Editing Cecil County, Maryland (section)

=== 19th century ===
[[File:The Armory, Elkton, Md (75030).jpg|thumb|right|Early 20th century postcard depicting Cecil County's [[Elkton Armory]]]]
The [[War of 1812]] caused Cecil County considerable damage. Not only did British Admiral [[George Cockburn]] blockade the upper Chesapeake Bay, in response to musket fire from colonials at Welch Point, his troops destroyed a trading post known as [[Frenchtown (ghost town), Maryland|Frenchtown]]. They tried to sail further up the Elk River to the county seat at Elkton, but turned back under fire from [[Fort Defiance (Maryland)|Fort Defiance]], also hindered by a cable across the navigation channel. British troops also destroyed most of [[Havre de Grace, Maryland|Havre de Grace]] in nearby [[Harford County, Maryland]]. Cockburn's ships then traveled up the [[Sassafras River]], and, meeting resistance, destroyed [[Georgetown, Maryland]] and [[Fredericktown, Maryland]]. Avoiding [[Port Deposit]] which rumors called heavily defended, the British destroyed the Principio Iron Works, an important military target.

Port Deposit boomed after the [[Susquehanna Canal]] opened in 1812. Engineer [[James Rumsey]], who grew up in Bohemia Manor before moving to [[Bath (Berkeley Springs), West Virginia|Bath, Virginia]] (or [[Berkeley Springs, West Virginia]]), invented a steamboat which he demonstrated to George Washington, before traveling to London to secure patents against competition from John Finch. Rumsey died there in 1792, but his lawyer brother [[Benjamin Rumsey]] moved south to [[Joppa, Maryland]] and served as Maryland's Chief Justice for 25 years. Steamboats, using technology such as by [[Robert Fulton]], came to dominate travel on the bay during the following decades. The Eagle, built in Philadelphia in 1813, transported travelers between [[Baltimore]] and [[Elkton, Maryland|Elkton]], where they connected with stagecoaches to travel to Wilmington, Philadelphia and other points north. An 1802 attempt to build a canal to connect the Elk River to [[Christiana, Delaware]] (connecting the Chesapeake and Delaware watersheds) failed within two years. However, between 1824 and 1829, with financial support from the states of Maryland, [[Delaware]], and [[Pennsylvania]], over 2600 workers built the 14 miles long [[Chesapeake and Delaware Canal]], which became for a while the busiest canal in the new nation. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers still operates it today, and [[Chesapeake City, Maryland]], which had been Bohemia Manor until 1839, has a museum explaining the canal's importance. Railroads and bridges also proved economically important to Cecil County and surrounding region. The [[New Castle and Frenchtown Turnpike and Railroad Company|New Castle and Frenchtown Railroad]] began service in 1831. Railroads crisscrossed Cecil county within three decades, although they ultimately greatly reduced its importance as a trading center. Cities such as Philadelphia and Baltimore could achieve economies of scale impossible for the county's small Chesapeake ports. Even the railroad's Frenchtown section was abandoned in 1859, and the port became a ghost town, though other sections remain in use, operated by the [[Norfolk Southern Railway]].

During the [[American Civil War]], [[Perryville, Maryland]] became an important staging ground for Union troops. It had been the halfway point of the railroad line between Wilmington and Baltimore, but damage to the section into Baltimore caused Union troops to embark ferries at Perryville. No Civil War battles occurred in Cecil County, but residents had strongly divided loyalties. Slavery had declined from 3,400 slaves in the county in 1790 to just 800 in 1850. The Underground Railroad had crossed through Cecil County, perhaps assisted by the 'Fighting Quaker,' former Congressman and U.S. Marshall [[John Conard]], who moved to North East between 1834 and 1851 and was reburied at St. Mary Anne's Episcopal Church there after his death in Philadelphia in 1857. [[Frederick Douglass]] crossed Cecil County on his road to freedom in 1838. While [[Jacob Tome]] made his fortune in the area and stayed, other Cecil County natives left in search of economic opportunity. [[David Davis (Supreme Court justice)|David Davis]] moved to Illinois upon graduating from Yale Law School in 1835, where he became [[Abraham Lincoln]]'s law partner and later served in that legislature as well as a judge, before moving to Washington D.C. to help President Lincoln, who later named him to the United States Supreme Court. Slavery's abolition affected many local property owners, as well as their slaves. After the war, Perryville again became a railroad town, and later received business from interstate highway travelers crossing the Susquehanna bridges. Although Cecil County had once been one of the wealthiest in Maryland and has worked hard recently to attract industry as well as tourist dollars, the average income of residents is now near that of [[Maryland locations by per capita income|Americans as a whole]].