Remembering the Chestertown Armory
Chestertown armory. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
For nearly a century, the Chestertown armory has played a significant role in local life. Built in 1931, the substantial brick building just past the railroad tracks along Quaker Neck Road is an impossible-to-miss landmark around Chestertown. Named for Sgt. John H. Newnam, a Kent County World War I veteran, the armory was headquarters for the local Maryland National Guard company, providing offices, a large interior space for drilling, and storage and maintenance facilities for military vehicles and equipment.
Like other buildings of its kind, the armory had a much broader role in the community. Among the annual events it hosted was a Christmas bazaar benefitting the hospital auxiliary. Almost everything imaginable seemed to be for sale. One year — I was about 10 — the bazaar had a huge pile of comic books in the middle of the floor. Kids sat there and browsed until they found something to buy. It was there that I found Only a Poor Old Man, the first Uncle $crooge comic book, written and drawn by the incomparable Carl Barks.
The long ramp at the entrance attracted younger kids with bikes. It let you build up a nice head of speed if you rode down from the top, but you had to make a sharp turn to keep out of the traffic on Quaker Neck Road, just beyond the bottom of the ramp. Although the hills on the Washington College campus were safer and gave a much longer run, I loved riding my bike down the armory ramp. During the college’s summer recess, we were less likely to be chased away!
Speaking of the college, the armory played host for Washington College basketball games during the 1950s, when the on-campus gym was being renovated. I remember seeing a couple. It was also the venue for the Chestertown Cotillion club, which held formal dances in the large assembly room. These dances, which my parents regularly attended, were highlights of the local social season.
One armory event I missed — to my lifelong regret — was a performance by Little Richard, hosted by the legendary Uptown Club. This was in the late 1950s, when Richard was at the height of his popularity. Only one of my friends got to see it, Albert Nicholson, whose father was the former big-league baseball player Bill Nicholson. (I never heard anyone call him “Swish” till years later; locally, everybody called him “Bill Nick.”) Anyhow, Albert made a lot of us envious with his account of the show the next day in school. He was probably one of only a very few White kids in the building — his parents were considerably more tolerant than most others in the community. Remember, at this point, the county schools were still segregated.
As one of the largest enclosed spaces in the county, the armory was a community asset, although I wonder if its full potential was ever realized. These days, assuming decent acoustics, it would be a natural for such events as concerts and rehearsals by the National Music Festival orchestra and the Kent County Marching Band. Used less and less by the community, the armory was finally decommissioned in 2005 after the National Guard held a final ceremony.
Other Eastern Shore armories have also been decommissioned, with some finding new lives in other guises. The Centreville armory, which hosted dances when I was in college, is now home to Wye River Upper School. The armory in Denton now houses the General James F. Fretterd Community Center of Caroline County. The old armory in Pocomoke City has sat disused for many years, and there is a proposal to demolish it to create room for a new Worcester County library. And Wicomico County native George Shivers reports that the Salisbury armory, which “looked like a Norman castle made of stone, was completely transformed with a modern look and is now the county library.”
In 2007, the Maryland Military Department declared the Chestertown armory to be surplus property, and a year later, the state’s Board of Public Works offered the Town of Chestertown the opportunity to buy it. Anticipating that offer, the mayor and town council held public hearings where several local groups presented plans for the building. Town Manager Bill Ingersoll said that the town wanted to consider how any proposal complied with the town’s comprehensive zoning plan. He said the town didn’t want the property for its own use.
Among the proposals were a year-round homeless shelter, a museum to honor local veterans, and a boutique hotel. Then-Washington College President Baird Tipson outlined a plan to convert the property into an “environmental field station” for study of the river and its ecology. The larger interior space would be used for campus events, such as awards banquets, concerts, and dances.
Prof. John Seidel, director of the college’s Center for Environment and Society, offered context for his center’s interest in the property. In an interview Oct. 13, he said, “It's a very challenging marketplace out there for small liberal arts colleges. One of the things that is a distinctive factor that other colleges can't build is the river. You think about natural strength, certainly the river is one of those. So, we thought, what can we do to try and enhance and preserve our river access?”
At the time, the college had only one riverside property, where the boathouse is located. That plot, Seidel said, had only a narrow waterfront, limiting its value for the college’s planned focus on the river. However, negotiations were underway for two other plots adjacent to the armory. When the college acquired the former Alger Oil and Crop Production Services properties, the addition of the armory became even more attractive. In May 2013, the college took possession; the price was $258,428.
At that point, practical considerations came into play. For starters, the property is not far above high tide in the river. Seidel noted, “People were not thinking about sea level rise in the 1930s when they built it. And then you've got a 1980s addition off the rear, which is structurally problematic, and has water around it all the time.” He estimated that it would cost several million dollars to stabilize the structure.
Just as much a problem was the core structure of the building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Conversations with the Maryland Historical Trust made it clear that the college wouldn’t be allowed to make any substantial changes to the 1931 structure, inside or out. “Putting the [then-planned] Center for Environment and Society in there did not seem functional; the space didn't lend itself to what we need to do,” Seidel said. Ultimately, the college solved that problem by building a new environmental center, Semans-Griswold Hall, on one of the adjacent plots.
For now, the armory is mainly used for storage, Seidel said. That, of course, is hardly the best use of a building in which the college had so much hope at the time of its acquisition. Looking for a solution, the college has returned to one of the ideas floated when the town was entertaining proposals for the use of the building, a boutique hotel.
As Seidel noted, there is a need for more hotel rooms in the Chestertown area, and the armory could also host medium-sized conferences sponsored by the college or other local entities. Given the town’s emphasis on history and the environment, a new hotel could benefit the tourism industry, which in recent years has become a major part of the local economy. Seidel said he understood that the college had been talking with “a hospitality group” before the pandemic, but with the ensuing drastic slowdown in tourism, those talks went into hiatus.
So for now, at least, the future of the armory remains up in the air. The college’s chief of staff, Victor Sensenig, said in a Jan. 21 email: “The college is considering its options for that property, and when there’s news to report, we will happily do so.”
As a long-time Chestertown resident with many fond memories of the building, I look forward to learning what the next chapter in its story will be.
Peter Heck is a Chestertown-based writer and editor, who spent 10 years at the Kent County News and three more with the Chestertown Spy. He is the author of 10 novels and co-author of four plays, a book reviewer for Asimov’s and Kirkus Reviews, and an incorrigible guitarist.
© Common Sense for the Eastern Shore, 2024
Title image: Pond at Pickering Creek Audubon Center, Talbot Co. Photo: Jan Plotczyk
