The history associated with the Chestertown Armory is quite dear to me. My father was a transportation officer who was gravely wounded by enemy artillery on the Omaha beachhead during the massive logistical effort to support and equip forces that had landed earlier in the allied Normandy invasion of June 1944. His life was forever changed by maiming in war. My father was part of Maryland’s 29th Infantry Division that was mobilized to defeat German fascism. He certainly would have died on the beach from shock and blood loss caused by shrapnel wounds without the heroic efforts of medical military personnel.
My father would never talk about his war experiences because of the emotional trauma he carried from lying wounded on the beach under enemy artillery bombardment. His life was saved by fellow Maryland infantry soldiers who experienced the same terror from withering artillery attack. The medics who saved my father easily could have been men who were based and trained in the Chestertown Armory. Those men who saved my father’s life also made my own possible.
The Armory’s history is far more present and real than any building can ever represent. The identities and stories of the military units and missions, and men who served there should be shared with the world. Knowledge of the community events held in the Armory should be known by current and future generations too. But history is revealed by the work of scholars who search archival records and harvest documents, photos, personal narratives, and oral histories who then share what is found with the public in monographs, books, exhibitions, and digital content available from anywhere. History isn’t found in failed buildings.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, especially about architecture and its significant public impact. I’m a retired architect and planner who justified and defined the purpose, place, parameters, and specific requirements for dozens of publicly funded new and renovated education, research, and government projects actually constructed in Maryland and other states. Ditto for projects at US and independent American curriculum international schools on five continents.
Along the way I learned the truth in the adage ‘you can’t be an expert within 50 miles of home.’ To claim your opinion is the only correct one is a fool’s errand. But community dialogue is important, and Chestertown does need to build consensus about what should be done with the Armory since the decision is in local hands. I have some insights to share about the situation that are sure to prompt more discussion and Letters to the Editor.
All old buildings have their own history but rarely endure if they lack on-going utility. Most buildings with important links to past events, notable architecture or social significance that continue to serve their communities are usually preserved precisely because they have some present value. Older buildings need ongoing functional usefulness to attract the substantial investment for the physical renewal required for preservation. Often that usefulness is found as much by virtue of location as by the merits of structure.
Historic preservation laws and regulations that ignore this reality lack legitimacy. For almost 20 years multiple parties have searched for a viable future use for the Chestertown Armory, but none has been found. At this point in 2024, the Armory is fairly tagged as an ‘embarrassment’ and ‘eyesore’ along with ‘historic’. Its current status is dead-in-the-water, unimproved, and without identified current or future value to the community.
A more complex situation would be hard to find: a collision of property owner initiative and resources, community social investment and interest, historic preservation laws, and environmental constraints. Valid expressions of frustration and discontent reveal a lack of understanding about why the Armory’s current state is what it is. People are tired of looking at that massive, out of place building that only a few doggedly believe has future utility when actually it has none.
The decision to place the Chestertown Armory on an essentially flat, low site located quite close (almost spit’n distance) to the river’s edge was made by local citizens who were born in the 19th century in a community where travel and transport by river and sea had been a way of life for more than two hundred years. The immense importance of the Chester River to life in Chestertown was not fully challenged, not even the arrival of by railroad service in the county c.1880, until automobiles and trucks became prevalent on the Eastern Shore.
The reality of automotive mass-production and commercial vehicle transportation was already transforming life on Delmarva by the start of the 1920’s. By the end of that decade this major change was fully established and creating new demands: better roads and bridges. Replacement of the old, original wooden bridge spanning the Chester River with a more robust concrete and masonry structure that still connects Chestertown and Kingstown was completed in 1930, just prior to Armory completion in 1931.
The architect who designed the Chestertown Armory didn’t choose the building site for the project because no architect with any agency in the decision would have chosen it. He built the structure on the site provided, just as he complied with all other standards and specifications supplied for the project by the State of Maryland. His architecture clearly states the project did not include any requirement for functional relationship with a river. No other Maryland armory of the era, a specific class of historic structures, evidences any such requirement either. In fact, the riverside site originally selected for an armory in Chestertown was atypical and far less than optimal.
An armory is a fortress building type traditionally sited on defensible high ground and centrally located within a settlement to offer protection to the community. (For the historic building class of which the Chestertown Armory is a member, location centrality appears to be the distinguishing feature that has provided other Maryland communities with opportunities for achieving extended purpose and utility for their armories.) This building type is also traditionally located in proximity to major travel corridors, a factor that does relate to the location chosen for the Armory, although not positively. To say that Chestertown Armory’s site choice “has not aged well” is a euphemism for saying it was not a good choice when selected c.1930.
By the time the Maryland Military Department commissioned the Chestertown Armory in 1931 on the site outside town on Quaker Neck Rd., a quiet, county road serving a long peninsula that remains almost a cul-de-sac, the project location was already somewhat inconvenient and less than ideal for large military vehicles needing to traverse the center of town. But site conditions, low land elevation and close proximity to a major tidal river, were and are responsible for enduring problems with the structure.
The low, form-built concrete wall that surrounds the Armory on its riverside edges provides evidence that the project architect felt compelled in 1930 to respond to the threat of surface water intrusion on the site. This seawall-like structure now appears minimal because it has been backfilled to raise the ground elevation behind it near the building, most likely with soils/spoils excavated for the foundations of later building additions. The wall’s presence, however, is significant.
The Chestertown Armory site is now located within a designated FEMA EL-6 Flood Zone that requires all occupied areas in new construction be elevated at least 6 feet above normal high-tide levels. This FEMA is the same federal agency that provides much needed emergency assistance and financial aid in response to damage caused by extreme weather events. FEMA also defines guidelines for federal flood insurance eligibility. The EL-6 Flood Zone designation assumes a reality that the site area will flood, and where coastal construction is permitted, requires compensatory construction methods that mitigate danger and damage to people, building equipment and property.
The Armory’s continuous perimeter masonry foundations built upon deep concrete footings, a typical construction method and feature of the entire existing building, do not conform with FEMA standards for new construction or with current best practices in coastal flood zones. Although the Armory is exempted from FEMA requirements due to pre-existing conditions, for more than insurance eligibility reasons an understanding of the merit contained in current FEMA regulations and guidance is essential to informed decision-making about all construction, new and existing, in flood-prone coastal zones.
Pre-dating current FEMA regulations are Maryland’s still controversial, landmark Critical Areas Commission regulations that originated c.1985. Enforced by local jurisdictions, these regulations limit new construction within 100 feet of tidal edges and designate undeveloped areas along those edges as restrictive Resource Conservation Zones that extend 1000 feet from the water. As every waterfront property owner in Maryland knows, there are also exemptions and exceptions for pre-existing conditions within this set of regulations too. Although thoroughly despised by many owners as property rights infringement, more frequent extreme weather events and rising sea levels realized in recent decades tend to reaffirm Critical Areas regulatory guidance.
Surface water intrusion is not the only environmental threat on low riverside sites. You don’t have to be a native Eastern Shoreman or hydrology expert to understand the correlation between close river proximity and high water table: the depth to water below grade.
Foundation design fundamentals require positive drainage away from any structure. In situations where the river is quite near and the footing/foundation depth approximates the actual river level, positive drainage is rarely, if ever, possible. Wet soil and water will be encountered when excavating these locations for foundation construction. These problems are compounded on the Armory’s Chester River site by the architect’s design decision to imbed the Ground Floor (Basement level) partially below grade in order to reduce the vertical distance from grade level to the main floor level.
Moisture absorbed by footings and foundations cannot be contained and migrates within solid masonry structures such as the Armory. Mold is evidence of moisture presence, and in the College’s HDC demolition application there is documentation of high moisture levels in the structure’s walls. Mitigating mold presence on interior surfaces and in interior spaces by any and all means merely addresses the symptoms of an intractable underlying cause: moisture within massive masonry components caused by chronic wet conditions below grade.
Given these conditions, it is unreasonable to expect that functional utility of the Chestertown Armory can be extended beyond the standard 50-year lifespan for most major buildings. This benchmark was achieved decades ago. Between the building’s commissioning in 1931 and decommissioning in 2005, the Maryland Military Department (later the Maryland National Guard) and the State of Maryland received the full benefit of the public’s original investment in the structure.
The complications of constructing a massive masonry structure in close proximity to a tidal river presented original challenges, but those challenges have become more problematic. No portion of site has ever been much more than 6’ above normal high tide levels, and much of the site’s elevation is now less. The Armory property now includes tidal wetlands.
Project location, design decisions and available construction methods at the time are as much responsible for this building’s failure as rising sea levels and climate change. The simplest explanation, however, is that the combination of river edge site location and climate change are responsible for the necessary demolition of this fatally compromised historic building. It is no surprise that for almost 20 years the people of Chestertown have been unable to identify a viable future use for the Chestertown Armory. Were it not designated historic the building would have been demolished long ago.
At this point in time reality must be faced and actions to remove the entire Armory structure are required. It is simply imprudent and misleading to suggest the Chestertown Armory has future viability or potential for continued use. Retaining any portion of the failed structure in situ is not only impractical but presents an unfair burden on the property owner when buildable site area has already been reduced by the dual impacts of climate change and environmental regulation.
Site conditions – location too close to the tidal edge, low land elevation, and a high water table – are intrinsic to the Chestertown Armory. These are the root source of the structure’s existing problems. Neglect is not the cause of building deterioration, and the current owner is not responsible for the impossibility of potential future use of this former public building that from the outset was sited inappropriately. Although such measures need not occur, state regulatory agencies and local government commissions must recognize that these realities are legitimate cause for legal remedy when the burden of historic designation protection is untenable.
The social history of the place, the record of Chestertown’s contributions to Maryland’s military mission in wartime, and most importantly, the stories of people who served in the Chestertown Armory are truly important and worthy of wide attention. Historic status, however, should not be the controlling factor for determining the inherent value of any structure in any community. What does the Chestertown Armory’s historic status actually mean? The answer to that question requires both definition and context.
The SFC John H. Newnam Armory is listed in the US Department of the Interior’s National Register of Historic Places Inventory as the Chestertown Armory. This historic designation grants significant legal protections that apply to both the Armory building and site. The Armory was certified as historic in 1985 by the Maryland Historical Trust after being surveyed and nominated for historic status in 1980 by the State of Maryland Military Department (now Maryland National Guard).
The Maryland Guard decommissioned the building in 2005 and ownership was then transferred from the state to local government. Chestertown’s Historic District Commission gained local administrative authority for purposes of historic preservation oversight of the property when ownership passed to the Town. The HDC retained that authority when the Town Council enacted Ordinance 5-2012 on September 9, 2012, officially amending Chestertown’s historic district to include the Armory structure and its 3.5-acre site. That legal action was taken at the time the Armory passed into private ownership when Chestertown sold the property to Washington College that year.
As the only non-contiguous component of the Town’s historic district, by definition the Armory property is an outlier to Chestertown’s geographically unified district. The Armory structure is also an outlier in terms of date of origin and building type, scale, mass, and architectural style when compared to other buildings located within the historic district, which includes a world-class concentration of American colonial buildings. Despite HDC jurisdiction, the Town’s historic district guidelines offer thin relevance for the Armory architecture and site.
It is important to realize that the Chestertown Armory did not gain historic status as a unique, standalone nominee with significant individual merit for architecture or building use. Chestertown’s Armory gained historic certification solely for the reason that it was member of a class of structures known as the Maryland National Guard Armories Thematic Group. The armories that comprised this distinct group located in Baltimore and ten Maryland counties share common origin, initial function, and architectural features to varying extent.
“The Maryland National Guard Armories constitute a group of eleven buildings unified by a common building style, period, and function, all owned by the Maryland State Military Department. All the armories were built by the State to serve as National Guard facilities. …Nine of the buildings share a basic T shaped plan, with a two-story front “head house” section placed parallel to the street, and a one-story perpendicular “drill hall” or “gymnasium” extended to the rear. The buildings are constructed of masonry, and their facades detailed to recall medieval fortifications, with crenellated parapets and strip buttresses, and towers flanking the central entrances.”
“The eleven Maryland National Guard Armories included in this Thematic Group nomination constitute a distinct and finite group of resources identifiable by building style, period, and functional purpose. …these armories are Bel Air Armory (1915) Harford County; Centreville Armory (1926) Queen Anne’s County; Chestertown Armory (1931) Kent County; Crisfield Armory (1927) Somerset County; Denton Armory (1938) Caroline County; Elkton Armory (1915) Cecil County; Fifth Regiment Armory (1901) Baltimore City; Frederick Armory (1913) Frederick County; Hagerstown Armory (1926) Washington County; Pikesville Armory (1903) Baltimore County; Towson Academy (1933) Baltimore County.” Source: Maryland Historic Trust; Maryland National Guard Armories, Multiple Property Submission Form; 9/25/1985
Source: Google Maps Street View, February 2024
Recent street level photographs of eight armories included in this historic thematic group reveal both shared commonalities and differences. Older members of the group feature distinctive architectural details that reference medieval fortification antecedents which are entirely lacking in the Chestertown Armory. Several armories are situated on sloping sites that offer convenient access on multiple levels. Even the Crisfield Armory, located on land as flat as the Chestertown Armory site but in a setting of dry land and trees has more architectural detail and a more appealing presence, including original brickwork.
When compared to its peer group, the proper context for comparison, the Chestertown Armory is clearly seen as lacking in many respects without even considering problematic riverside location and building condition. In fact, it appears that the Chestertown Armory is one of the least notable members of the Maryland National Guard Armories Thematic Group. In terms of architectural significance, the Thematic Group would hardly be diminished in stature or importance if the Chestertown Armory were no longer included.
The important history of the Chestertown Armory can be preserved, honored, thoroughly explained, and widely known on a site that will always retain designation as an historic place even without the original building. The absence of the Chestertown Armory structure, however, does not equate to the loss of its history. In fact, it’s possible that more will be known about the history of the Chestertown Armory, and known more broadly, without the actual building.
It is not unusual to preserve history with just physical remnants of the past. Often more effort is invested in documenting historical places and events, and the past is more vividly valorized, when elements, symbols and monuments remain to tell the story rather than entire original objects. Proper preservation of history without a building is uniquely possible in the case of the Armory because Washington College is a property owner with the unusual, proven ability to research and document local history and to share that historical knowledge broadly in written, graphic and digital forms.
The College has evidenced this capability on multiple occasions with the Chesapeake Heartland project, and most recently, with the award-winning Digital Scholarship in Museum Partnerships project that provided rich interpretative summaries, visual banners, and digital platforms for the collections of five small, rural museums located in Kent County. Extensive information in digital format about those local histories and museum collections is now available far beyond the immediate realm of Chestertown and Kent County, Maryland.
Too few people are aware of the significance of Washington College’s faculty and student scholarship documenting local history. Past field work and scholarship by the College should produce confidence that equivalent historical documentation for the Chestertown Armory can be produced.
Fortunately, Washington College has just unveiled MuSE: A Community Museum at 210 S. Cross St. in downtown Chestertown. MuSE will provide a permanent location for rotating exhibits featuring physical and interactive digital display of the research and scholarship of Washington College faculty and students. No doubt, the history of the Chestertown Armory history will be featured as one of the College’s rotating exhibits in this important new cultural destination in downtown Chestertown.
Demolition of a large historic structure is no small matter, but the Chestertown Armory provides a textbook historic preservation case study for why such action should be authorized in certain circumstances. When a structure is inherently compromised physically, lacks any identifiable value to the community, is physically isolated and non-essential to the larger historical context, and when the history of the structure will be known and shared even without its physical presence, there is no legitimate reason for forced retention.
“Preserving and interpreting the legacy of Maryland’s past” is the self-defined mission of the Maryland Historic Trust. Preservation of history involves much more than building retention. The story of the Armory’s unfortunate but necessary demolition will add to its history. This case points to the need for potential amendment of historic preservation regulations to recognize that when scholarship exists to provide accurate, wide-spread interpretation and historical understanding, the reasons for physical retention are less compelling. The site conditions that have fatally compromised the structure physically, and the absence of identifiable future utility, amplify this basic argument.
Even without the structure, the Armory site will retain significance and historic designation. The existing memorials on the property should be retained in an Armory Memorial Garden deeded to the Town and complemented by an additional memorial incorporating an etching of the Armory structure that also includes a digital QR code linking to the full history of The SFC John H. Newnam Armory. Creative use of the Armory’s few notable architectural features saved during demolition, such as the main entry’s carved lintel, could be incorporated in the garden through a grant-funded artist’s commission. This artwork would complement Chestertown’s distinguished sculpture collection already on public display throughout town.
A public Armory Memorial Garden overlooking the majestic natural setting of the Chester River’s confluence with Radcliffe Creek will provide a far more uplifting tribute to the lives of those who served in that place than the actual building ever can. An Armory Memorial Garden can also serve as the gateway to a unique necklace of scenic bike trails on the Quaker Neck and Broadneck peninsulas that will attract more active, culturally engaged visitors to the natural beauty and rich heritage found in Kent County and Chestertown.
Jamie Kirkpatrick says
Well said, Mr. Evans! From your lips..
Jane Hukill says
A wonderful voice of reason, thank you so very much.
Karen Mack says
A compelling narrative to bring the Armory question to a conclusion: it is time to give Washington College permission to move forward with the plan to create a functional structure that will benefit not only the students and faculty of the College, but the greater Chestertown and Kent County community. Thank you, Mr.Evans.
Thomas Timberman says
Many thanks to Victor Evans for providing his expert, fully researched, comprehensive analysis and common sense conclusion regarding the future of the Armory. I particualrly like his suggestion for a garden commemorating the significance of the location and the service of the soldiers, associated with it. I’ve always questioned the notion that the College should be expected to pay for preserving forever, the least interesting of the MD armory theme buildings. However, obtaining the licensing to remove it, will I suspect, be a formidable challenge.
Richard Keaveney says
This has been the most compelling opinion in The Spy for a long long time. There is no doubt that the college and hoteliers will memorialize our freedom fighters in a more meaningful and compelling way than they are at this time. May their memories be a blessing to us all and may our quaint hamlet be the proud host of a warm, hospitable hotel!
Denise says
Thank You Mr. Evans!!!! Let Washington College transform the site of the Armory into something everyone in Chestertown can be proud of. And, lets get on with it
Robert Saner says
Bravo! Ditto! Etc.
Michael Bitting says
You wrote the words that I lacked the patience or time to articulate with my limited time. Thank you for this thoughtful and insightful piece.
George R. Shivers says
I congratulate Mr. Evans for at last bringing a voice of reason to the ongoing saga of preservation of the armory. I hope that the powers that be will follow through and finally approve the removal of this building, the only value of which as I see it, is the sentimental attachment it has for older members of the community. By all means we should all cherish our memories, but as Mr. Evans demonstrates, removing an out-of-date building with major environmental issues will not remove the memories of those who cherish them. If the space can be made suitable for a hotel, I am not oppose to that. It is a scenic location. If that proves not to be feasible, a continuation of the waterfront walkway and park would be a more than fitting use of the space.
Matthew Tobriner says
It is obvious that Mr. Evans has done his homework. He has made a very strong and balanced case that preservation is not a realistic possibility. I couldn’t agree more with his position. The land where the Armory sits is a valuable, but totally unproductive asset, waiting for an imaginative use. Whatever gets put there eventually can honor the building’s mission and the people who served there, but it can also help the regional economy while preserving the historic, esthetic, ecologic, and educational imperatives of the site. It is not a zero-sum game. Time to move on.
Rebecca Spilich says
This is the most thoughtful assessment of the armory situation that I have heard so far. Thank you
Marguerite Long says
Thank you for the thoughtful assessment and measured response to the Armory situation in our town Mr. Evans. What a breath of fresh air!
Renae says
See the problem is, Chestertown’s Armory sits on valuable WATERFRONT / WATERVIEW PROPERTY.
Karen Russum says
This building does have a lot of history such as was explained, cotillian dances, Kirby Scott dances etc but haven’t been used for much in years. An Armory memorial garden may be a way to reserve the rich history of the Chestertown structure. However if the artwork is to complement Chestertown’s “distinguished sculpture collection ” which is more of a disgrace having all of this modern art throughout HISTORIC CHESTERTOWN i for one would be against it.
If the garden would be tastefully done in corporating the History of the armory and town it would be welcomed
Eric Fitch says
If the college will be paying county taxes just like a for profit business on this property we must say yes. Kent County desperately needs money for our public schools.
Generally non-profits must pay tax on income from a business that is not substantially related to their educational tax-exempt purposes.
Has this been addressed?