| Southern Maryland
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Published: Wednesday, January 4, 2012
For centuries, fire has claimed lives, buildings and land in St. Mary's By JASON BABCOCK
Staff writer
People need fire for warmth, light and cooking, but fire can quickly shift from provider to destroyer.
Fire has changed the appearance of villages many times in the history of St. Mary's County. On occasion, thousands of acres have been charred by brush fires. Fire has also taken many lives.
St. Mary's County lost many of the records of its history when the courthouse in Leonardtown burned down in 1831.
Entire schools were lost to fire: Charlotte Hall School (1843 and 1896), St. Mary's Seminary (1924), Leonard Hall (1921) and many smaller, one- or two-room schoolhouses burned.
Leonardtown, with its wooden buildings clustered together, often suffered from fires. In 1896, the town commissioners established a hook and ladder company, which lasted for a few years.
It wasn't until March 1928 that Leonardtown's volunteer fire department was established for good — the first fire company in the county.
It was on March 8, 1831, that the St. Mary's County courthouse in Leonardtown burned to the ground. The building dated back to 1736. The cornerstone for a new courthouse was laid down on Aug. 6, 1831, according to "The County Courthouses and Records of Maryland," by Morris Radoff. The cornerstone was opened in October 1901 when a new courthouse was built. The old papers stored inside had turned into black pulp.
There were fears that the entire downtown of Leonardtown would be lost to fire on July 3, 1925, when the St. Mary's Hotel caught fire that night. Town residents called Washington, D.C., for help but the fire was put out locally thanks to new fire hoses that had arrived just days before and a public water supply that had recently been installed.
Leonardtown firefighters also put out a fire that started in the courthouse on Aug. 16, 1934. It caused $3,000 in damages.
Tudor Hall, which dates back to 1756, in Leonardtown was almost lost to fire. After its use as private residence, it was at one time the county's only library. Today it is the home of the St. Mary's County Historical Society. On April 10, 1872, passerby noticed that part of the house was on fire and put it out before it could spread.
The original home at the Summerseat plantation was destroyed by fire on March 11, 1874. The house dated back to 1773.
On July 15, 1956, the Blackistone Lighthouse on St. Clement's Island burned down under mysterious circumstances. The lighthouse was built in 1851. A replica building near the original location is there now.
The St. Mary's Beacon newspaper, established in 1839, carried frequent reports of deaths, injuries and property destruction by fire.
On March 22, 1860, the paper reported that Sally Wilkinson of the Patuxent District caught fire in the kitchen, badly burning her face and chest. Her husband was at home at the time, but unable to help her as he was bed-ridden with illness. She died from her injuries.
Later that year, the Beacon reported on Nov. 8, that the two children of Josephine Gough died. While she was in Leonardtown, one child was burned to death at her Hollywood-area home. The other child ran out of the house and into the woods seeking Gough. That child was later found dead in the woods.
On New Year's Day in 1875, Julia King, a 20-year-old servant for Associate Judge Robert Ford in Leonardtown, was burned to death when an ember flew from a nearby wood stove onto a blanket she was covered in, the Beacon reported. A 3-year-old boy was burned to death just the day before near Poplar Hill Church in Valley Lee.
Jane Carberry, 15, was napping in a chair near a fireplace when her clothes caught on fire on March 13, 1876, near Leonardtown. She died within the week, the Beacon reported.
A hotel was built at Point Lookout after its use as a hospital and prisoner-of-war camp during the Civil War. The hotel burned to the ground on March 16, 1877. Another hotel opened in 1929, which stood until 1990, when that then-abandoned building burned down.
There was a 16-room hotel at Fishing Point overlooking the Patuxent River at today's Patuxent River Naval Air Station. It caught fire on Aug. 17, 1933, and burned to the ground, the Associated Press reported. There were no guests in it at the time.
The 80-year-old St. George Island Hotel was burned down by an arsonist, the May 8, 1975, edition of The Enterprise reported. The building had been abandoned and was last used prior to World War II.
Benedict Neale was burning broom-sedge in a field in Medley's Neck on Feb. 28, 1878, when his 6-year-old daughter crossed the field. The child's dress caught on fire and she died.
A similar incident happened in 1895, when on April 5, Webster Mattingly of Chaptico was burning broom-sedge when his daughter, Helen, came to him. "Passing over the field her clothing caught fire and she was so seriously burned that she died in a few hours," the Beacon said. Mattingly injured his hands badly trying to dig up dirt to throw on the flames.
On Oct. 13, 1909, Mrs. Tommy Thompson of Chaptico was fatally burned when her clothes caught fire in the kitchen. Running outside to put the fire out, "Her husband was in the house at the time of the accident, but is so crippled that he was unable to reach his wife or render any assistance," the Beacon reported.
The young Joseph Wible was dressed in a cotton-filled costume to play a teddy bear for the Christmas play at the Hollywood school on Dec. 24, 1914. The young man stood too close to the Christmas tree, which was lit by candles, and Wible's outfit caught fire. Though his father tried to put out the flames, his son died from the burns.
Thomas A. Mattingly Sr. is a lifelong member of the Leonardtown fire department. He said the everyday fire suppression tools people use today weren't always around.
"You had quite different construction than today, a lot more flammable materials," he said.
Smoke detectors made a huge change in fire safety. And in the days before electricity, people used open fires more for warmth and cooking.
"All of those things lead to a tendency to have accidents," he said.
April can be a dangerous month for uncontrolled brush fires.
A massive brushfire broke out on April 12, 1910, that burned 5,000 acres in St. Mary's County, The Washington Post reported. The fire caused $100,000 in damage, destroyed two homes and killed a La Plata man who was helping fight the fire.
There was another massive brush fire during the same month that the new Patuxent River Naval Air Station opened. Starting April 28, 1943, 5,000 acres burned for four days between Indian Bridge Road and Route 5. The burned area was nine miles long and six miles wide. It caused $600,000 in damage and was blamed on "careless brush burning," according to the Associated Press.
Between April 4 and 5, 1963, 1,000 firefighters fought a 1,000-acre brushfire in Compton, which could be seen from Leonardtown. Later in the month, another 3,000 acres burned in Oakville.
A section of Lexington Park was also changed by fire. On March 6, 1988, a fire destroyed the vacant Plaza Theater on Coral Place. It had been empty for 14 months. The county commissioners then closed down the entire block for safety reasons. Eventually the buildings there were torn down; the Lexington Park Post Office is now located there.
Mattingly said the most memorable fire he ever responded to was at Steuart Petroleum in Piney Point. Lightning struck a fuel tank there on the evening of May 15, 1972. "It set the tank on fire. We were down there all night long. The sides of the tank were glowing red," he said.
The tank held 2.5 million gallons of aviation fuel, but only top sections of the tank caught fire.
More then 250 firefighters and Steuart employees responded to the blaze, which lasted six hours. Firefighters from as far away as Prince George's County and Dahlgren, Va., responded.
jbabcock@somdnews.com
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