USA > Maryland > Montgomery County > Sandy Spring > Annals of Sandy Spring history of a rural community in Maryland, Volume III > Part 18
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Once more the program is ended; all the old favor- its have been presented, and with the thanks of the management for your kind attention, the curtain falls.
CHAPTER X.
1904-1905.
Tonight we enter upon our second cycle of the Annals of Sandy Spring; the last chapter of this neighborhood diary closed the first term of forty years.
What would we not give for a photograph of the audience who listened to that first chapter, to com- pare with this, awaiting the forty-first. Let us con- trast the two scenes.
Those now here who can remember that interesting event, are the gray-headed elders of the community ; then they were lads and lassies, just entered, or enter- ing upon the serious duties and responsibilities of life. Those who are now men and women in their prime, then were in their cradles, and probably the
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majority of this company had not opened their eyes upon this mortal sphere.
Nor are these the only differences, nor the most striking, that we should notice; among us tonight there are oh ! so many vacant places ; in that picture of long ago we should see the faces of many and manny a one, strong, brave, intelligent, perchance beautiful, who now has become only a memory, a tradition, but whose virtues and excellencies are com- memorated, year by year, in the pages of these an- nals.
The staging, so to speak, of our life drama in the present is perhaps, quite as greatly changed from con- ditions of forty-one years ago, as are the dramatis personae, as we would realize most vividly if we might go back for but one day to the homes of our ancestors as they knew them. We should feel it first while dressing by the light of a tallow dip or a feeble lamp in a fireless chamber on a wintry morning. There could be no beefsteak nor oatmeal for break- fast, for the local butcher and Quaker oats were not yet invented. One warm room besides the kitchen was the most that the average farmhouse contained, and all the water must be pumped or drawn up from a well in the yard. One mail a day was the only con- nection with the outside world; telegraphs were far away, and telephones not dreamed of; lawn mowers had not been introduced, nor silos, nor steam radi- ators, nor gasoline engines, nor bicycles, nor antomo- biles. Sewing machines were of the rarest-and crudest-farm machinery had not progressed beyond
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the most rudimentary of mowers, reapers, rakes and threshers ; and a scrub cow, a bucket, a red crock, a skimmer, a small churn, a wooden bowl and a paddle, then furnished a model dairy outfit.
The only point at which Sandy Spring seems to have made no advance in the last forty-one years is in the matter of transportation facilities.
They had begun to plan for a railroad even then ; we are still planning for it, with, perhaps, less hopes of a speedy consummation ! True, surveyors have been prowling through our fields and woods of late, and we have been threatened with a monorail electric road which will run trains so fast that we shall ar- rive in Baltimore or Washington almost before we have started from home. But we have not allowed the prospect to take our breath, whatever the reality might do, should the project ever be realized.
But that is "quite another story," let us return to the past.
Even our amusements have changed in forty-one years; where our grand parents went out to spend the day from nine in the morning till nine in the evening, or went to supper at two p. m., we have un- numbered society meetings, card parties at all hours of the day and night, and a few skimpy calls.
Our style of dressing and living is far more elab- orate than theirs, and, perhaps, also more comfort- able, but there may be a question if we maintain their standard of high thinking in our less simple life.
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If, as the poet says-if
"We are the same that our fathers have been ; We see the same sights that our fathers have seen- We drink the same stream and view the same sun And run the same course that our fathers have run"-
on the whole it is with a difference.
The Annual Meeting in 1904 was three weeks ahead of schedule time, "and thereby hangs a tale."
The Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Mont- gomery County, after many years of prosperity, has grown wealthy, and as a natural consequence it felt that its modest and picturesque building at the head of the meeting-house lane was no longer adequate to its ideas and needs ; therefore it resolved on building itself a new home during the spring and summer of 1904.
Of course temporary quarters, for use during this time, must be secured, and the Lyceum was the most available place. So the date of the Annual Meeting was advanced, that we might be safely out of the In- surance Company's way when it suited them to take possession-provided the stockholders of the Lyce- um Company should grant them the exclusive use of the hall so long as they might need it.
Well, the time appointed for the annual meeting was April 4, and the neighborhood was out in a body, as usual; likewise the routine business was done in the usual way. The proposition to rent the hall to the Insurance Company for several months was the
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only new scheme introduced, and there were many and varied opinions as to the advisability of depriv- ing the public of the use of the building for so long a time. The Insurance Company offered us the mu- nificent sum of $36.00 for six months' use of the place, and generously raised it to $50.00 when ob- jection was made to accepting their proposal. So that was settled, and Messrs. Farquhar and Palmer, with all the Lares and Penates of the Insurance Of- fice, including the telephone, were soon installed with- in the Lyceum walls, and by the 16 April the work of tearing down the old Insurance Building had be- gun.
The long winter chronicled last year had not ended by the 4 April, for, though it was bright and clear, the mercury stood at 25° that morning. There was ice as late as the 22, and the frost was not entirely out of the ground in shady places till near the end of the month. April 5, brought the jonquils into bloom, and on the 25 the fercury stood at eighty-two degrees.
Some gardening was done about the 6, and the various fruit blossoms struggled forth along during the month, till by the 30 the cherry, plum and peach bloom were at the full, and the woods began to show green.
On April 6, Caroline L. Brooke took possession of her new house, Walbrooke, and later in the month J. Janney Shoemaker and family moved to Drayton.
On April 11, in the death of Caroline M. Far- quhar, Sandy Spring suffered one of the sorest losse;
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that has ever come to the neighborhood. When such a presence of "sweetness and light" is withdrawn, a darkness that can be felt must, for a season, oppress us who are left, until we can make our own the thought that she is "not lost, but gone before."
The following notice from the Friends' Intelli- gencer seems to say, in fitting words, what all must feel :
"At her home Rock Spring, in Sandy Spring, Md., Caroline Miller, wife of Roger B. Farquhar, and daughter of the late Robert H. and Anna Miller, of Alexandria, Va., died in her sixty-second year.
" 'None knew thee but to love thee,
Nor named thee but to praise.'
"Just as the budding spring was upon us, and we, too, with the birds and the flowers, longed to be gay, we were met with a crushing sorrow, and we mourn as almost without hope! We have failed to remem- ber, or remembering we cannot yet take to our ach- ing hearts the comfort of that glorious and eternal Spring-time, upon which we must believe our beloved one has entered. But He who surely has, Himself, filled the fountains of our human affections, will un- derstand and forgive.
"Those whose minds will be carried back by this announcement to the thought of Caroline S. Miller in the bloom of her youth-an image never likely to fade from any mind that received it-are a large number still. There were charms of the outward person, not swift to wane, indeed, but whose natural
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destiny is decay, and which often work the injury of the wearer while they last. She, to whom these at- tractions were entrusted in such rare degree, seemed unconscious of them, and incapable of perverting them to the ill uses they so often serve. And this was the effect, that they were transfigured, year by year, into higher forms. Every grace that must have withered with the body, passed into an imperishable loveliness of the soul. For such are the workings of the heavenly laws, which she ever seemed to fulfill, as if without effort, without struggle, without failure.
"She was the lode-star of her home, the one cen- tral thought toward which her entire family turned, husband and children ; she was their hope, their trust, their inspiration, and all who know them easily recognize the stamp of her wise and wondrous per- sonality. Her interests were many, active and varied, beginning always with the home; and it was in the plain and imperative duties of a country home, the cares of a large household, the manifold burdens of a wife and mother, that this ideal of a true life was so largely realized.
"May the gracious Father of All comfort us, and give us
'The assurance strong
That love which fails of perfect uttrance here,
Lives on to fill the heavenly atmosphere
With its immortal song.' "
April 9, Volney B. Cushing, of Maine, gave at the Lyceum a very eloquent address in behalf of the Prohibition Party. The audience was small, for, be-
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sides the usual reasons that prevent our people from attending lectures these days, it was a foggy, dis- agreeable night.
Sherwood school, which had been fighting against guerrilla squads of scarlet fever and measles all winter, finally surrendered to an attack in force by the latter disease, and closed its doors from the 14 to the 25 of April. It was estimated that at that time there were forty cases of measles in the neighborhood.
On April 19, during a high wind, Charles P. Hill's stable, in Cincinnati, caught fire, and was burned in spite of all efforts to save it; and it was only by vig- orous work that the flames were prevented from sweeping Philip T. Stabler's woods, at the edge of which the building stood.
About two weeks later, May 5, there was a serious forest fire on Plainfield farm, where something like ten acres of woodland were burned over, besides a smaller tract belonging to Woodburn farm. All the young growth was killed, and about thirteen cords of firewood lost. In April, 1905, fire again attacked this woods, destroying all that the former burning had spared, and it was only kept from spreading by strenuous efforts.
"On April 28, 1904, a strange man entered the Savings Institution, and the instant he set foot in- side the building he was recognized by one of the bank officials as a 'pathfinder' for a band of vegg- men.' While waiting for his turn to be served he took mental note of the style of the vault, of the
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metal sign of the Bankers' Association, and of the insurance policies against 'hold-ups' and 'professional burglars.'
"When the treasurer was ready to attend to him, he asked to have a one-dollar bill changed; his com- panion went into the Insurance Company's office for a like purpose. They had probably read of two banks in the town, and thought the Insurace office was one.
"They went towards Ellicott City, and were last seen at W. L. Purvis' gate, sitting on a pile of rails. "Pinkerton's Detective Agency and Captain Pumphrey of Baltimore were both informed of the facts immediately, but they took no steps further than to ask for a detailed description of the suspected men.
"The suspicions of the bank officers were confirmed four days later. About 11.30 p. m., one of the officers met five men walking up the Baltimore road in the direction of the bank, and about a mile from it. As they were strange white men, and were carry- ing a satchel or two, he felt certain that they were going to attack the bank.
"As events proved, they stopped at James Mar- lowe's blacksmith shop to gather up various tools, and about 12.45 a. m. they charged and exploded one of the padlocks on the grating door of the bank.
"Samuel B. Wetherald, for the third time in four years, was roused by the explosion ; calling Richard Lansdale, Jr., an inmate of his own house, and telephoning to Hillis and Frank Robison at Central.
4.
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they all four dressed and armed as quickly as possi- ble, and approached the bank -- the Robisons from the east, Wetherald and Lansdale from the west.
"The moonlight was extremely bright, and the men could see the robbers plainly, and vice versa. Perceiving that they were discovered, the thieves opened fire with about ten shots, in such quick suc- cession that they sounded like firecrackers in a pack, then taking to their heels they sprinted towards the meeting-house, followed by a volley from the home guard; neither side seems to have damaged its oppo- nents, and the last heard of the burglars by the pur- suing party, they were crackling through the woods between Joseph Stabler's and Joseph T. Moore's. In their haste to get away they left by the bank va- rious articles of dress and equipment. Subsequently in the woods, about 200 yards from the meeting-house, a satchel was found containing many things useful in their calling.
"The Pinkertons, working on the case, through an informer, learned the identity of three of the men concerned in the attempt, and on December 8, 1904. in the general 'round-up' of the 'yeggmen' in Balti- more, one of the trio was caught and given to the Federal authorities. A second was arrested in New York on January 1, 1905, but has since escaped. The third, Con Shorty, a man of many aliases, like most of his kind, was located, through some clever detective work by the Baltimore authorities, in a workhouse in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thence he was brought to Baltimore, and has been there since Febru-
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ary, 1905. At the hearing before a Justice of the Peace in Rockville he was charged with attempted robbery of the Savings Bank of Sandy Spring, and held for the grand jury; they, having heard the wit- nesses in the case, indicted him, to be tried before the petit jury, and the day set for his trial is April 18, 1905." (F. L. T.)
May 28, Richard White, son of John H. and Sal- lie Randolph Janney, was born at Brooke Meadow.
May 30, nine picked riflemen of the District of Columbia National Guard came to try conclusions with a Sandy Spring team on a range in Rock Spring meadow. Our men were S. B. Wetherald, S. I. Scott, Edmund W. Scott, Fred. L. Thomas, Frank M. Hal- lowell, Henry H. Miller, George E. Cooke, Joseph T. Moore, Jr., and Fletcher Turner, who proved them- selves the superior marksmen.
"On June 4, Dr. C. Edward Iddings, for twenty- seven years a resident of Sandy Spring, passed from this earthly life to the life beyond.
"His had been a life of wide and varied experi- ence. Born in 1829, in Philadelphia, he came as a child, with his parents, to Baltimore County, where he grew up among his brothers and sisters in the happy, wholesome atmosphere of a country home.
"In his early manhood, touched by the then pre- vailing gold-fever, he joined the 'forty-niners' in their quest for riches in the Far West. California. now brought so near to us by the all-pervading rail- way system, was then very far away, and he spent
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six months in a sailing vessel, going around Cape Horn on his voyage to San Francisco.
"After two adventurous years among the pioneers, he returned by a shorter route, crossing Central Amer- ica, and catching a glimpse of life in the tropics.
"Shortly after his return he took up the study of medicine, first in the Maryland University, and aft- erwards in the Pennsylvania College, where he.grad- uated in 1857.
"He married and settled in Pennsylvania, and then came the sad days of the Civil War, and he be- came Acting Assistant Surgeon in the Satterlee Hos- pital, West Philadelphia, a position entailing intense mental strain and great responsibility. Later he was with the Forty-fifth Pennsylvania Volunteers until the troops were disbanded at the close of the war, and he was present in active service as surgeon at the bat- tle of Petersburg,
"So, amidst the scenes that try men's souls, he gained that skill and experience in surgery which he possessed as long as he lived.
"After this came the quiet years that were yet the happiest, full of intense love of home and family, of lively interest in the welfare of the community, and in the larger topics of the day, through which he al- ways gave earnest study to the ever-advancing science of medicine and surgery.
"He had been failing for some time before his death, and at last he, who had stood by so many deathbeds, counting the last faint beats of the failing
I m onisibe a
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pulse, himself solved the great mystery, and by the gateway of death entered into life.
"His was a personality not soon to be forgotten, and we can fancy we see him still, bent upon some errand in the village, with his white hair and youth- ful, elastic step, his military carriage and lightly swinging cane. Readily we recall his keen sense of humor, his easy flow of language, and his ability to tell a 'good story ;' his love of music and flowers, dumb animals and little children ; but, longest of all, we will remember his ready smile of greeting, his old-fashioned hospitality, his perfect, never-failing courtesy. A gentleman of the old school! How few are left today !" (F. P. I.)
Though there had been rain several days previous to June 8, that morning smiled on the Sherwood Commencement, and it was held out of doors accord- ing to previous plans .. A large audience gathered to witness the interesting exercises of the occasion, when Mildred H. Bentley, Maurice L. Bentley, Catherine D. Thomas, Henry T. Moore and Edith Shoemaker received their diplomas.
Emma M. Thom also received her baccalaureate degree at Hollins Institute, in June, and Edna V. Thomas, having finished the library course in the Drexel Institute, Philadelphia, received an appoint- ment in the library of the University of Pennsyl- vania.
Quarterly Meeting, June 11-13, had neither heat nor storm to contend with this year. There were few Friends present from a distance, and only one
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minister, Jeremiah Starr of Baltimore County, but the meetings were large and not unprofitable.
The strawberry crop, much impaired by rain dur- ing the time of ripening, failed to bring the profit it has made in other years, and our chief growers, Rob- ert H. Miller and Francis Thomas, have decided that they do not pay on a large farm where staple crops are raised.
The showery weather that spoiled the berries also impeded harvest work, as thunder storms were of almost daily occurrence and sometimes oftener dur- ing the last half of June and the first half of July; but hot days were few and far between.
Wheat made a fair crop, averaging about twenty bushels per acre of good grain; but the yield was very unequal, ranging from as low as twelve bushels to as high as thirty-six bushels per acre. Hay made from one and one-half to two tons per acre, and the season was exceptionally favorable to oats where they were sown. Potatoes were abundant and of fine qual- ity, and corn made a particularly good yield-of from ten to fifteen barrels per acre. Apples were rather scarce, but the few peach orchards in this vicinity bore better than they have done for years, and gar- dens generally did well throughout the season.
On June 15, Nora L. Stabler, daughter of James P. and Alice Brooke Stabler, was married at Friends' meeting-house, Washington, D. C., by Friends' cere- mony, to George S. Worth of Coatesville, Pa., where the young couple make their home.
On June 25 occurred one of the most noteworthy
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events that ever took place in Sandy Spring: the cornerstone of the new Insurance Office was laid, with fitting ceremonies. Appropriate speeches were made by Governor Warfield and others, and an interesting historical sketch of the institution from its incep- tion was given by Allan Farquhar.
He told of the idea having originated in the mind of Dr. Charles Farquhar, Sr., who took some pre- liminary steps towards forming such an organization in 1842. The plan was not realized, however, till 1848, when Edward Stabler took hold of it, and put it into good working order, with the help of the staunch board of original directors-Richard T. Bent- ley, William H. Farquhar, Caleb Stabler. Francis P. Blair, Dr. William Palmer, Joseph Gilpin, Joshua Peirce, Edward Lea, Samuel Ellicott, Henry Stabler, Robert R. Moore, and George E. Brooke, the sole survivor of the band. Special meed of praise was given to Robert R. Moore, the first secretary and treasurer of the Company, for years of efficient and faithful service.
The further progress of the corporation was fol- lowed through the administrations of its successive presidents, Richard T. Bentley, Joseph T. Moore and Edward P. Thomas, and the narrative was interesting even when it came to statistics. Mr. Farquhar was so happy in this that we quote his figures in his own setting :
"We have now reviewed the company's history for considerably over half a century. We have seen the losses fluctuate from $30.00 in 1849 to $40,000.00
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in 1873; from $15,000 in 1874 to nearly $90,000 in the record-breaking year 1893; then drop to $34,000 in 1899. We have seen the number of our policies grow from 67 to 44,000; and the amount of insur- ance swell to the enormous sum of almost $19,000,- 000, then fall off, by the wholesome pruning of re- construction, to about $14,000,000. We have seen a fairly steady gain in premium notes until they are nearly $2,000,000, or 200 times what they were when the first annual statement was printed .. We have seen our invested surplus grow to $100,000 in 1892, then melt away until it was only $24,000 in 1897 ; then advance rapidly till it is now at the high- water mark of $130,000. The original office build- ing was authorized in 1857, when a committee was appointed 'to purchase a piece of ground at Sandy Spring and erect a building suitable for the uses and purposes of this company, as an office, provided the whole cost will not be over $500.00.'"
Compare that modest appropriation with the thou- sands devoted to the rearing of the present imposing structure, and see how
"The thoughts of men are widened with the process of the sun"!
Some tinge of their predecessors' frugality yet lingers in the present board of directors, however- did they not offer $36.00 for rent of the Lyceum dur- ing this "reconstruction period" ?
Following the usual custom, the cornerstone cov- ered a small collection of objects of possible interest to future generations, such as specimens of current
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newspapers, a file of the annual statements of the Company, forms of policy and application, and a copy of Mr. Farquhar's history of the institution.
During the latter part of June, Catherine Janney opened her house to a camping party of ten young ladies, who spent a care-free, happy week within those hospitable walls.
"Henry W. Davis died at his home, after long and painful illness, on June 29, 1904, in the sixty-second year of his age.
"A large concourse of friends and neighbors as- sembled at Knollton on the morning of the 1 July, and after the Episcopal service at the house, con- ducted by Rev. P. H. Boyden, he was laid to rest in the burial ground at Sandy Spring meeting-house.
"He was a native of Philadelphia, but for some vears he and his devoted wife had lived among us, interested in all neighborhood affairs; and had built and occupied their very attractive home, Knollton.
"Memory will recall him as one whose genial smile and merry jest, like the welcome sunshine in a shady place, illuminated the dark spots in life; as one who lightened its labors by his spontaneous humor and cheerfulness.
"From his lips was never heard the censorious word, and he was affable and pleasant to all.
"Does not almost every one in Sandy Spring ro- call some happy hour spent with Harry Davis?" (E. N. M.)
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On July 3, Mary T., wife of James Marlowe, died at her home in Ashton.
A woman of singularly sweet and gentle nature, she bore a life of invalidism with uncomplaining pa- tience, even when it brought her severe suffering. In spite of ill health, she was the center of home to her husband and her only son; an inspiration and strength to them, not less now, that her bodily pres- ence is removed, than when she was with them in the flesh.
"In July of 1904, Dr. Augustus Stabler was com- missioned by the Maryland Experiment Station to make special studies of the sweet-corn industry in this and other States, in order to dispel the popular fallacy that it is necessary to purchase northern-grown seed each year; and to encourage the production and saving of home-grown seed. He first visited Carroll County, Maryland, where 5,000 acres of sweet corn a year are planted for canning by one firm, and all the seed bought each season from Connecticut, at five cents an ear. Later he went to Aberdeen, Harford County, where corn from 7,000 acres a year is packed, and all from home-grown seed, which they find is much superior to that from the north. Then he vis- ited the seed farms in Connecticut, where such a good business has been done supplying seed to Maryland packers.
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