This Month In Frederick County History

December

From John Ashbury's - '... and all our yesterdays'

December 7

When word reached Frederick that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, shock was quickly replaced with a determination to do whatever it took to protect this nation and defeat its enemies.

In early February 1941, Company A of the Maryland National Guard went onto active service for what the men thought would be one year. Many of them would die in the service of their country. Others would not come home until 1947.

The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Sunday morning December 7. It was already evening here, but radios and telephones quickly spread the word. Civic leaders began early the next morning to organize for the civil defense of Frederick.

Four days later the Frederick County Council of Defense opened a headquarters in the People's Courtroom in the County courthouse. On Thursday morning the 11th, local units of the Maryland State Guard were mobilized.

As the men, outfitted in full uniform, with guns and packs, marched from the Armory to Market Street, down to Patrick, up to Court, then north to Second and back to the Armory, storekeepers, clerks and others silently watched them pass.

Friday night more than 500 people crowded into the Circuit courtroom to be sworn in as civilian volunteers. They were all resolved "to stand behind the man behind the gun." On Monday, December 13, the first blackout drill was conducted with great success.

The determination that had been displayed so fervently was muted on the 16th when Mr. and Mrs. Roy Baker, of Emmitsburg, received word that their son, George W. Baker, had been killed at Hickham Field near Honolulu, where he was training as an airplane mechanic. His death was noted as the first Frederick County casualty of World War II. However, a week after the announcement of his death, his parents received a call from Baker saying that he was okay.

December 14

Seldom in the history of Frederick County have the citizens been aroused to a fever pitch by the exploits of criminals. Usually the crime was committed and the culprit captured within a short time. Everybody wanted to know as much as possible about the misdeed and the offender. But seldom did the citizens rise up to help law enforcement officials as they did in the fall of 1919.

In the early morning hours of October 18, four Frederick businesses were burglarized. One of them, Markell and Ford, was nearly wrecked by explosion as the burglars attempted to blow the safe.

As daylight arrived the two criminals caught the early morning trolley to Lewistown at Montevue Hospital. Upon arrival, they disembarked because they had to wait for the through trolley to Thurmont.

While they were there, word of the burglaries reached Lewistown, and because they were strangers, they aroused suspicion. When the Thurmont trolley left Lewistown, someone called the Sheriff, who in-turn called Deputy Sheriff Lidie in Thurmont.

He told Lidie to meet the trolley and arrest the two men for questioning. Lidie called upon Leo Creager, Samuel Vanhorn, William Foreman, Charles Spaulding, and William Harbaugh, local residents, to help him in the apprehension.

At the station Lidie saw that one of the men had already boarded the Western Maryland train. He told Harbaugh to arrest the man on the train. Shortly Harbaugh emerged with the man in tow and Lidie put handcuffs on him.

While this was happening, the other man stated to run and Lidie drew his pistol and fired several shots at him without effect. The Thurmont men then climbed into Creager's car and took off after the man. Spaulding followed the man on foot. Lidie remained at the train depot to take charge of the other suspect.

The men in the car circled around to get in front of the escaping criminal. At Apples Church road, Spaulding came upon the others in the car and jumped on the running board. Creager attempted to run the man down on the road but missed him and ended up in a ditch.

All of the men jumped out of the car in hot pursuit. Creager, apparently, was faster than the others because he gained on the suspect quickly. He chased him into a peach orchard near Latimer Schildt's barn.

Suddenly the suspect turned and fired directly at Creager. The bullet hit him in the left side just below the heart. When Spaulding's gun failed to fire, the burglar held these men at gunpoint and then started running away again. The men then turned to Creeger in an attempt to save his life but were unable to.

With Creager's death, the Sheriff organized a huge manhunt, involving more than 500 men. It went on for three days, but no trace of the suspect was found. The Frederick County commissioners even offered a $1,000 reward for the capture of the man "dead or alive."

The man who was arrested on the day of Creager's death was identified later as Irwin Mantz of Waynesboro. Information obtained from Mantz eventually identified the other suspect as Clarence Wallace, also of Waynesboro, who had worked in Frederick helping to construct a building at Hood College, and in the construction of a new high school in Thurmont.

On Saturday December 14, 1919, acting on information supplied by Frederick County officials, Santa Barbara, California, police attempted to arrest Wallace at the local post office.

During a shoot-out Wallace received three gunshot wounds. He died the next day. But the story doesn't end there.

Frederick County officials ordered the body shipped back to Frederick so that positive identification could be made. The casket arrived in Frederick December 22 and was taken to the county courthouse the next morning. Hundreds of people went to see the body. Wallace was identified by several witnesses.

December 21

The columns of the Frederick Examiner of December 21, 1881, told the story of an elopement. It wasn't your usual case, however. Other Frederick newspapers had already covered the story of Mrs. John Devilbiss and A. M. Geisbert, both of the Creagerstown area, when it was carried by The Examiner.

The lady was described by its writers as: "a woman of comely appearance and pleasant address, vivacious and all that, but never taught to be 'fast'."

Geisbert was said to be "a man of sober habits, sedate, and gives evidence to the beholder of anything else than a romantic disposition...There is no accounting for taste, for Mrs. D. became enamored of one far from being altogether lovely."

However, both left their homes in early December, leaving spouses and small children behind. Mrs. Devilbiss was the wife of a physician, who, when she abandoned her family, was in Cincinnati on business.

For weeks following the elopement, Frederick County was abuzz with all sorts of rumors concerning the pair. They were tracked to Baltimore, but then all trace of them seems to have disappeared.

Geisbert, a former county school teacher, was the agent for the executor of the estate of Adam Black at the time of his elopement and was suspected of taking some of that estate's assets when he left.

Mrs. Devilbiss was the daughter of William Shank, who had left her more than $1,300, which she withdrew from a Frederick Bank the day she eloped with Geisbert.

December 28

A little piece of Frederick's history - about 2,000 pounds of it - rests today in the U. S. National Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, still ticking after nearly 200 years. As most towns in their native Germany had a town clock, so the German settlers of Frederick wanted one also.

The steeple of Trinity Church was already up when the city corporation and the church combined to order a clock to be built by Frederick Heisley, a Frederick artisan. It is believed that Heisley moved to Frederick Town in 1783, shortly after marrying Catherine Hoff, herself the daughter of a clockmaker in Lancaster, Pa.

Heisley quickly became active in the affairs of Frederick, owning several parcels of ground on Market Street and on Church Street. He was also a jeweler and made technical instruments for surveying.

After constructing the clock, Heisley asked another local clock and watch maker - John Fessler - to assist in its installation in the steeple. There are some who believe the clockworks were installed as early as 1791, but it is more likely to have happened in 1807.

The Heisley's had four children while living in Frederick, although all were not born here. The death of daughter Caroline in 1815 apparently led the Heisleys to leave Frederick for Harrisburg Pennsylvania. It was there he died March 18, 1843, as noted in Jacob Englebrecht's diary.

In 1928 the clockworks were removed and stored in the Price Electric warehouse. The Fessler family, which had maintained the clock, including winding it regularly, ended with the removal.

On December 28, 1931, the Heisley clockworks were presented by the city to the Smithsonian, where they were restored and where they remain on display.