Chillum firefighters honored for work on Boundary Stone after WTOP report

Barbara May, Historic Preservation Awards Chairman for the Daughters of the American Revolution, presents Captain Ushinski with the Historic Preservation Award. (Courtesy Prince George's County Fire and EMS)
Barbara May, Historic Preservation Awards Chairman for the Daughters of the American Revolution, presents Capt. Ushinski with the Historic Preservation Award. (Courtesy Prince George’s County Fire and EMS)
Pat Arata, Barbara May, Captain Ushinski, DAR State Regent Maureen Tipton and Susan Finkle Sourlis at the ceremony. (Courtesy Prince George's County Fire and EMS)
Pat Arata, Barbara May, Capt. Ushinski, DAR State Regent Maureen Tipton and Susan Finkle Sourlis at the ceremony. (Courtesy Prince George’s County Fire and EMS)
The preservation award. (Courtesy Prince George’s County Fire and EMS)
Certificate of appreciation. (Courtesy Prince George’s County Fire and EMS)
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Barbara May, Historic Preservation Awards Chairman for the Daughters of the American Revolution, presents Captain Ushinski with the Historic Preservation Award. (Courtesy Prince George's County Fire and EMS)
Pat Arata, Barbara May, Captain Ushinski, DAR State Regent Maureen Tipton and Susan Finkle Sourlis at the ceremony. (Courtesy Prince George's County Fire and EMS)

Prince George’s County, Maryland, firefighters were honored Friday by the Daughters of the American Revolution for their work to help preserve one of D.C.’s Boundary Stones — the first federal monuments.

Following a WTOP report on the stones and the state of disrepair one in particular was suffering from, Chillum Fire/EMS Station 844 took action.

The Daughters of the American Revolution were so impressed by the firefighters’ efforts that Fire Capt. Danon Ushinski and his crew from D Shift were awarded the DAR’s Historic Preservation Award and a Certificate of Appreciation at an Ellicott City banquet.

Coincidentally, the surveyor who calculated where the stones needed to be placed was Andrew Ellicott — whose father, Joseph Ellicott, founded Ellicott City.

The crew was nominated by Maureen Tipton, state regent; Barbara May, Historic Preservation Awards chairman; Pat Arata, DAR; and Finkle Sourlis, DAR.

Known as NE3, the stone the firefighters cleaned sat amid broken beer bottles and other trash on the Maryland side of Eastern Avenue.

“You have a worn-out path. There are tree roots. There was a couple smaller trees and weeds that were growing next to the stone,” Ushinski said at the time.

“So, we were able to do the best that we could just to take all that out, all the trash and even around the tree that is next to it.”

The crew then enlisted the Hyattsville Home Depot, which donated soil and mulch for the spot.

D.C.’s 40 Boundary Stones were set in place at the behest of President George Washington in 1791 to designate the border of the nation’s capital.

Amazingly, nearly all 40 of those stones still exist today, but few know about them. And fewer still have taken up the mantle of preserving them.

WTOP’s Jack Pointer contributed to this report.

Will Vitka

William Vitka is a Digital Writer/Editor for WTOP.com. He's been in the news industry for over a decade. Before joining WTOP, he worked for CBS News, Stuff Magazine, The New York Post and wrote a variety of books—about a dozen of them, with more to come.

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