Month: April 2019

When an Apple Falls Far From the Tree: Part Two

When it was Koogle’s chance to defend himself, he told the judge and state’s attorney that he had not committed the shooting nor any of the burglaries.

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The scene of the attempted robbery and shooting.

Continued from Part One.

Amazingly—almost miraculously—on 8 August, just four days after the shooting, George Waters Bittle was able to give testimony to Justice of the Peace Christian H. Eckstein whilst propped up in a chair in the bedroom of his Main Street home. Also present during the testimony was State’s Attorney for Frederick County Arthur D. Willard (1872-1959), the counsels for the defense, the accused, Captain Jacob Koogle, Dr. Ralph Browning, Rev. Otto E. Bregenzer (abt. 1877-1920) of  St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, and Mrs. Bittle, the former Mary Elizabeth Routzahn (1865-1936.)

Bittle told Willard and Eckstein that on the night of the attempted burglary,  “He had seen the burglar around his place early in the evening [and] though he recognized his walk,” the Frederick News noted. “The party wore a  dark slouch hat, dark coat, and trousers. He did not see the face of the man at the door sufficiently well to say it was George Koogle, but he could say from what he had seen of Koogle earlier in the evening and what he could say of the man at the door he thought it was George Koogle, although he was sorry to say so.” The dolorous look Bittle may have given Captain Koogle as he spoke can well be imagined.

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Justice of the Peace Christian H. Eckstein heard Bittle’s testimony.

Bittle, like his fellow citizens, probably saw Koogle as somewhat of a superhero. For example, the merchant would surely have heard this wartime anecdote from Myersville veteran Daniel Mowen, Koogle’s brother-in-law, who included it in a series of articles he wrote for the newspaper, The Globe: “At the assault of Petersburg, on the 17th of June, 1864, and while the Seventh [Maryland Regiment] was in line, Jacob Koogle, first sergeant of company, saw a shell bounding toward them. He called to the men to ‘look out!’ Watching its course, he attempted to step out of its way when it lodged against his breast. Its force being about spent, he threw it off with his arm without injury to himself and, as it didn’t explode, it injured no one else.” This was before the affair of stealing of the Confederate colors and returning with the secessionist banner and a uniform full of bullet holes. Those twin events could make anyone wonder whether Koogle was divinely blessed.

Continue reading “When an Apple Falls Far From the Tree: Part Two”

The Memory of Mourning

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An albumen cabinet card copy of an earlier mourning image. It bears the mark “Broadbent & Taylor, 914 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. S. Broadbent, W. Curtis Taylor.” Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.

This is a copy of an earlier photo–certainly either an ambrotype or daguerreotype. Photographers Broadbent and Taylor, or whoever owed this image, drew strengthening lines around the woman’s shoulders and head, as well as around her eyes and possibly lips. On the actual cabinet card, these lines are not really noticeable, but when blown up, they become quite evident.

The sitter wears fashions that date the photograph to the 1850s. She wears a mourning brooch at her throat, its hair compartment and black enamel clearly visible. I have a similar brooch in my collection. The otherwise lovely piece below suffers from moisture damage. At some point in the past, water or humidity seeped into the brooch and now the hair is a shade of green, dyed by the metals that surround it. Ω

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Gold and black lacquer double mourning brooch inscribed “J & L Howlett,” circa 1855.

A Union Soldier Remembers

“About this time, we were visited by heavy thunderstorms. Having shelter, we were obliged to hunt high places upon the ground to spread our blanket, and with knapsack for a pillow, lay down wet and shivering with our gum blanket over us for the rain to beat upon.”

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Courtesy Library of Congress.

Daniel Hosea Mowen, who lived for many years in Wolfsville, Myersville, and Hagerstown, was born 28 November, 1839, probably in Middleburg, Snyder County, Pennsylvania. He was eldest child of what grew into a large family headed by his father Peter Mowen (1818-1857) and his mother Susan Rebecca Renner Mowen (1815-1861).

Mowen was raised in Greencastle, Franklin County, not far over the Pennsylvania line from Hagerstown, Maryland. Peter Mowen died, aged 39, when Daniel was 17. His mother died in 1861 when he was 22. By August 1862, when he entered the Union army, Mowen had relocated to Frederick County.

According to an interview in the Frederick News of 21 July, 1976, on the occasion of his 100th birthday, Mowen’s son Waldo claimed that “For awhile, my father must have debated which side of the war to fight on,” although from the invaluable memoire Daniel Mowen left us, which is the focus of this chapter, one would ever take him for anything other than a strict Union man.

Mowen enlisted in C. F. Anderson’s Company I of the Union 7th Maryland Regiment for a three-year term. During the course of his service, he was wounded at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, heard the last speech of Abraham Lincoln at the White House, did guard duty at the Old Capital Prison on the night of the president’s assassination, and was present during the trial of the conspirators.

Continue reading “A Union Soldier Remembers”