This Month In Frederick County History

January

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

January 5

Frederick Countians have done some remarkable things through the years. A German immigrant, John Amelung, made some of the finest glass known in colonial times. McClintock Young invented a brush making machine that allowed a local company to send its product around the world.

But Horsey, who was born in 1819, made a name for himself and Frederick County in the distillery business.

In 1838 he built his plant on a 61 acre tract of land between Burkittsville and Knoxville. He was only 19 years old at the time, but his method of producing rye whiskey became the subject of conversation everywhere.

Horsey disliked the profession of his father, who was a Delaware senator for 12 years, and his grandfather, Maryland's second governor, Thomas Lee. So, he opened his Needwood Distillery. It later became known as the Horsey Distillery.

For years he experimented with various methods of distilling. His work was interrupted by The Civil War. As a matter of fact, in 1862, Union troops reduced his buildings to rubble.

In the three years that followed the destruction of his plant, Horsey studied European distillation methods, experimenting with various elements of the process.

In 1865 he rebuilt his distillery using the most modern of methods and the best equipment he could find. The warehouse was tripled in size so that he could store up to 3,000 barrels. In short order his Very Fine Outerbridge Horsey's Rye Whiskey became a national item. Californians bought almost one-third of his production.

However, this rye whiskey wasn't cheap. It was Horsey's method of aging that ran up the price. He would store the product in his warehouse for from six month to two years. He would then ship it by rail from Knoxville-Brunswick to Washington where it was loaded on an ocean-going vessel. It would travel around the horn of South America and up the west coast to California. Some of it was even left on the ship and returned to Burkittsville.

This sea voyage, Horsey concluded, was why the Scotch and Irish whiskeys available in America were so much smoother and mellower than those produced in the colonies.

A year before his death in 1902, he began to distill corn whiskey. But the plant was just a few short years from its demise.

In 1919, the Volstead Act was passed and the distillery was closed forever. However, the story of Horsey's Distillery doesn't end here.

Old time residents of the Burkittsville area still tell the tale of the death of Dr. George Yourtee. It seems that after the government forced the closure of Horsey's plant, the warehouse and its contents were put under guard. Area residents frequently raided the warehouse and bribed the guards to get at the rye whiskey still in storage.

In the early morning hours of March 31, 1923, with a new guard on duty, a group of residents raided the warehouse. Not knowing of the prior arrangements with the guards, this new one fired into the crowd and Dr. Yourtee was hit. He died that evening.

Although the story cannot be confirmed by newspaper accounts, the reports in the press concerning the raid on the distillery warehouse and the death of Dr. Yourtee, who was a prominent physician and surgeon in Burkittsville, probably led to the speculation that he was involved in the raid. The cause of death for Dr. Yourtee was not included in the newspaper articles, but because of his position and reputation in the community it doubtful that he died of that ill-fated gunshot wound.

January 12

in 1851, a new addition to the Old Hill Methodist Episcopal Church on East All Saints Street, believed to be the first church in Frederick to allow Negroes to attend, was dedicated.

Back in 1811, Richard Potts, a lawyer and prominent member of All Saints Episcopal Church, deeded a part of Lot #10 on East All Saints Street to a free Negro named William Hammond.

Seven years later Hammond deeded part of that lot to a group of trustees for the expressed purpose of constructing a new Methodist Episcopal Church which would allow Negroes to attend. That church became known as The Old Hill Church.

While many believe this church was built on the same property where All Saints Episcopal Church had stood, it was not. Old Hill Church was constructed on part of a lot adjacent to the three lots where All Saints had been. From its inception in 1818 to 1864, both whites and Negroes attended services together.

In 1850 the Old Hill parishioners constructed a large addition. It was dedicated in 1851. In 1864 Negroes, who had been attending the Old Hill Church since 1818, took full possession, and in 1868 it was incorporated as Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church.

The present facility at the northwest corner of South Court and West All Saints Streets was built in 1921 and continues today as a house of worship for black city and county residents.

January 19

Marital difficulties are not a new thing in America. Today we have special facilities for battered spouses. We have a highly developed profession of marriage counselors. However, at the turn of the 20th century, they were few and far between.

In Brunswick, which was in the midst of its boomtown era, townspeople were shocked in January 1900, to hear of a shooting involving two Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers over one of their wives.

On Saturday the 18th, Jerome Swartley, a conductor for the B&O, left his home, telling his wife he was going on his "run."

During the night he returned to Brunswick and early on Sunday morning he went home unexpectedly. He had suspected his wife of infidelity and had developed a plan to catch her in the act.

When he arrived home he found Charles Seeberger, an electrician for the railroad and a next-door neighbor, in a compromising position with his wife. A quarrel, and then a physical confrontation ensued.

Seeberger was hit in the thigh with the first shot from Swartley's gun, but he continued to struggle with the irate husband. Although he had his thumb over the barrel of the .38 caliber pistol, a second shot passed through it and lodged in Seeberger's abdomen.

The fight continued and finally Swartley pulled the gun away from Seeberger and fired a third shot. The bullet pierced his opponent's left side and passed through his lung.

Somehow Seeberger managed to take the gun away from Swartley and flee the house. He was taken by train to Baltimore City Hospitals where he underwent three hours of surgery.

On January 16, Seeberger died of his wounds and Swartley was charged with murder. An autopsy showed that the bullet that hit Seeberger in the chest had pierced his heart as well as his lung.

A hearing was held in the Frederick County Circuit Court before Judge John Motter. Motter, after hearing testimony from Mrs. Swartley that Seeberger had attacked her husband as soon as he entered the house, ruled that the shooting was not murder and released Swartley on $750 bail.

According to the newspapers of the day, after being released, Swartley walked to the Frederick train depot accompanied by his wife, "seemingly none the worse for the ordeal through which they had passed."

January 26

From late August 1881 until the Spring of 1886, an epidemic of diphtheria raged in Frederick. During those awful five years more than 300 city residents died of the disease, a bacterial infection characterized by weakness, high fever and the formation of membrane-like obstructions to breathing. More than 3 percent of the city's children died.

Dr. Franklin Smith, Frederick County Health Officer, blamed the local canning industry, hog pens, stables, privies and the city's gutters and sewers. At the canning plants Smith said he observed acres of corn cobs, tomato skins and other vegetable products piled as much as three and four feet deep. He said manure was also mixed in with the garbage.

For most of the five years of the epidemic, city officials tried every conceivable solution. They ordered the canning plants to remove the vegetable waste on a more regular basis. lye was spread in all privies; the gutters were cleaned daily; and everyone did what was possible at the time to cleanse drinking and bathing water.

However, the dread disease raged on, striking most city families. None did it hit with greater devastation that the Reverend Dr. Osborne Ingle, the rector of All Saints Episcopal Church.

He was visited by tragedy again and again during the epidemic. On April 5, 1881, the Rev. Ingle's 10-year-old daughter Elizabeth Dulany died, as so many children did in those days. However, her death was just a prelude to the suffering Ingle would endure over the next 21 months.

In January of 1882, just 10 months after Bessie's death, The Rev. Ingle and his wife, Mary, lost five more of their children to the disease. Gertrude, Osborne, Caroline, Susie and Antoinette all died in little more than two weeks' time. But for the Rev. Ingle the sorrow would continue. A year later, Mrs. Ingle died after giving birth to a son who did not live to be christened.

So it was that the Rev. Ingle lost eight members of his immediate family. A friend wrote later that "men stood awed and silenced before the noble courage with which Dr. Ingle went about his work. They wondered why a cup so bitter should be pressed to lips so pure." This dedicated pastor went on to serve All Saints for another 26 years before his death in 1909.