Name to Remember

By Amy L. Metzger Hunt

Curator, Heritage Frederick

A slip of paper is carefully wrapped around one small piece of flatware. The note, in the handwriting of Ruth Carty Delaplaine, reads. “My father’s fruit spoon.” The silver-plated spoon, made in 1883, is marked with the retailer’s name, George E. Myer, a Frederick jeweler. It has an elongated and pointed bowl for scooping out segmented fruit, like oranges. Even without the note it might be possible to guess the item’s owner by the “CCC” monogram on the handle. This amazing, small piece of history is just one of the artifacts from a large collection of items recently donated to Heritage Frederick by the family of Frances Delaplaine Randall.

Randall’s grandfather, Clarence Clarendon Carty, was the oldest son of Joseph W.L. and Margaret C. Hardt Carty and was born at his family home on South Market Street in January 1847. Following studies in Frederick’s public schools, Carty learned cabinet making for several years before going into business for himself at just 22 years of age. At the time, Joseph Whitehill had been selling furniture and operating an undertaking business from a shop on East Patrick Street since 1832. But after Whitehill closed his business, Carty made the store his own in 1869. While Carty surely aspired to success, he could not have foreseen that “C.C. Carty” would become a Frederick institution for the next century. Through a move, a rebuild, expansions, upgrades and modernization, Carty built his success through innovative thinking and hard work. Along with his craftsmanship, Carty’s use of illustrated, eye-catching advertisements in local newspapers made “C.C. Carty” a household name. At one point, Carty’s shop was the largest furniture store in the state outside of Baltimore. The business, which stayed in the family following its founder, closed in 1978.