shiver from reading these cold winter tales. But I know you’ll thaw out and get cozy when you curl up with my next week’s story on facebook.