Published: March 08, 2008 12:07 am      

Preserving Windsor Hall

Mullaneys help keep memory of Windsor Hotel alive

CUMBERLAND — Union Gen. Benjamin F. Kelley was captured by the Confederate group the McNeill Rangers during the Civil War while he was asleep in his bed here.

John Dillinger, a 1930s bank robber, requested an early morning wake up and escaped from here at 4:30 a.m., a half hour before the FBI arrived looking for him.

It’s also the place where presidents hosted receptions, including William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor.

For the Mullaney family, though, it was a place for all to gather.

The Allegany County Historical Society hosted an opening reception Friday at The Queen City Transportation Museum. Ginger Friend, site manager, said the private viewing was a preview to the season’s exhibits of Political Allegany County and the 100th anniversary of the Model T.

For the night, though, the focus was on the Mullaneys and the 14 grandchildren of Henry Mullaney who banded together and donated funds for a mural of the hotel’s rooftop. Sharon Nealis, executive director of the historical society, first brought the idea of the Windsor to Ed Mullaney as a way to preserve the hotel’s history.

Constructed about 1845, the hotel originally was known as the Barnum House. Located at the intersection of George and Baltimore streets, where the drive-through M&T Bank now stands, the four-story building had more than 100 rooms for people to rent or to stay for a night.

In the late 1880s or 1890s, another family renovated the hotel and named it the Windsor. In 1901, Henry Mullaney, the grandfather, and Matthew Mullaney, a great uncle, bought the hotel. The family operated it until 1959 when the family agreed to work with urban renewal, which led to the razing of the hotel.

Bob Schellhaus, the patriarch of Henry’s grandchildren, worked as a night clerk at the hotel in the mid-1950s and even helped with some of the demolition. He said rooms rented for $2 a night and went up from there. That $2 got you a place to sleep and towels.

The family recalls a hotel with a parlor, hotel bar, tap room, restaurant, barbershop, shoeshine shop and newsstand — along with a large scale for anyone wishing to weigh himself. It also once was a stop for peddlers selling their wares in their wagons and the place where those building PPG stayed throughout the plant’s construction, Schellhaus said.

His wife, Carolyn, still can visualize the marble staircase and the mosaic tile floor.

Sara and John Mullaney lived in the hotel for three years. With a residence on the third floor, Sara said she always was popular anytime a parade came through the Queen City. But to her, the hotel was “the meeting place,” not only for family, but also as a spot where many would come to argue about politics or discuss the happenings of the day.

“When I first came to Cumberland in 1942 and about to enter nurse’s training, my mom and dad took me to lunch at the Windsor, not knowing many years later I’d be part of the family,” Sara Mullaney said. “They’re a beautiful family.”

Her husband, John operated the hotel with his brothers Tom and Hugh. She can recall the names of many employees and several stories of her own, including that of a “very distinguished” gentleman who always wore white gloves coming down the stairs so he wouldn’t get splinters.

The rooms, the 83-year-old recalled, “were immaculate.”

Family members also salvaged a few things from the hotel with the Schellhauses keeping the bed set where Kelley was captured. Bob had it as a child and it now is in Morgantown, W.Va., with their son, Robert. The family also has shutters and a desk.

Sara Mullaney still has a key as well as a towel embroidered with Windsor Hotel.

Ed Mullaney has the barber pole, a chair and hair clippers — all from the barbershop.

As the manager of the city’s Town Centre, he said the hotel became a “victim of its time” and one that would not be allowed to be torn down today. But the family has worked to preserve the hotel’s history, especially for a city “that’s been good to all of us.”

“We have an appreciation of her heritage and for what our grandparents did for us,” he said.

Allegany County purchased the Thrasher Collection from the heirs of James Thrasher in 1987. A portion of that collection has been on display at the Thrasher Carriage Museum at The Depot in Frostburg for a number of years. Several pieces, however, remained in storage until the transportation site opened last fall.

Commissioner Bob Hutcheson was on hand Friday and said after “so many months, so many years,” it was exciting to see the collection on display.

Mayor Lee Fiedler said the museum is another reason for people to “come here, stay here and come back.”

“There’s not enough praise for this group of people. ...,” he said of the historical society. “We may not have a lot of money, but we’re rich with good people.”

The exhibit opens today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the museum, located in the Downtown Cumberland Armory Center, 210 S. Centre St. Reduced admission will be offered.

For more information, call (301) 777-1776.

Contact Maria Smith at msmith@times-news.com.