of Cambridge, in Talbot County. “Not the most friendly of people,” she finished, tilting her head and smiling sweetly. She would know; she’s a minister’s wife.
The Cambridge community was not pleased with the idea of a ghost tour. Town talk speculated that it would compete with the Cambridge West End historical tour, the Harriet Tubman Museum tour and the tri-annual senior bus tour. The organizers of other town tours felt challenged, and so they grew defensive.
“The West End tour coordinator won’t share information,” explained Judy over the phone.
“Well, then, I guess I have to read more,” I said slowly. “All that research might lengthen the process.”
“No one even believes that Tales of the Hauntingly Weird and Unusual will sell,” Judy said sadly.
Then why not share? I thought.
On the other end of the phone, eighty miles and a world away in a city ten times the size of Cambridge, I didn’t answer. I was the outsider with little say in the existing dynamic. I didn’t want to land in the middle of a small-town, blue-blood tug of Episcopal war, but I had. Commissions settle one in the oddest of spots.
“We’ve had some pushback,” Judy said, “but the Dorchester Arts Center’s going to push on. We’re going to tell the stories anyway.”
What could compel them to rock the town boat? Then I remembered the profit margin in the Fells Point ghost tours. “Well, good for you,” I said, impressed that Judy was so committed to documenting the folklore of a virtually record-less town.
In the absence of any High Street folklore, Judy gave me the phone numbers of two local sources: Thomas and Olivia. Olivia contributed a column called the Graveside Chat to Revelations, the Christ Church monthly publication that’s chock full of information on the local dead. Judy’s a member of the Christ Church congregation, yet despite her requests, Olivia’s schedule couldn’t accommodate an interview with us until way into June. Somehow, Judy thought that I, a foreigner, could persuade Olivia to chat sooner about the Christ Church graveyard.
Judy said, “Olivia’s column is the first thing everybody turns to in Revelations, even when we get the copies in service.”
I imagined a Cambridge congregation, dressed for spring, rustling in creaky Episcopal pews, shifting their collective weight and sneaking peeks at the dirt of the dead during some interminable sermon. I pictured a big headline that read: Foreigner Writes Local History! Church collapses in protest! Courthouse burns to the ground! Graveyard shifts two feet!
I considered the graveyard to be my primary source of ghost stories, so I called Olivia first.
“I’m sorry but you’ve called me during a Cambridge Woman’s Club luncheon and my guests are leaving and so you’re going to have to call me back in an hour,” she gushed all in one sweet, Southern breath.
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry to bother you,” I said, almost tasting sugar. “I’ll call back.” I hung up and shook my head.
When I called her back, she said, “I could make room in my calendar next week.”
“Wow.” I was surprised. I, the foreigner, had somehow persuaded her to a meeting before June. Maybe Olivia wanted to tell stories more than she cared about local politics and the dynamics of social pressure. Good for her, I thought. “That’s great,” I said, happily surprised. “I appreciate . . .”
“Well,” she said, “I have another luncheon next week but I could do Tuesday. Where should we meet?”
“Um, I’d like to see the cemetery,” I said.
“I’ll see if Judy has a room available at the Center,” Olivia said.
Didn’t she want to go to the cemetery? Certainly, she didn’t want to meet me at the Cambridge Woman’s Club in their High Street house purchased from the Maynider family in 1922.
Judy’s other source, Thomas Flowers, wrote a folklore compilation and a revisionist, elementary-school-level history of Dorchester County, a tome that Judy considered my primary source of Cambridge information.
“Everything you need to know about Dorchester County is in here,” she said when she handed me the book.
The history book was nobly self-published: the typeset is Courier and set by hand. The margins vary. The maps are hand drawn. Half of page 55 is a hand-drawn sketch of a sea monster chasing a Spanish ship to America. Flowers was obviously an oral storyteller; I found grammatical errors in the book that only Huck Finn should commit. Or maybe Flowers was writing in the vernacular, like Mark Twain did.
Flowers was born in southern Dorchester County and has been a teacher, a principal and a county councilman. For years, he’s been presenting folklore lectures around the county. The courthouse has a 1690 record of his namesake being fined; he’s a native.8
“He might not be very nice,” Judy warned telephonically. He was one of the protestors to the ghost walk. A High Street ghost tour might hinder his lecture circuit.
Thomas was polite when I called, but he said that he was too busy to meet.
“Got to get my garden going,” he explained. His voice was slow, gruff and considered. “I’m in my eighties; gardening takes a lot out of me.”
I commiserated. “The weather’s been so cold and wet,” I complained. “Still, I planted tomatoes last week.” Silence; he didn’t bite. “They look so small I wonder if they’ll bear fruit,” I blathered. Marylanders usually love discussing tomato plants; it’s a statewide passion. I thought at least Western and Eastern Shore natives could share that. “The tomato plants at the Center look great. They’re already in bloom.”
But there was no tomato talk that day. “I can give you the address of a lady who’s done my history bus tour before,” he replied to my tomato pitch. I wrote down the address. “And there’s another one, named Mabel, I think,” he continued. I waited. “No, no, I don’t have her exact address, but I can tell you that she lives on Locust Street in that yellow house with the iron gate. Do you know that house?”
“I think I can figure it out,” I lied into the gap between us. I didn’t know Locust Street, and he knew it.
I recounted the Thomas and Olivia conversations to Judy.
“I don’t think Olivia’s accent’s that strong,” said Judy. She told me again that she was “originally from the Eastern Shore.” I realized that my accent imitation had crossed that Yankee line. I apologized.
“I am becoming aware,” I said, “of the schism that splits this state.”
“Oh, we’re very different over here,” she said.
I admit that adopting a slightly Southern accent sometimes makes life a little easier. It’s amazing how a Southern accent will grease the wheel. Most people will open up to you if you have a tiny Southern twinge in your voice. Men hold doors for you and carry your packages. Customer service reps develop empathy.
Maybe that just happens here in Maryland at the fuzzy border between North and South.
The two women Flowers suggested I contact were senior citizens who conduct Cambridge historical bus tours three times a year. They told Judy that a daily High Street ghost tour would compete with their tri-annual business. They protested with passive resistance; they refused to “share” information, as Judy tactfully put it.
“There’s no need to call them,” she said to me.
“I couldn’t call them anyway,” I said. How could I call them with one address and a yellow house on Locust Street? “They can’t hide the history,” I continued.
Until I re-visited Cambridge, I could only study. So, I returned to reading history books.
George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, converted to Catholicism, and, because no Roman Catholics were permitted to hold public office in England