Where’s Big Sam?

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”

Klan in Carney???

“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)

On Saturday, September 17, 1938, about 20 Klansman held a day-long meeting and picnic in Carney Park. Carney Park was an outdoor venue located on Harford Road behind the current location of Carney Village Shopping Center, about where the fitness studio is at 9621 Harford Road (formerly Cramer’s Hardware). The “Grand Titan” delivered a speech and a forty-foot cross was burned. The cross was visible to drivers at the intersection of Harford & Joppa. The “Grand Titan” denied the group was “intolerant” and asserted they are “dedicated to the preservation of American liberties, the perpetuation of the Constitution and the resistance of all subversive forces” (it’s scary how familiar that schtick sounds). The “Grand Titan” declined to identify himself to the press. One member identified himself as Louis Benson of Brooklyn Park (quite a journey in the days before 695 and the Harbor Tunnel!). This leads to me to believe they may not have been locals; rather, they were seeking an out-of-the-way place, and the end of the Harford Road trolley line was well-suited.

Nothing happens in a vacum, and in history context is everything. The election in November 1938 was just 53 days away. It was contentious election with many issues of concern to Klan-types in play. In the gubernatorial race, Republican Herbert O’Conor was running against incumbent Democrat Harry Nice. Nice had recently supported the hiring of Baltimore’s first African-American police officers, and he was endorsed by the Afro-American newspaper. In the senate race, Republican Oscar Lesser was opposing incumbent Democrat Millard Tydings. Tydings had spoken out on Hitler’s oppression of Jews, and the Klan was generally opposed to US involvement in the storm brewing in Europe.  In August 1938 teacher Harriet Elizabeth Brown was successful in obtaining equal pay for Maryland teachers who taught African-American students (a young attorney named Thurgood Marshall represented her). Also, the highly unpopular Maryland State Income Tax Amendment was on the ballot.  In addition, this gathering was just 88 days after Joe Louis’ TKO of Max Schmeling. All-in-all, it was not a happy time for Klansmen. Their world, as they knew it, was slipping away, and a gathering of twenty-some “true-believers” standing around a burning cross somewhere in the hinterland of Baltimore County was the best they could muster.

 

Cub Hill Historical Mystery

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.