Northern Harford

A Whiteford man was killed in a single vehicle accident in northern Harford County early Friday morning, Maryland State Police at the Bel Air Barrack said. The accident occurred in the 2900 block of Dublin Road (Route 440) near Poplar Road at 12:03 a.m., according to the duty officer at the Bel Air Barrack. The vehicle ran off the road and hit a tree. Harford Fire Blog on Facebook reported the victim was in grave condition when paramedics arrived on the scene. The victim, identified as Charles Garland Jr. of Whiteford, was taken by Darlington Volunteer Fire Company ambulance to Upper Chesapeake Medical Center in Bel Air, where he was pronounced dead, the duty officer said.

A Whiteford man was killed in a single vehicle accident in northern Harford County early Friday morning, Maryland State Police at the Bel Air Barrack said. The accident occurred in the 2900 block of Dublin Road (Route 440) near Poplar Road at 12:03 a.m., according to the duty officer at the Bel Air Barrack. The vehicle ran off the road and hit a tree. Harford Fire Blog on Facebook reported the victim was in grave condition when paramedics arrived on the scene. The victim, identified as Charles Garland Jr. of Whiteford, was taken by Darlington Volunteer Fire Company ambulance to Upper Chesapeake Medical Center in Bel Air, where he was pronounced dead, the duty officer said.

Jim Galbreath went to the front door of his house in northern Harford County about 9: 30 p.m. Tuesday to call the family's cat -- and instead found a black bear weighing about 150 pounds walking around the front yard."

A shed and two abandoned cars were destroyed by a fire in Street Tuesday morning, the Maryland State Fire Marshal's Office said. The shed, in the 3700 block of Bay Road, was occupied by a man, Dannie Ellis, when it accidentally caught fire at about 9:05 a.m., according to the notice of investigation from the Fire Marshal's Office. "An extension cord was spliced into the Romex wire located at the base of the shed," the notice of investigation states. "This splice ignited nearby combustibles, extending and eventually consuming the shed.

BEL AIR -- When Thomas E. Hicks became a volunteer firefighter five years ago, his mother started a bedtime ritual."The last thing I did was I prayed every night for God to bring him home safely," Alice Hicks, a resident of Bel Air, said yesterday. "He took care of him all these years. I guess that's where he is now, with Him. He was a good man."Mr. Hicks, 44, of Pylesville was killed Sunday night while riding on the back of a fire engine that collided with a car at a northern Harford County intersection.

Charlie Keithley ambled into Patricia Hammond's computer room at the Mason-Dixon Community Services offices in southern York County, Pa., on a recent cold, clear afternoon and settled down to a red-sugar-sparkly cookie. Between bites, the 10-year-old with buzzed blond hair and mischievous eyes said that if he didn't come to this after-school program for moderate- to low-income kids, he would "roam around Delta," the tiny town where he lives with his dad and grandmother. He could go all the way to Bel Air if he wanted, he said with a certain nod. His schoolmates Tiffany Carraway and Kaitlyn Pritt, sitting across from him, rolled their eyes.

Arson was the cause of fires over the weekend in two vacant houses and a barn in northern Harford County, the state fire marshal's office says.The fires occurred two days after deliberately set fires destroyed a home and a Boy Scout cabin in the same area. In the past five months, there have been about a dozen suspected or determined cases of arson in northern Harford, and all probably were set by the same person or persons, says Bob Thomas, spokesman for the fire marshal's office.On Saturday about 11:20 p.m., firefighters were called to a fire at a two-story frame home on Castleton Road in the Darlington area.

Del. Donald C. Fry, a Democrat from northern Harford County, was named to the state Senate yesterday to finish the term of William H. Amoss, who died in office last month.Gov. Parris N. Glendening named Fry, 42, a lawyer and two-term member of the House of Delegates, after the Democratic central committees of Harford and Cecil counties voted unanimously late last week to recommend him.Regina Simon, a Fallston businesswoman, also submitted her name to the committees, but Fry was the apparent choice from the beginning.

Sixteen months after its creation, the Mason Dixon Business Association is going strong."The association has really taken off. It has filled a need that was here and we keep gaining membership," said Robert A. Schwalenberg, a founder of the group and regional manager for Forest Hill Bank's northern territory.The business association, which first met in June 1994, is trying to unite the businesses scattered along the Maryland-Pennsylvania line in northern Harford and southern York County, Pa.It also is trying to increase the political clout of businesses in the two counties that frequently have felt ignored by politicians.

About five minutes after Fran Mathews went to bed, she heard a boom and felt her house in northern Harford County shudder. "I was afraid enough to see if the furnace had blown up," said Mathews, 61. What rattled Mathews and others in northern Harford County yesterday was a minor earthquake at 12:04 a.m. in Lancaster County, Pa. The 3.3-magnitude quake was centered in the Salunga-Landisville area, about 40 miles north of the Pennsylvania-Maryland line,...

The local Mason-Dixon Line area welcomes residents and visitors to a community-wide open house at the 33nd annual Delta Christmas Fair this weekend. Hosted by Delta Borough, the event Friday through Sunday involves businesses, churches, organizations and an artist in Delta Borough, Peach Bottom Township, Cardiff and Whiteford offering a variety of exhibits, special rates, refreshments and door prizes. A Delta-Cardiff-Whiteford Holiday House Tour is slated for 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday, featuring five local structures.

The reward has been increased to $10,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction in connection with the robbery of a Northern Harford County bank earlier this month, the Harford County Sheriff's Office announced Thursday. The robbery was Nov. 10 at the National Bank of Rising Sun's Dublin branch in the 3500 block of Conowingo Road in Street. The sheriff's office said in a news release the reward through Metro Crime Stoppers was raised to $10,000 through a partnership between the Maryland Association of Banks and the FBI. Two suspects, both males, are being sought in connection with the holdup.

A 14-year-old Pylesville girl died Thursday after she was hit by a car while crossing Route 136 in northern Harford County, Maryland State Police said. The victim, Heather Greer, was struck in the 2200 block of Harkins Road (Route 136) shortly before 4 p.m. Thursday. Initial Harford County radio dispatches said the victim was in some kind of "arrest" and, a short time later, a chaplain was requested. Maryland State Police troopers responded to the scene and, according to a news release from the Bel Air Barrack, ordered a Medevac to the scene to fly Ms. Greer to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore.

About five minutes after Fran Mathews went to bed, she heard a boom and felt her house in northern Harford County shudder. "I was afraid enough to see if the furnace had blown up," said Mathews, 61. What rattled Mathews and others in northern Harford County yesterday was a minor earthquake at 12:04 a.m. in Lancaster County, Pa. The 3.3-magnitude quake was centered in the Salunga-Landisville area, about 40 miles north of the Pennsylvania-Maryland line,...

With Del. Barry Glassman officially put forth as the choice of county Republican leaders to replace J. Robert Hooper in the state Senate, the focus now turns to the scramble to fill the House seat. On Thursday, the Harford County Republican Central Committee interviewed Glassman, the only candidate who applied. Members voted unanimously to forward his name to Gov. Martin O'Malley, who will make the appointment official. The committee put Glassman through "a rigorous set of questions just as though there were multiple candidates for the job," said Michael A. Geppi Sr., central committee chairman.

Charlie Keithley ambled into Patricia Hammond's computer room at the Mason-Dixon Community Services offices in southern York County, Pa., on a recent cold, clear afternoon and settled down to a red-sugar-sparkly cookie. Between bites, the 10-year-old with buzzed blond hair and mischievous eyes said that if he didn't come to this after-school program for moderate- to low-income kids, he would "roam around Delta," the tiny town where he lives with his dad and grandmother. He could go all the way to Bel Air if he wanted, he said with a certain nod. His schoolmates Tiffany Carraway and Kaitlyn Pritt, sitting across from him, rolled their eyes.

A Havre de Grace man accused of helping another man rape a pregnant 19-year-old woman last May has been convicted of first-degree rape during a four-day trial in Harford Circuit Court.Christopher U. Eley, 21, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison following his March8 conviction by a jury of nine women and three men. A sentencing date for Eley has not been scheduled.The other defendant, Richard L. Wallace, 21, of Aberdeen, awaits trial.Wallace was the first to have intercourse with the victim during the May 16 attack at her Havre de Grace home, the woman testified.

PYLESVILLE - Dottie was up early the day after Thanksgiving, quivering with excitement and cold under a pearly gray sky, ready to hunt. If this contestant in the North American Gun Dog Association event was anxious, as she sat obediently at the edge of a soybean field in northern Harford County yesterday, she didn't let on. But, like the other dozen or so dogs in the contest, Dottie had reason to look nervously at her teammate, the hunter-handler standing...

Facing strong opposition from a rock-ribbed farming community, a Delaware-based power company yesterday withdrew a plan to build a power plant in rural northern Harford County near Whiteford. The sudden decision by Conectiv Inc. to withdraw the project followed a meeting Thursday night at a church in Street, where more than 300 angry residents voiced their objections to the power-plant concept before a group of utility officials. "Some of the comments weren't fit for a place of God, but the people told the utility people exactly how they felt," said Bill Hanna, owner of the 150-acre Quigley Farm in Whiteford and vice chairman of the Community Council for Whiteford, Cardiff, Pylesville and Street.