Page 8 Volume 10, No. 1 Winter 2017

But a month after the stroke, on man who dreamed big dreams and July 24th, the paper he had tried with all his heart to make founded and lost reported that them real. Sykesville’s “first citizen” had died the night before with his That man is mostly forgotten family at his bed, exactly three now. (The Warfield complex on years after the death of his the Springfield Hospital grounds second wife. is named for former governor Edwin Warfield.) Wade The Hon. Wade H. D. Warfield’s old hardware store is Warfield, the man to whom a bike shop. His grave in Sykesville for Sale: The Rise and Fall of Wade Warfield Sykesville owes the greater Springfield Cemetery, with the By Jack White part of its development as a sisters he married buried beside business center, died at 9:20 him, is simple and neglected, and o’clock Wednesday night . . . Sykesville never did achieve the t’s a Saturday in October in the late There is not an industrial grandeur Warfield envisioned. I 1920s, and Sykesville, Maryland, enterprise in town, and is for sale. Already, controlling scarcely a home or a family The town held on through hard interest in the stock of the Sykesville that has not been touched by times. It survived the depression National Bank, the Herald Company, the kindly, generous spirit of and another brutal fire in 1937 the Sykesville Realty and Investment this man, in some intimate Wade Warfield, c.1930. that took down half of Main Company, and the Maryland Milling way. Street. It fought decay and & Supply Company has sold. Now, irrelevance and the changing times, and as the on the second Saturday of the sell-off, Warfield’s daughters were Catholic, and shortly world passed it by and fewer and fewer roads led they’re gathered at the Arcade before dying, Warfield converted. As local to Sykesville, it came very close to dying. But Building at 7566 Main Street. It’s businesses closed their doors in his honor, Warfield’s didn’t quite. three stories tall, one of the best Requiem Mass took place on the last Saturday of buildings in town, and the men July 1935, at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church up on the who’ve come aren’t here to admire it; hill overlooking the train station that once shipped About the Author: Jack White grew up in Philadelphia they’re here to own it and a few his goods to Baltimore and points beyond. and has degrees from Penn State and Boston University. buildings that go along with it. He lives in Sykesville with his wife and daughters and is the curator of the Gate House Museum. Jack is the author From the hill outside the church today, you can see All these buildings, like the stock that the river and the old train station and the tracks that of the award winning novel, The Keeper of the Ferris Wheel, and the biographical history, In Carrie's sold the week before, have one thing took the coal to the back of his store, and the Arcade Footprints, The Long Walk of Warren Dorsey. in common—every brick, board, and Main Street Sykesville, c.1910. At left is the E.M. Mellor General Merchandise store. and the bank building with his name at the top and hunk of concrete and glass is owned In the center is the Arcade Building which had a central passage from Main Street to the Warfield Building next door—the small row of by the same man. The man is a Warfield’s coal and lumber business in the rear. At right is the Warfield Building solid structures that give the sense that once this was Unless otherwise credited, all images are courtesy of the former Democratic state senator. He with its distinctive arched windows. a town of substance and with a future driven by a Sykesville Gate House Museum. parts his hair in the middle. He’s 61 and immaculately groomed. He wears pince-nez glasses, spats, a necktie, and the most In 1878, a man named John Harvey Fowble built a stylish clothing of his era. He wears a derby hat, row of stores called the McDonald Block on the PUBLICATION COMMITTEE MEMBERS: carries a cane or a riding crop, owns a fancy Cadillac town’s Main Street and attached an attractive bank © 2017 convertible, and has a chauffeur who drives him building to the end. In 1884, E. Francis Baldwin, the The Historical Society of Carroll County, Maryland, Inc. Frank J. Batavick, editor about town. His last name is at the top of the head architect of the B&O Railroad, designed the 210 East Main Street Mary Ann Ashcraft building where they’re gathered. His name is on the Sykesville train station. The trains brought Westminster, Maryland 21157 Samuel T. Brainerd Phone: 410-848-6494 Fax: 410-848-3596 next building, too: Wade Hampton Devries Warfield, vacationers from Baltimore who came to escape the Eleanor S. Darcy Email: [email protected] Website: www.HSCCmd.org usually abbreviated as Wade H. D. Warfield. dirty city’s hot, unpleasant summers. Sykesville was James E. Lightner less humid. There was farmland, the Patapsco, and Sharon B. Schuster Between the time of the historic flood in 1868 that nature. A man named Frank Brown, later to become Catherine E. Baty, Curator of Collections washed away the first version of Sykesville and this the only person from Carroll County ever elected gathering 60 years later, the town had rebuilt itself governor of Maryland, built a series of cottages to along the north bank of the Patapsco River. accommodate these summer visitors. Gainor B. Davis, Executive Director James E. Lightner, Chair, Board of Trustees Page 2 Page 7

On the second block of the two and they began having daughters. Advertisement for the sale of Warfield’s personal property. block Main Street, Fowble built First came Josephine, then Helen, the Arcade Building, another and then Blanche, who was born bank building, and the Wade H. on March 11, 1895, and named cliff. On January 12, 1928, the “Epitome” included D. Warfield store. By the time of after her mother, who died seven the following item: “The Financial Service that 1927 gathering in the days later at the age of 29. Corporation of Baltimore have a large advertisement Arcade, the structure of modern in this issue, and Senator Wade H. D. Warfield is the Sykesville had already existed Suddenly, Sykesville’s most special representative for this section.” for many years, and Fowble built ambitious young man, only 30, most of it. found himself living on a farm It’s hard to say what he did between 1928 and 1935. without electricity or running They were lean times. But at least for the first few But Fowble was not necessarily water, with no wife, a three-year- years after his business empire collapsed and he lost a visionary. He built what others old, a one-year-old, an infant, and his home, Warfield had a close companion. That paid him to build. True, that greatly diminished prospects. changed on July 23, 1932, when Ellen Waterhouse included most of Sykesville, but Warfield died. And for the second time, Wade it was Wade Warfield who He needed help, and it came from Warfield buried a wife. She was 58. There were breathed life into the town. It Wheeling, West Virginia, in the seven grandchildren. was Warfield who enticed three form of Ellen Waterhouse, the journalists from Baltimore and attractive young sister of his He had arrived in Sykesville at 25 and built a small started the Sykesville Herald. It recently-departed wife. When rural empire. His salesmen had driven the was Warfield who created the Blanche Waterhouse Warfield, early 1890s. Ellen arrived to help take care of countryside and taken trains up and down the line Sykesville Lumber, Coal and the babies, she was about 20 and selling his coal and lumber, his fertilizer, grain and Grain Company, which would just a few years out of Mount de flour. Trains had pulled up and dumped coal into his become the Maryland Milling and Supply Company. Chantal Academy of Wheeling, the Catholic school bins. He had started the town’s first bank, brought it It was Warfield who took advantage of the railroad where she’d completed her education. empty jars. They sold a lawnmower, a porch swing, a newspaper, and built its tallest buildings. His name to ship out grain and flour and bring in lumber, coal, and rocking chair. They sold sofas and rugs, a 200- was still on those buildings, as it is today. and the supplies the local farm economy depended When Ellen married Wade Warfield three years later, egg incubator, a carpet sweeper and kitchen table. on. He created the Sykesville Bank. He bought on April 20, 1898, she was 23, and things were back They sold hassocks and toilet sets, ironing boards, Now all he had was a rented home on Springfield property and built houses. He hired Fowble to make on track. Warfield was 33. They would have no barrels, beds, and a pair of lap robes. They sold Avenue, an avenue where once he’d owned the wells the biggest buildings in town. children of their own, but Josephine, Helen, and pictures and springs and mattresses. They sold four and the water and the houses, and where on June 17, Blanche would have a mother, and Warfield would bushels of potatoes. 1935, at the age of 70, he sat down on his porch and Wade Warfield was born on have a family once more and collapsed. October 7, 1864, some six could concentrate on building his When it was over, there was very little left. months before Lee surrendered small, rural empire. Eventually, for $40 a month, Warfield rented a They found him unconscious and rushed him across to Grant at Appomattox. He modest home that still stands today at 7318 the road to Springfield Hospital. Doctors called it an grew up in a mansion just In 1901, Warfield started the Springfield Avenue in Sykesville. apoplectic stroke. He recovered somewhat, and outside Sykesville. His parents, Sykesville Bank. In 1907, he moved about in a wheelchair. Charles Alexander Warfield and created the Sykesville Realty and In Sykesville Past & Present, a Walking Tour, Linda Caroline (DeVries) Warfield, Investment Company. Sykesville Greenberg suggests that Warfield lost his money by bought a mansion in 1862 called incorporated as a town in 1904, speculating in wheat. There is no solid evidence of “Chihuahua” from a veteran of and by 1909, still short of 40, that, nor any other real explanation of how the man the Mexican War and ran a large Wade became the town’s third who owned everything lost everything two years dairy farm on the property. mayor. before the beginning of the Depression. Whatever happened between January and September of 1927, Wade Warfield graduated with Warfield was a “dandy.” He was he went from president of most of the town’s chief honors from the Staunton a man concerned with his image, financial entities to someone who could not pay his Military Academy in Virginia in who typically appeared dapper bills. And so, while he lay ill, they came and took 1883 and set out to make himself and serious. There’s hardly a what he owned. wealthy. In 1889, while only 25, picture where he’s not decked he opened a supply business in out in fancy shoes, a fancy hat, In 1928, life expectancy for an American male was downtown Sykesville. In 1891, and stylish clothes. He seldom 59. There was no such thing as Social Security. he married Blanche Waterhouse smiled for the photographer. In Warfield was 61 and starting over as a real estate agent, just as the American economy headed for the Postcard, Springfield Avenue, Sykesville, c.1900. from Wheeling, West Virginia, Wade Warfield, early 1890s. the one picture where he did, he Page 6 Page 3

the Sykesville National Bank, and another selling his sat up and resigned as president of the bank he’d entire herd of Holstein cattle. There would be several started 25 years before. of these sales. And while this went on—without once Sykesville Lumber Coal & Grain addressing the larger issue—in tiny one- or two- Did he believe he was dying? Was he forced out? The Warfield Building Company sentence clues, the Herald whispered that Wade Was he sick because he was losing everything, or Warfield was sick. losing everything because he was sick? Or was it just a bad coincidence? Whatever the case, Warfield had Each week the paper ran a section called the “Local creditors. He owed them money that he could not Epitome,” usually two columns of tidbits about who pay, and so, whether ruthlessly, kindly, or was visiting whom, who was traveling, who was indifferently, here’s what they did. having their chickens poisoned or throwing a party or holding a picnic or suffering from the grippe. On August 15, they took the farm and the home where his daughter and family lived . . . And buried among these tidbits of local gossip in 1927: On September 15, they sold his entire herd of registered Holstein-Friesian cattle. . . . July 14: “Senator Wade H. D. Warfield has been confined to his home this week with a severe cold.” On September 17, they sold his stock in the Herald, the Maryland Milling and Supply Company, the July 28: “The condition of Senator Wade H. D. Sykesville Realty and Investment Company, and the Warfield, who is very ill with plurisy, remains Sykesville National Bank, with most of the bank unchanged.” stock going to Charles Knapp of Baltimore. . . .

August 4: “The condition of Senator Warfield, who On September 24, they sold his bank building. . . . has been dangerously ill, is reported somewhat improved this morning.” On October 1, they sold the Arcade Building, his hardware store, his extensive lumber and coal yards August 18: “The condition of Wade H. D. Warfield, and warehouses, and two of his properties, one of who has been very ill for the past six weeks, is much which included a large home. . . . improved, and he will soon be at his office.” Detail from the 1911 Sanborn map of Sykesville showing the Warfield Building and Warfield’s Sykesville Lumber, Coal & Grain On October 8, they sold Marriottsville with 88 acres Company. St. Joseph’s Catholic Church is at the right and the B&O Railroad station is at the bottom. August 25: “Senator Wade H. D. Warfield is able to of adjoining land. . . . sit up a little each day, and expects to be out in the course of several weeks.” On October 28, they sold his farming supplies. They looked more like Charlie Chaplin’s “Little Tramp,” farmers owned tractors. People, for the most part, sold wagons and ladders, tractor pulls and mowers, with a hat and a cane, and a flower on his lapel, than were poor. Warfield was just the opposite. September 15: “Senator Wade H. D. Warfield is rakes and sowers, cultivators and planters, and two some great turn-of-the-century capitalist. improving very rapidly after his recent illness, and International manure spreaders. . . . Between his store and his lumberyard, Warfield expects to be out the last of the week.” But Warfield was no innocent, sad-sack tramp. He carried everything: tools, paints, oils, varnishes, On November 3, the Herald noted in the “Epitome” was the most powerful businessman in the area, a brushes, blacksmith’s supplies, brick, tile, sewer By mid-September, two months after the first report that “an immense crowd of people gathered at the politician, and a farmer, running at one point what pipe, cement, lime, hard and soft coal, grain, feed, of his illness, maybe he was finally getting better, sale of farm implements of the Trustees sale of the Herald described as “four extensive farms hay, straw. He sold hundreds of tons a year of his but back on September 1, on the front page under the Senator Warfield on Saturday.” nearby, always in a high state of cultivation.” own wheat and grass mix. headline “Elect New President,” the Herald reported: And a little farther down: “Edgar C. Davis of In 1914, the Herald described him as “a thorough He had a private siding from the B&O, so the trains At the last meeting of the Board of Directors Sharon, PA, has purchased through the Real Estate countryman” who “considers farming the ideal life could pull up out back and fill his bins with coal. The of the Sykesville National Bank, held August firm of Belt & Steel, Frederick, the home place of and believes more solid comfort and satisfaction is to coal went right from the trains to the bins to the 25th, Mr. Harry DeVries was elected Senator Wade H. D. Warfield, known as ‘Carroll be found in the rural districts and on the farm proper wagons to the homes and the farms. His supply President to succeed Mr. Wade H. D. Farms’.” than in the large and crowded centers.” business benefited immensely from the huge, long- Warfield, who resigned on account of ill term construction project just across the road, health. Finally, on November 3, 1927, they came out to the Sykesville, of course, was no large and crowded namely, the building of Springfield State Hospital, big farm where Wade Warfield lived and emptied the center. It was a backward, rural outpost with muddy which began in the late 1890s, just as Warfield was Six weeks after his illness started, when sitting up a house he no longer owned. They sold his washstands streets and a small population, nestled on a river at coming into his own. bit each day was considered an accomplishment, he and washbowls. They sold lamps and clocks and the border of two counties. Cars were scarce. Few Page 4 Page 5

He bought the nearby town of Although the damages were the Times would provide notice Marriottsville, including the houses, the once again heavy, Warfield of the coming catastrophe with a store, and post office. In 1909, he built survived the flood, as he had front page article in their August what the Democratic Advocate survived the fire. He had 19, 1927, edition, reporting that described as “a large elevator and insurance, assets, and skill, and Warfield had “made a deed of flouring mill which offers a market for as the American economy trust for the benefit of creditors wheat in any quantity, second to none in boomed through the Roaring to Attorney Edward O. Weant, of the country.” By 1910, the mill was Twenties, he rebuilt. He owned this city and Harry M. Phelps, a turning out more than 100 barrels per the newspaper, the bank, his prominent businessman of day of Cook’s Delight flour. farms and businesses, the land Sykesville.” and the buildings. As the In 1913, as president of the Sykesville economy continued its The deed of trust was a fairly Merchants’ & Farmers’ Carnival seemingly relentless surge, brutal document in which Association, Warfield put on a massive bankers and investors and Warfield and his wife, Ellen, three-day show based on the theme that builders like Warfield got rich. granted Weant and Phelps, in no “all roads lead to Sykesville.” In 1914, uncertain terms, the right to take he lived on his “Carroll Farm,” operated It was an era of great riches over all Warfield’s real estate another, and was about to open a third. concentrated in few hands, the and personal property of “every He bred standard horses, dairy greatest such era in American nature, kind and description” shorthorns, Shropshire sheep, and history, an age of modern then sell it “without unnecessary Berkshire swine. Even his poultry were convenience with music on the delay and convert the same into thoroughbred. Warfield’s first store, c.1890. radio and washing machines Wade Warfield, c.1910. money by the sale of so much running on the electricity that thereof as is sellable” and use the Eventually he ran for the Maryland state lit up the streets. But in money to pay off his creditors. senate . . . and won. He seemed an unstoppable October of 1929, something went wrong with the force. Then, on a freezing cold December night in stock market, and soon, quickly and brutally, an era They wasted no time. The August 25, 1927, edition 1920, an orange glow, visible for miles, appeared of prosperity and decadence came to a sudden, of the Herald included the following under the big, over the town of Sykesville, and Warfield’s fortunes jarring close. Fortunes evaporated overnight. The bold heading, “Trustee’s Sale of Valuable Farm”: began their turn toward disaster. Great Depression had arrived. By virtue of the power and authority in a Deed Warfield’s flour mill was burning, and Sykesville And, like so many others in the late twenties, of Trust from Wade H. D. Warfield to Edward was not equipped to handle the fire. As the town Warfield went down quickly. On the surface, it O. Weant and Harry M. Phelps, bearing date waited for engines to arrive over dark, difficult roads seemed like a typical story played out all over the August 15th, 1927, and recorded among the from Catonsville, 20 miles away, everyone, country: a successful businessman, a banker, Land Records of Carroll County, the including Warfield, took to the streets to fight the investor, a man of wealth and ambition, destroyed by undersigned Trustees appointed by said deed, blaze before it spread from the mill and took the rest the Crash. Except in Warfield’s case, it wasn’t true. will sell at public sale on the premises, near of the town with it. Eventually the fire fighters Sykesville, Carroll County, Maryland on arrived, tapped the Patapsco to fight the flames, and Warfield was not a victim of the Great Depression. Saturday, September 10, 1927 at 1:30 O’clock saved the town. All that remained of Warfield’s mill He lost everything in just a few weeks in the fall of P.M. all that valuable farm containing 123 was what the Herald referred to as “charred timber 1927, which leads us back to the Arcade building in acres more or less, improved by a large and ashes.” October of that year and that gathering of men from Mansion House. the Eastern Shore Trust Company, the Southern It was Warfield’s first great setback since the death Maryland National Bank, financial institutions from In this case, a farm, a mansion, and 123 acres owned of his wife, but another calamity would soon follow Baltimore and Frederick, and other wealthy men, by Warfield and occupied by James O. Ridgley in July 1923, when a rainstorm drenched Carroll including several from Sykesville, who had come to would go up for bid. They would sell it all, right County. As the rain poured, a sudden surge of strip Wade Warfield to the bone. down to the 32 acres of growing corn. Ridgley was frothing brown water rushed over the banks all along married to Warfield’s oldest daughter, Josephine the Patapsco, flooding hundreds of homes, crippling And as would be its pattern throughout Warfield’s Warfield Ridgley, who had lost her mother when she the railroad, carrying away horses and cows, collapse, the Herald, which would soon have new was three, and who was 35 now and losing her home. knocking down hundreds of barns, ripping up B&O ownership, would not report on why this was tracks for miles, and washing away Warfield’s happening or provide any sort of detailed look at the A week later the ad ran again, along with two more, lumber yard. Warfield’s flour mill, 1910. From the business supplement to the financial collapse of the most important man in one selling Warfield’s stock, including his shares in Democratic Advocate. Historical Society Collection. Sykesville. Nor would the Carroll County Times, but the Herald-Messenger Company and 2,295 shares in