Faris

CUMBERLAND - It was a grand scheme to help unite a new nation: build a canal that would link Chesapeake Bay with the Ohio River.But this is as far as it got.Construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal began in 1828 near Washington.Within 10 years, the C&O was supposed to meet the Ohio River near Pittsburgh, a total of 365 miles. After 22 years and at least $14 million, it was only completed to Cumberland, just over halfway.The 184.5-mile-long Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park is a monument to a canal that never reached its destination and to a transportation technology rendered obsolete by railroads long before it was completed.

Lt. Larry Faries, commander of the state police barracks in Westminster, will move up but not out today when he attains the rank of captain."It was my career goal to make captain," Faries said yesterday. "It's kind of been lurking in the background for a while. It's a real grin. I couldn't be happier."In his new role and rank, he will serve out of Westminster and in uniform as the assistant to the commander for the central region, which includes Carroll, Howard, Prince George's and Montgomery counties.

For Lt. Lawrence E. Faries, the new state police barracks commander in Westminster, his June 5 reassignment from Prince George's County was a homecoming of sorts. He was assistant commander of the barracks from 1986 to 1992 and has lived in Carroll County for 24 years.In replacing Lt. Bruce Tanner, who was transferred to Hagerstown, Faries faced an immediate challenge. Two days after he arrived, state police officials published annual Uniform Crime Report statistics showing that serious crime in Carroll County rose 5.4 percent last year, the biggest increase in the Baltimore region, which also includes Anne Arundel, Harford, Howard and Baltimore counties and Baltimore.

Gambrill Mansion to be restoredFREDERICK -- Restoration of the Monocacy National Battlefield's historic Gambrill Mansion will begin early next year with $1.5 million in federal funding, National Park Service officials say.The money is part of a $13.65 billion congressional appropriation for the Interior Department and related agencies that was signed recently by President Clinton.The $1.5 million is the first part of a $5.8 million authorization that will finance the relocation of the park service's Preservation Training Center from Williamsport to the battlefield just south of Frederick, said Tom McGrath, the center's chief.

Frank Faris usually spends Sunday afternoons thinking about Aikido, a form of martial arts he teaches in a studio near the Cross Street Market.But yesterday he found himself thinking about the numbers flashing across a billboard-sized electronic clock mounted on wheels and parked at a service station three flights below his studio.Each second, the National Debt Clock at South Charles and West Cross streets ticked off the federal deficit. The foot-high figure increased at the rate of $9,600 per second.

As communism crumbles and the Soviet Union shatters, the people of Latvia are savoring political independence for the first time in five decades.Latvians also are rekindling the religious faith extinguished by Moscow in 1940, when the Soviets annexed the Baltic country.To help in that rebirth of faith, Southern Baptists from Maryland and Delaware are undertaking a three-year mission program that would spiritually and materially assist the estimated 4,700 Latvian Baptists.More than 100 local Baptist ministers and lay people are expected to travel to the Latvian capital of Riga to help renovate churches recently released from Soviet control, install computer equipment at the office of the Union of Latvian Baptists, and conduct seminars on Sunday school instruction and pastoral counseling, among other activities.