Raid

laurae@herald-mail.com Police raided a Hagerstown area massage parlor Tuesday, charging two employees with prostitution. Deputy Chris Weaver of the Washington County Sheriff's Department said the two-month investigation is continuing and more arrests are expected. Police started surveillance at Deanna's Massage Therapy and Wellness Center, 13508 Pennsylvania Ave., after receiving complaints that alleged the business was a haven for prostitution, Weaver said. Police got a search warrant and conducted a search Tuesday afternoon, he said.

Civil War Weekend, the 140th Anniversary Comemmoration of Celebration of J.E.B. Stuart's Raid through Mercersburg, Pa. Times vary Friday, Oct. 11, through Sunday, Oct. 13 For information or tickets, call 1-717-328-5827 or go to www.PathsoftheCivilWar.com on the Web Friday 7 p.m. - Civil War Forum, Star Theatre, 23 W. Seminary St. Free. Saturday 9 a.m. - Civil War camp opens to public at Lions Club Park; Fall festival at First United Methodist Church, 11 N. Fayette St. 10 a.m. - Union Recruitment March on Main Street 11:30 a.m. - Re-enactment on "The Square," downtown Mercersburg.

With two rocking chairs sitting on the front porch and wind chimes ringing in the breeze, the two-story house at 39 S. Martin St. looks like any other home in this quiet town. The house is a few doors down from the Clear Spring Veterans Memorial and across the street from a St. Paul's Lutheran Church cemetery. A playground sits about 100 yards to the rear. On Monday, officers from the Hagerstown Police Department, the Washington County Sheriff's Office and the federal Drug Enforcement Agency converged on the house to investigate a suspected methamphetamine lab in an upstairs bedroom.

andrews@herald-mail.com Ten people were arrested on drug charges during Thursday's raid of five downtown Hagerstown buildings, the Washington County Narcotics Task Force said Friday. Five of those people were arrested when authorities searched apartments 11, 22 and 42 at 29-31 E. Washington St. The raids were part of a "narcotics nuisance abatement" program - a crackdown on buildings used for drug dealing. Brett Wilson, an assistant Washington County state's attorney assigned to narcotics nuisance abatement, called the East Washington Street apartment building "one of the most offensive drug dealing buildings in Hagerstown.

waynesboro@herald-mail.com Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee sent Gen. J.E.B. Stuart and his cavalry into Pennsylvania less than a month after the Sept. 17, 1862, Battle of Antietam to make sure the Union Army wasn't following the Rebel army back across the Potomac into Virginia. Stuart was under orders to grab all the horses and supplies he could on his brief foray into Pennsylvania. His final destination was Chambersburg, then he was to high-tail it back to the safety of the Potomac.

By LAURA ERNDE / Staff Writer Filmmakers are coming to Washington County next week to shoot scenes for a PBS documentary about abolitionist John Brown. A small Los Angeles film crew will set up at the Kennedy Farm near Sandy Hook, where John Brown planned his raid on Harpers Ferry, W.Va. --cont. from news page -- The shoot is scheduled for Friday, said Producer Robert Kenner. The documentary will be shown on the Emmy Award-winning PBS series "American Experience" in the year 2000, 200 years after Brown's birth.

laurae@herald-mail.com Ben Troupe, 7, decided to wear his gray wool cap instead of his blue one Saturday. The young Civil War buff wanted to match the garb Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart wore 140 years earlier when he raided Ben's hometown of Mercersburg, Pa. Residents of the small town are gathering this weekend to remember that day when the reality of the war hit home for those living north of the Mason-Dixon line. Some may regard the two-hour raid as just a footnote in the history books.

CHARLES TOWN, W.VA. -- It has been 150 years since abolitionist John Brown was convicted of treason for his raid on the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, W.Va., but this weekend Brown's fateful court proceedings will come to life in the historic Jefferson County Courthouse when a group of community actors stage the "The Anvil," a play by Julia Davis. Often, retellings of Brown's story stop at his failed raid on Harpers Ferry, said Robert Willgoos, co-director of the play and history professor at Shepherd University.

WILLIAMSPORT - Crack cocaine, prescription medications and drug paraphernalia were seized and four people were arrested after the Washington County Narcotics Task Force raided a Williamsport home Monday. Police said they carried out a search warrant at 9:20 p.m. at 17 W. Sunset Ave. Lee Edward Stine III, 45, a resident of the home, was charged with conspiracy to distribute controlled-dangerous substances, possession of cocaine, possession of marijuana, possession of controlled-dangerous substances paraphernalia and maintaining a common nuisance, police said.

kimy@herald-mail.com State officials are investigating the procedures of the Hagerstown Treatment Center after vials of methadone marked with clinic labels were found during a February raid of a city home. The investigation was prompted by a letter to the Maryland Office of Health and Mental Hygiene by Hagerstown Police Chief Arthur Smith, said J.B. Hanson, spokesman for the state office. The methadone vials found during the raid were not dispensed to the residents named in the search warrant and the clinic hadn't reported the drugs stolen, Smith said.

Police seized two firearms and large amounts of narcotics at a Martinsburg residence early Monday where they arrested three people, according to Berkeley County Magistrate Court documents. Steven Edward Tomasik Jr., 25, of 320 E. Race St., was arraigned Monday on four counts of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance and felon in possession of a firearm, according to court documents. Amber Louise Mills, 23, and Linda Ann Smith, 20, of the same Race Street address, were each charged with possession of a controlled substance, according to court documents.

Two men were arrested, and marijuana, guns, ammunition and $4,000 in cash were seized Monday by the Washington County Narcotics Task Force during a search of a Papa Court house, according to Washington County District Court records. Anthony Morrisey, 36, of Asbury Park, N.J., was charged with possession of a large amount of marijuana, being a convicted felon in possession of firearms, possession of a firearm in a drug-related offense and false statements to police, court records said.

Two Boonsboro men were charged with possession with intent to distribute hallucinogenic mushrooms and marijuana after a Clevelandtown Road home was raided Tuesday by the Washington County Narcotics Task Force, according to Washington County District Court records. Wesley Andrew Kosco, 18, of 6108 Clevelandtown Road, and Christopher Robert Jordan, 21, of 9364 Childacrest Drive, were charged with maintaining a common nuisance for the distribution and administration of controlled dangerous substances, possession of marijuana, possession of controlled dangerous substances and possession of drug paraphernalia, court records said.

Two Washington County legislators have filed bills in the current session of the Maryland General Assembly that would require the chief of the primary law enforcement agency in a county to be notified before an officer from another agency serves a warrant in areas within the county's jurisdiction. The bills, which have been filed in the House and the Senate by Del. Neil Parrott, R-Washington, and Sen. Christopher Shank, R-Washington, respectively, are in response to an incident in Sharpsburg in November where the Maryland State Police executed a no-knock search warrant at an address, but the Washington County Sheriff did not know about the operation until after it had begun.

Nine people were arrested and police seized an AK-47 assault rifle, four handguns, marijuana and other drugs at an Albert Street residence Sunday night in Martinsburg, according to court and jail records. Brandy R. Koontz , 23, and Brandon L. Watson , 28, of 719 Albert St., were arraigned Monday by Magistrate Jim Humphrey on two counts of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance and one count of conspiracy, according to court and jail records. Also charged in the bust were: Matthew D. Shank , 19, of 58 Cracked Walnut Way, Martinsburg, on two counts of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance and one count of conspiracy.

With two rocking chairs sitting on the front porch and wind chimes ringing in the breeze, the two-story house at 39 S. Martin St. looks like any other home in this quiet town. The house is a few doors down from the Clear Spring Veterans Memorial and across the street from a St. Paul's Lutheran Church cemetery. A playground sits about 100 yards to the rear. On Monday, officers from the Hagerstown Police Department, the Washington County Sheriff's Office and the federal Drug Enforcement Agency converged on the house to investigate a suspected methamphetamine lab in an upstairs bedroom.

A Hagerstown man was charged Monday with breaking into an abandoned Sherman Avenue home where law enforcement officials conducted a drug raid last week. Travis Lee Walton, 20, of 118 Pangborn Blvd., was charged with one count each of first-degree burglary and resisting arrest, Hagerstown police said. He was being held without bond Monday night at the Washington County Detention Center, a jail spokesman said. Police cars converged on Virginia Avenue and surrounding streets Monday morning for a report of a burglary in progress at a house raided Thursday by law enforcement officials.

As it did in other areas across the United States, the Civil War brought battles, gruesome tales and acts of destruction to what is now the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, but back then was part of Virginia. For West Virginia, the conflict was to have lasting implications. Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861 following decades of sectional conflict between leaders of Eastern and Western Virginia. While other states occasionally saw calls for “dismemberment,” it was only Virginia that went through such a split, according to The West Virginia Encyclopedia.

Three times in less than two years Chambersburg was invaded by Confederate forces, the last incursion a revenge raid that left the town's center a charred ruin. Confederate cavalry commander Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart led the first raid in October 1862, when Lee ordered him to cut the Cumberland Valley Railroad, a vital link to the Union forces of Gen. George B. McClellan in Hagerstown. Stuart crossed the Potomac River northwest of Harpers Ferry, W.Va., on Oct. 10 and arrived in Chambersburg with 1,800 men that night.

A 3,500-pound granite monument honoring the only Marine killed during John Brown's raid in 1859 finally came to rest Tuesday in Harpers Ferry. Pvt. Luke Quinn, an Irish immigrant who joined the Marines in 1855, was killed when he was sent to Harpers Ferry in Oct. 18, 1859, in a unit commanded by then Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee to stop Brown and his raiders from taking over the U.S. arsenal there. Quinn was mortally wounded when the unit stormed Brown's barricaded engine house. A crew from Hammaker Memorials in Martinsburg, W.Va., spent more than two hours Tuesday morning installing the monument on a spit of donated land abutting the sidewalk on Potomac Street across from the train station.