“Murder and Mayhem in Carroll County” - Historical Society
of Carroll County Box Lunch Talk for August 15, 2017 by Kevin Dayhoff
The next Historical Society of Carroll County Box Lunch Talk
is next Tuesday on August 15, 2017 at 1 p.m. in Grace Hall at Grace Lutheran
Church at 21 Carroll Street. The talk is on “Murder and Mayhem in Carroll
County.”
Admission to the Box Lunch Talk is $3 for members and $7 for
non-members. The price of admission includes a small selection of beverages and
dessert.
Grace Lutheran Church is located at 21 Carroll Street,
Westminster. Free parking is available in the nearby Carroll Street parking
lot.
For more information check the historical society’s web site
at http://hsccmd.org, or call them at 410-848-6494.
On August 1, 2017, Carroll County Times writer Lois
Szymanski provided a preview of the talk in an article, “Central Carroll:
Murder & Mayhem during box lunch talk,” in the Carroll County Times: Find
it here: http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/news/neighborhoods/cc-nh-central-carroll-20170726-story.html
Ever since Biblical times when Cain committed the first
murder when he killed his brother Able, crime, murder, and mayhem has been the
focus of an unexplained fascination of any society and Carroll County is no
different. Kevin Dayhoff reports upon many of the high crimes and misdemeanors
that have stained the history of the county over the years.
From 1859 to 1916 three people were hanged in Westminster
for heinous murders. Rebecca McCormack killed a 13-year-old boy by stabbing him
with a pitchfork. She was convicted of murder and hanged in June 1859 outside
the jail. She was the first person hanged in Carroll County, and the only woman
ever to have been executed here. Joseph Davis was hanged in 1874, and Solomon
Sudler, a 16-year-old, was hanged in 1916.
Over the years, not everyone liked the entertainment
provided at the Odd Fellow’s Hall in Westminster. Around the time of the
American Civil War a show at the hall featured unflattering impressions of
Lincoln, Grant and other national leaders. The next day morning, the
decapitated body of the entertainer was found in a rear stable.
Statewide, many folks are not aware that Maryland had a
brief spell of dealing with witches long before the famous Salem witchcraft
trials in 1692. The earliest cases in Maryland “involved the hanging of women
assumed to be witches while aboard ships traveling from England to the colonies
in 1654 and 1658.”
In April 1865 the editor of the Western Maryland Democrat,
Joseph Shaw, was lynched in Westminster at the corner of Anchor and West Main
Street for an editorial that he had published in the paper just days before
President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 14th 1865. "Joseph
Shaw, the outspoken, pro-southern newspaperman, was Carroll County's final
casualty of the war."
It might be noted, that murdering editors is on the
disapproved behavior list in Westminster. You can complain and mutter epitaphs
– but you can’t harm them.
Admission to the Box Lunch Talk is $3 for members and $7 for
non-members. The price of admission includes a small selection of beverages and
dessert.
Grace Lutheran Church is located at 21 Carroll Street,
Westminster. Free parking is available in the nearby Carroll Street parking
lot.
For more information check the historical society’s web site
at http://hsccmd.org, or call them at 410-848-6494.
Baltimore Sun Carroll Eagle:
Carroll County Times: http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/search/dispatcher.front?page=1&isSearch=true&target=all&spell=on&Query=Kevin%20Dayhoff#trb_search
Westminster Patch: http://patch.com/users/kevin-e-dayhoff?page=1
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoff
Tumblr: Kevin Dayhoff Banana Stems www.kevindayhoff.tumblr.com/Kevin Dayhoff is an artist - and a columnist for:
Baltimore Sun - Carroll County Times - The Carroll Eagle: www.explorecarroll.com: http://www.explorecarroll.com/search/?s=Dayhoff&action=GO
Kevin Dayhoff Art: http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/ or http://kevindayhoffart.com/ = http://www.kevindayhoff.com/
Kevin Dayhoff Westminster: http://kevindayhoffwestgov-net.blogspot.com/ or http://www.westgov.net/ = www.kevindayhoff.org
Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/ = www.newbedfordherald.net
Kevin Dayhoff Westminster: http://kevindayhoffwestgov-net.blogspot.com/ or http://www.westgov.net/ = www.kevindayhoff.org
Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/ = www.newbedfordherald.net
Smurfs: http://babylonfluckjudd.blogspot.com/
Google profile: https://profiles.google.com/kevindayhoff/
E-mail: kevindayhoff(at)gmail.com
My http://www.explorecarroll.com/ columns appear in the copy of the Baltimore Sunday Sun that is distributed in Carroll County: https://subscribe.baltsun.com/Circulation/
Google profile: https://profiles.google.com/kevindayhoff/
E-mail: kevindayhoff(at)gmail.com
My http://www.explorecarroll.com/ columns appear in the copy of the Baltimore Sunday Sun that is distributed in Carroll County: https://subscribe.baltsun.com/Circulation/
See also - Kevin Earl Dayhoff Art www.kevindayhoff.com: Travel, art,
artists, authors, books, newspapers, media, writers and writing, journalists
and journalism, reporters and reporting, music, culture, opera... Ad maiorem
Dei gloriam inque hominum salutem. “Deadline U.S.A.” 1952. Ed Hutcheson:
“That's the press, baby. The press! And there's nothing you can do about it. Nothing!”
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