Editor’s note: This is a new Spy series that will be sharing historic news clippings on Chestertown from the perspective of the newspapers of Washington, D.C. Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. While the Shore’s local newspapers have faithfully recorded Chestertown’s life and times since 1791, when this small town periodically finds itself being the subject of a major daily story, it’s always been greeted, like any small community, with extreme interest. For when those occasions occur, now or in the past,  it gives the community a rare opportunity to see how the rest of the world may view it. And thanks to such powerful databases as newspapers.com, we can now able to share some of that coverage from the West of Chestertown. 

Its almost impossible to image that Chestertown would have a serious labor dispute on its hands in the 19th Century but, as the Baltimore Sun reports in 1899, that was indeed the case when the basket-makers in town had enough from Crane & Trenchard Brothers.

The Baltimore Sun
July 8, 1899

Every day, from the crack of dawn until the last show at the Avalon lets out in the late evening, hundreds of people and their cars move back and forth between Chestertown and Easton. Some work here or there, others commute for doctor appointments, while others seek out a new restaurant, an art show at the Academy, or merely wanting a unique shopping experience, but one thing seems clear, the axis between the two towns is very real.

Does this certain reality open the door for a new form of transportation to meet this need? Would a regularly scheduled service using high-quality Sprinter vans work for these two small towns? How much would people pay to use the service?

There are many unknowns to these questions, but the Spy thought it would be worth asking our readers what they thought of an alternative to the car to get from downtown Chestertown to downtown Easton nonstop.

Please take our most recent poll here.

Editor’s note: This is a new Spy series that will be sharing historic news clippings on Chestertown from the perspective of the newspapers of Washington, D.C. Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. While the Shore’s local newspapers have faithfully recorded Chestertown’s life and times since 1791, when this small town periodically finds itself being the subject of a major daily story, it’s always been greeted, like any small community, with extreme interest. For when those occasions occur, now or in the past,  it gives the community a rare opportunity to see how the rest of the world may view it. And thanks to such powerful databases as newspapers.com, we can now able to share some of that coverage from the West of Chestertown. 

The Spy was conversing with one of our agents on Queen Street this morning on the matter of public transportation, or the lack of it in Kent County. It’s one of the top four concerns raised by a recent United Way-sponsored report, and so it was interesting to discover this clipping from a Baltimore Sun article reporting on the dreadful train service Chestertown almost one hundred years ago.

The Baltimore Sun
November 25, 1910

From left: Brooke Harwood, Trish Harwood, Nancy Low, Andrew Wierda, Nancy Swanson, Dick Swanson, Sally Sweetser, Joe Fick, Margie Fick, Bill Low, Fick grandchildren Sofia and Yumi Hammond. Missing from photo – Peter Sweetser, Zsuzsa Wierda.

Forget about the World Cup, the one thing that matters in Chestertown is who has won in the Ye Olde Towne Bocce League. We found out this weekend when the Boccelaureates took the title.

Editor’s Note: Poet Donald Hall passed away this week at the ripe age of 89 years old. Over the course of his career, he grew to become one of America’s most gifted and respected writers of the last century. His work inspired thousands of students to begin writing poetry, as he did when he visited Washington College in the 1970s, and eventually became the country’s poet laureate.

When he married fellow poet Jane Kenyon, almost twenty years his junior, in 1972, it was assumed that Hall would be the first to pass away. Sadly, it was Kenyon who died at 47 years old. 

One of the Spy’s favorite poets, Sue Ellen Thompson, counseled reprinting Kenyon’s poem “Afternoon at MacDowell” that she wrote after one of Hall’s many health crises as a compelling way to remember both of these special American poets.

Afternoon at MacDowell
Jane Kenyon, 1947 – 1995

On a windy summer day the well-dressed
trustees occupy the first row
under the yellow and white striped canopy.
Their drive for capital is over,
and for a while this refuge is secure.

Thin after your second surgery, you wear
the gray summer suit we bought eight
years ago for momentous occasions
in warm weather. My hands rest in my lap,
under the fine cotton shawl embroidered
with mirrors that we bargained for last fall
in Bombay, unaware of your sickness.

The legs of our chairs poke holes
in the lawn. The sun goes in and out
of the grand clouds, making the air alive
with golden light, and then, as if heaven’s
spirits had fallen, everything’s somber again.

After music and poetry we walk to the car.
I believe in the miracles of art, but what
prodigy will keep you safe beside me,
fumbling with the radio while you drive
to find late innings of a Red Sox game?

Jane Kenyon, “Afternoon at MacDowell” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 2005 by the Estate of Jane Kenyon.

When it was first announced a few months ago that the Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall would be exhibited in Easton this spring, there was a some doubt that it could ever match the power of the original monument designed by American architect Maya Lin on the Washington Mall.

That apprehension turned out to be completely unwarranted for those that visited the site at the VFW on Glebe Road yesterday. Dozens and dozens of veterans and their families made the trip to visit the memorial and the names of the fallen with the same kind of overwhelming emotion and quiet reverence that the original wall has so movingly inspired for the last thirty six years.

The Spy was there to capture a few special moments of this remarkable testimony to patriotism, sacrifice and courage.

This video is approximately one minute in length. The exhibit’s last day is June 6.