The C&D Canal at Chesapeake City, Early Forties (Part 1)

The C&D Canal at Chesapeake City, Early Forties (Part 1)

                                             Swimming off City Dock in 1944, north view

Tanker headed west through canal in 1941

So often these days, I think back to what it was like growing up in the Chesapeake City of sixty or so years ago. The main source of youthful activity then was the ever-flowing, ever-active C and D Canal. The body of water had a life of its own and I lived to be in it, along its shore, and upon its banks. The main attractions were fishing, crabbing, hunting, trapping, boating, and swimming … especially swimming. Let me take you back many years to this enchanting time and place; I won’t keep you long.

It was my father who first taught me to swim at the Burnt House, our favorite swimming hole. I remember well how swift the current was there, and how abruptly you'd drop off into the channel if you walked out very far. A clean, sandy area was just opposite the lighthouse, which was actually a coast guard channel marker. I recall an area of sharp sea grass at the water's edge. The area was a few yards up towards the Chesapeake Boat Company, and if you happened to walk that way the grass would slice nasty cuts into your legs. But if you stayed by the lighthouse and didn't venture out too far, it was a perfect place to swim or fish.

I was about six when Dad taught me to swim; I'll never forget it. He led me into deep water, put his hand firmly under my belly to shift me horizontally and keep me afloat. I thrashed my arms about like mad without getting anywhere, but did better after he told me to kick my feet. It took several of those training sessions before I finally learned to doggy-paddle on my own. But what an accomplishment! A few years after that, I'd be diving from the lighthouse into the deep channel. I'd swim to the middle of Back Creek and tread water for long periods of time. And, many times, my buddies and I would swim all the way across to the Marine Construction Company's wharf, where we'd sit in the sun and shoot the breeze for a while before swimming back to the Burnt House.

Ah, but that was in the ancient days, hundreds of years ago. The channel has now been deepened, the lighthouse has been dug up and destroyed, and the Burnt House has been gouged away and replaced with huge, grey rocks. Not the slightest trace remains, except for electronic bits in the brains of those who were there. But one thing I know: even now, Dad's hand is still here, firm under the belly. And arms are still thrashing to stay afloat. And his voice still resounds in my ears, ringing above the surging water: "Kick your feet, boy. That's it! Keep kicking."

          I remember so clearly another special time when, as a boy of eight or so, I sat in the grass near our famous Hole-in-the-Wall tavern one summer evening. I gazed across the canal and … what a sight—that bright expanse of water stretched out in front of me! The tide was coming in swiftly and to my right a laboring tug boat was fighting the current as it pushed a fully-loaded barge along. Large, billowing puffs of black smoke hovered above as the barge moved at a pace so slow that I thought for a moment it was standing still, running in place you might say. The tug ran as if it were mad at the water, its prop churning vigorously, causing a violent seaward rush of muddy water that would suck large pebbles from the shore, and then the rush would return and surge in all the way to the naked tree roots on its way back. And then, gradually, as the tug and tow passed, the reciprocating action would diminish, leaving, once again, the placid, flowing current of the canal. About a half-mile behind the retreating tug, towards the Delaware end, an empty tanker sat high in the water, looming like a black skyscraper in the distance.

          A pair of canvasbacks swooped abruptly into the little cove, set their wings in unison, glided down softly in a semi-circle and, with resistant, expanded wings, landed with a flutter—disturbing for an instant the flowing water in front of me. As the pair fled towards deeper water, wary of my presence, I noticed how the current continued to flow swiftly, carrying along assorted driftwood, foam-covered seaweed, and other debris as it swept past. Towards the left our jet-black lift bridge was raised to its height to accommodate the barge and tanker. I could see a line of cars on each side waiting for the bridge to lower.

To the right of the bridge was Schaefer’s restaurant, the old fine restaurant before it was renovated and corrupted into a high class eatery for the rich. None of the local folks could afford it after that. But the old Schaefer's made fine crab cakes and, let me tell you, they made the best sloppy Joe hamburgers I’ve ever sunk a tooth into. I kept my eyes on the water as it moved and shimmered. The sun was setting at my left, lengthening the shadows of the buildings before me on the water. To my right—this side of the Corps of Engineers’ peninsula and the Basin where my grandmother used to skate as a girl so many, many years ago—loomed the long-deserted, dilapidated granary where I would creep under to change into my bathing suit before diving into the canal for a swim.

Two of Cecil County’s One-Room Schoolhouses

Two of Cecil County’s One-Room Schoolhouses

The Chesapeake City one-room Colored schoolhouse as renovated in 2006

Miss Alverda Ferguson and student stand in front of the Fingerboard School, circa 1917

The Chesapeake City Colored School

Lois Maria Sewell: “This building that I live in was once a one-room Colored schoolhouse. They closed it in 1942. I was here in the first grade and I remember it well. The older kids were on one side and we were on the other. I remember that Miss Emma Boyer had a long stick to correct the kids. The blackboard was towards the back and Miss Boyer had a cowbell that she rang when recess was over.

“This house is partitioned now, but when it was a school house it was one big room. This building has the original boards but they've been covered with shingles. Miss Betsy Robinson used to teach here, and Miss Mary Veal, also.”

            “We had to go outside to use the bathroom, the outhouses. I didn't have to walk very far to school, just right next door. But after first grade I went to the Carver school in Elkton. The bus would pick us up and take us across the lift bridge. Then we would stop on the North Side to pick up the kids who lived over there.

“I still remember most of the teachers at Carver: Miss Lang, Miss Long, Miss Jones, and Mr. Bessick. We had very good teachers. Mr. Charles W. Caldwell was our principal. When I was in high school I transferred to Dunbar High in Washington, DC. I graduated from there in 1950.”

The Fingerboard School—Earleville

Miriam Burris: “I attended the Fingerboard one-room schoolhouse from 1929 until 1936. I remember it well. I remember warming my hands on the pot-belly stove. We had extreme winters then, and I recall walking to school over snow drifts and never breaking through. Sometimes we went in a horse-drawn sleigh or carriage. The pump was outside, so water was carried in a bucket with a dipper. Of course, there was no indoor plumbing, so we used outhouses and, boy, were they cold in the winter.

            “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. She was a wonderful teacher, and I daresay we learned more than the basics: how to get along with others and how to have compassion for others, which she taught by example.”

The Town Point One-Room Schoolhouse

The Town Point One-Room Schoolhouse

Town Point one-room schoolhouse, circa 1925

Dorsey Johnson in his old seat in the remodeled schoolhouse at Town Point

            In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century many one-room schoolhouses dotted the Cecil County countryside. Residents and former residents of the Chesapeake City area have clear memories of attending these unique institutions. In this article, former students recall their experiences in the schools located at Town Point, Chesapeake City, and Earleville.

The Town Point School

Bill Briscoe: “My brother, Frank, and I attended the one-room schoolhouse in Town Point through the seventh grade. We had one teacher and she taught all seven grades. When I was in the fourth and fifth grades, I had arithmetic, history, and geography three times a week, and when I was in the sixth and seventh grades we helped the teacher grade papers from the other kids. The teacher was Gertrude Manlove, and she had thirty or forty kids.

“In the room was a big, pot-bellied stove with a pipe running all the way to the other end. When we got older we had to carry the coal in from the coal house. We got our water from a farm across the road from us. There was a fenced-off spring and we took a bucket down and dipped up the water every time we needed it. Everybody drank out of the same dipper. At that time, the road to Port Herman was dirt; it never was paved while I lived down there.”

Dorsey Johnson: “I went to the one-room schoolhouse in Town Point. As far as I know I was the only one in the seventh grade. That was in 1937 and I remember when we had the graduation exercise at the Presbyterian Church in Chesapeake. I had to get up there by myself and say a little piece. I have all of my report cards, which are all signed by Miss Manlove. She was a good teacher. The kids had a lot of respect for her.

            “The building is still standing. It’s a nice-looking modern residence now. The owners, Doug and Debbie, let me inside for a visit recently. When I attended, if you walked in the front door the aisle was right down the middle, with the desks in rows on each side. At the back was a water cooler in the corner and the stove which was on a platform. I recall stepping up on it. Miss Manlove had her desk there, also. The blackboard was on the back wall with a mirror above it so that when Miss Manlove was standing there writing, she could see if anybody was misbehaving without turning around.”

            “I remember the day Irving Griffith jumped out the window. It was the spring of the year and he wanted to go outside, but Miss Manlove said, "No!" When she went back to lock the door, Irving leaped through the open window. Well, when he got out there he realized he had made a mistake, but he wasn't tall enough to climb back in. But after that he didn't go out any more windows because she stopped in and told his parents. They were strict; I know that.

            “When I went to school there, the road to Port Herman was cobblestone. I recall walking across it many times to carry back pails of water from the spring to fill the water cooler. That old spring is still there in the field. After the seventh grade, I went to the Chesapeake City High School. The bus driver was Clifford Whiteoak, and I recall how he always wore a suit of clothes when he drove the bus. The school at that time had a bell tower. Sometimes students would be allowed to pull the rope to ring the bell.”

Ruth Ginn: “I lived in Town Point as a child, and I remember attending the one-room schoolhouse there. When it snowed, Miss Manlove stayed at our house. She lived in Cecilton and didn’t want to make the trip in the snow. She was a big lady as I recall. She would get up the next morning, eat her breakfast, make her bed, and take off.

“I remember some of the other students also, especially Irvin Griffith, who was in the seventh grade. He was one of the oldest and was really an ornery guy. I was sitting in class when he pulled the hot poker out of the stove and chased Miss Manlove all around the schoolroom with it. She didn't do a thing to him to make him do that. I think she was half afraid of him. But she really did run around that room. And he finally put it down. Sometimes, when the girls went to the outhouse, he’d go out there and knock on the door and act silly.”

Gertrude Eveland: “My brother and I went to the one-room schoolhouse at Town Point. His name is Robert Johnston, but everybody calls him ‘Snake.’ I'll tell you how he got that nickname. Miss Manlove couldn't get her car started one afternoon after school. So Bobby said, "Let me look! Maybe I can find what's wrong." Then he said, all innocent like, ‘Oh, Miss Manlove, there's a snake in there wrapped around your coil.’ Well, he had put that snake in there to be ornery. So, from then on everybody called him "Snake." But the teacher never found out.

            “Now, I know that Miss Manlove did a great job of teaching. She taught the First Grade to the Seventh. We were all in groups and everything went very well. I remember some of my schoolmates: Ruth Ginn, Virginia Purdy, Frankie Ulary, May Briscoe, Fred Rothers, Dorsey Johnson, the McConney girls, the Griffin boys, and all the Whitlocks. The really ornery one was Lewis Whitlock. We were scared to death of him.”

            Robert "Snake" Johnston: “Sure, I went to the Town Point one-room schoolhouse. I went there with a kid named Murray, Billy and Ruth Purdy, Bill Purner, Ruthy Broadwater, the Mindosas, Charley Bailey, the Sheldons, and the Bakeovens. There were four of us Johnstons: Daisy, Arthur, Gertrude, and myself. They closed the school down when I was in the Sixth Grade; then they bused us to Chesapeake Elementary. I remember when Murray tried to knock the foundation out from underneath the Town Point School one time. He used a sledgehammer on it. You can still see the damage to the wall if you go look at it. It's on the side facing the river. He did a pretty good job on it.”

          “Another thing I recall is that we had a coal stove in the middle of the room. Well, one day Murray threw a bullet into it and busted it. It was quite an explosion—scared all of us. But we kept right on using it. Murray didn't go to school there long, but he didn't want to go at all; that's why he did those ornery things.”

Bridges and Ferries, Part 2

C&D Canal’s Old Bridges and Ferries, Part 2

Overhead Bridge Construction, circa 1946

Construction of Chesapeake City’s current overhead bridge began about 1946. I remember watching it go up as I sat in class. In fact, the commotion was so interesting that I didn’t get much school work done during the whole process. I saw it all, from the razing of the houses in its path on the South Side to the tightening of the last nut that connects the last piece of steel. The sight of the derricks delicately swinging the beams into place, the concrete trucks constantly moving to and fro, and the sounds of clanking steel, loud staccato riveting, and roaring vehicles are still vivid in my mind.

In the evenings, after the construction crews left—leaving their trucks, cranes, compressors, and dozers skulking haphazardly about the site—my buddy, Junior, and I would run around, on foot and on our bicycles, all over that bridge as it progressed from ground level till the time the south side section was connected to the North Side section. Oh, the guards would sometimes harass us, but we almost always out-smarted them.

I remember one evening, however, shortly after dark, when Junior and I were riding our bikes up the unfinished bridge. The roadway span from the South Side ascended to almost the middle of the canal, about 100 feet or so from the ascending roadway span from the North Side. The only things keeping us from dropping 200 feet into the canal were a yellow wooden barrier and a thin white rope. Junior and I would ride our bikes around the barrier, crouch under the rope, walk gingerly to the edge, and peer down to the water far below.

Then we would climb the steel girders that hung over the water and look out across at the breathless view. More than once we would peer down into an active smoke stack of a ship steaming through below. On this particular evening, however, as we labored up the incline on our bikes, we heard a man yelling at us from above. He was flashing a light and shouting: “Hey, you kids! You’ll be arrested for this!”

He was coming after us, so we took off down that bridge at breakneck speed. We spun down the bridge bank, down into the road under the bridge, and across Saint Augustine Road. Then we tossed our bikes along the hedgerow, ran through Stanley Stevens' over-grown field, and into the swamp south of town. We crouched down beneath the cattails and hid there for quite some time. We surely didn’t want to be arrested. We realized later that the pursuer was just some old man hired to guard the bridge. But that was one time he did a good job of scaring us ornery kids.

        When the bridge was finished an opening ceremony was held on the South Side. Children were released from classes and most of the townspeople were there to watch the ribbon-cutting and applaud as the first car drove over. But the event marked the end of the ferry era, and the high, town-dividing, town-ignoring span can’t compare with the enchantment of riding the ferries.

Old Bridges and Ferries, Part 1

C&D Canal’s Old Bridges and Ferries, Part 1

North view of the bridge destruction, with the old Schaefer’s store at left. July 28, 1942.

Ever since people started living along the C&D Canal, which was completed in 1829, they've needed a way to cross it to see family and friends or to conduct business. Until 1926 they had to cross two bridges, High Bridge and Long Bridge. If, for example, they lived on the North Side and wanted to go to the South Side’s Franklin Hall, they would have crossed High Bridge, which spanned the canal from Hemphill Street to just west of the Corps of Engineers’ pump house. High Bridge was a wooden, swing bridge, operated by a small electric motor.

People then would have walked west on the Causeway (one of the main streets before 1926) and cross Long Bridge, which spanned Back Creek and connected to the area that is now Pell Gardens. Long Bridge was steel, with a center-pivot span that the tender turned manually with a long, metal crank. Town boys used to swim under and around High Bridge, and sometimes they would help the operator, Rube Hevelow, rotate the heavy crank when barges were ready to go through. But, other times I’m told, when Rube made the boys mad for some reason, they would swim under the bridge and lodge a rock in the gears so that Rube couldn’t turn the crank at all.

My grandmother, Geneva Hazel, who was born in 1879, told me that she used to cross the bridges to see her sister who lived on the North Side. She said that when she was in a hurry she would take a short cut across the lock gate, which was dangerous and, indeed, illegal. The lock was used until 1926, when the canal became sea-level.

In 1926 the Lift Bridge became operational. It crossed from Lock Street on the North Side to George Street on the South. I have a vague memory of this road-level bridge. I recall sitting with my father in his ’41 Ford as we waited for the span to lower after a ship had gone through. Stories abound about how kids of the town would ride up and down on it just for fun and, indeed, I know one man who used to jump into the canal from it as it was ascending.

But then, after July 28, 1942, nobody ever jumped off it again—because at 11:38 a.m. the tanker, Franz Klassen, smashed into it, causing its steel towers and center span to collapse into the canal and onto the ship’s deck. I heard the crash, and that evening my father drove me in to the Bayard House to see the destruction: the crippled tanker, low in the water, sporting a necklace of black steel.

The accident was a major event for our town; people from many miles around came for the spectacle. One grocery store worker told me that he couldn’t sleep the night after the crash because his wrist ached from dipping so much ice cream for all the visitors.

After the bridge came down we had a succession of five vessels to ferry people back and forth. For a few days a Corps of Engineers’ tugboat transported important town officials across. The tug was similar to the one pictured below. For about a month a small yacht provided the service until the Victory, a larger launch piloted by Capt. Charles Cooling, made the run between Schaefer’s Wharf and City Dock on the South Side. Children rode the Victory to school from September of 1942, until March of 1943, at which time a large, car ferry, the Gotham, was acquired from the New York City area.

This ferry ran all day and most of the night for the next 6 ½ years, and many stories have been told about the famous Gotham. One of these, told to me by an eye witness, concerns Butch, the town bully. Butch was big and famous for beating up people, especially after he had downed a few brews at the Hole-in-the-Wall tavern. Well, one evening while riding the ferry, he made obnoxious remarks to a sailor and the sailor’s girl friend. The sailor, a small man named Red, endured the insults for a while, but then began beating up Butch so badly—blood flowed freely I’m told—that Butch broke away and jumped off the ferry into the canal. All this occurred while the ferry was underway. And, from then on, according to legend, Butch gave up drinking and fighting for good.

Early Movie Theaters—Elkton and Chesapeake City (Part 4)

Early Movie Theaters—Elkton and Chesapeake City (Part 4)

The Elkton Armory, circa 1930

The Talkies—Chesapeake City

Freddy Rhoads had an unusual tale about Chesapeake City’s Rio Theater. “The thing that stands out in my mind . . . is how some of the boys used to open the bathroom door for other kids to sneak in without paying. That worked for a while, but then the management got wise to them—saw too many boys down there in front—and started checking ticket stubs. Then, of course, the boys started passing the stubs around, and to fool them even more, the boys would switch jackets and hats so that a short guy would have a tall guy’s jacket on and so forth. It was funny … all that to trick the management.”

 “Once in a while I did some work for the Rio Theater,” Flint Sheldon pointed out. “Joe Savin ran the Theater for a while, and he and I used to travel all around passing out flyers advertising the movies that were coming up. I remember how Joe used to cross on the ferry to pick up film for the Rio. Somebody, probably from Elkton, would meet him on the North Side and Joe would get the film from him.”

Of course, after the Silents and the Talkies came something even better—the Drive-In. Some of my favorite memories came from the Elkton Drive-In Theater, which was on the corner of Route 40 and Whitehall Road. I went to the drive-in many times as a teenager. How can I explain the enchantment of that theater? I wish everyone could have experienced it. As you steered your car up next to the ticket booth, you could hear the music from the loudspeaker and see the suspended screen high in the distance. You’d then cruise around the lot, checking things out and looking for a good place to park, not too close nor too far from the screen and fairly close to the refreshment building. You’d pull into your spot close enough to the pole that held a small, metal speaker. You’d hang the speaker on the door, adjust the volume, settle back, and wait for the show that darkness would bring.

You had the whole evening ahead of you in the privacy of your car—entertainment in comfort and seclusion. There you were, out-of-doors with the windows down, and maybe a breeze would stir through your car, cooling you and making you feel as if you were on top of the world. Then, abruptly, the show would begin: first an ad about the available food and drink, then the coming attractions, then the cartoon, and finally the movie. Time would go by so fast that soon you’d start your engine, turn on your lights, and get in line to begin what seemed like a long exit.

I took my date—my wife-to-be—there many times. And, of course, I was always interested in watching the movies. I remember one terrific movie called “The Hand,” about a murderer’s severed hand that came alive and started strangling people.

Anyway, as I said, I wanted to watch the shows but, do you know, all my date wanted to do was smooch. That’s right, and it was awfully hard on me. Man, the windshield would get all steamed up so that I couldn’t see the screen. I recall wiping off the inside of the windshield with the palm of my hand. But it was no good; it would fog up again in no time. In fact, all of the windows would steam up from her romancing. The only break I got was at intermission, when I could stumble out to catch my breath and visit the refreshment shack to load up on hot-dogs, French fries, and sodas. Then the movie would resume and it all started again. I don’t know how I ever survived! What do you think?

“I went to the Elkton Drive-In many a time,” recalled Freddy Rhoades of Chesapeake City. “One time my girl and I fell asleep while the movie was running, and when we woke up the place was deserted and the screen was blank. Then the car wouldn’t start because the battery had run down. But Jimmy Simmons, the guy who ran the place, was still there, so he gave us a jump. And it’s a good thing he was there, because we’d have been in big trouble.” 

Other local residents who talked with me have similar but fading recollections of these old theaters. Esther Luzetsky, Margaret Kruger and Paul Spear contributed their memories as well.

The era of Silent Movies, Talkies, and Drive-In theaters has ended. The owners have taken down their screens, boxed up their reels of film, switched off their projectors, and closed their doors to patrons. The Clayton Building, majestic as ever, now contains offices. The Masonic Hall was destroyed to make way for the widening of the canal. Fire took the New Central Hotel, and the great Rio Theater was disassembled in the 1950s.

Some visual reminders survive—the beautiful Armory still stands at attention, a symbol of military pride, and the Elk Theater building is still on North Street. However, the great Elkton Drive-In area is now a parking lot for shoppers instead of viewers.

The old movie houses might be gone, but great memories remain; the drama and comedy they produced live on for us grateful viewers who attended, and those fearless cowboys and Indians still thunder across the prairie of our minds.

Early Movie Theaters—Elkton and Chesapeake City (Part 3)

Early Movie Theaters—Elkton and Chesapeake City (Part 3)

The Rio Theater, with coming attractions posted on each side. Note Jumping Jim’s barber shop at right, circa 1941

The Talkies—Elkton

          Bill Baker recalled the first talkies in Elkton. “Later on, there was a movie theater in the New Central Hotel. The movies there were modern compared to the ones shown in the Clayton Building. They had sound then. I believe Mr. Lewis owned the New Central building. The Ritz Hotel was right alongside of the New Central. It had three stories and was very narrow, no wider than this room. Back during the war, when girls came up from the South to work in the defense plant, they had rooms in the Ritz Hotel, and they rented them out in three shifts. Nine girls had one room, but they slept in shifts, three girls at a time.”

At one point in the late forties or early fifties the New Central Hotel burned down. From then until the Elk Theater was built on North Street the movies were shown in the Elkton Armory. As Vic McCool recalled, special permission was given to the Conley brothers to show the films there, and servicemen were admitted free. Elkton’s Jack Loomis remembers watching movies in the Armory. He believed that they were shown for a period of about two years.

My own recollections are vivid; I remember hitchhiking to Elkton from Chesapeake City to watch the movies at the Elk Theater. I was a young teenager, and I would walk to the end of the bridge on the South Side and thrust out my thumb. In a few minutes I’d be on my way. I recall walking past the old Singerly firehouse and Elkton Auto Parts and then I’d be there, next to the ticket booth and surrounded by the “Coming Attractions” windows.

Elkton resident, Rich Juergens had vivid memories as well.  “I can still see old Mrs. Kelly, with her purple hair, sitting in the ticket booth. Tickets were 25 cents until you were a teenager and then they were 35 cents. Well, she would always let me in for 25, even though I was a pretty good sized teenager. I recall the concession stand on the right and the ticket collector beyond that as you walked in. The bathrooms were at the back, around the corner on the right. I have a clear memory of the mural or painting with colonial figures, and nearby was a banner with ‘Head of Elk’ in large, clear letters. Also visible was a large neon clock.”

The Talkies—Chesapeake City

The first movie I ever saw as a young boy was at the Rio. It was a big, white building on Chesapeake City’s south side. It was on George Street, just a few steps from the lift bridge that was destroyed in 1942. Next to the Rio was another unforgettable small building, Jumping Jim’s Barber Shop, where for 50 cents I could get a haircut while listening to Amos and Andy on the always-active radio.

I remember walking into the Theater and seeing the projector mounted on a platform at the left. I’d walk down the long aisle and sit in the middle, pretty close to the screen. I recall how loudly the projector chattered from the back of the room, and how we all yelled and stamped our feet when the reels had to be changed.

Lee Collins had many clear recollections of the Rio. “It was a popular attraction in the 40s and 50s, especially on Saturday afternoon. Those were the days of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Hop-a-Long Cassidy, Durango Kid, Tim Holt, and Abbott and Costello to name a few. Admission was around 50 cents if you used the ticket booth entrance or free if you entered through the rest room doors in the back of the building.

         “The wooden fold-down type seats were hard and loaded with chewing gum on the bottoms. The film would break at times and everyone would yell until the movie resumed. The screen had a few spots on it and was torn in a couple of places but still acceptable. The lighted rest room signs were to the left and right of the screen, and the Ladies Room sign was a silhouette of a female figure and a mirror. The Men’s Room sign was a silhouette of a man in a top hat.”

Early Movie Theaters—Elkton and Chesapeake City (Part 2)

Early Movie Theaters—Elkton and Chesapeake City (Part 2)

 

Masonic Hall during the 1914 flood, with the Chesapeake City jail just to its left

Silent Movies—Chesapeake City

John Sager of Chesapeake City had detailed recollections of the Masonic Hall movies. “My father, Jay Sager, ran the projector for the silent movies, he and Frank Filligame,” he explained. “That was back in the Twenties—all through the Twenties, in fact. We’d walk across the Long Bridge to the Masonic Hall and go up the steps to the second floor. The Masons had their lodge hall on the third floor.

“The theater and stage were on the second floor. The room had two posts running down the center to hold the building up. The screen was set up at the back of the stage and there were no permanent seats; chairs had to be set up in rows. The dressing rooms were on each side of the stage. I remember them because I once acted in a minstrel play that was held there. My grandmother, Stella Sager, and I used to take care of sweeping and cleaning up the Hall. I remember, as a little boy of ten, looking all around the floor for peanuts … ones that weren’t cracked! She and I also used to set up the chairs just before the movie started. Granny really did a lot of stuff over there.

“The projector was in a booth at the back of the room on the right-hand side. It didn’t have a bulb to produce the light. Instead, it had electrodes made out of carbon. I believe the device was called an arc light, which is similar to electric arc welding. The carbons would burn down occasionally and would have to be replaced. It would get really hot in that little room, so the room had to be covered with sheets of asbestos so that if something caught fire it wouldn’t spread beyond that room. We always hoped that my father could get out of there in time if it did start burning.

“My mother and Mrs. Filligame sold tickets from a little booth that was there as you walked up the stairs. Sometimes local boys would hang around and Mother would let them in for free and, when they counted the tickets afterwards, there’d be more people than there were tickets. I think the tickets were twenty five cents. My father and Filligame got the money. Generally, they showed the movies twice a week, Wednesday and Saturday evenings at seven. The films were shipped to Elkton and sent down to Chesapeake City on the mail bus.

“There was only one projector, and when the reel ran off we had to wait until my father put the next reel on and started it up again. The audience would get anxious, a little rowdy you know, waiting for the show to continue. They would stomp their feet, yell, and so forth. Frank Filligame took care of any roughness or fights that sometimes took place. I remember one of the fights. Old man Bill Stubbs always came down and sat in the chair by the first post that was in the middle of the floor; it was always his seat. Well, one evening somebody got in there and got seated in his seat, and Stubbs got to fighting the guy. So Frank had to come and break it up.

“The films were about cowboys and Indians mainly and, of course, they were all silent movies with sub-titles. I remember some of the actors: Tom Mix, Hurricane Hutch, and Mary Pickford. Now, the talkies came later and were shown in Stubbles’ Rio Theater. My father ran the projector for him for a while. When the talkies first came out, they had a record of the talking; the operator had to synchronize the picture with the talking, and sometimes the track would get off so that the talking didn’t fit the picture.”

Frances McCoy Williams had vivid memories of watching the silent movies there as well.  “Every Saturday night they had the movies upstairs. I recall the folding chairs and how all the young people sat up front while the older people, including my grandmother, sat in the back. My grandmother loved the movies. When we watched a movie, every so often they had to change reels, and that was when the young boys got to carrying on, throwing peanut shells at the girls and hooking their feet under their chairs and so forth. Once a year Chautauqua came to the Masonic Hall. It was a traveling theater from one of the New England states, and they would put on a live play.”

          Delaware City resident, Charles Crompton, recalled walking up and down the old Chesapeake City causeway to the Hall. “That’s where we saw all the cowboy shows when I was a kid. I remember the old American Store on the corner across from the Hole-in-the-Wall. The Showboat used to dock nearby, and, boy, for two or three weeks in the summertime that floating theater would be filled with people. I went to many a show aboard her.”

Early Movie Theaters—Elkton and Chesapeake City (Part 1)

Early Movie Theaters—Elkton and Chesapeake City (Part 1)

 

The Clayton Building, circa 1910

I have fond memories of the various movie theaters in the Elkton and Chesapeake City area. I remember the Rio Theater in Chesapeake City, the Elk Theater on Elkton’s North Street, and the great Elkton Drive-In, which was located off Whitehall Road. Fortunately, many older residents still remember the very early movies and their locations.

In Elkton there were silent movies shown in the Clayton Building, which still exists on North Street and at one time was called the Elkton Opera House. In Chesapeake City the first silent movies were shown in the Masonic Hall, a community center located on the Causeway, across from what is now Pell Gardens. The Hall was razed in the late twenties.

The first talkies in Elkton were shown in the New Central Hotel, located on Main Street, near the site that would later become Newberry’s (which is now being renovated). The New Central Hotel was next to the Ritz Hotel; the Ritz building still exists. A fire destroyed the New Central some time in the late forties, and for a time, while the Elk Theater was under construction, the movies were shown in the Elkton Armory. In the following article, residents and former residents of Elkton and Chesapeake City share their memories.

Silent Movies—Elkton

Bill Baker remembered the old movie theaters in Elkton. “The first movies were shown in the Clayton Building,” he pointed out. “They showed silent movies there. You entered by walking up the steps on North Street, and the movies were shown in the front part if I remember right.

         “The screen was against the back wall, away from the street. I remember one movie I saw there; it was starring Tom Mix, who was a crook, and the sheriff was chasing him. My dad read the subtitles to me. Tom Mix was on the run and had nothing to eat, so he jumped off his horse, shot a steer, cut off a hunk of meat from the hindquarter, jumped back onto his horse, and started eating the meat. Then he said, ‘It’s a little raw, but better than nothing.’ I guess I was about five. Somebody played background music on the organ, I think. The music matched the action, of course.”