Cecil County Sheriff's Office celebrates 350th anniversary

ELKTON — When this country’s Revolutionary War started in 1775, the Cecil County Sheriff’s Office had already been in operation for 101 years.

The agency was founded in 1674, a mere 24 years after the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, and this year marks CCSO’s 350th anniversary. CCSO celebrated that milestone on Saturday during a public event at the agency’s headquarters on Chesapeake Boulevard near Elkton, where attendees enjoyed drone and K9 demonstrations given by deputies assigned to those special units and free hamburgers and hot dogs grilled and served by Hogs and Heroes Foundation America volunteers.

Attendees also visited booths where deputies showed them some of the various pieces of equipment, tools and firearms that they use and educated them about those items. One of those booths was manned by members of the agency’s Special Response Team (SRT), which can be likened to a S.W.A.T., and among the display pieces were shields, helmets, bulletproof vests, firearms, none-lethal ammunition and tools used to ram open doors and break windows when deputies must force their way into a building. Also on display was CCSO’s new crime scene van.

Toward the beginning of the celebratory event, Cecil County Sheriff Scott Adams gave a power-point presentation on the history of the agency inside CCSO’s training room. Adams is the latest in a long line of sheriffs who served Cecil County during the 350 years, including Sheriff Byron Miller, who was killed in the line of duty in 1912. Miller has the distinction of being the only CCSO member killed in the line of duty.