Saturday, December 22, 2018

Merry Christmas & Happy Chanukah!

Merry Christmas & Happy Chanukah folks! May you enjoy your friends and family during the holiday!


1947 Pennsylvania Railroad's "Twas the night before Christmas..." advertisement painted by Jerome Rozen (1895-1987).

Sunday, December 2, 2018

East New Market

Here's a photo of the, then, Philadelphia, Baltimore & Wilmington Railroad's East New Market, MD station in 1919, by an unknown photographer.

PB&W East New Market, MD station in 1919 by an unknown photographer

East New Market was located at MP 19.9 (south from Seaford, DE) on the Cambridge Secondary Track. That put the station 12.9 miles north of Cambridge or 104.2 miles from Wilmington, DE . Note that the directions are railroad employee timetable directions.

The builder of the line, the Dorchester & Delaware Railroad (D&DRR), reached East Newmarket (the town's original spelling until February 1885) sometime between October 12, 1868, & November 1868, but it wasn't ready to see its first passenger train until a year later - November 8, 1869 (the first revenue passenger train run).

Here's a photo of the East New Market station on September 29, 2012, by William T. Miller:

East New Market station on September 29, 2012, by William T. Miller

East New Market is the burial place for “Captain” Thomas B. Sherman (1811-1885), a director of the D&DRR [with William Wilson Byrn (1811-1886)]. Captain Sherman was a farmer, fruit grower, & a large property owner in the town of Cambridge, MD, who also started the Sherman's Collegiate Institute in the 1840's, but by the turn of the century, the Institute closed. In 1860, he received permission, by a Maryland State Legislature act, to build a wharf on the north side of Indian Creek and “charge reasonable wharfage fees for the use thereof” in Cambridge, MD.  He was allowed to extend the wharf far enough into the creek for steamboats and other vessels to enter. The wharf was used for steam shipping between Dorchester County and Baltimore, MD in the second and third quarters of the 19th Century. He received the nickname “Captain” after building the wharves.