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Peoples National Bank. The watch was presented to
Miss Eva by the Continental Insurance Company for 25 years of service and is so inscribed. The insurance office opened on South Delaware A venue, where Mr. Shafer also printed the Brunswick Herald. When the Shafers moved to 22 North Virginia A venue into the house they purchased from M. M. Richards, they transferred the insurance company also.Brunswick's 1924 directory for Shafer and Bowers advertises "Fire, Automobile, Casualty, Windstorm, Workmen's Compensation, Plate ·Glass / 10 Strong Stock Companies." The home address was given. Widowed, Miss Eva continued the insurance business until her death. At other times, Herb Kennedy, Claude Lutman, and the Sparks Agency offered insurance service to Brunswick residents. S - Louise Porter - Brunswick 1924 Directory
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JEWELERS In trying to locate business in Brunswick from 1890 to the present, the researchers at times felt as if they were in a game of "musical storerooms." The earliest reference to this profession in Brunswick appeared in an 1895 directory that lists B. R. Portner, jeweler, with no other details available. In the 1896 directory is "The Baltimore Watch Repairing Co.," with M. Korman & Son (B. Korman), members. They were "Practical Watchmakers and Jewelers," who dealt also in spectacles, eye glasses, and revolvers, and bought old gold and silver. They did engraving "neatly," and "Picture Enlarging in Crayon an (sic) Pastel." Location was not specified. The 1895 Frederick City and County Directory lists F. E. Alder as having a general store but lists no details. However, according to the "Maryland State Gazetteer" of 1909-10-11, Frank E. Alder ran a general store that included jewelry along with confections; he was also vice president of the Savings Bank. On Arthur Lutman'splat of early Brunswick, F. E. Alder was located on the west side of North Maple Avenue, just north of the Savings Bank, in 1916. This would be about where the business offices of the Bank of Brunswick begin. By the time J. E. Moore succeeded F. E. Alder, the shop had been relocated at 5 West Potomac Street, where "railroad watches were a specialty,"
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as shown in a 1924 directory. Jeweler Edward Lee Moore will be remembered as the man who gave a watch to a lucky boy and girl graduate each year. Pictures of the graduates were assembled around the face of a clock. If there were more boys than girls in the class, then boy's pictures formed the outer circle with the girls making the inner circle. If there were more girls, then they formed the outer ring. Mr. Moore would give the clock a few turns of the key - not winding it fully. When the clock stopped, the minute hand would indicate the winner from the outer circle and the hour hand determined the inner circle winner. In the year 1930, the last year of the contest, Dorothy "Dot" Long (later Merriman) and Bill Stine were the winners. Mr. Moore's life was not an ordinary one. Both of his legs were amputated in 1921 in a job-related railroad accident at the eastbound hump. In settlement, the B&O offered him his choice of rehabilitation training; he chose to learn watch repairing. The company sent him to Buchanan, West Virginia, where he was prepared for his career. The railroad bought out F. E. Alder's Jewelry Store, whose owner was ready for retirement. (This suggests that he may have been in business as early as the 1890's.) The B&O turned Alder's store over to Mr. Moore, who replaced Mr. Cooper as watch inspector. The 1924 directory lists "J. E. Moore, successor to F. E. Alder, Railroad watches a specialty." This was located at 5 West Potomac Street, most recently known as Payne's Pharmacy, in a building now owned and renovated by Tom Sigler. A few years later, when Matthews' candy store across the street became vacant, Mr. Moore moved there. Later he moved to 17 West Potomac Street, where Goodwill is now located. His final place of business, at retirement, was at 109 East Potomac Street, next to where Donald Harrington's Shoe Repair Shop was more recently located. Think how convenient this was for railroaders living at the YMCA. Here Mr. Moore stayed until he wentoutof business in 1941 or 1942. Mr. Herbert E. Cooper, who lived at 202 Second A venue, had learned clock and watch repairing in Winchester, Virginia. The lure of the railroad with the highest pay of all industries in the East was irresistible. He came to work in the Brunswick yards at age 19 when the railroads were experiencing an expansion shortly after the turn of the century. He had worked on the railroad twenty years when an accident incapacitated him. Atthe time, he had been "bumped" back from passenger conductor to freight conductor. At Cherry Run, he was