Originally published in the Cecil Whig
So, you’re a newcomer to Cecil County and you want to know about the schools in your area or you want to research the type of business and industry that’s here and their history. Or maybe you’re a student looking for a local topic to write about for your history thesis. Where would you go? Google? Nope. Yahoo or some other online search engine? Nope. No, you’d go to the Vertical Files of the Historical Society of Cecil County.
Now, before you pen up the dogs, pack up the kids, and venture into the Society on East Main Street in Elkton, you should be warned that the Vertical Files can be a bit imposing. There are 17 of them (yes, I said 17. That’s nearly 70 file drawers!) and they cover the entire western wall of the Eva Muse Library at the Society. Contained within those drawers is the history of Cecil County…or much of it. These files date back before the days of on-line finding aids, before Google, before even the internet (hard to believe, but there was such a time). They represent countless hours of research and painstaking organization, by hand, of all of our history.
But we did not leave you defenseless against the mighty Vertical Files. Before you dive into all 70 drawers, you should first peruse their finding aid posted on the Society’s web site at http://www.cecilhistory.org/verticalfiles/ It reveals many general topics from Business and Industry to Churches; from the Military to Schools. In between, there is Genealogy and Family History Parts I and II. If you click on one of these topics, say, Churches, you’ll find a list of every church from every denomination in Cecil County. Once you find the church you want, THEN you can brave the elements and come into the Society and request an audience with the Vertical Files. Yes, you need to have one of our very knowledgeable volunteers to assist you, just to make sure you don’t get lost in the files and are never heard from again.
Speaking of getting lost, it’s really easy to do so with some of the wealth of information stored in the files. For example, consider the military history. Back at the on-line Finding Aid, if you click on Military, you will find, not only histories of the many wars in which our nation has been involved, but, in the case of the Civil War, lists of individual battles, diaries, veteran lists, and post war activities. You’ll also find local angles on those wars such as recruiting, the names of service people, local newspaper articles, letters home, and, in some cases, casualty lists.
Perhaps our most popular topic is genealogy. We have several file cabinets devoted solely to the families of Cecil County. Remember, Europeans have lived in the county since the late 1600s and many of our families have stuck around. In some cases, such as the Gilpins and Hollingsworths, they have outgrown the Vertical Files and merit separate areas of the society for their material, there is so much. But many others rest in the Vertical Files for the taking: from Aaronson to Job and from John to Zimmerman covering 49 pages of family names. Some names have multiple file folders. The Family file drawers are arranged alphabetically, so if you find a name on the finding aid, all you need do is flag down one of our volunteers and proceed to the files, find the appropriate drawer, and presto, you’re there!
So, while imposing, our Vertical Files are really quite useful, once you learn the ropes. When you’re ready, check our days/hours of operation on our web site and venture in to the Society at 135 E. Main Street in Elkton. Our volunteers are glad to help in any way they can. We’ll delve more deeply into specific topics housed in our files in later articles.