On May 18,1919, The Baltimore Sun reported Lieutenant Harry J. Bracker “Was Missing From Holabird As $29,204 Disappears”. That’s somewhere around $450,000 in 2023 dollars. When the staff at Fort Holabird checked in the payroll safe, they found the pay pouch filled with ashes and a horseshoe. I contacted the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, but as yet I haven’t been able to find what became of Lieutenant Bracker.
(The Baltimore Sun, 5/18/19)
“700 ACRES FIRE SWEPT: Flames Burn Over Wide Area On The Ridgely Estate MANY VOLUNTEERS AID FIREMEN Several Homes Endangered”
(The Baltimore Sun, May 8, 1911)
The fire was started by two boys playing with matches in a weed patch behind Carney’s Hotel (now Das Bierhalle) on Harford Road. The 700 acres that burned were located between Harford, Joppa, Belair, and Putty Hill Roads. Fire Companies from Gardenville, Parkville, Hamilton, Towson, and Roland Park responded. The aerial photo from 1927 shows the area affected (still quite rural in 1927). The Carney and Snyder homes narrowly survived and are still standing today. Given that this conflagration occurred in 1911, it’s safe to assume at least some of the firefighters were veterans of the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904. Thankfully, no one was killed, and the only injury reported was a firefighter who sustained a sprained ankle.
Long before there was Where’s Waldo, Baltimore was asking where’s Big Sam? The year was 1952, and Baltimore was a very different place. The the Inner Harbor was an industrial area that tourists were wise to avoid, and we were a town without professional football having just lost the Colts for the first time.
Salvatore “Big Sam” Zannino was 27 years old went he became what mob guys refer to as “gone.” With partners Benny Trotta, Anthony Messina and Johnny Cataneo they operated the Squires Athletic Club. Squire’s promoted the professional fights in Baltimore at the time. Sam was last seen on June 18, 1952 when he was dropped off by Trotta at Baltimore’s Penn Station enroute to New York. Sam was never heard from again. A few days after Sam boarded the train to oblivion, his business partner, Anthony Messina, was found dead in the trunk of a car on Market Place in Baltimore. Sam’s blood-stained Cadillac was later found abandoned in Wilmington, Delaware. After that the trail went cold, and “Big Sam” became one of Baltimore’s enduring mysteries.
There is no evidence that Sam was involved in organized crime; but Sam was a boxing promoter when the fight game was heavily infiltrated by gangsters. It would be difficult for even the most scrupulous fight promoter to avoid the mob’s tentacles during this era. At the time, the undisputed kingpin of the boxing world was Frankie Carbo (aka Mr. Gray). Carbo was a street thug from the Lower East Side of Manhattan. After a stint with Murder, Inc., he became a boxing promoter. Carbo was the boss of an interstate confederation of fight promoters and fight fixers known to boxing insiders and law enforcement as “The Combination.” There is no evidence linking Sam to the infamous Carbo, but in the October 1963 issue, Sports Illustrated described Sam’s business partner Benny Trotta as “an old pal of Mobster Frankie Carbo.”
It appears that even if Sam was trying to run a clean boxing operation, he was swimming with sharks.
Check back for updates; this research is a work in progress
The Sun, July 1, 1952: “Baltimore Fight Figure Missing His Car Found Ripped, Blood-Stained”
The Sun, June 8, 1952: “Sunlight –OnSports”
Sports Illustrated, October 1963 “This Death Might Kill Boxing”
Life Magazine, May 26, 1962, ”My Rugged Educaion in Boxing”
In the spirit of Halloween, here’s a list on Maryland Witch Trials:
1-Mary Lee 1654: Technically Mary was “tried” (and I use the term loosely) and hanged at sea on the way to Maryland. When the ship arrived in St. Mary’s, the Council of Maryland investigated, at least to the point of hearing two depositions from men aboard. They testified that the ship Charity encountered storms, and the crew concluded Mary had caused the storms with witchcraft. The captain attempted to defuse the situation by offering to put Mary ashore in “Barmudoes [sic].” However, the winds prevented this option. The crew persisted and the Captain may have been facing a mutiny, “In the Interime two of the Seamen apprehended her without order and Searched her and found Some Signall or Marke of a witch upon her”.
At some point, Mary may have confessed (apparently under great duress). At this point she was hanged and dumped in the sea along with her belongings.
(Deposition of Henry Corbyn & Darby Gent regarding the hanging of Mary Lee while at sea aboard the Charity en route to Maryland, page 611-613)
http://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000003/html/am3–306.html
http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2013/08/08/double-double-toil-and-trouble-witchcraft-in-maryland/
See Also: “Father Francis Fitzherbert, a Jesuit traveling to Maryland aboard the Charity, recalled the sailors reasoning that the foul weather “was not on account of the violence of the ship or atmosphere, but the malevolence of witches.”
( “The Maryland Witch Trials” by William H. Cooke)
2-Elizabeth Richardson 1659: Like Mary, Elizabeth was also hanged at sea en route to Maryland. The case was brought before the Provincial Court of Maryland by complainant “John Washington of Westmerland [sic] County in Virginia” (George’s great-granddad). Washington charged Edward Prescott with causing “a Woman to bee [sic] Executed for a Witch” aboard his ship. Prescott did not deny the hanging, but laid the blame on Master of the ship John Greene. Since Washington had failed to show up, Prescott was acquitted. This accusation may have been part of a nasty exchange between Washington & Prescott regarding a shipment of tobacco lost when a ship ran aground in the Potomac (but these subsequent events were no help to the unfortunate Elizabeth).
(Provincial Court Proceedings, page 327-329)
http://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000041/html/am41–327.html
3-John Cowman 1674 (Calvert County): John was the first person convicted of witchcraft on Maryland soil.
“That whereas John Cowman being Arraigned Convicted and
Condemned upon the statute of the first of King Iames England &c. for Witchcraft Conjuration Sorcery or Enchant-ment used upon the Body of Elizabeth Goodale
He was sentenced to be hanged, but Governor Charles Calvert pardoned him. Calvert’s pardon included a condition that bordered on the sadistic. The pardon required Cowman to first be taken to the gallows and the noose placed around his neck.
(Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, page 425)
http://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000002/html/am2–425.html
http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2013/08/08/double-double-toil-and-trouble-witchcraft-in-maryland/
4-Hannah Edwards 1686 (Calvert County)
Acquitted
5-Rebecca Fowler 1685 (Calvert County): Rebecca was the first person both convicted of and executed for witchcraft in Maryland, no last-minute pardon would be forthcoming.
(Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, page 678)
http://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc2900/sc2908/000001/000034/html/am34–678.html
http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2013/08/08/double-double-toil-and-trouble-witchcraft-in-maryland/
6-Moll Dyer, 1697 (St. Mary’s County): I listed Moll Dyer last because her story does not involve an actual trial, and I believe the Moll Dyer story is folklore. Real or not, the Moll Dyer story is such an essential element of Maryland folklore, I felt I would be remiss if it were not included.
See Also:
http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2013/08/08/double-double-toil-and-trouble-witchcraft-in-maryland/
7-Virtue Violl 1715 (Talbot County): I couldn’t find a primary source on Virtue Violl. If the sources cited below are accurate, she was the last person in Maryland actually tried for witchcraft. She was acquitted.
(Witchcraft in Maryland, By Francis Neal Parke, page 286-291)
(William Bladen of Annapolis, 1673?-1718: “the most capable in all Respects” or “Blockhead Booby”? by C. Ashley Ellefson, page 166)
http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2013/08/08/double-double-toil-and-trouble-witchcraft-in-maryland/
8-Sarah McDaniel, 1753 (Annapolis):
In Annapolis in 1753. Sarah McDaniel, reported to be a fortune teller & witch, made a remark at the launching of a ship. As the ship The Lovely Nancy was about to be launched, she said “The Lovely Nancy will not see water today”. At the launch, the ship did get stuck on the ways, but ultimately launch ed without incident. Nevertheless, a launched ship getting “stuck on the ways” is a powerful superstition among sailors. Sarah was hunted for a few days, Captain Slade & crew were intend on “ducking the old woman” to see if she was a witch.
I found no report of them finding Sarah or of the ship meeting calamity. I actually found as yet no primary source on Sarah or the ship, so it might well be folklore.
The Capital (Annapolis, Maryland) · 19 May 1949, Thu · Page 117
9-Alexander Kirk, 1809 (Cecil County):
Alexander Kirk was accused of witchcraft and expelled by his church. He appealed to the Quarterly Conference of Methodist Church in Cecil County. The conference ruled in Kirk’s favor:
“Resolved: That in the opinion of this conference it is criminal to apply to any man as a conjuror on the subject of witchcraft or the like and every Methodist is esteemed culpable for so doing.”
(“Sorcery in Cecil? Maryland also has ties to witches”, The Cecil Whig, October 26, 2013)
Reccomended Reading:
“Witchcraft in Maryland”, Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 3 (1936)
“Colonial Women”, Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. II, No. 3 (1907)
“Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft”
by Paul S. Boyer, Stephen Nissenbaum (1974)
Pilot Hugh Thompson, Door Gunners Glenn Andreotta & Lawrence Colburn: The Heroes of My Lai, 1968
In November 1969, America learned about a massacre of Vietnamese civilians by US troops. Several newspapers carried the report by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. The massacre occurred on March 16, 1968 at an obscure village called My Lai. Three soldiers tried to stop the carnage. http://pierretristam.com/Bobst/library/wf-200.htm
30 years after My Lai, OH-23 Raven helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson and his door gunners Glenn Andreotta & Lawrence Colburn, were awarded the Soldier’s Medal, the Army’s highest award for non-combat action (“heroism not involving actual conflict with an enemy“). Andreotta’s medal was awarded posthumously because he died shortly after My Lai when his helicopter was shot down:
“Warrant Officer Thompson landed his helicopter in the line of fire between fleeing Vietnamese civilians and pursuing American around troops to prevent their murder. He then personally confronted the leader of the American ground troops and was prepared to open fire on those American troops should they fire upon the civilians. Warrant Officer Thompson, at the risk of his own personal safety, went forward of the American lines and coaxed the Vietnamese civilians out of the bunker to enable their evacuation. Leaving the area after requesting and overseeing the civilians’ air evacuation, his crew spotted movement in a ditch filled with bodies south of My Lai Four. Warrant Officer Thompson again landed his helicopter and covered his crew as they retrieved a wounded child from the pile of bodies. He then flew the child to the safety of a hospital at Quang Ngai. Warrant Officer Thompson’s relayed radio reports of the massacre and subsequent report to his section leader and commander resulted in an order for the cease fire at My Lai and an end to the killing of innocent civilians.” http://www.usna.edu/Ethics/_files/documents/ThompsonPg1-28_Final.pdf
Thompson reports the following exchange when he confronted Lt. Calley on the ground at My Lai in 1968:
“Thompson: What’s going on here, Lieutenant?
Calley: This is my business.
Thompson: What is this? Who are these people?
Calley: Just following orders.
Thompson: Orders? Whose orders?
Calley: Just following…
Thompson: But, these are human beings, unarmed civilians, sir.
Calley: Look Thompson, this is my show. I’m in charge here. It ain’t your concern.
Thompson: Yeah, great job.
Calley: You better get back in that chopper and mind your own business.
Thompson: You ain’t heard the last of this!
The Forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh Thompson Story, pp 119–120, Angers, 1999
In a 1998 interview with Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes, Wallace quoted Captain Medina (Lt. Calley’s CO) who in 1969 said:
“We had lost a lot of good people that had served their country in Vietnam in a mine field, due to sniper fire, due to mines and booby traps. The entire area was heavily infested with mines and booby traps. When infantrymen approach an area, the women and children will place these things out.”
Thompson responded:
“And I suppose he believes the theory if you don’t want those mines and booby traps planted, it’s okay to kill every child and woman. I just don’t feel that way. We have a different opinion on that, obviously”
Thompson added”
“What do you call it when you march 100 or 200 people down in a ditch and line up on the side with machine guns and start firing into it? Reminds me of another story that happened in World War II, about the Nazis.” https://www.cbsnews.com/news/return-to-my-lai/
In 1969, Thompson was rewarded for his action at My Lai by being called a traitor by some blowhard congressman:
“In November the following year, Thompson finally testified and was vilified by high ranking members of the military, as well as various senators. Congressman Mendel Rivers, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, even accused him of being a traitor to his country and unsuccessfully attempted to have him court-martialed….Back home “I’d received death threats over the phone,” he told the CBS News program “60 Minutes” in 2004. “Dead animals on your porch, mutilated animals on your porch some mornings when you get up. So I was not a good guy.” https://www.warhistoryonline.com/reviews/raf-camera-1950s-review.html
In an interview with the Seattle Times, Door Gunner Lawrence Colburn recalled:
Thompson said “I’m going to go over and get them out of the bunker myself. If the squad opens up on them, shoot ’em.”
Colburn also said:
“Oh, the children. That’s what struck all of us. It appeared to be automatic weapons fire, small arms, from pretty close range. When a high-velocity round hits a child, there’s not a lot of mass there and yeah, it was grotesque. Sure. Babies. Lying with their mothers and grandmothers. Baskets right there.
That’s when Mr. Thompson, we all, started trying to figure out what happened. The last thing we wanted to admit to ourselves was that it was our own men.
People had been herded up systematically, made to get down in this irrigation ditch, and they were executed. We started marking some of the bodies that were still alive with green smoke, (dropping smoke grenades from the helicopter) so the medics on the ground could help them. We marked this one woman who had chest wounds. She was moving one arm, feebly, asking for help, so we marked her. Mr. Thompson backed up 20, 30 feet and hovered there 10 feet off the ground because he saw a soldier coming over to her. That was (Capt. Ernest) Medina. We pointed down to her. He kicked her, stepped back and blew her away right in front of us. That’s when we simultaneously said something like: “You son of a bitch.” Then we knew. The mystery was solved. It was people from Charlie Company.”
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20020310&slug=pgunner10
After being taken off life support, Thompson died of cancer in 2006 at a VA Hospital in Louisiana. Colburn was at his bedside.
Lawrence Colburn passed away in 2016.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/16/world/asia/larry-colburn-my-lai-massacre-dies.html
1-Mary Lee 1654, technically Mary was “tried” (and I use the term loosely) and hanged at sea on the way to Maryland. When the ship arrived in St. Mary’s, the Council of Maryland investigated, at least to the point of hearing two depositions from men aboard. They testified that the ship Charity encountered storms, and the crew concluded Mary had caused the storms with witchcraft. The captain attempted to defuse the situation by offering to put Mary ashore in “Barmudoes [sic].” However, the winds prevented this option. The crew persisted, and Mary confessed (apparently under great duress). At this point she was hanged and dumped in the sea along with her belongings.
(Deposition of Henry Corbyn & Darby Gent regarding the hanging of Mary Lee while at sea aboard the Charity en route to Maryland, page 611-613)
http://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000003/html/am3–306.html
2-Elizabeth Richardson 1659, Elizabeth was also hanged at sea en route to Maryland. The case was brought before the Provincial Court of Maryland by complainant “John Washington of Westmerland [sic] County in Virginia” (George’s great-granddad). Washington charged Edward Prescott with causing “a Woman to bee [sic] Executed for a Witch” aboard his ship. Prescott did not deny the hanging, but laid the blame on a John Greene. Since Washington had failed to show up, Prescott was acquitted. This accusation may have been part of a nasty exchange between Washington & Prescott regarding a shipment of tobacco lost when a ship ran aground in the Potomac (but these subsequent events were no help to the unfortunate Elizabeth).
(Provincial Court Proceedings, page 327-329)
http://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000041/html/am41–327.html
3-John Cowman 1674 (Calvert County), was the first person convicted of witchcraft on Maryland soil. He was sentenced to be hanged, but Governor Charles Calvert pardoned him. Calvert’s pardon included a condition that bordered on the sadistic. The pardon required Cowman to first be taken to the gallows and the noose placed around his neck.
(Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, page 425)
http://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000002/html/am2–425.html
4-Rebecca Fowler 1685 (Calvert County), was the first person both convicted of and executed for witchcraft in Maryland, no last-minute pardon would be forthcoming.
(Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, page 678)
http://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc2900/sc2908/000001/000034/html/am34–678.html
5-Virtue Violl 1715 (Talbot County), I couldn’t find a primary source on Virtue Violl. If the sources cited below are accurate, she was the last person in Maryland tried for witchcraft. She was acquitted.
(Witchcraft in Maryland, By Francis Neal Parke, page 286-291)
(William Bladen of Annapolis, 1673?-1718: “the most capable in all Respects” or “Blockhead Booby”? by C. Ashley Ellefson, page 166)
6-Moll Dyer, 1697 (St. Mary’s County), I listed Moll Dyer last because her story does not involve a witch trial, and I believe the Moll Dyer story is folklore.
See Also:
http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2013/08/08/double-double-toil-and-trouble-witchcraft-in-maryland/
“Ku Klux Klan, 20-Odd Strong, Burns Cross In Carney Park: All-Day Picnic Spoiled By Rain, But While-Robed Men Hear Grand Titan Speak” (The Sun, September 18, 1938)
Promotional record by The National Brewing Company.
Side 1: Rhapsody In Boh
Lead Vocals – Kenny Williams
Written By – Steve Karmen
Side 2: Rhapsody In Boh
Lead Vocals – Valerie Simpson
Written By – Steve Karmen
https://www.discogs.com/Kenny-Williams-Valerie-Simpson-Rhapsody-In-Boh/release/5979460
That quote is from a Christmas card to my grandmom (see first three images). The “Paul” was Paul J. Mackensen, Jr. He was the son of Reverend Paul J. Mackensen, the pastor of my grandmom’s church (St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church, Pratt & Clinton Streets, Baltimore, Maryland, see fourth image). Paul was a seminary student who went to China as a missionary in 1948. Mao’s forces drove out Chiang Kai-shek in 1949, so Paul was there during an especially volatile period. Paul was convicted of espionage, imprisoned, and released in 1957. He remained in China teaching English until he returned to the US in 1960. I believe St Paul is now Breath of God Lutheran Church at the same location).
src=”https://baltimorehistorybuffdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/mackensen-christmas-page-1.jpg” alt=”Mackensen Christmas Page 1″ width=”1267″ height=”1471″ class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-183″/>
Cub Hill/Hickey School Area History
Mysterious Death of Two Brothers at the Maryland Training School for Boys in 1922 & 1925
George Mohl: DOB 1/28/1907
DOD 11/10/1922
Cause of Death “Chronic Endocarditis”
“Mitral Regurgitation”
Contributory “Unacute Exersalation”?
Secondary “acute dialation” ?
1920 Census George Mohl/10 years old/Inmate
John Mohl: DOB 1905
DOD 1/18/1925
1920 Census John Mohl/16 years old/Inmate
Occupation “Musician”/“Institution”
(The Maryland Archives has no death certificate for John)
No family members came to claim either of the bodies, and the boys were buried at a local church.
In the 1910 census, both boys were at home in Baltimore with their parents (Charles & Katie Mohl) as well as four other siblings. The 1920 census list both boys as “inmates” at the Maryland Training School for Boys. Their father Charles and the four other siblings are not listed in the 1920 census, but their mom is listed as 51-year-old Katie Mohl, a “widowed” “charwoman” employed at a “shirt factory.”
The 1918 Flu Epidemic occurred between 1910 the 1920 census. The boys may have been placed in the school because there were no surviving adults able to care for them. The training school was not exclusively for delinquents then. Orphans were also placed there.
I find it so sad that they passed away so young with no family there. Their mom was alive in 1920, as evidenced by the census, but I don’t know if she was still alive when the boys died in 1922 & 1925. Judging from her situation in the 1920 census, even if Katie was alive in 1922 & 1925, she may not have been in a financial position to make the boys final arrangements.
At that time of their passing, Pine Grove Methodist Episcopal Church was located on Old Harford Road between Cub Hill Road and the current location of the Hickey School campus. Approaching from Cub Hill Road, the church was on the left about where the electrical boxes are now. The church had a cemetery. The church burned and was razed sometime before 1962. That cemetery location has since been lost. Just to further complicate the mystery, the US Geological Survey map shows a cemetery on some high ground near the old school entrance farther down Cub Hill Road. The 1857 Baltimore County map shows Pine Grove Chapel on Cub Hill Road down near the cemetery on the later USGS map. This means there may have been two different chapels and two different cemeteries at various times.
Something happened that caused George & John to be lost to their family; I don’t want them to be lost to history as well. I hope to find their final resting place as well as why they both died so young.
Check back for updates; this research is a work in progess.
baltimorehistorybuffdotcom 
