I’m always interested in both dogs and history, and sometimes the two intersect.
One morning I decided to roll up the street to see if I could find the nearly 95-year old gravestone of a local dog catcher, one William F. Hopwood.
Mission accomplished!
The cemetery in question is old and filled with a dizzying number of stones, some predating the Civil War.
Dozens of graves had been undermined by over a hundred years worth of groundhog dens.
The terriers were with me on this journey, but there was no letting them off-leash!
William F. Hopwood, known to all as “Billy,” was the father of five and was born in Frederick, Maryland on May 19th, 1870.
Before landing a job as the local dog catcher in September of 1914, he held a janitorial job at the Frederick City Hall.
In his first year on the job as City Dog Catcher, Billy Hopwood caught 102 dogs, of which 20 were reclaimed by their owners, and 82 were killed by chloroform after their two-day holding period was up.
In July of 1916, the local dog and cat killing business changed as a Society to Prevent Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) shelter was created. Pound dogs were now moved to the shelter after two days, and from there they could be adopted.
Things seem to have settled into a quiet routine for Billy Hopwood until April 5th, 1928, when he made the local news after a Collie bit him in the face, resulting in a wound that required a half dozen stitches to close up.
Billy Hopwood was struck and killed by an out-of town car while walking to work in late October of 1929.
He was 59 years old.
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