QUARANTINE BLOG # 156

September 2, 2020

From the fall of 1968 into the summer of 1969, Bonnie and I would drive three times a week from 101 H Hunter Hill Drive (our apartment) in Hagerstown Maryland to the Williamsport Church of God (a congregation called New Hope Alliance worships there today).

The parsonage is the building to the left of the church. The addition between wasn't there in 1968.

Usually we would drive 3 miles up Longmeadow Road to the Maugansville Interchange on I-81, head south to the exit at Concocheague (pronounced CON UH KUH JIG) Street to the church which faced onto South Artazan Street.  Sometimes we would alter the route and stop at 12 Beckley Road to visit Bonnie’s parents, Dot and Alvey, and her sister, Pat.

Conococheague Creek, a tributary of the Potomac River, originates in Pennsylvania and empties into the Potomac River near Williamsport, Maryland.  The word “Conococheague” is translated from a Delaware Indian term “òk'chaxk'hanna,” which means “many-turns-river.”

Conococheague Creek near its mouth in Williamsport, Maryland, as viewed upstream from an aqueduct on the towpath trail in the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park.

Occasionally we would take the slow route back to our apartment so we could stop at a great frozen custard stand, where we would each get a dish of chocolate and a bag of barbeque potato chips.  That route took us through downtown Hagerstown and Jonathan Street.

In those days Jonathan Street was the thoroughfare through a troubled neighborhood.  Look back up at the dates above and remember what was going on in America at that time – racial unrest even more severe that we are seeing today.

Bonnie remembers the Sunday a Greyhound bus pulled up in front of the church, and three black men got off.  They were greeted in front of the church by one of the patriarchs of the congregation, Elmer Wyand, Sunday school superintendent and song leader.  One of the men stepped forward and told Brother Wyand, “We’d like to worship with you this morning.”  Brother Wyand said, “We are a Pentecostal church and we would welcome your enthusiastic sharing with us in worship.  Please come in.”  The leader turned to the two behind him and motioned them back into the bus.  They were looking for a fight, not a welcome.  With other details and in a different location, that is a typical story of the time.

Back to Jonathan Street.  A rediscovered log cabin with a mysterious past there showcases a forgotten Black community.  The discovery came through trauma.

On a wet evening in 2018, a patrolman with the Hagerstown police crashed his cruiser into a tiny house at 417 Jonathan Street.

The house was condemned; its elderly owner went to live elsewhere.  When the demolition crews arrived and began to rip off the vinyl siding, they saw horizontal timbers, still bearing the ax marks of the person who hewed them from logs perhaps 200 years ago.

Recently a statewide preservation advocacy group based in Baltimore purchased the building with plans to bring it back to life as a residence.  The old cabin, when refurbished, will be an important landmark in one of the state’s oldest African American communities, a likely stop on the Underground Railroad.

During a visit to the cabin, Preservation Maryland executive director Nicholas Redding, pried open the back door, and shone his smart phone flashlight around the collapsing interior.  The things wrong with it would give a first-time homeowner nightmares.  Besides the buckled front wall where the police cruiser hit, there are foundation problems and water leaks.  A loft is insulated with cardboard boxes from the 1920s; the electrical outlets practically scream “not up to code.”  It needs all-new plumbing and HVAC.

A cut nail, distinctive to the 19th century, helps date the structure, but plans are underway to have dendrochronology done to date the wood within a few months of when it was cut.

Archaeologists will dig up the site of the backyard, hoping to discover the location of the privy – ancient toilets can be treasure troves for researchers.  The hew marks on the timbers are a dynamic connection to the past.  The various types of notching on the ends of the wood indicate the house was repurposed from the materials of other buildings – reuse was common in the 19th century.

For the most part, the wooden timbers are still strong, its history ready to be preserved.  Restorers are debating whether to add on a siding to the exterior (you can see the siding – put on sometime in the 20th century – in the picture with the police cruiser).  In the 19th century, it was seen as rather uncouth to leave a log structure bare.  That unfinished look marked you out as exceedingly poor.

Jonathan Street gets few mentions in Maryland history books, but as early as the 1790s, the area was home to a mix of free and enslaved Black people living side by side.  They built churches like the Second Christian Church and Ebenezer A.M.E., which began in a log cabin and later was used as a hospital for Union soldiers during the Civil War.  We will come back to Jonathan Street tomorrow.

👉  In Monday’s Blog (August 28) there was a piece about Etch-a-Sketch.  I wondered if anyone could actually draw anything decent on these, and promised to show you some of the incredible pictures I found.  Enjoy!

Here are two more with the original art work.

“The Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh was painted in June 1889. It depicts the view from the east-facing window of his asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, just before sunrise, with the addition of an imaginary village.

In 1936 the Spanish Civil War broke out.  On April 26, 1937, the town of Guernica was bombed by the Germans who were helping Franco.  The bombs fell on market day.  More than 1,600 people – men, women, and children – were killed.  Almost 900 more were injured.  There was no military reason for the attack. 

Picasso was outraged by the murder of the innocent.  With all his passion, he painted a huge 12 X 25 foot work.  “Guernica” may be his most famous painting.  It shows a screaming horse, a fallen soldier, a screaming woman on fire falling from a burning house, and a mother holding her dead baby.  There’s a cutoff arm holding a sword and a severed head.  It is a very disturbing portrayal of the horrors of war.

More Etch-a-Sketch tomorrow with famous paintings and parodies of those paintings.  Funny!

👉  Today’s close is from Adrian Rogers.

“O taste and see that the Lord our God is good.  How blessed, fortunate, prosperous, and favored by God is the person who takes refuge in Him” (Psalm 34:8 Amplified Bible).

A Christian should be filled with joy.  But we can’t take any credit for it.  It is Jesus who gives us joy and satisfaction.  We couldn’t have found it had we been searching for it.  Our joy comes by finding, knowing, and growing in Christ, He has filled us with an overflowing joy.

Do you know what the devil will tell you?  That holiness and happiness don’t go together.  He will tell you that if you make up your mind to live a holy life, then you won’t have any fun.  Friend, the devil is a liar.

You’ll never know satisfaction and joy until you find it in the right place.  You’ll never enjoy the good things of life until you know Jesus.  Oh, how sweet to know the Lord Jesus Christ.

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