Editing Elkton, Maryland (section)

==History==

The town was founded by [[New Sweden|Swedish]] mariners and fishermen from [[Fort Casimir]] who settled the area in 1694. They called their settlement '''Head of Elk''', as it was the [[head of navigation]] of the [[Elk River (Maryland)|Elk River]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Maryland: a new guide to the Old Line State |year=1999 |page=xiv}}.</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Middle States: A Handbook for Travellers |edition=4th |editor-first=Moses Foster |editor-last=Sweetser |year=1881 |page=387 }}</ref>

The town saw several actions during the [[American Revolutionary War]]. On August 25, 1777, Sir [[William Howe, 5th Viscount Howe|William Howe]]'s Anglo-German army (13,000 British soldiers and 5,000 Germans) landed on the Elk River and marched 11 miles north to Head of Elk.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Billias |first=George Athan |title=George Washington's Opponents |year=1969 |pages=60–61 |publisher=William Morrow |location=New York |oclc=11709 }}</ref> Howe soon advanced to the short and victorious campaign of the Brandywine, and thence to the [[Philadelphia campaign|capture of Philadelphia]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gruber |first=Ira |title=The Howe Brothers and the American Revolution |publisher=Atheneum Press |location=New York |page=241 |year=1972 |oclc=1464455 |isbn=978-0-8078-1229-7 }}</ref>  On March 8, 1781, the [[Marquis de Lafayette]] embarked his troops there to attempt a capture of [[Benedict Arnold]]. Returning on April 9, he began his overland march to Virginia.<ref>{{cite book |last=Unger |first=Harlow Giles |title=Lafayette |year=2002 |pages=3033–3134 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |edition=Kindle |isbn=978-0-471-39432-7 }}</ref> [[George Washington]] and [[Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau|Rochambeau]] with their combined forces stopped in Elkton on September 6–7, 1781, on their way to [[Siege of Yorktown|Yorktown]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=1474 |title=Elkton Marker |publisher=Historical Marker Database }}</ref>

In 1787, the town was incorporated as Elkton. By 1880, the population was 1,752.<ref>{{cite book |title=Report on Population of the United States at the Eleventh Census, 1890, Volumes 15-990 |publisher=Norman Ross |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0VAzAQAAMAAJ&q=elkton+maryland+1880+population&pg=PA382 |date=1895 |page=382 |isbn=9780883544464 |access-date=November 13, 2017 }}</ref>

The landmark historic home, [[Holly Hall (Elkton, Maryland)|Holly Hall]] was built by [[James Sewall]] in the 1810s and quickly became a regional seat for important dignitaries and local politics.<ref>{{cite web |url={{MHT url |id=398}} |title=Maryland Historical Trust |date=October 5, 2008 |work=National Register of Historic Places: Holly Hall |publisher=Maryland Historical Trust }}</ref>{{better source needed|date=October 2015}}

When northern states began to pass more restrictive [[marriage law]]s in the early 20th century, Maryland did not. As a result, a number of Maryland towns near borders with other states became known as places to get married quickly and without many restrictions, or "[[Gretna Green]]s".<ref>''State v. Clay'', 182 Md. 639, 642, 35 A.2d 821, 822–23 (1944).</ref> Elkton, being the northeastern most county seat in Maryland (and thus closer to Philadelphia, New York, and New England), was particularly popular.<ref name="PostArticle">{{Citation |last=Berdan |first=Marshall S. |title=Elkton, Marry-land |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2002/02/13/AR2005033107159_pf.html |newspaper=The Washington Post |pages=C2 |date=February 13, 2002}}
</ref> It was a notorious Gretna Green for years;<ref>''Greenwald v. State'', 221 Md. 235, 237–38, 155 A.2d 894, 896 (1959).</ref><ref>See "Siamese Twin Will Fight for a Marriage License", ''The Minneapolis Tribune'', July 6, 1926, p.1 (mentioning a conjoined twin denied a marriage license in New York who retorted, "We'll go to Elkton, Md.")</ref> in its heyday, in the 1920s and 1930s, it was "the elopement capital of the East Coast" and thousands of marriages were performed there each year.<ref name="PostArticle"/><ref>Lorimer, Graeme and Sarah, ''[[Maudie Mason|Stag Line]]'', Little, Brown, and Company, Boston, 1934, p. 191 ("Elkton is the place where all the people who want to get married in a hurry run off to, because they'll marry anybody there right away.")</ref>  While some of the marriages obtained in Elkton were of celebrities or celebrities-to-be ([[Cornel Wilde]], [[Joan Fontaine]], [[Debbie Reynolds]], [[Martha Raye]], [[John N. Mitchell|John]] and [[Martha Mitchell]], [[Willie Mays]], and [[Pat Robertson]] all got married in Elkton),<ref name="PostArticle"/> the overall tawdry flavor grew to be too much for the state.

A 48-hour waiting period was imposed in 1938, but Elkton continued to be a place to marry, and especially elope; it simply took longer.<ref>{{cite web |publisher=Historical Marker Database |url=http://www.hmdb.org/Marker.asp?Marker=1935 |title=Elkton, Wedding Capital of the East }}</ref>  The year before the Maryland Legislature enacted a 48-hour waiting period, the marriage bureau in the town of about 3,300 people issued 16,054 licenses.  That number slumped to 4,532 in 1939.  Still, the marrying ministers found all sorts of loopholes that allowed the business to continue for decades.  The waiting period could be lifted, for instance, if the "mother was expecting", or if a young man was preparing to go off to war.  In 1942, Elkton had about 14,000 marriages.<ref>{{Cite web |last=admin |date=June 2, 2012 |title=After Decades of Legal Wrangling Elkton's Marriage Mill Started Grinding a Little Slower |url=https://cecilcountyhistory.com/it-took-decades-of-legal-wrangling-but-eventually-elktons-marriage-mill-starts-grinding-a-little-slower/ |access-date=August 5, 2022 |website=Window on Cecil County's Past |language=en-US }}</ref>

In time, [[Las Vegas]] became the new "American Gretna Green", although hundreds of people still came to Elkton.  But an era faded in the northeastern Maryland county seat when the last commercial wedding chapel closed in 2017.<ref>{{Cite web |last=admin |date=February 13, 2012 |title=When the Honeymoon Express Rolled Into Elkton, Bringing Cupid's Wedding Business To Town |url=https://cecilcountyhistory.com/when-the-honeymoon-express-rolled-into-elkton-bringing-wedding-business-to-town/ |access-date=August 5, 2022 |website=Window on Cecil County's Past |language=en-US }}</ref>

On December 8, 1963, [[Pan Am Flight 214]] was struck by [[lightning]] and crashed near Elkton, taking 81 lives.  The crash was listed in the 2005 [[Guinness World Records]] as the "Worst Lightning Strike Death Toll."<ref name="guin">[https://web.archive.org/web/20051125201302/http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/content_pages/record.asp?recordid=53285 archive.org copy of] [[Guinness Book of World Records]] entry for Pan Am flight 214</ref><ref group="nb">In 1971, [[LANSA Flight 508]] was also brought down by a lightning strike. Flight 508's crash would have more total casualties (91 fatalities), as up to fourteen passengers survived the crash but died afterwards in the Peruvian jungle while waiting for help.</ref>  A small memorial marks the site of the crash, the worst loss of life accident in Maryland.  The Boeing 707 had gone down in a cornfield on the eastern edge of the town, and in 1994 a granite memorial was placed at Delancy Road and Wheelhouse Drive.  Today the area is a housing development.<ref>{{Cite web |last=admin |date=November 6, 2012 |title=Memorial Remembers Victims of Pan American Plane Crash in Elkton - |url=https://cecilcountyhistory.com/memorial-remembers-victims-of-pan-american-plane-crash-in-elkton/ |access-date=August 5, 2022 |website=Window on Cecil County's Past |language=en-US }}</ref>