Category: deep creek lake

By Francis Champ Zumbrun

“The woods will get you if you don’t watch out…Stay out close to nature and you won’t want to come back to the civilizing influences of trolley cars, telephones, porcelain bathtubs and nickel plumbing.” – Thomas Edison at Muddy Creek, MD July 1921

The general public read with great interest the articles that appeared in newspapers across the country reporting the camping adventures of the vagabonds in western Maryland. The Maryland newspapers included photographs showing the famous men participating in various outdoor activities with President Harding, from relaxing in canvas-backed wooden folding chairs to horseback riding.

One photograph captured Edison napping comfortably on the bare ground. Soon after that photograph was taken, President Harding gently put a newspaper over Edison’s face and smiled at child looking on in the crowd and said, “we can’t let the gnats eat him up, now can we?”

After returning to the campsite from a horseback ride, the men went fishing for about 30 minutes in Licking Creek, catching nothing. Edison was overheard saying,” I don’t believe there ever were any fish in this creek.”

A local music dealer from Hagerstown made arrangements for a player piano to be at the campsite. After dinner, the camping party danced to popular music on a small wooden platform. Afterwards they sat around the campfire in a large circle listening to Thomas Edison tell tall-tales.

Read More Here:  http://dnr.maryland.gov/feature_stories/FamousTravelersPart3.asp

By Francis Champ Zumbrun

“Imagine a scenario in which an outdoors-loving president takes a sudden weekend leave from the White House to join up with three of the most powerful industrialists in the Western world at a campsite in the mountains of Western Maryland, where they ride horses, shoot rifles, chop wood, and eat and sleep in tents beside a babbling brook.” – Norman Brauer, author of “There to Breathe the Beauty.”

During the week of July 21-27, 1921, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone camped at a site about six miles east of Hancock in Washington County. During the weekend, President Warren G. Harding joined the “vagabonds” — the name the wealthy industrialists gave themselves when they camped together. The 200-acre farm where they made camp was located about one mile north of the National Turnpike along Licking Creek. Today, the campsite lies inside Camp Harding County Park. A plaque memorializes the gathering of these famous campers.

This was not the first time the vagabonds had been in the Old Line State. In 1918, while traveling from their camp site near Greensburg, Pa., to Leadmine, W.Va., the group passed through Garrett County. They stopped to eat lunch at Swallow Falls and purchased supplies in Oakland.

Read More Here:  http://dnr.maryland.gov/feature_stories/FamousTravelersPart2.asp