Brewington Book Prize Awarded to Jack Shaum for 122 Years on the Old Bay Line (America Through Time)

122 Years on the Old Bay Line by Jack Shaum

BALTIMORE, Md. (May 2023) – After careful deliberation, the Maritime Committee of the Maryland Center for History and Culture (MCHC) is proud to award the 2023 Brewington Book Prize to Jack Shaum for his book 122 Years on the Old Bay Line (America Through Time). This publication was chosen from a competitive selection of titles on the maritime history of the Chesapeake Bay and United States published throughout 2022. Shaum’s book details the Old Bay Line, the name by which the Baltimore Steam Packet Company was best known over most of its 122-year history of nightly passenger transport and freight on the Chesapeake Bay between Baltimore and Norfolk. These steamers were often mistakenly referred to as ferry boats, but these large, sturdy vessels operating year-round instead provided reliable on-time service for the traveling public and shippers alike in the Chesapeake Bay region. 

The Old Bay Line steamers were famous for their cuisine, impeccable service, and fine accommodations. They were called up for war service during the Civil War, World War I, and World War II. Several of the company’s vessels even crossed the Atlantic and saw action overseas in World War II. By the 1950s and 1960s, the company was the last of its kind. By the time it wrapped up operations in 1962 it was the oldest steamship company in the U.S.

Jack Shaum, a Chestertown resident, is a retired award-winning print and broadcast journalist who spent nearly 50 years in the business. He is the author of “Lost Chester River Steamboats: From Chestertown to Baltimore,” (2015) co-author of “Majesty at Sea” (1981), and co-author and co-editor of “Night Boat on the Potomac” (1996). He was the Editor In Chief of “Power Ships,” quarterly journal of the Steamship Historical Society of America. For 20 years, Shaum and his wife traveled as on-board lecturers aboard several small coastal cruise ships. 

“This award from the Maryland Center for History and Culture is especially meaningful to me because my good friend H. Graham Wood was on the Maritime Committee for many years and took this young steamboat enthusiast under his wing, and encouraged me in pursuing my interest in the Old Bay Line and the entire Chesapeake Bay steamboat industry,” Shaum said in his acceptance of the award. “As I stated in my preface, I am hoping that this book and hopefully others to follow will help awaken interest in the steamboat era on Chesapeake Bay and its economic importance to the region.”

Beginning in 2015, MCHC has awarded The Brewington Book Prize annually for the best book on maritime history related to the Chesapeake Bay or the nation published in the previous year. The prize comes with a $500 honorarium and is named for Marion V. Brewington (1902–1974), a legendary maritime curator and historian from Salisbury, MD who also served as MCHC’s maritime curator.

Previous winners of the Brewington Book Prize include:

• 2022 Lyman D. Hall, The Stewards of West River: A Maryland Family During the American Revolution 
• 2021 David W. Wooddell, The Inspection Tugboats Baltimore, 1857-1980
• 2020 Donald Grady Shomette, Anaconda’s Tail: The Civil War on the Potomac Frontier, 1861-1865 
• 2019 Judge John C. North II, Tradition, Speed, and Grace: Chesapeake Bay Log Sailing Canoes 
• 2018 William Fowler Jr., Steam Titans: Cunard, Collins, and the Epic Battle for Commerce on the North Atlantic 
• 2017 Donald Grady Shomette, Privateers of the Revolution: War on the New Jersey Coast, 1775–1783 
• 2016 Kate Livie, Chesapeake Oysters: The Bay’s Foundation and Future 
• 2015 Tim McGrath, Give Me a Fast Ship: The Continental Navy and America’s Revolution at Sea  # # #

The Maryland Center for History and Culture (MCHC) collects, preserves, and interprets the history, art, and culture of Maryland. Originally founded as the Maryland Historical Society in 1844, MCHC offers a museum, library, and education programs to inspire critical thinking, creativity, and community. Learn more at mdhistory.org.

Civil War Army Hospital in Wilmington

A marker on the Diamond State Phone Company Building in Wilmington (July 2022)

While strolling around Wilmington a few days ago, we stopped by the bustling corner of Ninth and Tatnall streets, where a Civil War Hospital opened on March 6, 1863. The Tilton Hospital was named after Surgeon General James Tilton, a Delaware physician during the Revolutionary War and War of 1812.

During the time it was open, the 380-bed facility treated thousands of injured soldiers. But once peace came, the facility discharged its last soldier. The doors closed in the late fall of 1865.

According to the Morning News, the hastily constructed wooden structures were thrown up in 30 days. It stood at the site of the Diamond State Phone Company building, and there is a wall plaque there noting the history that took place on the site.

At the time, the hospital’s establishment was attributed to Anna Semple, a leader of charity work in the City. After Dorothea Dix called for women to become nurses in military hospitals, Miss Semple was among the first to volunteer.

She was put in charge of the Camden Street Hospital in Baltimore, where she met many wounded Delaware Soldiers. As the closest military hospital for wounded Delawareans was in Chester, PA., Miss Semple appealed to Miss Dix. The successful appeal received approval, and Miss Dix appointed her supervisor of all military hospitals in Delaware.

Sources:

Morning News, Dec. 2, 1961, Anna Semple and Tilton Hospital,” in the Delaware Index at the Wilmington Public Library.

Today the Diamond State Phone Company building stands on the site of the Tilton Hospital (July 2022)

A Civil War era photography of the Tilton Hospital in Wilmington. (Source: Journal Every Evening, April 12, 1941, in the Delaware Index at the Wilmington Library

New Book: 122 Year on the Old Bay Line

New local history book

122 Years on the Old Bay Line

By Jack Shaum

ISBN:  9781634993999

$25.99 | 96  pages | paperback

Available: Monday, May 23, 2022

About the Book

Old Bay Line is the name by which the Baltimore Steam Packet Company was best known over most of its 122-year history of nightly carrying passengers and freight on Chesapeake Bay between Baltimore and Norfolk. These steamers are often mistakenly referred to as ferry boats, but they most certainly were not. They were large, sturdy vessels that operated year-round in all kinds of weather. They provided reliable on-time service for the traveling public and shippers alike in the Chesapeake Bay region. The Old Bay Line steamers were famous for their cuisine, impeccable service, and fine accommodations. They were called up for war service during the Civil War and World War I and World War II, and several of the company’s vessels even crossed the Atlantic and saw action overseas in World War II. By the 1950s and 1960s the company was the last of its kind, still providing gracious service, and by the time it wrapped up operations in 1962 it was the oldest steamship company in the United States.

About the Author

JACK SHAUM is a retired award-winning print and broadcast journalist who spent nearly fifty years in the business. He is the author of Lost Chester River Steamboats: From Chestertown to Baltimore. He was the editor-in-chief of the quarterly journal of the Steamship Historical Society of America. He rode the Old Bay Line steamers as a youngster and calls on those experiences to tell the story of the company’s long history. For twenty years, he and his wife Martha traveled as onboard lecturers on small coastal cruise ships. They have two daughters and four grandchildren and live near Chestertown, Maryland.

About Arcadia Publishing

As the nation’s leading publisher of books of local history and local interest, Arcadia’s mission is to connect people with their past, with their communities and with one another. Arcadia is the home of unique hyper-local histories of countless hometowns across all fifty states, as well as books on local food, beer and wine; and stories of famous hauntings, all one American city and town at a time. Arcadia has an extraordinary catalog of 17,000 local titles and publishes 500 new books each year. Arcadia counts among its imprints Pelican Publishing, a 100-year old independent press based in New Orleans, and the critically acclaimed Wildsam Publishing, publisher of highly curated travel literature and guides. Using its proprietary Store Match system, Arcadia can create a highly customized hyper-local book assortment for any storefront in the nation.

Talking About Murder, Mayhem, and Accidents on the Railroad With WBOC

Tuesday, WBOC’s Delmarva Life asked me to stop by the Salisbury studio to talk about terrible railroad accidents and crimes, a time when murder and mayhem rode the rails on the Peninsula.

In the decades around the turn of the twentieth century, trains were the dominant form of transportation and unsettling accidents and violent deaths frequently disrupted excursions, dominating the headlines of newspapers and alarming the traveling public.

Since I kept running into these horrific tragedies while doing community studies, I started exploring the unexamined stories of murder and mayhem on the rails, including cold-blooded killings, Jesse James-like train robberies, devastating explosions, and serious accidents.

As I studied them I developed a talk called Murder and Mayhem Rode the Rails. Here’s a link to information on the talk.

Murder & Mayhem Rode the Rails on Delmarva

Here are some links to blog posts about incidents in the region,

Young Edwin Roach Killed in Greenwood Explosion

Disastrous Railroad Accident Takes Seven Lives in Delmar in 1909

Terrible Railroad Calamity at the C & D Canal Drawbridge

During Midnight Raid on Freight Car in 1900, Clayton Police Officer Slain

The Day the Railroad Cars Crashed into the Susquehanna River

Around 1916, a train crosses the bridge over the C & D Canal. (personal collection)

Dr. Laura Reading, a Pioneer Woman Physician, Established the Queen Anne’s County Hospital

Dr. Laura Ewing Reading, a progressive physician, established the Queen Anne’s County Hospital in Centreville in 1910.  Within weeks of the facility’s opening on October 1 in the Coursey House on Commerce Street in Centreville, the institution had treated thirty patients, the Evening Journal Reported. This pioneer woman practitioner on the Upper Eastern Shore reported some difficulties, according to the Women’s Medical Journal in 1911, but the editors trusted the doctor to surmount all difficulties. 

Advocating for rural county hospitals, Dr. Reading delivered remarks before the State Medical Society, declaring that country hospitals for the local treatment of patients were critical.  According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Reading said there were three reasons to establish a country hospital:  to train students; to compel country physicians to same up-to-date, and give people in the country every facility to prevent unnecessary suffering. 

Laura Ewing was born in Queen Anne’s County on April 6, 1850, the daughter of Samuel and Mary Clendening Ewing.  After attending public and private schools in Queen Anne’s County, she graduated from the Woman’s Medical College of Baltimore in 1885.  In 1890 Dr. Ewing married Captain Herbert H. Reading, a retired British Army Officer, and in 1895 she established a practice in Hillsborough County, FL.  According to the Tampa Tribune, the physician was the third woman to pass the Florida State Medical Exam.  Dr. Reading practiced in the Tampa area between 1895 and 1905.

In 1905, the Reading Family returned to Queen Anne’s County. According to the Tampa Tribune, she established an office in Centreville, treating patients until she retired in 1915 at the age of 65.  By 1925 the Family was back in Tampa.  Dr. Laura E. Reading died May 12, 1940  

Dr. Laura Ewing Reading, an early women medical doctor, died at Tampa on May 13, 1940. 

The Queen Anne’s County Hosp[ital opened in 1910. (Source: Baltimore Sun, Oct. 2, 1910)

Echoes of the Past: 100 Years Apart – The Spanish Flu & COVID-19

By Noah Zucker

As Delaware nears the one-year anniversary of COVID-19’s life-altering presence in the state, historians are looking a full century into the past to draw connections to the modern age.

In the midst of World War I, the Spanish flu first made its presence known in Delaware, particularly upstate, in fall 1918.

Despite the disease’s name, the Spanish flu was actually first detected in March 1918 at a U.S. Army training camp in Kansas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It got its name because Spain stayed neutral during World War I, meaning the Spanish media was not dealing with censorship like the U.S. was at the time. Therefore, a lot of the earliest information about the virus came from Spain and was assumed to have begun there by many.

Mike Dixon, an Elkton, Maryland-based historian, was inspired by the current pandemic to start looking into a past one. With Delaware Humanities, the local affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities — a government agency that promotes research, education and preservation — he has been looking into how the Spanish flu impacted the Delmarva Peninsula and giving presentations about his findings around the region.

Continues on the Delaware State News

Dr. J. J. Jones Private Hospital in Wilmington

With advances in health care in the last few decades of the 19^th century, demand for hospitals staffed for around-the-clock care by nursing professionals and equipped with clinical laboratories, surgical suites, and other modern appliances took place.  Wilmington progressed in this evolving national era of medicine when the Homeopathic Hospital opened on February 10, 1888, at Shallcross Avenue and Van Buren Streets.  Before that time, city physicians treated patients in their homes, and If they were gravely ill, they might send them by train or boat to hospitals in Philadelphia.

Dies as a Martyr to His Profession, Dr. John J. Jones. Source: News Journal, July 25, 1930

Delaware clinicians rapidly welcomed the success of this modern, scientific approach to medicine. Hence, more and more started admitting their patients to the hospital to receive professional nursing care when the attending doctor was not available.  Thus, with Homeopathic’s success, Wilmington practitioners, city leaders, and philanthropists opened a second, voluntary, nonprofit institution, the Delaware Hospital, in 1890. 

Also, Dr. John J Jones opened a proprietary (for-profit) institution for his patients.  Known as the “Dr. J. J. Jones Private Hospital,” it stared in 1896 at 1012 Delaware Avenue in Wilmington.  For his enterprise, Dr. Jones built a large building next to the New Century Club, which was being equipped with all the latest improvements the Morning News reportred on January 2, 1896.

Dr. Jones was born in South Wales on October 13, 1855, and he came to this country in 1858, settling in Wisconsin.  After graduating from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Baltimore in 1897, the young caregiver briefly practiced in Frostburg, MD, before moving to Wilmington in 1893.  Here the clinician soon established himself as one of the leading medical providers in northern Delaware, and in 1896 he established his private hospital to attend to cases requiring around-the-clock care.

An advertisement in Polk’s Medical Directory in 1896 advertised Gynecological and Abdominal Surgery procedures at the facility, an entirely new building constructed after the most approved methods of modern sanitary science.  It was limited to twelve patients, and each patient had a room to herself with gas and electric lights and electric call bells. Trained nurses were in attendance day and night.

Dr. J. J. Jones’ Private Hospital in Wilmington. Source: Polk’s Medical Register and Directory, from Google Books

As time went on, the hospital evolved, focusing on general medicine and surgery.  By 1912,  Dr. Jones’ hospital had 30 beds. According to the American Medical Directory, while he served as the physician in charge, his first assistant was Dr. Elizabeth Allison.   The College of America Surgeons and the American Medical Association put it on a list of approved, highly efficient center in 1928

One day in July 1930, Dr. Jones pricked his finger with a needle while operating on a patient, and blood poisoning set in.  After struggling for two weeks, he died at his hospital on July 24, 1930.  His son, Dr. Lawrence J Jones, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, continued the facility. 

The Wilmington hospital gave way to the war effort in Nov. 1943, its contents being sold at an auction.   Dr. L. Jones agreed to this as the War Housing Center, wanted to convert the treatment center into 19 apartments.  While the hospital was discontinued, Dr. Jones continued seeing patients in his office. 

Georgetown On Guard for Halloween in 1918

Halloween fun postponed in Georgetown. News Journal, Oct. 30, 1918

The end of October, the occasion for ghosts and goblins, is usually a scary time in Sussex County as the day for a good old-fashioned Halloween frolic nears.  However, in 1918 people in Southern Delaware must have felt as if they had lived through an actual nightmare as they suffered through the Spanish influenza pandemic.  Having struggled through this dreadful reality for weeks, many people decided they were not up to the usual antics and scary tales.

Although the danger has eased by the last few days of October, the Board of Health in Georgetown decided to stay on guard.  Fearing that witches, clowns, goblins, ghouls, and hundreds of people congregating in the county seat would spread influenza, the Board of Health decided not to permit any celebration in the county seat on Oct. 30.

Following that decision, public health officials posted notices that the Halloween observance would be held on Friday night, Nov. 8.  By that time, all danger of the spread of the disease would be over, and conditions in some of the other villages and towns in Sussex County would be improved enough for them to join Georgetown in the observation it was believed.

When the delayed celebration took place, one of the largest crowds that had ever attended a Halloween celebration in town thronged the streets.  It was estimated that more than 500 people from the neighboring towns were there and Market Street from Race to Railroad Avenue were “a surging mass of humanity,” the Morning News reported on Nov. 12, 1918

Hallowe’en greeting, 1925. A postcard from Historic New England via the Digital Commonwealth https://bit.ly/37LVEXL

Delmarva Spanish Flu Archive

As the nation struggles with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, we have been doing research on the impact of the Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918 on Delmarva. As we research what events in Delaware, the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia over 102 years ago, we have created an archive related to the 1918 Pandemic on Delmarva.

Click here to visit the Delmarva Spanish Flu Archive

Wilmington Had the “Halloween Flu” in 1918

The end of October was usually a scary time in Wilmington as Halloween, with all its frolic, grinning jack-o-lanterns and mystic spirits, rolled around.  But with the city living through an actual nightmare, the Spanish Influenza, the city police department banned public celebrations and general public revelry.

As Chief George Black announced the order, the News Journal remarked that the “Halloween Flu” had hit the city.  Despite the order, bands of young people in costume appeared on Market Street but quickly found that the police were not joking when they ordered all false faces to come off and advised the clowns and other “fantastics” to go home.  Confetti and ticklers were also suppressed as soon as they put in an appearance, and the patrolmen quickly put the quiet on any undue noise and carnival frolicking, killing off the Halloween spirit.

This left many young people wishing the “happy days” were back when Wilmington used to have big Halloween parades with bands and decorated fire apparatus and all the fixing, according to the newspaper.  With the police ban in place, the reporter suggested that people might as well put those masquerade suits away in camphor and save them until next year.

Indeed, when Halloween rolled around in 1918, it was a far different sight from that of past years, when throngs of merrymakers and some mischief types failed the streets, gaily masked in every conceivable costume.

Halloween Greetings, a postcard from early in the 20th century (Source Historic New England, https://bit.ly/2FkAkgj)

Spanish Influenza on Delmarva

For more on the Spanish Influenza of 1918 in the region, see the Delmarva Spanish Flu Archive