“Union Bridge Business Histories”Carroll County Times article for 20 November 1994 By Jay A. Graybeal Last Thursday evening the Historical Society held its Annual Dinner Meeting at the Union Bridge Volunteer Fire Department. The members enjoyed a delicious dinner prepared by the Women’s Auxiliary, remarks by local heritage groups and live entertainment by The Strawbridge Ensemble. The Society’s president, Jacob M. Yingling, unveiled the Society’s latest publication entitled Carroll Record Histories of Northwestern Carroll County Communities. A century ago Union Bridge was a bustling market town which had grown rapidly following the coming of the Western Maryland Railroad in 1862. An unknown writer described the community in the Business Review and Directory, Northern, Western, Central and Southern Maryland published in 1892. |
Union Bridge is situated on line of the Western Maryland R. R., with a population of six hundred people. Being amply provided with educational advantages, churches, good hotels and private boarding houses, while the mercantile enterprises being up to a high standing with a number of light manufacturing industries, with a railroad shop employing thirty hands, with express and telegraph offices and telephone service, a safe banking institution together with a live newspaper. The earliest inhabitants of the town and vicinity, being in a large proportion of originally Pennsylvanians, had the reputation elsewhere of being what is now often called “sentimentalists.” They believed that the inscription on that venerable old bell–“Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof”–meant what it said, and in the darkest period of the time when our country was afflicted with the terrible curse of human slavery, our people here were always fearless and outspoken in their opposition thereto–and no human being was ever held in slavery on the soil of the town Union Bridge. Below will be found biographical sketches of the leading business enterprises of the town
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The Union Bridge Chapter also included sketches of W. H. Perry, grocer; J. Traub & Bro., clothiers; J. Frank Baker, general merchandise, Mrs. J. L. Smith, millinery; William Wood, hardware; Reck & Smith, meat market; William H. Demmitt, dentist; Uriah Six & Son, bakery; Furney & Morningstar, fancy goods; J. G. Schnauffer, tonsorial artist; Jesse S. Whitmer, barber, G. T. Grumbine, stoves and tin; H. E. Little, baker; Joseph Wolfe, builder, Joseph I. Snader, agricultural implements and the Carroll News, edited by Edward Reisler. |
Photo Caption: | George P. Buckey, Union Bridge banker and broker, c. 1865. Historical Society of Carroll County Collection, gift of Mr. & Mrs. Paul Melichar, 1982. |