"Reverend Miles Reifsnyder's Plays" Carroll County Times article for 18 October 1998 By Jay A. Graybeal Frequent readers of this column may recall that Pennsylvania German culture had a strong influence on early county history. Our Pennsylvania German heritage is especially rich in the northern half of the county and can be seen in architecture, town plans [...]
"Vote Dry" Carroll County Times Article for 11 October 1998 By Jay A. Graybeal "Vote Dry" was a popular campaign slogan heard throughout Carroll during several early twentieth century elections. Prohibition had been a hotly contested political issue and Carroll County voted to go dry in 1914. Although Carroll was now dry, the subject was a bitterly contested [...]
"Horse Racing in 1894" Carroll County Times article for 4 October 1998 By Jay A. Graybeal On October 3, 1894, Carroll Countians attended the first event sponsored by the Carroll County Trotting, Riding and Pleasure Association. The late J. Leland Jordan, then an editor of this paper, wrote about the event in his "Time Flies" column of [...]
"Community Pond Dedicated" Carroll County Times article for 27 September 1998 by Jay A. Graybeal When the Westminster By-pass opened in 1954, Gov. Theodore McKeldin participated in the dedication ceremony. He predicted that the new highway would relieve congestion on Main Street and attract business development along the new road. Gov. McKeldin returned a year later to deliver [...]
"A Mid-life Crisis Caused a Mystery" Carroll County Times article for 20 September 1998 By Jay A. Graybeal The September 17, 1898 issue of the Democratic Advocate newspaper carried an unusual story about a former county resident, Thomas B. Richey. The story ran under the headline of "Mysterious Disappearance": "The Thomas B. Richey, mentioned in the following dispatch, was [...]
"A Westminster Jail Break" Carroll County Times article for 6 September 1998 By Jay A. Graybeal The history of the Carroll County jail is sprinkled with attempts by prisoners to escape. Occasionally, the prisoners gained their freedom, as happened in late August 1898. The story of the jail break was front page news in the September 3rd issue [...]
"Frank Brown's Letter Book" Carroll County Times article for 30 August 1998 By Jay A. Graybeal Prior to the advent of carbon paper, and later the photocopy machine, making a copy of a document was often a labor intensive project. Hand written copies were the most common form well into the late nineteenth century which made it [...]
"A Fancy Ball at Winchester Place" Carroll County Times article for 23 August 1998 By Jay A. Graybeal Many people may think that the county's multi-million dollar tourism industry is of relatively recent origin. Summer visitors, many of whom sought refuge from the heat of summer in Baltimore, were commonplace by the late nineteenth century. Inns, hotels and [...]
"Whittaker Chambers Testifies" Carroll County Times article for 16 August 1998 By Jay A. Graybeal In August 1948, Whittaker Chambers, A Time magazine editor who lived on a farm on Bachman's Valley Rd. in Carroll County, read a prepared statement charging that a number of government officials were communists. The story was published in the August [...]
"Woodbine Flood in 1923" Carroll County Times article for 9 August 1998 By Jay A. Graybeal Periodic floods are a natural occurrence for those living along Carroll's rivers, creeks and streams. Occasionally, a severe storm caused significant property damage as was the case in late July 1923 when the Patapsco River flooded. The story of the natural disaster [...]