Maryland

Private Harry Fooksman

~ Nick Metcalfe ~ Leave a comment

This is part of a series of essays about the First World War casualties commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Maryland. 

Editors note: Private Fooksman is commemorated as  by the CWGC as ‘Private Harry Ross’, the name under which he served.

97th Battalion (American Legion) Cap Badge
97th Battalion (American Legion) Cap Badge

Harry Ross is something of an enigma—the name under which he served, and by which he is commemorated by the CWGC, is an alias.  He was born Harry Fooksman, the only son of a Russian Jewish family, both sides of which had emigrated to the United States in the late-1880s. Continue reading →

Sergeant William Pattinson

~ Nick Metcalfe ~ Leave a comment

The notification of the death of Sergeant William Pattinson

The death of Sergeant William Pattinson in Hagerstown, Maryland was brought to our attention by Jill Craig of Western Maryland Regional Library. The notification of his death, published in the Hagerstown Daily Mail, was found during research for a project about Western Maryland during the war. He is not commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission—a case will be made for his death to be recognised as attributable to his war service.

William Pattinson was born on 21 January 1889, in the village of Crosscanonby in Cumberland, the eldest son and eldest of the five children of James and Margaret Ann Pattinson.[1] His mother worked as a milliner in his father’s drapery business. Continue reading →

Cadet Arthur William Webster Eden

~ Nick Metcalfe ~ Leave a comment

This is part of a series of essays about the First World War casualties commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Maryland.

Camp Taliaferro, the Royal Flying Corps training centre near Fort Worth, Texas, will feature in the stories of 22 men who died in the United States while undergoing flying training, three others who died of disease, and one who died while en route by train from Canada.[1]

The grave of Cadet Arthur William Webster Eden
The grave of Cadet Arthur William Webster Eden

Cadet Arthur Eden was killed in a mid-air collision on 21 December 1917; Continue reading →

Leading Seaman Joseph Thompson Clark

~ Nick Metcalfe ~ Leave a comment

This is part of a series of essays about the First World War casualties commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Maryland.

The grave of Acting Leading Seaman Joseph Thompson Clark
The grave of Acting Leading Seaman Joseph Thompson Clark

Joseph Thompson Clark was nearby when HMS Natal  blew up in Cromarty Firth in 1915, was present at the Battle of Jutland, and survived being torpedoed in the Mediterranean only to drown in a swimming accident in Baltimore harbour in 1917.

He was born on 26 August 1896 at Cowpen, near Blyth, an industrial town in Northumberland, one of the three children of Fergus and Mary Ann Clark.[1] His father had worked variously as a miner, a boiler fireman and as a crane driver; Joseph, like his older brother, worked in a sawmill.

Just after the outbreak of war, Clark enlisted on 21 August 1914 Continue reading →

SS Kerry Range

~ Nick Metcalfe ~ 5 Comments

This is part of a series of essays about the First World War casualties commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Maryland.

Acting Leading Seaman Eustace Alfred Bromley, Royal Navy
(and Cadet Reginald Cyril Johnson, Mercantile Marine)
(and Seaman Algot Buske, Mercantile Marine)

SS Kerry Range scuttled in shallow water in Baltimore harbour
SS Kerry Range scuttled in shallow water in Baltimore harbour

Late on 30 October 1917 a fire broke out on Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Pier 9 at Locust Point in Baltimore, Maryland. The fire destroyed the pier, the old immigration building on it, and set fire to the SS Kerry Range, a British, armed, merchant ship that was moored alongside. Four men died and the damage caused was considerable—freight worth over $5,000,000 was destroyed and the Kerry Range was wrecked. The fire occurred at the height of anti-German hysteria and speculation about incendiaries placed by German agents led to the arrest of a number of ‘alien enemies’. An investigation concluded, however, that the blaze was caused by an electrical fire in one of the buildings on Pier 9, which ignited piles of oakum.[1] Continue reading →