African-American Historic and Cultural Resources in Prince George’s County, Maryland

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A FRICANA MERICAN 

Historic and Cultural Resources in Prince George’s County, Maryland

FEBRUARY 2012, THE MARYLAND-NATIONAL CAPITAL PARK AND PLANNING COMMISSION

WWW.MNCPPC.ORG

Abstract TITLE:

African-American Historic and Cultural Resources in Prince George’s County, Maryland

AUTHOR:

The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission 14741 Governor Oden Bowie Drive Upper Marlboro, MD 20772

SUBJECT:

Black History, Architecture, and Archeology, Prince George’s County, Maryland

DATE:

February 2012

SOURCE OF COPIES: The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission 14741 Governor Oden Bowie Drive Upper Marlboro, MD 20772 SERIES NUMBER:

963112405

NUMBER OF PAGES: 296 ABSTRACT:

This book presents individual properties and communities that are significant to the African-American history of Prince George’s County. The 181 properties include residences, churches and cemeteries, schools, fraternal lodges, a monument, an airfield, an amusement park, archeological sites, and commercial establishments; the 19 historic communities include both urban subdivisions and rural villages, as well as early towns and retreat communities. For most individual properties there is at least one illustration or photograph, an architectural description, and a summary of the resource’s historic significance. For each community, there is a map, graphic illustrations, and a history of the community’s development and significance.

The book is divided into three major sections: Introduction and Essays which provides background and context for the resources and includes essays on Black History, Significance, Education, Suburban Settlement, and Archeology; Historic Communities, which presents the 19 communities and the 119 properties within them; and Schools, Churches and Cemeteries, Dwellings, and Other Resources located Outside Historic Communities, that presents the remainder of the resources.

Following the three major sections are four appendices which enumerate the resources and organize them by type, community, and designation. The appendices are followed by a countywide map of many of the resources with color photographs of selected historic properties on the reverse.

A FRICANA MERICAN 

Historic and Cultural Resources in Prince George’s County, Maryland

FEBRUARY 2012, THE MARYLAND-NATIONAL CAPITAL PARK AND PLANNING COMMISSION PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY PLANNING DEPARTMENT 14741 GOVERNOR ODEN BOWIE DRIVE UPPER MARLBORO, MARYLAND 20772

•

WWW.MNCPPC.ORG

The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission Françoise Carrier, Chairman Elizabeth M. Hewlett, Vice Chairman

Officers: Patricia Colihan Barney, Executive Director Joseph Zimmerman, Secretary-Treasurer Adrian R. Gardner, Esq., General Counsel

The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission is a bicounty agency, created by the General Assembly of Maryland in 1927. The Commission’s geographic authority extends to the great majority of Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties: the Maryland-Washington Regional District (M-NCPPC planning jurisdiction) comprises 1,001 square miles, while the Metropolitan District (parks) comprises 919 square miles, in the two counties.

The Commission has three major functions: • The preparation, adoption, and, from time to time, amendment or extension of the General Plan for the physical development of the Maryland-Washington Regional District.

• The acquisition, development, operation, and maintenance of a public park system.

• In Prince George’s County only, the operation of the entire county public recreation program.

The Commission operates in each county through a Planning Board appointed by and responsible to the county government. All local plans, recommendations on zoning amendments, administration of subdivision regulations, and general administration of parks are responsibilities of the Planning Boards.

The Prince George’s County Department of Planning (M-NCPPC): • Our mission is to help preserve, protect, and manage the county’s resources by providing the highest quality planning services and growth management guidance and by facilitating effective intergovernmental and citizen involvement through education and technical assistance.

• Our vision is to be a model planning department of responsive and respected staff who provide superior planning and technical services and work cooperatively with decision-makers, citizens, and other agencies to continuously improve development quality and the environment and act as a catalyst for positive change.

Prince George’s County Planning Board Elizabeth M. Hewlett, Chairman Dorothy F. Bailey John P. Shoaff John H. Squire A. Shuanise Washington

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CONTENTS African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

Montgomery County Planning Board Françoise Carrier, Chairman Casey Anderson Norman Dreyfuss Amy Presley Marye Wells-Harley

Contents

COVER: Rededication of Abraham Hall, 1991. (Historic Site 62-23-7. See page 55.)

Introduction 2 Essays 7 African-Americans in Prince George’s County . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Significance of African-American Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 Education. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 Suburban Settlement in the County. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31 Archeology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39 Communities 52 Rossville. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53 Lakeland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62 North Brentwood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .68 Bladensburg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .86 Ardwick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .90 Brookland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97 Lincoln. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101 Fletchertown. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111 Huntington/Bowie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .116 Ridgley. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .124 Fairmount Heights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .132 Glenarden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .156 Little Washington . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .160 Upper Marlboro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .166 Chapel Hill. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .175 Croom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .184 Woodville/Aquasco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .191 Eagle Harbor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .196 Cedar Haven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .200 Resources Outside Communities 204 Churches & Cemeteries Outside Documented Communities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .205 Schools Outside Documented Communities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .224 Dwellings, Etc., Outside Documented Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .234 Commercial Resources Outside Documented Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .249 Map and Color Photos 255 Appendices 259 Statistics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .260 Buildings Demolished Since 1996 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .260 Resources by Type. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .261 Resources by Designation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .265 Resources by Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .270 Bibliograpy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .275 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .278

CONTENTS African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

1

Myrtle Pinkney, Gloria Spencer and Frances Spencer at St. Simon’s Church, Easter Sunday, 1959. (See Historic Site 86A-12, page186.) Photograph courtesy of Ms. Janice Diggs.

Introduction

T

his is a book about the material culture and the built environment in Prince George’s County, Maryland, as it relates to African-Americans from 1650 to about 1960. Both standing structures and those no longer extant are explored, as well as archeological resources and neighborhoods. The term “historic and cultural resources” implies consideration of buildings still standing and those that have disappeared, but whose appearance can be recalled and significance interpreted. A series of essays provides a context for the resources that are described in detail.

This book builds upon M-NCPPC’s 1996 African-American Heritage Survey. In 1994, the Prince George’s County Planning Department of The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) initiated the African-American Heritage Survey Project.

Its purpose was to add to the documentation of African-American historic properties in Prince George’s County and to increase understanding of their significance. As the county prepared for its 1996 Tricentennial celebration, it was clear that enough material

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INTRODUCTION African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

had been gathered to merit a publication on African-American buildings and community history. The publication of that book, therefore, became one of M-NCPPC’s goals for the Tricentennial.

Between 1973 and 1975 M-NCPPC conducted a countywide windshield survey of historic properties. This survey provided the basis for the historic resource inventory in the Prince George’s County July 1981 Historic Sites and Districts Plan. In 1981 the county’s Historic Preservation Ordinance was enacted, protecting properties listed in the plan.

In 2010, designated AfricanAmerican Historic Sites & Resources more than doubled, from 36 to 95.

The Prince George’s County 1981 Historic Sites and Districts Plan included over 500 historic properties, but the plan acknowledged the limitations of a windshield survey and the need for more survey and research work. The survey had included properties that, for the most part, were substantial and visible, but many others were in need of identification, research and protection. Over the next ten years nearly 400 additional properties were documented.

Research focusing on African-American properties included an architectural survey of 60 properties undertaken in 1982–1983 by M-NCPPC’s Department of Parks and Recreation.

That survey identified 37 properties that had not been included in the 1981 Historic Sites and Districts Plan. The inventory has since been augmented by M-NCPPC’s Planning Department’s ongoing survey that revealed much more information about the history and architecture of early black communities. In 1992, the plan was amended and some of these newly surveyed properties were included. The 2010 Historic Sites and Districts Plan identified many more properties significant to African-American history, and elevated many of these, and other previously identified resources, to historic site/historic resource status.

Properties that are listed as historic resources in the Historic Sites and Districts Plan are protected by the county Historic Preservation Ordinance (Subtitle 29 of the County Code).

Historic sites are subject to a design review process if any alterations or new construction are planned; they are also protected from the potentially adverse impacts of proposed subdivisions or rezoning applications. Historic resources must be evaluated to determine whether they meet historic site criteria before they receive the full protection of the Historic Preservation Ordinance. The Historic Preservation Commission evaluates historic resources according to nine historical and architectural criteria. These criteria are enumerated on page 99 of the 2010 Historic Sites and Districts Plan.

Listing in the National Register is largely honorary. However, if federal or state monies are attached to a given property, then any changes to the property have to allow the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation to comment on the project.

Many properties included in this publication have no status under the Historic Preservation Ordinance and are not protected by it; some have been demolished, some have been altered to a great extent, and some are located outside the area covered by the Regional District Act. Of the 182 properties in this book, 95 are listed in the Historic Sites and Districts Plan, 61 are designated as historic sites, and 34 are designated as historic resources.1 1

These numbers do not include the 15 properties, some of which are historic sites, that are included in this publication for their archeological significance.

INTRODUCTION African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

3

Designation as a historic site is only one form of recognition; it brings with it the responsibility to maintain and, ideally, to restore a building to its appearance during its period of significance.

In many instances, alterations have permanently compromised the historic integrity of buildings.

In those cases, other forms of recognition may be more appropriate, such as historic markers or street signage, walking tours or published histories, such as this one.

The list of properties and historic communities included in this publication was based on the African-American properties in the Historic Sites and Districts Plan, the 1982–1983 black history survey, and properties identified during the course of community studies and ongoing survey work undertaken by Historic Preservation Section staff and their consultants. In preparation for the 2010 Historic Sites and Districts Plan, a special survey of African-American properties and communities was undertaken. As a result of this effort, in 2010, designated African-American historic sites and historic resources more than doubled, from 36 to 95.

The 1996 edition.

This publication explores 182 individual properties including dwellings, churches and cemeteries, schools, fraternal lodges, commercial establishments, a monument, two amusement parks, and an airfield. Nineteen historic communities are presented. Certainly, more properties await identification and elaboration. Once readers become aware of the effort to document African-American historic properties, they may be able to identify more properties for which research can be undertaken.

A Guide to This Publication

A

few explanatory notes are included regarding the organization of this book.

As with the 1996 edition, the publication is prefaced by an introductory history of African-Americans in the county contributed

by M-NCPPC’s Black History Program historians.

New to this edition are several essays on the African-American experience in the county and its effect on the built environment, past and present— significance, education, suburban settlement, and archeology. Except for archeology, these essays are largely taken from the 2005 Multiple Property Documentation, “African-American Historic Resources in Prince George’s County, Maryland.” As a result of that documentation, five African-American properties were listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and additional listings are possible.

The sequence of the historic property inventory begins with properties within, closely associated with, or adjacent to historically black communities, followed by other historic properties located throughout the county. Properties not associated with historic communities are grouped as Churches and Cemeteries, Schools, Dwellings, and Other Resources. Historic properties are identified sequentially by the numbering system used in the Historic Sites and Districts Plan,

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INTRODUCTION African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

i.e., the planning area number followed by the individual property number. Cherry Hill Cemetery (69-021), for example, is property number 021 in Planning Area 69.

If the historic property is located within a documented historic community, a number identifying that community is inserted as a central number. Thus, Rossville (62-023) is historic community number 023 in Planning Area 62; and Abraham Hall (62-023-07) is property number 07 within that community. (For aesthetic purposes, extra zeros are omitted within the main section of this book.)

Regarding the use of photographs and other images, the majority of the properties consist of standing structures, and these are illustrated with recent photographs or with photographs that best capture the significant character of the building. For the sites of former buildings this edition uses vintage photographs whenever possible.

Each historic community section includes a map of the community; each section listing other properties by type has its own map. A county map locating the communities and many of the properties is found at the end of the book, as well as selected photographs in full color. Appendices provide a comprehensive listing of properties by type and designation; these are followed by a bibliography and an index.

A classroom door at the newly-restored Ridgeley Rosenwald School.

See page 127.

A note is also necessary regarding the historical information about schools and churches. Most of the early black churches were of the Methodist denomination, some Methodist Episcopal, and some African Methodist Episcopal. In 1968, the Methodist Church joined with the Evangelical United Brethren Church, forming the United Methodist Church; therefore, all of those churches originally formed as Methodist Episcopal churches are now known as United Methodist churches. This publication uses the historic name (e.g., Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church) in describing the history of each, although each of these churches is now officially known as a United Methodist church.

The earliest black schools in the county were established under the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands (Freedmen’s Bureau), which operated from 1865 to 1872. Operation and management of the schools were taken over in 1872 by the Prince George’s County Board of School Commissioners; this body was superseded by the County Board of Education in 1921, and this sequence is reflected in the individual school histories. Due to the increasing interest in the Rosenwald school program, all schools funded in part by this program are consistently labeled as such, even though they would not have been known by that name historically; e.g., the Clinton School is herein referred to as the Clinton Rosenwald School.

With regard to cemeteries, by far the majority included in this publication are associated with individual churches; in some of these cases, the church no longer stands, and only the

INTRODUCTION African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

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cemetery marks its site. Only one case, Cherry Hill, represents a private family burial ground. Two other large, quasi-public historically black cemeteries, Harmony Memorial and Lincoln Memorial, are included as well.

Prince George’s County’s antebellum plantations (Belair, Bacon Hall, Chelsea, Compton Basset, Concord, Montpelier, Riversdale, and Salubria, to name only a few) were, of course, partially built and worked by Africans and African-Americans, most of them enslaved laborers. This publication describes five known slave quarters in depth; the belowground remains of countless others and the lifeways of those who inhabited them await discovery and analysis.

A note on terminology, i.e., the use of terms such as Negro, black, colored, Afro-American, and African-American. This publication uses the term which reflects the time period in question; for example, during the Rosenwald period, schools were referred to as “Colored Schools,” and therefore that is the term used here to identify them. In general, following the convention of the American Heritage Dictionary, this publication uses “AfricanAmerican” as both a noun and adjective, but frequently switches to the use of “black” to provide variety in the text. People identified as “mulatto” in early United States Census Records are herein referred to as biracial or mixed race.

Many resources herein are testaments to the success and achievements of AfricanAmericans; many also, unavoidably, are reflections of slavery’s dark legacy and its long shadow of oppression. It is worth remembering that the dissolution of once-cherished resources, such as the Rosenwald Schools, Wilmer’s Park, or even St. Simon’s Mission, also meant the end of segregation and the birth of our egalitarian society. In recalling them, it may feel right do so with the bittersweet solemnity accorded the site of a battlefield. These resources are presented with the understanding that their interpretation will be nuanced by the the type of lens through which they are examined; the complex and important role they played in American history is, however, undeniable.

The study of African-American historic and cultural resources in the county has not concluded with this publication. It is hoped that this work will increase readers’ knowledge of the county’s history, and inspire further discoveries that can be incorporated into future editions. It is the wish of the editors and contributors that the study of these resources and history will enrich all readers’ understanding of Americans’—and especially Prince Georgians’—shared heritage.

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INTRODUCTION African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

Essays

ESSAYS African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

7

Iron workers, Muirkirk, at the turn of the twentieth century.

Courtesy Maryland State Archives.

African-Americans in Prince George’s County A Brief History of the First 300 Years

By M-NCPPC’s Black History Program Staff Gail Thomas, Kenvi Phillips, and Stacey Shorter

AfricanAmericans have been integral to the founding and development of Prince George’s County.

F

rom the seventeenth century until today, African-Americans have been integral to the founding and development of Prince George’s County. Active in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, African-Americans served as soldiers and aided the nation while simultaneously laying the foundation for African-American communities that exist today. Many of these communities were first formed by slaves.

Slavery The African presence in Maryland predates Prince George’s County’s founding by several decades. There were two passengers of African descent among the settlers on the Ark and the Dove, British ships that landed in southern Maryland in 1634. Like many of the Europeans who were aboard the ships, the African passengers came to the colony as indentured servants. In the 1660s, when settlers began moving north to the area that would become Prince George’s County, they brought indentured servants and African slaves with them. Europeans and Africans, both servant and slave, were put to work cultivating tobacco, the colony’s and the county’s first cash crop.

The initial success of tobacco in Maryland was due to an array of factors including European demand for smoking tobacco, the colony’s pressing

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A BRIEF HISTORY African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

need for a commercial product for the London export market, and a system of natural inlets and navigable rivers to transport the product. Tobacco cultivation increased rapidly for settlers once Maryland and Virginia began shipping tobacco to Britain. It soon became the colonies’ leading cash crop, with sales of over 100 million pounds a year by the time of the Revolutionary War. With increasing demand for labor, by the mid-1600s planters turned to the African slave trade.

In 1666, Maryland’s Provincial Legislature passed a declaration that stated, in part, that “all Negroes and other slaves already within the Province shall serve as Durante Vita1. And all children born of any Negro or other slave shall be slaves as their ffathers [sic] were for the terme of their lives.” Later legislation determined slave status according to that of the mother. As a result of the colony’s rigid labor code, Maryland prospered and slavery grew. In 1720, 25 percent of Maryland planters owned slaves; by 1760 that number had grown to 50 percent. With the growing population of slave labor, the economy became more complex and began to include wheat production, iron working, and shipbuilding.

Despite the overwhelming odds against Maryland’s enslaved men and women, they managed to create close-knit communities that emphasized home and family. Most children lived with their mothers and extended family. Weekends were reserved for supplementing meager rations and time with family, including visiting with spouses and family on neighboring plantations.

The Black Swamp School near Aquasco, prior to its restoration. The one-and-a-half story addition (now demolished) was added by the Daniel Skinner family after they purchased it for use as a residence in 1936.

Provided with a minimum of food and supplies to care for and clothe themselves throughout the year, most slaves had to supplement their provisions. They became accomplished foragers, skilled hunters, and fishermen and were able to vary their diets by exploiting the natural resources of the region. Most plantations were located near a river where fish were plentiful. Along the coastal areas, shellfish such as crabs and oysters were seasonally available, and provided a substantial portion of a slave’s diet.

While struggling to supplement their food rations slaves continued to dream of emancipation. In Maryland, as in every other slave-holding colony, the best method to attain freedom was to escape. Harriet Tubman, an escaped slave from Maryland, is famous for providing hundreds of slaves with the means to their freedom through the Underground Railroad. But the escapes, rebellions, plots, and court cases did not impede the growth of slavery or Maryland’s significant role as a slave trading center.

In Prince George’s County, there were several slave markets, the most active in Upper Marlboro, the county seat. Slaves could be purchased on credit or in exchange for silver, paper money, or tobacco.

1

“For the duration of their lives.”

A BRIEF HISTORY African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

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The Revolutionary War did little to disrupt slavery’s prominence in the colony. For all of their rhetoric, most whites did not recognize any irony in their fight for freedom from England and the colonial system that they erected to enslave African-Americans.

However, the war did result in some slaves gaining their freedom. In Prince George’s County, Cupid Plummer was an example of a slave being freed upon completion of his duty in the Revolutionary Army. Plummer, like many African-American soldiers in the Revolutionary and subsequent wars, served as a draft substitute. His children, however, remained enslaved because they retained the status of their mother.

Between 1790 and 1850, the number of free blacks in the county increased from 164 to 1,138. Some were descendants of those slaves manumitted in the years following the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, while others purchased their freedom from their masters. These free black laborers earned their living hiring out to farms, in some cases working side by side with slaves. Although few in number, they formed the basis for many of the black communities that developed in the county after the Civil War. During the Civil War, Maryland did not secede from the Union. The state, however, was bitterly divided over slavery, principally along geographic lines. Generally, whites in areas that did not depend heavily on slave labor for economic survival sided with the Union. Many tobacco-growing counties, including Prince George’s, sympathized with the Confederacy. Maryland’s divided loyalties are illustrated by the state’s relationship to emancipation. Slaves in Maryland were not freed by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, for it applied only to those states that were in rebellion against the Union. Slavery in Maryland was not abolished until January 1865, when the state’s constitution of 1864 went into effect. But abolition did not mean that freedmen were regarded as equal, and the legislature attempted to maintain this inequality.

One of the most egregious examples is the law that allowed free black children to be apprenticed; using this law; former slave owners could take black children without parental consent, declare them orphans, and bind them for labor. Another law, the Disabilities Bill of 1865, disqualified blacks from bearing witness in court cases involving white defendants. While these and other laws were passed to limit the newly freed Marylanders, the black population worked and greatly improved their living conditions.

Reconstruction In the post-Civil War era, African-Americans embarked on a path of migration, education and self-help. During Reconstruction and into the twentieth century, the cities of Washington, D.C., and Baltimore experienced an increase in their black populations. Outlying areas, such as Prince George’s County, absorbed some of this growth, and the county witnessed a new generation of black community formation.

Many of the Freedmen continued to work in the same industry they worked in as slaves and extended the bonds formed during slavery into new communities. Gradually, they began to build their own communities near their jobs or railroads or other forms of transportation. At the center of these communities was often a school, church or lodge.

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A BRIEF HISTORY African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

African-Americans came to regard their survival as a collective effort.

As they struggled with new challenges in the period just after emancipation, African-Americans came to regard their survival as a collective effort. They pooled their limited resources and, often after years of fundraising, constructed houses of worship. Once built, churches of various denominations throughout the county served many purposes. In addition to providing tangible evidence of the strong religious beliefs of African-Americans, churches such as St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Croom and Mount Nebo African Methodist Episcopal Church in the Queen Anne area were also gathering places for the community, and schools for its children.

The African-American community of Rossville was formed by ironworkers from the Muirkirk Ironworks. Members of the community worked in the ironworks as slaves while it was owned by the Ellicott family and continued after it was purchased by a family of Quakers, the Coffins, in 1847. Charles Coffin was involved in every facet of his employees’ lives, providing homes for families, schools for their children and employment for workers’ wives. Muirkirk ironworkers were encouraged to shop at the company store on credit against their salaries. While these conditions contributed to a restrictive environment at the ironworks, they also encouraged strong communal bonds among those who worked and lived there. By 1868, the ironworkers established a Methodist meetinghouse, Queen’s Chapel.

Twenty years later, land adjoining the chapel was subdivided into 12 lots and purchased by black families who built houses and cultivated small farms on the land. In 1889, the community built Rebecca Lodge 6 of the Benevolent Sons and Daughters of Abraham. The lodge, known as Abraham Hall, became the nucleus of the Rossville community. It served at various times as a church, school, gathering place, and mutual aid society. In a somewhat different way, St. Paul’s Baptist Church, founded by freedwoman Sarah Miranda Plummer, became the focal point of the African-American community of Bladensburg.

In the regions of the county where tobacco plantations were prevalent, emancipated slaves continued to work in the fields. The end of the war did not result in the redistribution of land that African-Americans had expected. With few options, most remained as tenant farmers and sharecroppers on the land where they were once enslaved. While land ownership in the county remained concentrated in the hands of former slaveholders and their descendants, some African-Americans were able to acquire land of their own.

In the northern area of the county a mid-size farm was acquired by Josiah Adams, who was born around 1814, probably as a slave. There is evidence he worked as a gardener at the Riversdale plantation, owned

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The Holly Grove Rosenwald School, circa 1930.

by the Calvert family. Between 1871 and 1883, Adams purchased parcels of land near Riversdale; by the time of his death in 1884, he owned 48 acres. According to the instructions in his will, one of the parcels of land was to be set aside for use as a family cemetery. Adams’ descendants retained ownership of the land throughout the first half of the twentieth century; their family burial ground, Cherry Hill Cemetery, is carefully tended and marked with interpretive signage.

In 1929, the Ridgley family acquired 52 acres of land in the central section of the county that the family had occupied and used to cultivate tobacco since 1871. Near the farm, a smaller parcel of land was trusted to Joseph Beall and Richard Cook to “be kept and used as place of divine worship for the use of the ministry and members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.” Subsequently a church named for the Ridgley family was built and within two decades a burial ground added west of the church.

Later the community added a school also known by the Ridgley family name.

The largest African-American owned parcels of land were located in the southern region of the county. Joseph Moore and his family owned and farmed nearly 400 acres of land in the county and more than 200 just south of the county. His large family including eight sons and their families worked to maintain both farms. Other families including the Mills, Parkers, Pinkneys, and Walls, each owned and worked 100 to 200 acre farms.

Education When Maryland’s state constitution passed in 1864, it provided money for the first time to develop and build public schools for white children, but made no provisions for black children. The federal government assisted in providing education to freedmen across the nation with the formation of the Freedmen’s Bureau, which began operating in Maryland in 1865. Obtaining access to the formal education they had been denied under slavery was a priority for newly freed African-Americans, and in Prince George’s County they were determined to secure an education for themselves and their children.

The Freedmen’s Bureau, along with assistance from private charitable agencies, built

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A BRIEF HISTORY African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

schools specifically for blacks in the county. African-Americans were involved in this effort also; their contributions of land, labor, and money guaranteed the schools’ operation and success. In 1872, after the Freedmen’s Bureau ceased activity, the Prince George’s County government began its involvement with the operation of schools for black children. Again, community members were faced with a school board unwilling to spend available resources on African-American schools. In 1917, the Julius Rosenwald Fund was established to aid in the construction of schools for black children. It had a profound effect on black education in the county.

Obtaining access to the formal education they had been denied under slavery was a priority.

Marlboro High School was opened for African-Americans in 1921.

Championed by the Supervisor of Colored Schools, Doswell Brooks, the school was located in Upper Marlboro and served students in the southern part of the county. A new and larger high school for AfricanAmerican students was built in Upper Marlboro in 1934, and named for Maryland-born abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Since then, many of the segregated schools in the county have been named for AfricanAmericans who serve as an inspiration to students.

For more advanced studies, the Bowie Normal School provided posthigh school education for those pursuing careers as teachers. Originally located in Baltimore, the school relocated to Bowie in 1910 and graduated many of the teachers in Prince George’s County. Even with the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Supreme Court decision banning segregation in schools, Prince George’s County schools were not fully integrated until the early 1970s. These schools, however, were staffed with extraordinary African-American teachers usually educated at historically black colleges and universities. G. James Gholson, who served as a principal of Fairmont Heights High School before being promoted to Assistant Superintendent for the Administration and Supervision of Secondary Education in Prince George’s County, was a well respected leader of educators in the county. Robert Gray, another school administrator, also served as the mayor in the same predominately black town of Fairmount Heights where he had previously served as principal of the local elementary school.

Railroads In the post-Civil War years, the rapid expansion of the federal government in Washington, D.C., influenced the growth and character of development in Prince George’s County. Towns and suburbs grew along railroad lines. As the railroads extended further into the county, entrepreneurs purchased large tracts of land to develop along these transportation lines. The extension of railroads and streetcars into the county prompted the development of Fairmount Heights. Its residents were members of the emerging black middle class who worked in

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the District of Columbia. North Brentwood holds the distinction as Prince George’s County’s first African-American incorporated town. By 1935, Fairmount Heights had achieved the same incorporated status. Residents proudly viewed incorporation as another avenue of governance for those long denied that privilege. In addition to modest, affordable housing, communities such as Fairmount Heights and North Brentwood provided residents with improved services such as well-lit streets, paved roads, trash removal, and fire and police protection. Small shops maintained by local entrepreneurs emerged to provide neighborhoods with the range of services they needed. Residents soon had access to grocery stores, restaurants, wood, coal and ice dealers, and in the case of Fairmount Heights, a social hall.

African-American migrants populated many communities as they moved into Prince George’s County at the turn of the twentieth century. Other communities, such as Glenarden and Lincoln, grew along the short-lived Washington, Baltimore, and Annapolis (WB&A) line, which began operating in the county in 1908. Brookland, an African-American farming community, developed near another railroad, the Baltimore and Potomac (B&P) that had operated in the county since 1872. The B&P made daily stops at the nearby Glenn Dale station, transporting commuters, mail and freight to the area. Many of Brookland’s residents were also employed by the railroad.

BELOW: Sign at nowdemolished Fairmount Heights Municipal Center.

In the northern end of the county, also around the turn of the twentieth century, Edwin Newman, a white land developer, surveyed, mapped and developed property located along the B&O railroad tracks. The community that emerged, now known as Lakeland, developed along racial lines, with whites living on the west side and black residents on the east. African-Americans continued to move into the area seeking employment with the B&O and the University of Maryland. They eventually settled west of the railroad and whites quickly moved out of the area. The railroad also facilitated the development of early industries. The Muirkirk Ironworks had its own branch line on the B&O. Workers would load the pig iron produced at the ironworks onto railroad cars for shipment throughout Maryland and to Pennsylvania. When the ironworks closed in 1920, many of the African-American workers who built the community of Rossville near the ironworks after the Civil War found new jobs on the B&O Railroad.

Sports and Entertainment While at play, the American public demanded that traditional roles be observed, especially in public. Whether at sporting events or at the racetracks, social mixing between whites and blacks was not tolerated.

Since recreation was to remain largely segregated, African-Americans created their own resort communities and leisure time activities for their families to enjoy throughout the year.

Notley Hall Amusement Park, owned and operated by AfricanAmericans, was established in 1890. Excursion steamboats from

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A BRIEF HISTORY African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

AfricanAmericans not only participated in but dominated many recreational and sporting activities.

BELOW: Freddy Powell, first coach and manager of the Wee Wee Tigers, later known as the Mitchellville Tigers.

Photo taken in 1945.

Washington, D.C., ferried groups of African-American families, social clubs, and other organizations to the park where they enjoyed the bowling alley, shooting gallery, pony track, and dance pavilion until it closed in 1924. To escape the summer heat, African-Americans regularly organized day trips by car or bus to Carr’s and Sparrows’ Beach in Annapolis. Retreat communities such as Lincoln, Eagle Harbor and Highland Beach began to emerge in the early twentieth century. In these private retreats, African-Americans could spend time with their families in safe havens where the realities of racial discrimination and Jim Crow laws were not immediately apparent.

Despite segregation, African-Americans not only participated in but dominated many recreational and sporting activities since the nineteenth century.

In the early colonial period, slaves were involved in horse racing. In southern states such as Maryland, it was not uncommon for wealthy planters to own both the horse and its rider, creating opportunities for both free and enslaved African-Americans to become involved in horse racing. After emancipation, African-Americans continued to excel in racing. In fact, the post-war period was an era of dominance for black jockeys. They dominated the first Kentucky Derby in 1875, filling 13 of 15 slots and winning the title. However, African-American jockeys began to face systematic discrimination and were gradually excluded from major stake races. Their continued participation was relegated to smaller regional and state racing venues.

As an industrialized America waxed nostalgic about its rural past, spectator sports played outdoors became increasingly popular. Baseball quickly became the national pastime and drew large enthusiastic crowds.

African-Americans played the sport almost from its inception, but from the beginning there were efforts to exclude them from the game’s professional ranks. Excluded from national games, African-Americans throughout the county formed sandlot teams that competed on a weekly basis. Attending games generated a sense of pride and provided entertainment for entire communities. Communities banded together to raise money for uniforms, supplies and other expenses. Local teams such as the Brentwood Flashes, Lakeland White Sox, and Glenarden Braves, played baseball on sandlots in communities throughout the county.

Forming teams and leagues was just one strategy African-Americans employed to assert themselves and escape the realities of segregation.

In the off-season, one of Prince George’s best known local teams, the Washington Black Sox, often played Negro League teams such as the Homestead Grays and the Pittsburgh Crawfords on its home field in Mitchellville. With the elimination of segregation in the

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sport, several players signed with Major League teams and by 1960, the Negro National League disbanded. Locally, sandlot teams remained popular and play continued in Prince George’s County and the surrounding area under the direction of the Tri-State League.

More recently, African-American Prince Georgians have excelled in other sports including track and field and young adult basketball. The Glenarden Track Club, originally the Dellwood Avenue Striders, was organized as a summer program in 1983 by Senior Olympic track star, Larry Colbert, Sr., for his son and neighborhood children. Within four years the club became affiliated with the Glenarden Ardmore Boys and Girls Club.

Competing in regional, national and international meets, the team quickly grew to include more than 200 members from across the metropolitan area. It reorganized again in 1987 as a non-profit under the name of the Glenarden Track Club. Today the club has more than 300 members of all ages.

The idea of Midnight Basketball, which offers urban youth a late night activity, began in 1985 in Prince George’s County. Former Glenarden Town Manager G. Van Standifer developed the program that requires players to attend weekly practice, educational workshops and vocational counseling. Shortly after Standifer’s program began, it was duplicated in urban centers around the region and throughout the nation.

Moving Toward Equality The World War II era ushered in new possibilities and struggles for African-Americans in the county and the country at large. In Prince George’s County, African-Americans began to see themselves in a new light and to embrace new challenges. Pioneering AfricanAmerican pilots forged a place in early aviation history. In previous decades, AfricanAmericans worked in traditional roles as laborers and clerks in the airmail service at College Park Airport, but the establishment of Columbia Air Center significantly altered the nature of African-American involvement in aviation.

African-American soldiers returned from the WWII battlefields of Europe with renewed energy, determined to fight for their place as first-class citizens. They joined forces with the political leadership and growing middle class in the emerging black townships.

This group of restless, talented, and self-reliant citizens was critical to the formation of the Civil Rights Movement that changed the lives of Prince George’s residents and the county. The NAACP was at the forefront of much of this activity. The local chapter of the NAACP was founded in 1935 with Hester V. King as president. King served as president for nearly 30 years, working to desegregate the courthouse in Upper Marlboro, other public accommodations, and particularly the schools throughout the county. Most of the black schools of the earlier period were closed after desegregation began in 1954. Many were sold and converted to other uses.

The NAACP was able to make an impact in part because of the strong black community structures that had been in place long before that time, such as the church, civic and community groups. Community activist Theresa Banks made use of these institutions as she led the fight for teacher pay parity, which was finally achieved in 1947. But in the years following, public dissent from the status quo grew more aggressive. Students from

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the University of Maryland, along with community activists, led sit-ins at lunch counters all along US Route 1. Members of the Prince George’s County chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) marched in front of developer William J. Levitt’s model homes in the Belair section of Bowie after sales agents refused to sell a home to a black family.

Slowly, signs of change began to appear. In 1967, for example, Hester King’s son, Arthur A. King of Beltsville, became the first black delegate to the Maryland General Assembly.

Another factor in the fight for racial equality in the county was a wave of black migration that began in the late 1960s and lasted into the early 1970s. The boom was due in part to rapid construction of garden apartments and condominiums located near the border between Prince George’s County and Washington, D.C., and many of the migrants were blacks from Washington. One of the early African-American communities, Glenarden, ushered in the federal urban renewal program for Prince George’s County. It was the first town to take advantage of the program and underwent dramatic physical change.

Apartment homes and condominiums with low cost options, as well as a shopping center, were developed in Glenarden. These extensive changes were enacted under the leadership of long-term Mayor James R. Cousins, Jr., and Glenarden’s town council. Many AfricanAmerican leaders began their political careers in the black towns of Prince George’s County.

For example, State Senators Decatur Trotter, Tommie Broadwater, and Nathaniel Exum were all elected officials in the county before going on to the senate. Judge Alexander Williams, Jr., was elected the State’s Attorney for Prince George’s County in 1987 and was the first African-American to serve in this capacity for the county.

Not only did Prince George’s County nourish many of the state’s political leaders, it was also the home to a number of other prominent African-Americans from a variety of professions including science, education, law, and exploration. One of the first African-American judges to serve in the county was Sylvania W. Woods, Sr. Woods, like many African-Americans during the 1960s, migrated to the county in search of a family-oriented community. Dr. Henry A. Wise, Jr., moved to the county in the 1960s to provide medical services in many of the African-American towns in the county and served as the director of the medical center at Bowie State University. Glenarden resident Bonnie Johns was an advocate for children’s rights and Jesse B. Mason was a pioneer in developing the field of special education. Through the work of these individuals and others, Prince George’s County began to benefit considerably from this new generation of African-American leaders.

The 1980s witnessed another influx of black migrants to the county, this one engineered in part by the county government itself. The Economic Development Corporation encouraged developers to build houses and create industries to attract white-collar professionals into the county, and the majority of these new homeowners were black and middle class. These newcomers did not meet with the same intensity of white resistance that those of the 1970s did, partially because, according to one, there was “a coming of age of black identity in the county. There was a critical enough mass of black people by the ‘80s so blacks could feel that they were a part of the county. That’s when you get people who move here because they want to live in a black community.”

These new migrants have changed the racial, economic and political structure of Prince

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George’s County in numerous ways. New communities have formed, and have brought with them an economic base that is able to support the more than 8,000 black-owned businesses in the county today. In 1994, Wayne Curry was elected as Prince George’s first black county executive; subsequent leaders have also been African-American.

ABOVE: Social hall at St. Thomas Methodist Church, Baden.

The county’s African-American population is now about 65 percent of the county’s total, up from about 50 percent in 1996.

Prince George’s County is the wealthiest county in the United States with a majority African-American population, and it has a median African-American household income of $69,000. The African-Americans who now live here have many challenges ahead of them, along with a legacy of activism and achievement. At all levels of public and community life, African-Americans in Prince George’s County are accepting the challenge.

RIGHT: Mildred Ridgley Gray and a friend stroll along Central Avenue near the land long-owned by her family.

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Congregants outside Mount Nebo African Methodist Episcopal Church after services, mid-twentieth century.

Courtesy Mount Nebo A.M.E. Church.

Significance of African-American Resources

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frican-Americans are inextricably linked to the narrative of Prince George’s County history and to what makes Prince George’s County distinctive today. The unique set of circumstances that shaped Maryland’s famed “middle temperament”1 left an indelible imprint on the African-American experience in the county. AfricanAmericans first arrived in Maryland on the Ark and the Dove in 1634. By 1720, one quarter of Maryland planters owned slaves; by 1760, this percentage had risen to half. By 1850, Maryland had more free blacks than any other state, with over 29,000 living in Baltimore. In 1860, free and enslaved African-Americans constituted 25 percent of the state’s population.

However, unlike other states with large black populations, the power structure in Maryland was dominated by mercantile, rather than agricultural interests. Despite considerable southern sympathy, Maryland did not secede. Consequently, Maryland’s large African-American population was denied many of the protections and political benefits of Reconstruction.

Although the Freedmen’s Bureau was active in the state, constitutional amendments that gave blacks specific legal protections and rights in the former Confederacy did not apply to Maryland. Because Maryland remained in the Union, most of its white citizens could still vote 1

As historian Robert Brugger wrote, “Marylanders both championed liberty and relied on slavery....The elusive character of Maryland may lie in its search for what we can abbreviate as the middle way, between extremes, where the human spirit thrives.” Maryland: A Middle Temperament, 1634–1980, 1988, The Johns Hopkins University Press.

SIGNIFICANCE African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

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and run for political office. The political vacuum that allowed former slaves to hold elective office in other parts of the south did not exist in this border state.

Within Maryland, Prince George’s County occupied a unique position. By 1660, European settlers, their slaves, and indentured servants had moved north into what is now Prince George’s County. In 1850, there were over 11,000 enslaved persons in the county, a number that had remained fairly constant since 1790 and was the highest numerical population of any Maryland county. In Calvert and Charles counties, the black population exceeded the white population. In 1850, there were 12,648 AfricanAmericans in Prince George’s County, of whom 1,138 were free and 11,510 were enslaved. The white population totaled 8,901. By 1870, over 45 percent of the population of the county was African-American, a percentage similar to Anne Arundel County and the rest of southern Maryland.

Thus, African-Americans played an integral role in the history of Prince George’s County. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, blacks constituted the labor force that fueled the county’s agricultural prosperity.

Enslaved laborers and tenant farmers underpinned the agricultural system of the county.

Louis Ridgley in his infantry uniform outside the Arthur Sr. and Mary Ridgley house, 1940s. The dwelling is no longer standing.

Prince George’s County’s relationship with the District of Columbia, coupled with the District’s unique importance to blacks, further shaped the county’s destiny. Washington, D.C., held special significance for all black people. In addition to the social foundation established by Washington’s large, free black population in the years before the Civil War, Howard University (founded in 1867) provided an intellectual center as well as job opportunities for educated African-Americans.

Improvements in transportation further strengthened the connection between Washington, D.C., and Prince George’s County in the twentieth century. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, the development of rail and streetcar lines connecting Prince George’s County with Annapolis, Baltimore, and Washington facilitated suburban growth. African-Americans constituted an increasingly important element of the county’s twentieth-century suburban growth.

Historic and cultural resources associated with African-Americans are crucial to this interpretation. When trying to document these resources, traditional methodology relying on written documentation falls short when applied to African-Americans. In Secret City, a groundbreaking history of African-Americans in Washington, D.C., Constance Green observed that blacks have largely been ignored in traditional written sources. Thomas Battle, the curator of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University, catalogued and annotated the extensive documentary sources bearing on the history of African-Americans in Washington.

Battle found that much more attention has been focused upon the problems and negative aspects of black life in Washington than upon the positive aspects of organization and club development, the achievements of groups and individuals, and activist efforts to improve the quality of life in the face of discrimination and indifference.

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SIGNIFICANCE African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

Historic settlements, buildings, and sites provide an alternate route to understanding and a powerful vehicle for interpreting history. Structures survive as a record of concrete achievement, opening a window to a heritage often not available in written sources.

A close study of these cultural resources provides an important lens for viewing the African-American experience in the county. Many of these buildings are the work of African-American hands. Blacks built their own Freedmen’s schools (none are extant in the county) and constructed churches such as the Union Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church in Upper Marlboro and the Brooks Methodist Episcopal Church in Croom.

African-American tenant farmers constructed the Holy Family Roman Catholic Church (1890), a Carpenter Gothic church in Woodmore that is a very fine example of its form.

Black carpenters constructed many of the houses in communities such as Fairmount Heights and North Brentwood. Buildings are vital elements for interpreting more recent history as well. The Van Horn-Mitchell House in Deanwood, for example, illustrates the Mitchells’ wide-ranging influence and leadership in the Muslim faith.

Similarly, archeology provides evidence for how people lived in the past. Archeological investigation is particularly valuable for tracing the enduring African influence in the Chesapeake region. Excavations at Oxon Hill Manor uncovered delftware deliberately placed within the walls of a slave quarter, suggesting the influence of West-African medicinal and religious practice. The material record that standing structures and archeological investigation provide can illuminate scant written documentation to yield new historical insight. The physical record that archeological sites and standing structures furnish is potentially as valuable as written sources such as Freedmen’s Bureau Records and the U.S. Manuscript Census.

Historic resources can sometimes be studied within a framework shaped by political boundaries. Resources associated with African-Americans often do not fit within this framework, as geographic boundaries shaped by political jurisdiction can be arbitrary for a disenfranchised population. Local figures and events must be considered against the broader, national backdrop of constitutional amendments, Supreme Court decisions, and social change. The broad reach of the African-American press and farflung family, school, and church networks knit black people together across city, state, and regional boundaries.

Detail of a quatrefoil overdoor window at the Holy Family Roman Catholic Church.

In a similar manner, any effort to understand historic resources associated with African-Americans must be undertaken with an eye towards the process of change. Government policy considers historic preservation a public good because it grounds people with a sense of continuity and a sense of the past. Interpretation is critical to conveying meaning and to making the past live. Buildings most often embody distinct chronological moments—the date of their construction, the date of a specific event, the active life of a prominent person. But buildings can also be vehicles for interpreting what transpires with the passage of time. This reading is particularly important for the AfricanAmerican experience, an experience characterized by rapid and dramatic change. In Prince George’s County, African-Americans went from

SIGNIFICANCE African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

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Under the ownership of Joseph Montgomery, who purchased it in 1925, the Mitchellville Store became one of of the earliest black-owned businesses in the area, and was the social-commercial center of the Mitchellville community.

The building (Historic Site 71B-007) was destroyed by fire in 1985.

Considerable historical meaning and associations survive, even in the locations of demolished resources and long-vanished settlements.

slavery, to emancipation, to Reconstruction, to Jim Crow, to full civil rights, to political and socio-economic dominance—all within a 200-year span. Evaluation of resources associated with African-Americans must take the expectation and importance of physical changes in stride. Alterations often document the dynamic of political and social change which characterizes this community. Far from marring the integrity of a building, these changes are the chips and scrapes reflecting the strategies African-Americans adopted to survive within a restricted and ever-shifting environment. In addition to considering the resources presented in this publication, those interested in this subject may wish to visit the farm tenant house, now in the Smithsonian Institution, that was home to several African-American families and was originally part of the B. D. Mullikin House Site at 1200 N.E. Crain Highway.2 Segregation rooted African-Americans in particular places. Rather than moving on, blacks tended to stay in settlements and precincts that they had claimed.

Buildings were continually modified to address current need. Adaptation became more prevalent than new construction of purpose-built structures. Consequently, considerable historical meaning and associations survive, even in the locations of demolished resources and vanished settlements. The end of segregation resulted in abandoned schools and neighborhoods. Resources associated with segregated and rural communities have become increasingly fragile in the face of intense development pressure. It is the associative, and not just the architectural values of these resources, that are significant.

2

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See also Hearth and Home: Preserving a People’s Culture by George McDaniel, Temple University Press, 1982.

SIGNIFICANCE African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

Primary school children at the Maryland Normal and Industrial School, July, 1918. Photo from the Goodloe family archives.

Education

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ducation constitutes one of the most important historic themes associated with African-Americans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Although the development of schools is closely linked with the establishment of settlements and communities, the importance of education as a strategy for advancement demands separate treatment.

As with churches, African-American schools served a variety of public purposes that extended beyond those provided by educational institutions in the white community. In many ways, education embodied a community’s support for its children and its hope for better lives for future generations. When interviewed in 2008, the then-83-year-old Evelyn Quander Rattley spoke movingly of its importance: “We stand for something and all of this could be presented as evidence of what an African-American family can achieve just by hard work, clean living, believing in a higher being, praying,

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and respecting each other, and love of country, and love of family, and most of all, education.”1 Community efforts were not limited solely to schools and were expressed through the extended family, clubs, and community institutions such as churches. As a means of socialization, education also functioned as a vehicle for developing the emotional fortitude and self-assurance required to survive in a segregated society.

“We stand for something and all of this could be presented as evidence of what an AfricanAmerican family can achieve just by hard work, clean living, believing in a higher being, praying, and respecting each other, and love of country, and love of family, and most of all, education.”

Scattered settlements and the demands of agricultural life posed difficulties for rural schools and their teachers. There were no high schools for black students outside of cities in 1895 Maryland. This lack of secondary education was common in rural areas throughout the country, but particularly acute in southern states. Many black families in Maryland and Virginia made sacrifices to send their children to board with relatives in Baltimore and the District of Columbia so that they could get high school educations.

While only the Sharpersville School in Accokeek survives to represent nineteenth-century African-American education in the county, the record of the twentieth-century efforts can still be seen. The school buildings embody how complex forces combined to create a singularly important institution. With the assistance of the Freedmen’s Bureau and outside philanthropists, AfricanAmericans in Prince George’s County succeeded in establishing a number of primary schools by the end of the nineteenth century. In Prince George’s County, the most enduring legacy of Freedmen’s Bureau schools may be the communities that formed around them. The commitment that rural AfricanAmericans in the county made to funding and building schools testifies to their determination and drive, although the hard work and seasonal demands of agricultural labor often took precedence over learning. In rural states, movements requiring compulsory education and extending schools beyond the primary grades languished; public education was sometimes opposed for its democratizing influence. (In Maryland, school attendance was not compulsory until 1902.) The rural character of the county and scattered settlements diluted the meager resources available to sustain schools and teachers. Isolated settlements had difficulty attracting and retaining teachers. Poplar Hill, for example, could offer no place for a teacher to board.

The Freedmen’s Bureau required community participation. Encouraged by this requirement, African-Americans purchased land and formed community organizations to raise funds for churches and schools. The bureau expected settlements to provide a site for the school, $200 for school construction, and $15 per month for the teacher. These were considerable sums at a time when the average family made $120 per year. Nevertheless, African-Americans in Prince George’s County successfully petitioned for ten Freedmen’s Bureau schools between 1866 and 1868, although many of them were not constructed until the 1870s. These schools were essentially one-room primary schools 1

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See the “John Henry Quander House” in the Upper Marlboro Community section.

EDUCATION African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

focused on literacy skills. Freedmen’s Bureau Schools in the county included Union Institute, Bladensburg; Marlboro Seminary, Upper Marlboro; Woodville School, Aquasco; Meadows School (near Forestville); St. Thomas School, Baden; Oxon Hill School; Lower Piscataway, Accokeek; Croom School, Nottingham; Chapel Hill School; Clinton/Robeystown, Laurel, T.B. and Muirkirk.2 Establishing and maintaining the schools provided an important vehicle for African-American leadership and community organization, nurturing skills that would sustain the population in the future. Prince George’s County took over the Colored Schools when the Freedmen’s Bureau disbanded in 1872. Schools were built by the county for blacks, but often parents had to provide some of their own money to put up a decent building and keep it maintained. Usually a community petitioned the school board for a school and the board had to decide if there was money, whether there would be enough students, and where it would be located. In a pattern often found in declining rural areas, the schools received little support from the county government. In 1895, Prince George’s was one of five Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington at Maryland counties that made no contribution to colored schools Tuskeegee Institute, February 22, 1915. from county funds. Because of proximity to Washington, D.C., African-Americans in the county enrolled their children in the Washington, D.C., Colored School system, utilizing trolley lines for transportation. Finally in 1921, when a new high school for whites opened in Upper Marlboro, the previous building was repurposed as a secondary school for blacks.

I

ndustrial education provided an alternative means of gaining skills formerly learned through apprenticeship. Prior to the Civil War, Negro mass meetings, known as conventions, and militant abolitionists supported industrial education as a strategy for economic self-help. Former Union General Samuel Chapman Armstrong, who founded the Hampton Institute in 1868, was an articulate proponent of this system. Armstrong, who had commanded black troops and who had served as superintendent of the Freedmen’s Bureau, viewed industrial education as a moral force that would endow African-Americans with Yankee virtues. He also recognized the possibilities it offered as a basis for agreement among northern and southern whites as well as black leaders.

The concept and purpose of industrial education has always been subject to varying interpretations. It was both a pedagogical technique for teaching the mind how to treat specific objects, and a moral force that established character traits such as thrift, morality, and respect for labor. The paradox plaguing industrial education was that it could be viewed as a tool to reconcile labor to a subordinate position, while at the same time serving as a strategy for laborers to better themselves.

2

Several of these schools were known under other names. The most common name for the school or the school’s geographic location appears in this list.

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Although it was a lifeline for rural southern blacks who faced a marginal existence as sharecroppers, industrial education had little relevance for wealthier African-Americans who aspired to professional positions. The intellectual community feared that industrial education limited blacks to being “hewers of wood and drawers of water.” In 1881, Booker T. Washington founded Tuskegee Institute to provide industrial education, primarily for rural, southern African-Americans. Despite Tuskegee’s enormous impact, discussions of the institute and of industrial education are often clouded by the shadow of its founder. Booker T. Washington was controversial in his own time and he remains so today. Enormously powerful, he controlled private philanthropy and influenced government policy; for example, Washington succeeded in blocking W. E. B. Du Bois’ appointment as the head of the Washington, D.C., Colored Schools. Many better-educated African-Americans reviled him because they felt that he acquiesced to the policy of “separate but equal.” At Atlanta’s Cotton States and International Exposition of 1895, two years after Plessy v. Ferguson, Washington gave a speech in which he said, “In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.” Washington worked diligently behind the scenes for equality, but this activity was largely unknown until many years after his death.

BELOW: This 1924 survey yields much detailed information for historians.

In 1894 the Reverend Francis P. Willes, the rector at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Croom, established St. Simon’s Mission on the grounds of the rectory there. The construction of a separate building for African-Americans substantially increased the size of the black congregation, which had been a part of St. Thomas’ for decades. The rector’s sisters, Suzanne and Katharine Willes, taught at the church school. St. Simon’s was so successful that the Bishop of Washington provided the church with a full-time African-American rector, August Jensen. Heavily influenced by Booker T. Washington’s work at Tuskegee, Suzanne Willes founded the Croom Institute in 1902. Willes devoted her life to African-American education. She raised funds for the coeducational school from other states and incorporated the school in 1903, the year construction on its first buildings began. Willes proposed to use industrial education “as a means of opening better and wider avenues of employment to young colored men and women.” The curriculum at the institute included cooking, home economics, sewing and dress-making for women, and scientific agriculture for men. A private institution dependent on philanthropy, the school faced financial difficulties. In 1918, the institute was dissolved, severing its connection with the Episcopal Church. It then reopened as the Croome Settlement School, drawing students from throughout southern Maryland. The school also served wards of the Washington, D.C., Child Welfare Department. (See page 188.)

Fairmount Heights, largely settled by Tuskegee graduates, offered another setting for industrial education. In 1915 the Fairmount Heights School became the only public school offering industrial training for African-Americans in the county. James F. Armstrong, a Tuskegee graduate who settled in Fairmount Heights around 1905, served as supervisor of Colored Schools in Prince George’s County through 1919.

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EDUCATION African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

I

n 1913, philanthropist Julius Rosenwald instituted a program, conceived by Booker T. Washington, to construct rural schools for blacks throughout the American south. President of Sears, Roebuck and Co., Rosenwald believed that education was the key to training African-Americans for the labor force. In 1917, he set up the Julius Rosenwald Fund, following in the well-established path of previous northern philanthropic foundations such as the Southern Education Board, the General Education Board, the Jeanes Foundation, and the John F. Slater Fund. By 1928, the Rosenwald Fund had constructed 20 percent of rural black schools in the south, serving one-third of the school population. When the program ended in 1932, it had helped fund close to 5,000 schools in 15 states, including 28 in Prince George’s County.

ABOVE: Praise for the Duckettsville School from the “Survey of Colored Public Schools.”

BELOW: The Duckettsville Rosenwald School, soon after its construction in 1923.

This school is no longer extant.

3

The Rosenwald program required that communities petitioning for a school supply seed money. Localities could combine cash, material, and in-kind labor for their match.

The fund provided a set of mandatory guidelines intended to serve as models for rural schools, publishing a book of standardized plans and specifications that was distributed free of charge. The Rosenwald Fund retained the philanthropic preference for industrial education, requiring that every school have an “industrial room.” Schools often converted these rooms to other uses.3

Nine Rosenwald schools out of the original 28 survive (schools that survive are shown here in bold). The buildings were sometimes built on the site of earlier Freedmen’s Bureau Schools. The Lincoln School illustrates how the Rosenwald pattern operated. Thomas J. Calloway, an activist attorney who developed the community of Lincoln, secured funding for a Rosenwald School for the town that opened in 1922. The “Community Club,” formed for the purpose of securing the school, raised funds through entertainment events and subscriptions. With this funding and a

Interviewed in 2008, Mary Hollomand, a retired crypt analyst for NSA, spoke about her attendance at the Lakeland Elementary Rosenwald School in 1937–1943. “There was a small room in the middle. I don’t remember what that was for. I don’t know whether that’s where we ate lunch, or what. It was a small room there for something.” At Ridgeley Rosenwald School, Mildred Ridgley Gray referred to the space as a “multipurpose room;” the room was eliminated when a third classroom was added in the 1940s.

EDUCATION African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

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Mattie Ridgley and her class at the Ridgeley Rosenwald School in the 1940s.

lot they had purchased, the community was able to demonstrate the financial support required for a Rosenwald grant. The school, one of the largest and best-equipped of the early schools, opened in 1922 with Calloway as principal. In the same year, Chapel Hill, Fletchertown, Duckettsville, Dupont Heights, Glenarden, Upper Marlboro, Muirkirk, and Oxon Hill also constructed schools. A school in Forestville was built in 1923. In 1924, Colored School 2 in Election District 6 (Camp Springs School), designed by architect Russell Mitchell, opened, and also a school in North Brentwood. Lakeland Elementary School (the John C. Johnson School) opened in 1926. Also in 1926, construction began on the T.B. School near Brandywine, designed by Raleigh, North Carolina, architects Linthicum and Linthicum, who also designed the Bowie School, Community High School in Lakeland, Ridgeley School, Westwood, Laurel, Capitol Heights and the Highland Park School, all completed in the period from 1926–1928. In Collington, Colored School 2 in Election District 7 opened in 1927 serving seven grades. The now much-altered Clinton School (Colored School 1, Election District 9) was typical of the larger, two-room schools and opened the same year. The Meadows School (Colored School 2 in Election District 9) was completed in 1929, and in 1930 Brandywine, Mitchellville, and Holly Grove built schools. The Ridgeley School is the most intact of the surviving Rosenwald Schools in Prince George’s County. Ridgeley followed the elementary school prototype of two large classrooms with a central passage, two cloakrooms and an industrial room. This school was the first purpose-built school for the community; previously, classes were held in a “benevolent hall” associated with the Ridgely Methodist Episcopal Church. Today the school has been restored to its appearance in the 1940s.

In more densely settled areas, African-Americans used Rosenwald funds to construct secondary schools. In 1928, both the Community High School in Lakeland and the Highland Park School opened, both partially constructed with Rosenwald funds. The school in Lakeland drew students from the northwestern part of the county; the Highland Park School served the north-central section. (South county was already served by Marlboro High School, which opened in 1921.)

Two schools survive from the post-Rosenwald period. The Woodville School, constructed in 1934, is a rare and outstanding example of a rural school house. Situated in Aquasco, the Woodville School was the largest elementary school in the county constructed for AfricanAmericans during this period. Although the Rosenwald school program had ended two years earlier, the new Woodville School took advantage of outside assistance from the federal government. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration provided the labor to construct the school, using materials provided by the county Board of Education. The much smaller Poplar Hill School was built in 1936 in the rural community of Baden to replace the 1878 school building. The small size and idiosyncratic form of the school may indicate that AfricanAmericans designed and built the school themselves.

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EDUCATION African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

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The west classroom in the newly-restored Ridgeley Rosenwald School. The reproduction light fixtures are replicas of an original found in the crawl space during the restoration.

See page 127.

Prince George’s County Rosenwald Schools Rosenwald schools listed by year of construction.

The nine extant schools are shown in bold. Since the two Chapel Hill schools were constructed in different years, there are 28 schools shown here; 27 communities had Rosenwald schools.

Years of Construction

Number Constructed

Community/School Name

1921–1922

1

Buena Vista (Lincoln)

1922–1923

8

Chapel Hill (1), Duckettsville, Dupont Heights, Fletchertown, Glenarden, Upper Marlboro, Muirkirk, Oxon Hill

1923–1924

1

Forestville

1924–1925

2

Brentwood (North Brentwood), Camp Springs

1925–1926

7

Chapel Hill (2), Laurel, Lakeland, T.B., Westwood, Capitol Heights

1926–1927

4

Bowie, Clinton, Collington, Ridgeley

1928–1929

3

Community High School (Lakeland), Highland Park, Meadows

1929–1930

3

Brandywine, Mitchellville, Holly Grove

Bowie State University grew out of the Baltimore Normal School for Colored Teachers, founded in 1865.

Colored Normal Schools were especially important in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As the difficulty of maintaining Freedmen’s Bureau Schools illustrates, a cadre of well-trained African-American teachers was critical for the educational effort needed after emancipation. In the late-nineteenth century, only 35 of the 210 teachers employed in the Baltimore Colored School System were African-American.

Teaching had practical applications that appealed to white philanthropy. Moreover, the aspirations embodied in a normal school devoted to teacher training were less threatening to the established order than those of a liberal-arts institution such as Howard University. In 1908, Maryland took over the assets of the Baltimore Colored Normal School, promising to support it. In June 1910, the state purchased land near Bowie, and by September, 1911, the Maryland Normal and Industrial School at Bowie had opened.

In 1938, the institution became the Maryland State Teachers College at Bowie, offering a four-year degree.

In 1963 the name again changed, this time to Bowie State College, recognizing the liberal arts as well as teaching curricula. In terms of the role Prince George’s County played for African-Americans in the twentieth century, Bowie State University holds particular significance as Maryland’s first African-American post-secondary school. Even though none of the school’s original buildings remain, the university reflects the evolution in the political and educational status of African-Americans throughout the state.

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EDUCATION African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

ABOVE: Early twentiethcentury houses along Banner Street in North Brentwood today.

Suburban Settlement in the County: The African-American Experience 1896–1964

O

ne of the defining characteristics of Prince George’s County in the twentieth century has been its development as a suburb of Washington, D.C. Beginning in the late-nineteenth century, African-Americans established nine communities along trolley routes and railroads running to the District of Columbia. These communities attracted an upwardlymobile population with stable occupations. Affiliations such as kinship, professional, or school networks often directed settlement. Towns such as North Brentwood, Fairmount Heights, Glenarden, and Eagle Harbor all established municipal governments in the early twentieth century. Other communities such as Ardwick, Fletchertown, Lincoln, and Highland Park coalesced around schools and/or existing predominantly black settlements. Although the earliest suburbs in North Brentwood and Fairmount Heights were subdivided by whites, blacks quickly assumed responsibility for civic functions. By 1908, African-Americans were developing and subdividing land themselves in Lincoln; in the 1920s,William Bean developed a waterfront community, Eagle Harbor, as a resort community for his fellow AfricanAmericans located along the Patuxent River.

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African-Americans in Prince George’s County maintained close ties with Washington, D.C.

During the late-nineteenth and early twentieth century, AfricanAmericans throughout the country viewed the District of Columbia as the cultural center of black America. Post-Civil War expansion of the federal government and black participation in Congress opened the city for individual advancement.1 Much of the early suburban development in Prince George’s County is inextricably linked to the continued growth of black middle-class employment in the District. As Howard University, the District of Columbia Colored Schools, and the federal government created new jobs for skilled and unskilled workers, teachers and professionals, the ranks of this new middle class swelled.

African-Americans in Prince George’s County maintained close ties with Washington, D.C.; the Washington Bee regularly covered events in Fairmount Heights, Bowie, Lakeland, and Lincoln.

Black settlement patterns in the District facilitated suburban settlement in nearby Prince George’s County. Washington offered a powerful social and economic draw for African-Americans, however, chronic housing shortages plagued the city. The situation for blacks was particularly dire. Former slaves flooded the city during and after the Civil War, overwhelming the ability of the free black community to provide for them. At the turn of the twentieth century, as development moved north of Florida Avenue and across Rock Creek, much of the newly subdivided land was subject to racial covenants restricting ownership to white gentiles. Settlement patterns in the District drew African-Americans eastward across the Anacostia River and into the northeast quadrant of Washington. Small farms were subdivided and houses constructed.

The streetcars that promoted development outside the original boundaries of the District of Columbia intensified development in the eastern portions of the city and spurred suburban development in Prince George’s County. By 1898, the City and Suburban Railway, which ran along Rhode Island Avenue, connected North Brentwood with the District. In 1908, the Washington, Baltimore and Annapolis (WB&A) Electric Railway opened its main line, which ran through Prince George’s County near Seat Pleasant and then east of Bowie. That same year the town of Lincoln was platted and the Fairmount Heights Mutual Improvement Company formed.

North Brentwood, platted in 1896, was the first land subdivided for African-Americans in the county. In 1887 Captain Wallace A. Bartlett 1

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In the years after the Civil War, federal government employment provided for a degree of professionalism and security found in few other cities.

Certain high-level patronage posts (for example, Recorder of Deeds) have been traditionally held by African-Americans.

SUBURBAN SETTLEMENT African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

purchased land near the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia for subdivision. Bartlett, who had commanded Colored Troops during the Civil War, encouraged African-Americans to purchase some of the smaller, less desirable lots in the northern section of the subdivision where the Randall family were the first to buy lots. In 1898 the trolley line was extended to the community. By 1904 the community boasted 23 houses, a school, and a church congregation, which met in one of the member’s homes.

The development of Fairmount Heights in 1900 proceeded in a similar fashion. Allen C. Clark and Robinson White, both white men, purchased existing farms and subdivided the land for housing. As with North Brentwood, Clark was particularly sympathetic to the plight of African-Americans. His father, Appleton Prentiss Clark, “took a great interest in the colored people of the District.” Born in Boston, the senior Clark was an active Republican who promoted African-American voting rights.2 A majority of the people who bought lots in Fairmount Heights worked for government agencies. In 1908, the Washington Bee noted that “most of the residents of Fairmount Heights are employees and business men of some sort in the city of Washington, and it is easy to see from the appearance of their beautiful homes just the class of people they are.” Residents included a cross-section of the black middle class: architects, a carpenter, a brick mason, a Pullman porter, Supervisors of Colored Schools, a White House steward, messengers at the Government Printing Office and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Another common factor early settlers shared was a connection with Tuskegee Institute. William Sidney Pittman, who married Booker T. Washington’s daughter Portia, was a Tuskegee graduate, as was James F. Armstrong.

Later towns such as Lincoln and Eagle Harbor were subdivided and developed by AfricanAmericans. In 1908, Thomas Junius Calloway, a Washington attorney and businessman, platted Lincoln as a semi-rural retreat for blacks living in the District, Annapolis, and Baltimore. Located along the newly opened WB&A Railroad, Lincoln was centered on a small, crescent-shaped park opposite the railroad station. The rural town lay within a wooded setting a short distance from a school. Calloway credited the black architect Isaiah Hatton with establishing high architectural standards for the community. He also said the community had placed “practically all our business of designing into his hands.”

Looking north on 59th Avenue, Fairmount Heights, 1990. The street looks much the same today.

In 1910, William R. Smith began assembling land for Glenarden, a town along the WB&A. The 1913 plat for Glenarden displays a plan similar to Lincoln, with lots radiating from a semi-circular park. By 1920, 25 families had settled in Glenarden. Most of the residents were railroad employees, working for either the Pennsylvania Railroad or the WB&A. In 1922, St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church opened and the community constructed a Rosenwald school. Both were situated in the section of Glenarden known as Ardwick Park.

2

Founded in 1854 by anti-slavery expansion advocates, the Republican Party was traditionally the favored political party of African-Americans. It was not until the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt that black voters would move en masse to the Democratic Party as part of the New Deal Coalition.

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In 1903, William Stanton Wormley, scion of the Wormley family of Washington, D.C., one of the most prominent African-American families in the country, purchased an existing house near the road to Bladensburg. The house was situated near Ardwick Station, a stop along the Pennsylvania Railroad line between Washington and Baltimore. Wormley, a wealthy artist, taught in the D.C. Colored School system. His Ardwick house functioned as a country retreat where Wormley and other black professionals could enjoy recreational pursuits such as tennis and trapshooting on the weekends. Several of Wormley’s friends purchased or constructed nearby houses, establishing a small community.

T

he now-vanished 28-acre subdivision of North Kenilworth was platted in 1911

by Washington, D.C., real estate developer Alfred Shaw for African-Americans. A white man, Shaw sold parcels to 54 African-American buyers. Very few structures were ever built, and only seven remained by 1940. Little information about these houses is available; in 1919 an advertisement in the Washington Post described some as “small bungalows.”3 Now part of the Town of Cheverly, by the late 1960s all of the acreage had come to be owned by The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. This early subdivision is now the location of the Euclid Street Park at the southwest quadrant of Greenleaf Road and Crest Avenue.

The larger communities shared some common characteristics. The subdivisions (North Brentwood, Fairmount Heights, Lincoln, Glenarden) consisted of small, affordable lots that could be combined to yield larger house sites. Unlike contemporary white subdivisions in which streets of houses were constructed on a speculative basis, development in these subdivisions proceeded piecemeal. African-Americans in the early twentieth century did not have the access to capital for development of speculative streets of houses. There are only two known instances where groups of multiple houses were constructed: the “Rosita” bungalows in Fairmount Heights and the three Owings houses in North Brentwood. In both instances, the developer possessed sufficient capital to construct multiple dwellings and carry them as rental property. Comparison of original plats of these towns with Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps shows that early houses were scattered throughout subdivisions rather than clustered. North Brentwood had a particularly unprepossessing appearance. In a 1947 recollection, an early inhabitant described his impression of the town in 1905 as “one of the most pitiful-looking villages he had ever seen, with a population of 65 and no churches or grocery stores. There was one coal, wood and ice dealer, one 16 x 12 frame public school, 16 dwellings scattered over 25 acres of the eastern part of 100 building lots, and surrounded by a dense, wide grove.”

The desire for a quieter existence and fresh air, the exclusivity of neighbors of similar income levels and values, and the same middle-class aspirations that drew whites to streetcar suburbs, also attracted blacks. In 1908 William Sidney Pittman incorporated the Fairmount Heights Mutual Improvement Association “to develop Fairmount Heights as a viable alternative to inner-city ghetto living.” Advertisements for lots marketed to African-Americans stressed values dear to the middle class: “The first opportunity offered colored people to secure Homes 3

34

Detailed information about the ownership of the parcels can be found in an independent study paper produced for Dr. Donald W. Linebaugh, University of Maryland, “North Kenilworth: Rediscovering an Early Twentieth Century African-American Subdivision,” by Kristie Kendall, Fall 2008.

SUBURBAN SETTLEMENT African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

Rock-faced concrete block employed in the column bases at the 1925 Lancaster House (Historic Resource 80-018-05) on Old Fort Road in Chapel Hill.

on Weekly payments of 50 cents a week….Stores, churches and schools already built; the most healthful spot in the State of Maryland.” In 1912, the Washington Bee noted that the Cornelius Fonville House in Fairmount Heights had a “cellar, furnace and all modern improvements.” Segregation helped create self-sustaining communities. Thomas J. Calloway wrote that “Lincoln, Maryland has a plan to establish without restriction to race, but primarily by, for, and of colored persons, a community with its own municipal government, schools, churches, commercial and industrial life.” The philosophy of racial solidarity and self-help became one of the few strategies available in this era. As Calloway stated, “If the future of Lincoln can be prophesied from its brief past, it is destined to meet a situation forced upon the colored people. If we have learned voluntarily to unite in communities of our choosing, then, and not until then, will we, as a race, learn to feed, clothe, and house ourselves.”

Given these aspirations, it is not surprising that housing typologies and architectural styles in black suburban neighborhoods closely track those found in white neighborhoods. For example, the ubiquitous four-square and suburban bungalow are among the most common house forms in the African-American suburbs such as North Brentwood and Fairmount Heights. Even Isaiah Hatton, a highly skilled black architect who designed the elegant Whitelaw Hotel and the Southern Aid Society/Dunbar Theatre, built an unpretentious four-square for himself at 5502 Center Avenue in Lincoln. The characteristic front or wrap-around porches are a particularly poignant reminder of the attraction of African-American suburbs such as Fairmount Heights. Not only do they take advantage of the fresh air and sunshine associated with suburban life, they also signal the freedom to create a communal life within these communities.

SUBURBAN SETTLEMENT African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

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A

s with houses built by and for the white middle class in the early twentieth century, houses constructed by and for the black middle class during the same period often employed the use of pattern book and catalogue plans. Molded concrete block was a favorite construction material. Both relate to the way in which construction technology was adapted to a mass market in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Sears, Roebuck and Co. kit houses, whose lumber was numbered for assembly, were particularly well-adapted to cooperative, do-it-yourself construction in railroad-accessible towns. The 19 small bungalows constructed by developer Robinson White in 1920s Fairmount Heights closely resembled the Sears, Roebuck “Rosita” model. Individuals also built single houses from Sears’ designs.

Between 1922 and 1924, Prince Albert Washington and his friends constructed Washington’s House (Sears, Roebuck Model 3085), an attractive bungalow known as the “Westly,” from plans and materials the company supplied. Similarly, rockfaced concrete block was a material ideal for self-help endeavors. Using a commonly available machine, builders could produce block in their backyards. Cheaper to lay than brick, rockfaced block simulated the solidity and appearance of stone at a much lower cost. Although inventors secured various patents for methods of manufacturing concrete blocks, the use of concrete block did not become widespread until Harmon Palmer started the Hollow Building Block Company in 1902, selling a machine that spawned numerous imitators. By 1917, the Sears’ catalogue offered machines for $42.50, considerably less than their original $200 cost. Ease of operation combined with low cost led to countless backyard operations. Sears offered designs for concrete block houses in addition to their more well-known designs for prefabricated frame houses. Men employed in the building trades were often among the first to accept the new technology, using it in their own houses and houses constructed for friends.

The manufacture of concrete block was particularly appealing to African-Americans because it lent itself to self-help and because of their experience in masonry-related building trades. African-Americans boasted a long tradition of working as masons and dominated the trade of cement-finishing even after construction unions forced them out of other skilled work in the building trades. In the county’s black neighborhoods, molded concrete block appears in the foundations of numerous houses, such as Louis Brown’s Fairmount Heights house. St. Mark’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Laurel is constructed almost entirely of rockfaced concrete block. Accounts credit George Levi, described as “a laborer experienced in masonry,” with molding the block.

Local African-American construction workers and laborers built many of the houses in the early suburbs. For example, workers cut lumber and made bricks on site for the D.S.S. Goodloe House in Bowie, constructed for the first principal of the Maryland Normal and Industrial School (now Bowie State University). Samuel Hargrove, a mason, likely built his own house in Fairmount Heights. Displaying a variety of pressed-brick motifs commonly found in urban row houses, Hargrove’s house probably incorporates a number of his signature brick patterns. Carpenters Frank and Benjamin Holland, who worked with Isaiah Hatton, constructed many of the houses in Lincoln.

Louis Brown, a carpenter, constructed several houses in Fairmount Heights, including his own house at 701 58th Avenue. Another individual associated with building and construction is interior designer George W. McKenzie in North Brentwood.

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SUBURBAN SETTLEMENT African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

Using organizational models developed from founding churches and building Freedmen’s Bureau Schools, African-Americans in these towns proceeded to assume the functions of municipal self-control. Civic associations and clubs provided the organizational structure for their efforts. Even after the towns of North Brentwood, Fairmount Heights, and Glenarden were incorporated, civic organizations continued to play an important role in the community. Because African-Americans continued to struggle for state educational money, clubs and citizens associations held fundraisers that provided money for new schools and capital improvements. This model was also used to construct civic buildings, such as Glenarden’s town hall.

North Brentwood, one of the earliest communities, exhibits a pattern typical of these towns. Building upon organizational efforts required to petition for a school house, in 1906, citizens formed a civic association. Jeremiah Hawkins became president of the association. Hawkins then spearheaded the effort that resulted in North Brentwood’s incorporation in 1924. North Brentwood was the first African-American municipality in Prince George’s County to be incorporated; Hawkins became its first mayor. In Fairmount Heights, William Sidney Pittman formed the Fairmount Heights Citizen’s Association shortly after he and his wife moved to the community. By 1912 the community constructed the Fairmount Heights Elementary School and formed a volunteer fire company in 1917. The movement to incorporate the town began in the 1920s and Fairmount Heights incorporated in 1935.

In 1922, the town of Glenarden constructed a Rosenwald School. Resident W. H. Swann led the community organization, the Glenarden Civic Association. In 1939, Glenarden became the third African-American community in Prince George’s County to incorporate.

Glenarden, which housed about 60 families at this time, elected Swann as their first mayor. During his two year term, Swann established a police force, utility service, and road improvements. Citizens formed the Town Hall Club to raise money for the first Town Hall, demonstrating the continued vitality of club organization for municipal fund-raising.

When the Board of Education rebuffed the efforts of Lincoln and Buena Vista to obtain a new school, the “Community Club” launched a fund-raising drive that extended into the pages of the Washington Bee, soon meeting the requirements for a Rosenwald school. Although Lincoln never incorporated, its citizens association acted as a de facto government, functioning as a city council, public works department, and parks commission.

The growth of the African-American middle class in the region spurred the development of resort communities. By the second quarter of the twentieth century, blacks in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Annapolis, and Prince George’s County had sufficient wealth and leisure time that the demand for recreation increased. Segregation extended to parks, beaches, hotels, and amusement venues, creating a demand for places that catered to AfricanAmericans. In 1925, inspired by the success of the black leisure community at Highland Beach in Anne Arundel County, Walter L. Bean began buying land adjacent to Trueman Point, a steamboat landing on the Patuxent River near Aquasco. Bean platted the land for a resort serving African-Americans in Washington, D.C. While wealthy individuals like

SUBURBAN SETTLEMENT African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

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Looking towards the Patuxent in Eagle Harbor.

38

William Wormley and some of the early residents in Lincoln could always purchase rural retreats, little was available for the urban middle class. Opening a sales office in the heart of Washington’s African-American community in Shaw, Bean offered lots for no more than $50. Advertisements for the resort boasted 4,000 feet of sandy beach and the forthcoming construction of a $50,000 hotel. Recreational activities included boating, fishing, camping, bathing, and sports. Scores of people began constructing small summer cottages and the town was incorporated in 1929. Eagle Harbor continues as a popular summer community.

SUBURBAN SETTLEMENT African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

Archeology

JENNIFER A. STABLER, Ph.D.

P

rince George’s County’s preservation ordinance, enacted in 1981, protects hundreds of landmark buildings. In order to identify and protect belowground historic resources, the county Planning Board in 2004 began requiring archeological investigations prior to development. In November 2005 the County Council approved legislation1 “to protect archeological sites that are significant to understanding of the history of human settlement in Prince George’s County.”2 “Significant archeological sites identified in accordance with the Planning Board’s Guidelines for Archeological Review should be preserved in place, to the extent practicable and should be interpreted as appropriate.” The program has identified the remains of enslaved persons, a standing slave cabin, and has gathered important information about the lives of African-Americans throughout the county’s history. Since almost no standing structures built and occupied by African-Americans survive from the pre-Civil War period, archeology is one of the few means available to reconstruct early lifeways. Archeology can provide insight into the material existence of African-Americans, as well as their religious beliefs, resistance strategies, and diet.

Archeology is one of the few means available to reconstruct early lifeways.

From its earliest days, the county’s economy was based on agriculture and particularly on the cultivation of tobacco, which remained its staple crop through the late twentieth century. During the 1600s, white indentured servants imported from England supplied the labor force for tobacco plantations. As economic conditions improved in England by the late 1600s, these servants were gradually being replaced by enslaved laborers imported from Africa and the West Indies. The plantation became the most common type of settlement in the county. Towns formed along the Patuxent and Potomac Rivers at landings established for the shipment of tobacco to foreign markets. It is within this context that African-Americans established social and community ties across the landscape of Prince George’s County.

Large plantations were located close to the major waterways in the county. Small planters tended to be located in areas without a direct access to navigable waterways and sold their crops to the larger planters for export. Throughout the colonial period, a majority of the African-American inhabitants of the county resided on plantations, although there was always a small free black population. Because many of the structures housing enslaved laborers were constructed of temporary materials and were abandoned after emancipation in 1865, few of these buildings survive today.3 1 2 3

(CB-92-2005) to add provisions to the Subdivision Regulations: 24-104 (12).

Ibid; 24-121(18).

Antebellum Plantations in Prince George’s County, Maryland: A Historic Context and Research Guide (2009) outlines the development of plantations throughout the county from its establishment in 1696 to emancipation in 1865. The study is divided into three temporal periods, the Early Period (1696– 1730), the Colonial Period (1731–1790), and the National Period (1791–1864). Large (20 or more enslaved laborers), medium (10–19 enslaved laborers), and small (1–9 enslaved laborers) plantations are discussed, along with their spatial organization. The least-documented plantations are those from

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ARCHEOLOGY African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

Harmony Hall Historic Site 80-024-11, 18PR305 Archeological investigations at Harmony Hall revealed the remains of an earthfast structure dating to the 1690s to the east of the extant brick Georgian building. The original frame house on the property was built around 1692

by Thomas Lewis on the Battersea land grant. After his death circa 1696, the property passed to Lewis’ son, Richard Lewis. No indentured servants or slaves are noted in his inventory. William Tyler acquired the property in 1709 and resided there until his death in 1721. Tyler’s inventory lists “one Negro man, one Negro woman, and two white man servants, the one having 12 and the other 13 months to serve.” These inventories, recorded within a span of 20 years, reflect the changing labor patterns in early Prince George’s County. In the early 1700s, planters were utilizing indentured servants, along with enslaved Africans to fill their labor needs. Outbuildings associated with the earlier earthfast structure may have been destroyed by construction of the brick house in the 1760s or are located in areas not yet investigated. However, it would not be unusual in this period for the indentured servants and enslaved Africans to inhabit the same dwelling as the property owner.

Addison Plantation 18PR175 The Addison Plantation or Oxon Hill Manor was a large establishment located on the Potomac River on land that today lies within the National Harbor development.

Remains of an earthfast house built by Colonel John Addison as early as 1687 were found in archeological investigations on the property. Addison’s son Thomas inherited Oxon Hill Manor at the death of his father in 1705. Thomas Addison resided on the property until his death in 1727 and presumably began construction of a two-story brick manor house around 1711. Listed in Thomas Addison’s 1727 inventory were 75 enslaved laborers, including one “Indian man,” and three white indentured servants. Twenty-three of the enslaved laborers were lodged near the mansion house and others were dispersed among seven quarters or outlying plantations. Colonel Thomas Addison’s inventory also mentions a “Negroe’s room” located in a shed attached to the main house.

Charms and rituals were often employed in traditional West African religions to serve as protection or to influence events and people. These rituals are rarely discussed in written texts, but can be identified through archeological investigations. Two finds around the manor house may be related to the religious and spiritual beliefs of the AfricanAmerican enslaved laborers on the Plantation. In the southeastern room of the cellar, a straight-sided redware crock dating to the early 1800s was found buried beneath the the Early Period. Several plantation houses from that era survive, but no separate slave quarters are known to be extant. Small slaveholding plantations in the Early Period typically consisted of the plantation owner, his family, several white indentured servants, and possibly some African enslaved laborers. Servants and enslaved laborers were likely lodged in the main house or in the various outbuildings. Archeological investigations have provided valuable information on plantation layout during the Early and Colonial periods, and the relationship between the plantation owner and the enslaved laborers.

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floor. The crock was likely used to hide an object of special value or may have held a charm to protect certain individuals or the house.4 A second deposit was found within the earthfast house at the top of the passageway leading from the cellar. Three wine bottles were turned upside down; possibly they were used as bowls for a ritual purpose.

Marbury Site

ABOVE: Three wine bottles at the Addison Plantation site. (Courtesy Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory.) BELOW: Iron hoe blades at the Marbury Site. (Courtesy Greenhorne & O’Mara, Inc.)

18PR833 The Marbury site represents a small plantation that was occupied from about 1714 to the 1750s that is located near the crossroad village of T.B. in southern Prince George’s County. It comprises the remains of a middling plantation with a domestic residence, a detached kitchen, and a work area that contained two earthfast structures separated from the main house by a fence or screen.

The residence was built for Francis Marbury on the Apple Hill land patent around the time of his second marriage in 1714. At the time of his death in 1734, Francis Marbury had 11 children by two wives and held nine enslaved laborers. Francis Marbury’s son, Luke, occupied the dwelling until about 1750, when he began construction of Wyoming (Historic Site 81B-004) a few miles to the north.

Francis Marbury possibly employed the use of indentured servants when he first established his plantation, but by 1734 was relying solely on African slave labor to work his land and serve his household.

Enslaved laborers worked in the detached kitchen and in the surrounding fields and likely lived in a segregated area within the main house, as well as in an outbuilding separated by a fence. A circular pit feature located within one of the buildings in the work area contained four iron hoe blades oriented towards the cardinal directions (north, east, south, west). These blades and their placement may be associated with African religious practices.

Richard Duckett Site 18PR705: The Richard Duckett site provides insight into the layout of a large plantation during the 1700s and the relationship between the owner of the plantation and the enslaved laborers. The site is located to the north of Woodmore Road within the Waterford housing development. It comprises the remains of a plantation manor house, associated residential structures and slave quarters, domestic 4

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John P. McCarthy 2010. Oxon Hill Manor: The Archaeology and History of “A World They Made Together.” Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum and Maryland Historical Trust: St. Leonard, MD. p. 20.

ARCHEOLOGY African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

outbuildings, and farm outbuildings housing about 20 individuals and dating from the late 1720s to the 1790s. Duckett was a large slaveholder and aspiring planter. His plantation was larger than the Marbury site, contained more outbuildings, extended over a larger area, and was active for a longer period of time. Duckett held 17 slaves at the time of his death. The domestic core of the plantation contained the manor house, kitchen, meat house, wash house, and tenant or slave quarters. Quarters for the enslaved laborers were separated from the main house by the kitchen and a yard area. An area to the south of the domestic core contained supporting structures, such as animal pens, barns, and work sheds. It is possible that some of the enslaved laborers on the Richard Duckett plantation were also housed in these buildings. Separate quarters were established near the work areas and close to outlying fields.

Thomas Claggett Plantation 18PR398 The site of Thomas Claggett’s plantation is located near the intersection of Croom Road and Croom Airport Road. Richard Clagett acquired the 1,100-acre Croome land grant in 1721 and combined it with adjoining land to form a tract encompassing 1535 acres by 1734. After his death in 1752, his land was eventually devised to his grandson, the Reverend Thomas John Claggett, the first Episcopal bishop ordained in the United States, who held 22 slaves in 1800 and 31 by 1810.

Bishop Claggett built a house on the Croom plantation in the 1780s and was living there at the time of his death in 1816. Archeological investigations have identified four sites representing the remains of slave cabins to the east of the plantation house, located on several ridges cut by a tributary of Southwest Branch. All of the sites contained artifacts dating from the late 1700s to the early 1800s. It appears that Claggett placed the housing for his enslaved laborers on ridges so that they would have been easily visible from the plantation house, close to a water source, and on land that was not cultivated, but was close to the fields. Land comprising the Croom plantation was eventually acquired by the Reverend John Hamilton Chew, who was married to Bishop Claggett’s granddaughter, Sophia Claggett. The Croom plantation house was occupied by the heirs of Bishop Claggett until it burned in 1858. Abandonment of the slave cabins appears to have coincided with the destruction of the house, as no artifacts from the late 1800s were found on the sites. Additional investigations will be conducted on two of the slave cabin sites that contained intact cultural deposits and features.

Willow Grove Site 18PR510 An example of the transition between slavery and tenancy, the Willow Grove site is located south of Route 450 in the Westwood housing development. Willow Grove was the home of members of the John Bowie, Sr., family from the early 1700s until the land was sold for development in 1987. Willow Grove was a large plantation of the Early to National Periods. The Willow Grove manor house, remnants of which were identified in archeological investigations, was likely built for Walter Bowie after 1791. Remains of

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Artifacts excavated from Structure 2 at the Willow Grove Archeological Site. (Photo courtesy of Greenhorne & O’Mara, Inc.).

a well, meat house, icehouse, blacksmith shop/slave cabin, other small outbuildings, a formal garden, and family cemetery were identified in the vicinity of the manor house.

Three slave, overseer, or tenant houses were located further from the manor house. The Bowies held a large number of enslaved laborers who served in the main house, tended the gardens, and worked in the fields.

There is evidence that the main house was reoriented in the 1830s, possibly to face Holy Trinity Episcopal Church (Historic Site 71A-009), located to the northeast. The house had originally faced northwest and had a detached kitchen. Enslaved laborers who worked in the manor house likely had their quarters in the detached kitchen or in the attic or basement of the main house. Other enslaved laborers who worked in the immediate vicinity of the house resided in a structure, later converted into a blacksmith shop, that was located downslope from the main house. After the modification of the plantation house in the 1830s, additional outlying structures were built to house enslaved laborers who worked the surrounding fields. These quarters were placed close to the barns and could be accessed from the main house by a separate road. One of the outlying structures identified in the archeological investigations probably served as an overseer’s house.

The organization of labor changed dramatically after the Civil War. Elizabeth L. Bowie, the wife of Richard Bowie, claimed 29 slaves in 1867. According to the 1870 census records, several of the former enslaved laborers on the Willow Grove plantation continued to live on and work the land as tenant farmers, but had moved to other farms by 1880. By 1900, Amelia Belt, the daughter of Richard and Elizabeth Bowie, had inherited the Willow Grove property. The Belts employed a white farm manager and hired African-American families to serve as tenant farmers. The Willow Grove farm continued to be worked by AfricanAmerican tenants throughout the early twentieth century.

An outlying building known as Structure 2, which was likely a slave cabin in the antebellum period, was enlarged in the postbellum period. Structure 2 was located near a complex of barns and the occupants likely cared for the Bowie family’s horses and cattle. A subterranean storage pit used to store food and other goods for the enslaved

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occupants contained artifacts from the early to mid-1800s. The pit was no longer used after emancipation and the house was enlarged with a 12 by 18 foot addition. Artifacts from the late 1800s and early 1900s were also identified in Structure 2. Some of these artifacts include lamp glass, medicine bottles, ceramic doll parts, marbles, a writing slate and a graphite pencil.

A second structure (Structure 5), located to the south of the main house, probably represents a tenant house built prior to the 1890s. Artifacts such as lamp glass, ceramic doll parts, bottle glass, Mason jars, glass beads, coins, glass marbles, and a pocket watch were recovered. Most of the artifacts date to the period after the Civil War, indicating Structure 5 was a tenant house.

Salubria Historic Site 80-002, 18PR692 Salubria was built about 1827 for Dr. John H. Bayne, a prominent physician in Prince George’s County. Dr. Bayne was elected to the House of Delegates in 1841 and served as a surgeon in the Union Army during the Civil War. After the war he served as the first president of the Board of County School Commissioners and as Superintendent until 1869. Dr. Bayne was also active in agricultural pursuits and cultivated the modern-day strawberry. After two of Dr. Bayne’s young sons died within days of each other in 1834, a 14-year-old slave girl named Judah confessed to poisoning them with arsenic. Judah also confessed to poisoning Bayne’s infant daughter two years earlier and to attempting to burn the house down. Judah was tried in Upper Marlboro and was hanged for her crimes. Census records list two free blacks and four slaves occupying the Salubria plantation in 1840 and 15 slaves in 1850. By 1860, Dr. Bayne held 19 slaves who were housed in three slave quarters. Between 1840 and 1858, Dr. Bayne placed ads for three of his slaves who had run away from Salubria. Although he was a slave owner, Dr. Bayne supported the Union during the Civil War and worked to provide education to freed slaves after the war. Salubria and all but one of its outbuildings have been demolished. One structure that was later converted to a guest house may incorporate a former slave cabin in its construction. Future archeological investigations will be conducted on the property to attempt to identify the function of this structure prior to the Civil War and to further illuminate the African-American history of the site.

Fairview Plantation Historic Site 71A-013, 18PR707 About one-and-one-half miles to the south of Willow Grove lies the Fairview plantation, now located within the Fairwood subdivision. A house built for Baruch Duckett is listed in the Federal Direct Tax of 1798 as a frame dwelling 30 feet square, along with two “Negro houses.” (The existing house on the property was built around 1800.) Baruch Duckett died at Fairview in 1810 and devised the property to his son-in-law, William Bowie. Members of the William Bowie family retain ownership of the house to this day. Baruch Duckett and his Bowie heirs were large slave holders. Archeological investigations revealed the remains of two cabins situated behind

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the plantation house. These were occupied by enslaved laborers prior to the Civil War and were used as tenant houses afterwards. The Fairview plantation also illustrates the transition from slavery to tenancy.

The first structure to the northwest of Fairview is known as the “cook’s cabin” and dates to the late 1700s. It was occupied by cooks and/or other domestic laborers for the plantation. The cabin was approximately 16 feet by 30 feet and consisted of two rooms separated by a wall containing a two-sided fireplace. This structure was larger and more substantial than typical slave cabins, an indication of the relatively higher status of the occupants. Children’s toys recovered during the investigation show that entire families lived in the cabin, and certain artifacts (e.g., blue beads) demonstrate the continuance and preservation of certain African and African-American traditions.

The investigation of the “cook’s cabin” yielded a large number of artifacts that contribute to a greater understanding of conditions in these quarters. Several artifacts with a military theme, including two tobacco pipe bowls—one embossed with crossed rifles and the other with an eagle, shield and sword—and a metal Civil War button from a Union artillery unit were found, along with a brick incised with the number “65.” Perhaps one of the former enslaved laborers on the Fairview plantation served in the Civil War and returned to the farm afterwards to work as a tenant farmer or laborer. Coins unearthed from this structure suggest it was occupied into the 1940s.

The tenant house at Fairview.

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Two additional buildings were identified to the north of the “cook’s cabin” and farther from the main house. Basil and Lizzie Wood were enslaved laborers at Fairview until they were emancipated in 1865 by Maryland’s new constitution. Census records show

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they were married in 1865 and continued to reside in the northern building until their deaths in the 1920s. Both were buried in the Bowie family cemetery to the east of the main house. Lizzie worked in the Fairview mansion, while Basil served as a farm laborer.

One of the buildings burned and a new cinder block tenant house was built on the same spot. Children’s toys (e.g., marbles, dolls) found in the vicinity of the structure imply the presence of families. Most tenants raised their own gardens to feed their families; garden staples included white potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips and greens. Much of the extra food was canned and remnants of canning jars were recovered in the excavations.

Molly Berry Site 18PR787 The Molly Berry Site represents another slave cabin later converted to a tenant house. The site is associated with a large plantation near the Patuxent River, Brookefield of the Berrys (Historic Site 86A-020). Construction of the house at Brookefield of the Berrys was begun in 1810 by John Duvall. Duvall fell into financial difficulty and the property was obtained by Robert W. Bowie of Mattaponi in 1828. An advertisement placed by Bowie in the Marlboro Gazette and National Intelligencer newspapers in 1839 states that Bowie will “also offer...8 or 10 likely young Negroes and the stock and farming utensils on the place.” John Thomas Berry acquired the property in 1839 and completed the house in the 1840s. Berry owned a plantation consisting of at least 600 acres and was a large slaveholder.

Tobacco was the main crop grown on Berry’s plantation. Census records show that Berry held 28 enslaved laborers in 1840, 29 in 1850, and 41 in 1860. According to the 1860 census there were also four slave houses on the plantation.

ABOVE: The Molly Berry Slave Cabin.

BELOW: A comb and a button recovered from the Molly Berry Site. (Photo courtesy of Greenhorn & O’Mara, Inc.).

The 1870 and 1880 census records show that many African-American tenant farmers resided next to and near John T. Berry. Many of those listed probably were working as tenants on the Brookefield of the Berrys farm and other former plantations. John T. Berry died in 1884 and his plantation passed to his sons, William P. Berry and Roger Bernard Berry. William Berry continued to farm the portion of the property to the east of Molly Berry Road containing the old plantation house. African-American tenant farmers are shown residing next to

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William P. Berry in the 1900 census. William Berry died in 1904 and his estate was divided between his widow, Mary, and his son, William P. Berry, Jr. Mary Berry, known as Molly Berry, continued to live at Brookefield of the Berrys with her daughter, Caroline Berry. Molly Berry continued to operate the farm with African-American tenant farmers as indicated by the 1910, 1920, and 1930 census records. Caroline Berry remained at Brookefield of the Berrys until her death in 1976, A ten-acre parcel containing the old plantation house and several outbuildings was sold in 1980, separating it from the larger Berry landholdings. What is now known as the Molly Berry slave cabin within the Caroline’s Walk subdivision was located approximately 310 feet north of Brookefield. The cabin was one-and-one-half stories high, faced south towards the main house, and measured 20 x 16 feet. Remains of a brick chimney were found on the east end of the cabin and a brick walkway led from the southern entrance towards Brookefield of the Berrys. The cabin was located between the house and three outbuildings that are visible in 1938 aerial photographs. A yard midden was identified to the west of the house. The presence of artifacts such as creamware and hand-wrought nails indicates occupation of the site in the late 1700s or early 1800s. However, a majority of the artifacts suggest an occupation date from about the 1820s to the early twentieth century. The cabin has been dismantled and is stored in a container on the site.

It is planned to be reassembled as part of the surrounding subdivision.

Clagett House at Cool Spring Manor Historic Site 74B-015, 18PR651 Englishman Guy White acquired 420 acres of the Cool Spring Manor land grant circa 1700. Later patented as White’s Adventure, the property was eventually devised to Joseph White Clagett, who held 26 enslaved laborers in 1790, 24 in 1800, 47 in 1810, and 42 in 1820. The 1798 Federal Direct Tax lists three “Negro houses” 20 by 16 feet and two “Negro houses” 14 by 12 feet on the property. Joseph Clagett died in 1831 and willed the Cool Spring Manor property to his son, William Digges Clagett, who built the existing house in 1830 (Historic Site 74B-015). William Clagett held 44 enslaved laborers in 1840, 35 in 1850, and 30 in 1860. There were four slave houses listed on his property in 1860. Tobacco and wheat were the main crops grown on the plantation in the 1800s. William Clagett lost the house and his plantation after the Civil War, and it was then acquired and operated by the Owens family until 1917. After 1917, the farm was operated by tenants.

In 2003 during the excavations for a planned subdivision on the property, an unmarked burial was encountered. Archeologists investigated the find and a remote sensing survey was conducted to determine whether other burials were present. Dr. Douglas Owsley of the Smithsonian Institution assigned a preliminary cultural affiliation of “African-American” to the human remains that were recovered. Additional archeological investigations were conducted to determine the extent of the burial ground and to identify any other archeological remains in the vicinity. One archeological site, 18PR651, was delineated that represents the location of a farmstead or tenant house that was occupied during the mid-to-late 1800s and a burial ground that includes at least

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13Â interments and two possible interments. Artifacts recovered from the disturbed burials and from surface collection around the burial ground indicate the site and cemetery were in use from the 1850s to the early 1900s. The house site was possibly the location of an earlier slave cabin that was converted into a tenant house after the Civil War. Numerous African-American families are found in the census records residing near the Clagett House in the Reconstruction period.

The burial ground identified on the property was likely originally for the enslaved laborers. It continued to be used by the tenants who worked the farm after the Civil War. The burials were left in place and the cemetery remains within the Environmental Setting of the Clagett House at Cool Spring Manor Historic Site. The Cool Spring Manor property was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.

Chew Road Slave Cemetery 82B-047, 18PR879 Several archeological sites, including a slave cemetery, have been identified at the end of Chew Road in Upper Marlboro. These sites are located on a tract of land known as Brook Hill, originally patented to Baker Brook in the late 1600s. Josiah Wilson acquired the 100-acre Brook Hill tract from the heirs of Baker Brook in 1713.

Wilson eventually compiled a 513-acre plantation near the Patuxent River. The property was acquired by Leonard Piles in the 1750s. Piles most likely built a house on the property that is represented by archeological site 18PR878. According to census records, subsequent owners held 12 enslaved laborers in 1800 and eight in 1810. By 1828 several surrounding tracts of land had been acquired and the owner was assessed for 288 acres and 10 enslaved laborers.

During the course of the archeological investigations, local residents noted that they recalled a slave cemetery on the property. A ground-penetrating radar survey was performed in the area where the cemetery was identified. At least 35 interments were noted and the site was recorded as 18PR879. Under later owners, Piles’ house was possibly used as a quarter for enslaved laborers who worked on the outlying portions of the nearby Ellerslie and Mount Calvert plantations. The slave burial ground was probably first used from 1790 to the 1830s. The Chew and Brookes families, later owners of the property, were large slave holders and likely continued to use the burial ground for their enslaved laborers until the 1860s. Although plans for the site have been put on hold, the slave cemetery will be protected from any future development.

John Dodson House Site 18PR890 After the Civil War, some emancipated African-Americans continued to work on the same plantations where they had previously been enslaved. In some cases, such as at Fairview, Willow Grove, and Brookefield of the Berrys, the slave quarters were converted into tenant houses and were occupied by one family. Additional tenant houses were built on the former plantations to accommodate the farm laborers needed to tend to

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the tobacco fields. African-Americans began to establish small concentrated settlements with churches and schools, such as Chapel Hill, Collington, and Fletchertown. Very few structures survive from this early period and few archeological investigations have occurred in these areas.

Churches and schools were important institutions established in the newly-formed communities. In many cases, one building served both purposes. Residents of the surrounding area often served as trustees for the operation of the churches and schools.

Archeological investigations were conducted on the proposed Northam Acres subdivision in 2007. A residential archeological site (18PR890) dating from the early-to-midtwentieth century was identified on the property. John Dodson, a trustee of the nearby Mount Hope African Methodist Episcopal Church, and members of his family owned this property from 1914 to 1955. Mount Hope African Methodist Episcopal Church and cemetery (Historic Site 76B-016) was established about 1891 on a tract of land to the south along Allentown Road and became a community center for Camp Springs’ African-American residents. A school for black children was established near the church in 1902. John Dodson was active in both the Mount Hope Church and school by serving as a trustee; he also provided housing for the school teachers. Although the archeological site had been damaged by the demolition of the house, important historical information on the development of the community near the Mount Hope church and school was obtained from the investigations. An interpretive sign will be placed in the development to commemorate the occupation of the site by the Dodson family.

Aquilla and Lucy Henson House 18PR936 In 2008, the dwelling of Aquilla and Lucy Henson was identified on the proposed Missouri Acres subdivision in Brandywine. The site contained the remains of an early-to-mid-twentieth century house with a well and scatter of surface debris. The dwelling was a frame structure set on eight poured concrete piers, with a brick stove chimney centered within the building and dividing it into two rooms. Several large galvanized tubs, probably used for laundering, were found nearby. The Hensons were likely living on this two-acre tract shortly after their marriage in 1909. However, a deed was not issued to Lucy Henson until 1926. Lucy Henson’s occupation is listed as washing and ironing in the 1910 census, as a nurse in 1920, and as a midwife in 1930; Aquilla Henson was a laborer. The fact that Lucy Henson identified herself as a midwife in 1930 probably indicates that she received some formal training; state governments began to regulate the practice for the purpose of eliminating it in the early twentieth century. At that time, giving birth occurred mainly at home and midwives provided comfort and assistance to women in labor. Most midwives were taught the trade by older family members and lacked formal training. It has not been ascertained when Lucy and Aquilla Henson died, but the site was probably abandoned after their deaths and almost certainly by 1965. An interpretive sign will be placed in the development to commemorate the Henson family’s occupation of the property and Lucy Henson’s role in the community.

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Robert Holland Farmstead 18PR928 Many former enslaved laborers eventually acquired their own farms after emancipation. In 2008, the remains of the Robert Holland farmstead were identified on the proposed Smith property development in Cheltenham. Robert Holland and Mary Ann Johnson were married in December 1880 and possibly built the house represented by site 18PR928 shortly afterwards. Robert Holland purchased 54 acres to the north of the House of Reformation property from Adam Diehl in 1887. Robert Holland’s occupation is listed as farmer in the 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930 census records. Robert Holland died before 1945, when his children asked the Circuit Court to divide his property. The 54-acre tract was sold by trustees appointed by the court to William C. Quade in 1945. Quade then sold the 54 acres to Calvin C. and Lillie May Walking.

The property changed hands several more times in the late twentieth century. The Holland site provides insight into the establishment of African-American family farms in the late nineteenth century. An interpretive sign will be placed in the development to commemorate the occupation of the site by the Holland family.

Notley Hall Amusement Park/Washington Park 18PR311 Notley Hall Amusement park was established about 1894 and operated until 1924 on land that was once part of the Upper Notley Hall (Admirathoria) plantation.

The Notley Hall Association, a black-owned-and-operated amusement park company formed about 1894, established a park on the Potomac waterfront in cooperation with the Independent Steamboat and Barge Company. Steamboat excursions were a popular form of entertainment in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Steamboats originating in Washington, D.C., made regular trips to the park, which offered a dancing pavilion, bowling alley, shooting gallery, and horse rides. Lewis Jefferson, an AfricanAmerican businessman, general contractor, and real estate developer from Washington, D.C., assumed management of the Notley Hall Amusement Park in 1901. Jefferson renamed the resort Washington Park, added a roller coaster, carousel, penny arcade, and fortune-telling tent, built a new wharf and installed electric lighting. Archeological investigations at the site identified 12 features associated with the park, including the remains of some of the park rides, a wooden water tower, a generator building, the power plant and a pier. Several of these features were preserved in an open space area within the Waterside subdivision and an interpretive sign was installed in the development.

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Communities 52

ROSSVILLE African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

Rossville

62-23

Old Muirkirk Road Beltsville vicinity Historic sites (4), historic resources (1)

R

ossville developed out of a community of freedmen who had formed a Methodist congregation (Queen’s Chapel) in 1868. Most of the members lived in the immediate area near Beltsville and Laurel, or in the rural enclave colloquially known as “Swampoodle,” supporting themselves as laborers on local farms or at the nearby Muirkirk Iron Furnace. Nearly 20 years later, after the death of Mark Duvall, a white farmer who owned considerable property in the Vansville area, some of his land became available to these families. In settling Duvall’s estate, the Equity Court ordered the division and sale of 24.8 acres of Duvall’s property which was located just east of Queen’s Chapel; this land was surveyed and divided into 12 unequal lots along the north side of the road between Muirkirk Furnace and Montpelier. Within a year, the 12 lots were purchased by local black families, many of whom were employed at the furnace. By 1889, structures had been erected on all but one lot.

The small community of Rossville remained stable for many years, with second and third generations of the founding families staying in the community. BELOW and LEFT: Celebrations at Abraham Hall.

One of the new landowners, Augustus Ross, gave his name to the community, and his was one of the first houses to be built there.

Other families who built houses in that first year included two of the six founders of Queen’s Chapel. The largest lot was purchased

by Rebecca Lodge 6, Benevolent Sons and Daughters of Abraham; this organization was one of many fraternal orders offering support to members in time of illness and emergency. It is the county’s most visible symbol of the growth during the Reconstruction period of black benevolent societies, which, together with the newly established churches and schools, were the main source of support for newly freed people during this difficult period. The lodge, now known as Abraham Hall, has always been closely associated with Queen’s Chapel, and has remained a focal point in the small community of Rossville.

The new residents of Rossville created their own small farms on their individual properties; many continued to work at the Muirkirk Furnace. Schools for the black children of the area had been established after the Civil War at Muirkirk and at Swampoodle; after the settlement of Rossville a school was opened in Abraham Hall and continued there until the building of a Rosenwald school in 1922.

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62-23-7

Abraham Hall 7612 Old Muirkirk Road Historic site; built 1889 National Register of Historic Places (M-NCPPC)

A

braham Hall is the best example in Prince George’s County of an AfricanAmerican benevolent society lodge. Of crucial importance to its community, the building has been restored and rededicated, the first African-American historic site in Prince George’s County to be fully restored with public funds. This benevolent society lodge was built at the center of the newly developing community of Rossville by Laurel contractor/builder John W. Jackson, who at the same time was assisting with the construction of several of the dwellings in that community. The land was purchased by Rebecca Lodge 6, the Benevolent Sons and Daughters of Abraham, a fraternal organization chartered in 1877 that provided emergency financial assistance to its members. The new lodge building at Rossville, which soon came to be known as Abraham Hall, always had a close association with the nearby Queen’s Chapel Methodist Church, and its charter members were also members of the chapel. Abraham Hall is a twostory front-gabled building of wood frame construction, sheathed with German and plain horizontal siding, painted white. It has a small side wing which is a miniature replica of the main block and which encloses a small kitchen; there is a one-story addition at the rear of the main block. The main block is three bays wide with entrance in the central bay through paneled double doors. The long windows that light the main block are framed by louvered shutters. The interior of the main block consists of one large room on each story, extended on the first story to include a raised stage in the rear. Interior trim is typical of the period: multiband molding with bull’s-eye corner blocks and molded chair-rails surmounting beaded wainscoting. Abraham Hall served not only as a meeting place of the benevolent society, but also as a place of worship after Queen’s Chapel burned in the 1890s, and until the second chapel was completed in 1901. The lodge also served as a schoolhouse before the construction of Muirkirk Rosenwald School in 1922. The lodge was the scene of many camp meetings for the congregations of Queen’s Chapel and other churches of the Laurel Charge. As the community of Rossville has changed over the years, Abraham Hall has remained its focal point. Only two nineteenth-century African-American benevolent society lodges survive in Prince George’s County, a fact that makes this building particularly important. In September 1991, after a long restoration process by M-NCPPC, Abraham Hall was rededicated for public and private use. The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. It is now the headquarters of M-NCPPC’s Black History Program.

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62-23-17

Thomas Matthews House 7700 Old Muirkirk Road Historic site; built 1888

B

uilt for the family of Thomas and Adaline Matthews, the Matthews House is one of the first and most substantial dwellings built in Rossville, and one of few buildings surviving from the earliest period.

Thomas Matthews came from northern Anne Arundel County; in March 1887, he purchased Lot 5 of the new subdivision of Mark Duvall’s land.

Archival records indicate that Matthews bought five shares in the Independent Savings and Building Association, thus receiving $500 with which he began his building project. By 1889, with the help of other members of the new community, he had completed the two-story frame dwelling for his family. Thomas Matthews died before 1895. His wife remained in the community, and in 1895 married Knotley Johnson, who, like Thomas Matthews, had been one of the founders of Queen’s Chapel and an early builder in Rossville. Adaline Matthews Johnson’s house was repossessed by the Building Association and sold in 1908 to Louisa Briggs. During the 1920s, Mrs. Briggs’ son built several small additions in the rear of the house and applied the stucco over the original wood siding. The house remains in good condition and is a reminder of the early Rossville community, and a significant example of substantial home-building by an upwardly progressing black laborer in a new community of his peers. The house was assessed in 1889 at $450, while the other eight houses by then completed were assessed at values ranging from $100 to $250.

The Thomas Matthews House is a side-gabled dwelling of wood frame construction, three bays wide, with entrance in the central bay of the main facade. This house is representative of the traditional I-house form: one parlor on each side of the central stairhall. A kitchen wing is attached at right angles at the center rear of the house.

The original wood siding is currently covered with stucco, painted yellow. A one-story hip-roof porch shelters the entire facade.

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ROSSVILLE African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

62-23-20

Muirkirk Rosenwald School 7813 Muirkirk Road Historic resource; Built 1922

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he Muirkirk School, though considerably altered, is one of the surviving schoolhouses built during the 1920s through the Rosenwald program. It serves now as an American Legion lodge.

The building is one story high, side-gabled and of wood frame construction. The classrooms were originally lighted by banks of windows on the main facade, but all of those windows have been walled over. The central doorway remains as the only opening in this facade. There are two small windows in each of the east and west gable ends. The original wood siding is now covered with beige/gray synthetic siding. This school (Colored School 2 in Election District 1) was built in 1922, as part of the same building effort which saw the completion of the schoolhouses at Chapel Hill, Fletchertown, and Duckettsville. The first school for black children in this area was constructed in 1867 by Charles Coffin, the owner of the Muirkirk

ROSSVILLE African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

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Furnace and employer of many African-American residents of the area.

Although its exact location is uncertain, Coffin’s school must have been located near the furnace complex; in later years, the school was operated by the county’s public school system. After the founding of the Rossville community in 1888, classes were held in the immediate community, at first in the Queen’s Chapel building and afterwards, for approximately 20 years at the turn of the twentieth century, in Abraham Hall. By 1919, the black population of Rossville and surrounding areas began to pressure the County Board of School Commissioners to establish a new school for the community. The board purchased property just south of Rossville on the other side of the public road, and in 1922 bonds were issued by the board to support the construction of schools at Muirkirk (Rossville), Chapel Hill, Fletchertown, and Duckettsville. A building committee was appointed in April of that year, including local residents William Tolliver, Edward T. Gross, and Harry Ross. Like the other schools in this group, the construction of the Rossville school was partially supported by funds from the Rosenwald program. The two-room schoolhouse was completed and opened in 1922; it had a capacity of 48 students, heat was provided by a wood stove, and water was available from a well just across the road in Rossville. The “Survey of Colored Public Schools” taken in the following year indicated that the community was proud of the new and modern building, and that it was quickly fitted out with new desks.

The Muirkirk School was closed in 1950 and, together with many other small schools for black children, was auctioned in November of that year. It was purchased a few years later by American Legion Post 235, whose members included many long-standing residents of Rossville. Although the building has been substantially altered and no longer conveys the appearance of Rosenwald-period schoolhouses, it is significant because of its close ties with the Rossville community.

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ROSSVILLE African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

62-23-21

Queen’s Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church Site and Cemetery 7410 Old Muirkirk Road Historic site; graves dating from 1886

T

his is the site of the original Queen’s Chapel, built in 1868, which became the anchor of the Rossville community 20 years later. The original chapel has been replaced twice, most recently by a brick church that stands on the opposite side of the road.

The site of the original chapel is now the cemetery of Queen’s Chapel United Methodist Church; it is a tranquil, gently sloping grassy area, bordered by woods on east and west, and dotted with cedars and many old gravestones. The oldest inscribed marker dates from 1886, and some of the early stones exhibit hand-carved inscriptions. On the north side of Old Muirkirk Road stands the present-day Queen’s Chapel, built in the 1950s, a front-gabled brick church building with a flat-roofed, square corner tower.

The first Queen’s Chapel was established just after the Civil War, when William Minnix, a local farmer and landowner, sold a small piece of his land to six black men who had expressed the need for a place of public worship. In January 1868, Minnix sold to six trustees (Henry

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Edwards, Thomas Quinn [or Queen], Thomas Matthews, Ferdinand Key, Knotley Johnson, and James Powell) 3/10 of an acre of land on the south side of the public road between Muirkirk Furnace and Montpelier, for the erection of a “substantial building to be used as a place of public worship and schoolhouse for the colored people.” The land included a small graveyard which was already being used by the black people of the Muirkirk area. A small log chapel was built on the west side of the graveyard, and for approximately 30 years this building was the center of worship for much of the local black population. In 1893, Queen’s Chapel became part of the Laurel Methodist Charge, which also included St. Mark’s in Laurel.

The log chapel was destroyed by fire in the late 1890s, and for several years, Methodist services as well as classes were held at Abraham Hall.

In 1901, a new chapel of wood frame construction was erected on the site of the log chapel. This frame chapel served the community for more than a half century, during which time the chapel was enlarged and more land was purchased for expansion of the graveyard. By the early 1950s the congregation had grown substantially; the congregation acquired land on the north side of the road and began the task of raising money for a larger church. The cornerstone for that brick structure was laid in September 1953; the church was completed three years later, and the 1901 chapel was demolished. Since that time, the graveyard has expanded eastward to include the site of the old chapel.

Members of the Gross family were photographed at the Edward T. Gross House before it burned in the 1990s.

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ROSSVILLE African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

ABOVE: Taken when the house was still occupied by the Gross family, this photograph expresses the family’s ease and comfort, freedom and independence. The car is a 1973 Buick LeSabre. Photographed October 1976 by George W. McDaniel for the Maryland Commission on Afro-American History and Culture. Courtesy Maryland Historical Trust.)

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Edward T. Gross House Site 10623 Gross Lane Historic site; 1916–1996

A

little more than one mile south of Rossville, east of Vansville, lies the Edward T. Gross House Site. This property is significant as the site of a typical dwelling of the early twentieth century, built by an emerging middle class of black landowners. Edward T. Gross was a farm laborer who had come to the Vansville area in the late nineteenth century. Gross began buying up small pieces of property, eventually accumulating a farm of over thirty acres. In 1916, he built this house using timber from the land that was locally milled. Labor was provided voluntarily by family members and neighboring farmers; members of the family estimated the total cost to have been $600. The house remained in the family for three generations until it was destroyed by fire in February 1996.

The Gross house was a two-story, frame, gable-roof dwelling that stood east of a rural lane between Vansville and the extensive property of the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center. It was a front-gable structure, four bays by two bays, with the principal facade on the irregular, two-bay south gable end. A one-story shed roof porch spanned the south gable end and wrapped around part of the west facade of the house. The original German siding was later covered with gray asphalt shingle, which can be seen in the photos above and at left. The interior plan of the house consisted of a side passage and double parlor, with a kitchen to the rear. There were no outbuildings.

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66-00

Lakeland North of Old Town College Park, and south of Berwyn One historic site

L

akeland was developed as a late-nineteenth-century resort community in northwest Prince George’s County. The small neighborhood is bounded by Baltimore Avenue (US 1) on the west and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad on the east.

Edwin A. Newman, a real estate developer based in Washington, D.C., platted the community in 1890. Newman designed it as an exclusive resort area conveniently located near Lake Artemesia and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

Newman called the community Lakeland, “on account of the beautiful lake which is to form a delightful feature of its landscape.

This lake will cover an area of seven acres, will be fifteen feet deep, and is to be named Lake Artemesia in honor of Mrs. [Clara Artemesia] Newman.” The lake was originally dug as a gravel extraction pit in the 1860s by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company.

Water for the lake was supplied by more than a hundred springs and a pipe that brought water from the Paint Branch Creek to Lake Artemesia. Newman created a park around the lake, stocked the lake with 10,000 black bass, and provided residents with “pleasure boats.”

This map shows Newman’s original plan for the subdivision. (Courtesy of the City of College Park, Maryland.)

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By April 1891, over 72 people had purchased property in Lakeland and had made more than $135,000 in improvements. Newman quickly improved the area by installing gas lights, curbs, gutters, wooden sidewalks, and dirt streets. In 1899, The Washington Post reported there was “still considerable unimproved property at Lakeland, but also some comfortable houses.” At the turn of the twentieth century, African-Americans began to move into Lakeland, although typically along the outer edges of the neighborhood, near Indian Creek and Paint Branch Creek. Many new residents were seeking employment at the nearby University of Maryland. In 1901, John Calvary Johnson became the first black resident to purchase land in the central part of the Lakeland community. In 1903, Embry A.M.E. Church (66-012) was established in Lakeland to serve the growing community. The following year, a one-room schoolhouse for African-American children

LAKELAND African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

Black’s Place, Lakeland Grocery, probably circa 1950.

was constructed in Lakeland. The school was quickly filled to capacity, and in 1913, Edwin Newman donated a lot for the construction of a larger school. After years of delay, a new elementary school was built in 1926. The school was funded by the Prince George’s County Board of Education and the Rosenwald Fund (see 66-013). In 1926, Lakeland was chosen as the site of an African-American high school that would serve the residents of Lakeland, North Brentwood, Hyattsville, Beltsville, Muirkirk, and Laurel. Lakeland High School opened in 1928 with an initial enrollment of 45 students. In the 1930s an attempt was made to incorporate the neighborhoods surrounding College Park; however, Lakeland and other subdivisions (including Hollywood, Daniels Park, Oak Springs, and Sunnyside) voted against the proposal. In 1945, several neighborhoods banded together in an effort to improve public services. Despite Lakeland’s overwhelming resistance to incorporation, Berwyn, Calvert Hills, Old Town College Park, Lakeland, Hollywood, Daniels Park, Oak Springs, and Sunnyside were incorporated as part of the City of College Park in 1945.

Lakeland remained a small community in the 1950s and 1960s and saw little new development. Due to repeated flooding in the community, in 1969, an urban renewal project was begun in Lakeland. The plan included demolishing existing houses that were in the flood plain and building earthenwork dikes along Indian Creek, Paint Branch Creek, and Lake Artemesia to prohibit future flooding. The issue divided the small community.

Many feared the redevelopment would result in the displacement of families who had lived in Lakeland for years. Over a 15-year period, the $5.7 million dollar project resulted in the demolition of 87 houses and the construction of 40 units of low-income housing, 86 townhouses, seven single family houses, and two mid-rise apartment buildings, one for senior citizens, and the other for students and faculty at the University of Maryland.

The majority of buildings now date from the 1940s through the 1970s. Although few in number, the earliest houses in the neighborhood date from the first decade of the twentieth century and are typically two-story, front-gabled, wood-frame dwellings. The majority of these houses have a one story, full-width, or wraparound porch. The community is predominantly residential; however, some buildings in Lakeland also have religious and education uses.

LAKELAND African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

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LAKELAND African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

66-12

Embry African Methodist Episcopal Church 5101 Lakeland Road Built c. 1920

Embry African Methodist Episcopal Church was established in 1903, and the first meetings were held in the home of Samuel Stewart. By 1905, at the encouragement of Bishop J. C. Embry, a small chapel was built on Lot 6, Block 12 in Lakeland. It was named in honor of Bishop Embry.

In the Baltimore Conference (of the A. M. E. Church) Minutes of 1906, Embry Chapel was noted as being in prosperous condition, and even though the church was very new, improvements were already being made. The membership at that point was still very small, but 35 members contributed to the church, which was at that time under the leadership of the Reverend Edward E. Tyler. As membership increased over the years, a new lot was acquired in 1918, and the nucleus of the present sanctuary was erected in 1920. In more recent years, a parish hall has been constructed and the sanctuary has been enlarged and renovated.

Embry A. M. E. Church is a one-story, gableroofed brick building with its entrance on the north gable end. There is a double door centered in this gable end, with a tripartite lancet fanlight, and flanking lancet windows. In the gable above the door is a small bulls-eye window. Extending to the west at right angles is a long parish hall addition, also one story.

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66-13

Lakeland Rosenwald School Site (John C. Johnson Elementary School) 8006 Winnepeg Street 1926–c. 1984

In 1903 John C. Johnson, Edwin Carter, and Pleasant Brown were appointed trustees and building committee for a black school in Lakeland. Completed before the end of the year, this one-room schoolhouse soon overflowed with students, and classes began to be held in private homes. For part of the time before the Rosenwald school was built, school was conducted in a building on Lot 16, Block 28 and east of Lake Artemisia. (This building stood until the 1970s.) In 1913 Edwin Newman, developer of Lakeland and president of Aquarium fisheries, deeded to the Board of School Commissioners Lot 3, Block 34, where the Rosenwald school was eventually built; however, it would be 13 more years before it was constructed. In 1925 the Board of Education (successor to the Board of School Commissioners) approved the construction of five new schools using Rosenwald funds: Laurel, Lakeland, Bowie, T.B., and Westwood, and the contract for preparing the plans was awarded to Linthicum and Linthicum. Two more lots, adjacent to Newman’s Lot 3, were acquired by the board in 1926. John C. Johnson, still a trustee for the Lakeland school, received permission from the owner to use the five lots across the road as a playground for the school. Completed in 1926, the school came to be known as the John C. Johnson Elementary School in honor of Johnson’s long efforts on behalf of the Lakeland schools.

In 1950 Lakeland Community High School (66-014) was converted into an elementary school and the John C. Johnson School was closed. It was first rented, then sold at auction in 1951 as were all the remaining Rosenwald schools. In 1958, the old school became a church.

It served that purpose until the mid-1970s when it was acquired by the city of College Park.

Later it served as a residence, and was demolished after 1980. Today, Winnepeg Street no longer exists; the area is now part of Indian Creek Stream Valley Park.

The Lakeland Elementary School was a large two-room school that served the lower grades (1–3) in one room and the upper grades (4–7) in the other. It was a hip-roofed frame building resting on a high foundation, clad in cedar shingles. It was typical of the larger schoolhouses built during the 1920s with Rosenwald funds, and most closely resembles the Bowie school, also now demolished. Like the Bowie School, Lakeland had a projecting entryway centered on the main east facade, which enclosed dual cloakrooms, one on either side.

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LAKELAND African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

Lakeland High School is a one-story brick building with a hip roof.

The largest portion of the building is the original three-part central pavilion.

66-14

Lakeland Community High School 8108 54th Avenue Historic site; built 1928 (Rosenwald School)

L

akeland Community High School was the second school, together with Highland Park, constructed for African-Americans in Prince George’s County. (The first was in Upper Marlboro, opened in 1921.) The school continued to operate as a high school until 1950 when it was subsequently used as a junior high school, an elementary school, and a special education center. It ceased being used for educational purposes in 1983, and currently serves as a church.

Lakeland also has the distinction of being the first brick school to be constructed for African-American students in the county. Established to serve students from seven communities, the school was named “Community High School.” Mary Hollomand, a 1947 graduate of the school, says that she has never called it by any name other than “Lakeland.”

The building was designed by the architectural firm of Linthicum and Linthicum of Raleigh, North Carolina. According to Rosenwald Fund records, Community High School was a six-teacher building built on four acres of land for the sum of $21,600. Of the total cost, $18,400 came from public funds, $1,500, from the African-American community, and $1,700 from the Rosenwald Fund. A handwritten notation on the record notes “$300 for permanent construction, $120 Elem. Library Here.” Mary Hollomand’s mother was in the first class of 45 students. She recalls her mother saying that the school was new, but “everything inside of it was old—the sewing machines, books, and everything.”

LAKELAND African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

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LEFT: This dwelling at 4508 40th Street was an excellent example of an early-twentieth-century suburban bungalow.

Note the decorative brackets at the roof line and closely spaced porch balusters. The original wood siding had been covered with brick-textured asphalt siding when this photo was taken in 1990. The house was demolished in 2006.

68-61

North Brentwood

Bordering on the Northwest Branch and Rhode Island Avenue Historic sites (6), historic resources (9) National Register of Historic Places ABOVE: The Municipal Building stood across from the Henry Newton House on Church Street.

It was demolished in 2006 for a parking lot.

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N

orth Brentwood is the oldest incorporated African-American municipality in Prince George’s County (1924). The small town is located south of the City of Hyattsville and north of the Town of Brentwood. North Brentwood was planned specifically for African-American families by Captain Wallace A. Bartlett, a commander of the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War (1861–1865).

Born in 1844, Bartlett worked as a patent lawyer, real estate investor, and director of the First National Bank of Southern Maryland. In 1887, Bartlett moved his family from Washington, D.C., to a 206-acre farm located northeast of the city adjoining The Highlands (now known as Cottage City). Bartlett formed the Holladay Land and Improvement Company with J. Lee Adams and Samuel J. Mills in 1891 and platted a residential suburb surrounding his home. The section south of the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia River was called Holladay Company’s Addition to Highland, while the northern portion was called Holladay Company’s Addition to Hyattsville. The northern part of the Addition to Highland, now known as North Brentwood, was often subject to flooding from the nearby branch. These less-desirable lots were sold at lower prices than those located to the south, and were marketed towards African-Americans. The Holladay Land and Improvement Company sold the first lots in 1891 to Henry Randall, an African-American from northern Anne Arundel County. By 1893, Randall’s son, Peter, constructed a dwelling on an adjoining lot. Within several years, three other members of the Randall family purchased lots and built wood-frame dwellings in the immediate vicinity. This northern section of the Holladay subdivision was commonly referred to as “Randalltown.” In 1898, the City and Suburban Railway Company extended the streetcar lines through Randalltown, connecting it to Washington, D.C. Early residents battled regular flooding, which was exacerbated by an eighteenth-century mill race that ran through the center of the community. In order to alleviate flooding problems, Bartlett hired several residents to dig ditches to drain the mill

NORTH BRENTWOOD African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

race; the work was completed by 1899. Living conditions for the residents of Randalltown were considerably improved, although flooding continued to be a problem until 1954 when the Bladensburg Pumping Station was constructed. By 1904, the entire subdivision was re-named Brentwood, and a post office was established. The name Brentwood was taken from the nearby Brent family property, which was located approximately one mile to the west in Washington, D.C. The Brentwood plantation was established by Robert Brent, the first mayor (1802–1812) of the District of Columbia. The road that led from the old Brentwood plantation to Bartlett’s new subdivision was still known as Brentwood Road and Bartlett applied the name Brentwood to his community. However, the name of Randalltown was still used to define the black community located in the northern section of the subdivision. The unofficial boundary between the two communities was Webster Street (then known as John Street).

By the early twentieth century, Randalltown was an established community with two churches, a school, and a civic association.

The Baptist Church was formed in 1905 under the leadership of the Reverend James Jasper and the first church was built in 1908 on the south side of School Street. A congregation of Methodists began to meet as early as 1913, but a church was not erected until 1920.

It still stands at 4037 Webster Street. The first school, which

opened in 1902, was built on a lot that had been reserved for that purpose on Bartlett’s original 1891 plat. In 1924, a Rosenwald school would be built on the site. The school was later demolished and the site is now a community park with tennis courts. The Brentwood Colored Citizens Association was

established in January 1907 under the direction of William Conway, who moved into Randalltown from the District of Columbia in 1905. Census records as well as the suburban directory from 1912 give clear demographic information of the developing community.

The working-class neighborhood

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This substantial early twentieth-century Craftsman-style house at 4511 40th Street has exposed rafter tails and large, hip-roof engaged dormers. The brick piers with tapered wood half-columns are original but the widely-spaced balusters are a later addition.

had grown from a population of 65 in 1905 to 315 people in 1910. Residents of Randalltown typically worked as day laborers, domestic workers, seamstresses, drivers and cooks. Some worked at the Government Printing Office, served as messengers at government offices or porters for the railroad. The community also had a grocer, barber, teacher, and school principal. The southern portion of the subdivision, which was separated from the black population in Randalltown, was incorporated in 1922 and became the Town of Brentwood. In 1924, Randalltown was incorporated and renamed North Brentwood, making it the first incorporated African-American community in the county. During the 1920s and 1930s, the population of North Brentwood expanded and improvements were undertaken at a greater rate than previously experienced. Despite the effects of

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the “Great Flood of 1933,” which caused substantial damage in the community, insurance maps from 1939 and 1940 indicate significant growth. The maps show two churches, a firehouse, three stores, a lumber company, as well as 138 dwellings.

B

y the end of World War II (1941–1945), the street names in North Brentwood were renamed to follow the system of street naming throughout the Washington, D.C., suburban area. At the time, the town’s population was close to 1,500 and boasted a new six-room schoolhouse, two wood-coal-ice dealers, three grocery stores, three beauty parlors, a barber shop, laundry, lumber yard, dentist, lawyer, notary public, and a police and fire station. Improvements in the community were made throughout the mid-twentieth

NORTH BRENTWOOD African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

century and included the paving of streets, extension of some streets, and the construction of a municipal building in 1952. By the third quarter of the twentieth century, residential building slowed. In the 1970s and 1980s, the community received a number of federal and state grants, used to improve and renovate a number of houses in the community.

Today, North Brentwood remains a significant African-American community with approximately 500 residents. In 2003, the North Brentwood Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The district was nominated under Criteria A and C and its significant themes include architecture, community planning and development, and black ethnic heritage. The period of significance extends from 1891 to 1950. The district contains 128 contributing resources and 60 non-contributing resources.

The Hawkins House was a two-story front-gabled dwelling of wood frame construction. The two-bay gable front was sheltered by a one-story hiproof porch that wrapped around and sheltered the long west elevation. The porch was supported by posts with jigsawn openwork brackets.

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Jeremiah Hawkins House Site 4114 Webster Street 1905–1991

This is the site of the house built for Jeremiah and Emma Florence Hawkins, two of North Brentwood’s most prominent early citizens.

Representative of the modest dwellings of the town’s early building period, it was an important element of the community until it was demolished in 1991.

This house, which was representative of the front-gabled dwellings built on the deep narrow lots of developing suburbs, was built in 1905 for the family of Jeremiah and Emma Florence Hawkins. Jeremiah Hawkins was born in 1864 in the rural Brandywine district of Prince George’s County. He took an early interest in politics and in 1887 began serving as a delegate to the county conventions of the Republican Party; in 1889 he served on the Republican State Central Committee. In June 1903, Jeremiah Hawkins married Emma Florence Quander, who had grown up in the rural area of Cheltenham south of Upper Marlboro. Within two years, the couple moved to Randalltown (North Brentwood) and had this house built; they operated a small dairy farm on the land adjoining their house. In 1911, Jeremiah Hawkins became chairman of the Brentwood Colored Citizens Association and served until 1922; it was largely through his efforts that the community progressed towards incorporation in 1924. At that time, Jeremiah Hawkins was elected the first mayor of the new municipality of North Brentwood. In later years, he represented Prince George’s County several more times at the Republican National Convention. After his death in 1940, Mrs. Hawkins continued to be active in the municipality, serving for many years as the town treasurer. The Hawkins family house was a good example of the front-gabled house form, but its greater significance lay in its association with Jeremiah and Emma Hawkins.

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68-61-2

Robert Orr House 4528 40th Street Historic resource; built 1913

The Orr House is a twostory flat-front frame dwelling with shed roof of very shallow pitch.

Entrance is sheltered by a one-story porch. The original wood siding is covered with aluminum siding. All Victorian trim has been removed from the horizontal cornice.

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T

he Robert Orr House is representative of urban vernacular dwellings sometimes referred to as “freestanding row houses.” This house type was particularly popular and appropriate for the narrow deep lots of early twentieth-century suburbs. It was built in 1913 for the family of Robert Orr, a laborer and resident of Randalltown. Although this house has been significantly altered by the application of aluminum siding and the removal of Victorian trim, its lines and form are easily recognizable and representative of a popular period house type.

Historically, the row house type arose out of a homeowner’s desire for his or her own doorstep, not one shared by many families. Due to the narrowness of the lots, each block accommodated many houses, while allowing each its own entrance. In North Brentwood, where some lots were very narrow and deep, the use of a “freestanding” row house form was quite logical and utilitarian. The design is simple with minimal ornamentation. A row house’s basic form is a building several stories high with two or more rooms per floor and a hall and stairway to one side. A row house is connected on both sides to other row houses with similar proportions and form. The freestanding row house has windows along its sides but otherwise is indistinguishable from the row house variation.

NORTH BRENTWOOD African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

68-61-3

William H. Thomas House 3911 Wallace Road Historic resource; built 1916

ABOVE: The Thomas House is a two-story hip-roof frame house of the Foursquare form. Entrance is in the third bay of the three-bay north facade; this facade is sheltered by a one-story hip-roof porch with plain chamfered posts and plain spindle frieze. The original wood siding is now covered with white shingles.

This house was built for the family of William H. Thomas, who was one of the trustees of the African Methodist Episcopal congregation.

Together with four other trustees, Thomas acquired the property on which the church would be built in 1920. In the following year, after the completion of the church, the five trustees and the pastor took out incorporation papers for the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.

William H. Thomas served for nearly 40 years as a trustee of the church.

This house remained in the possession of his heirs until 1997.

The dwelling represents one of the larger and more substantial house types built in the early twentieth-century residential subdivisions. It was the first of its form to appear in North Brentwood.

68-61-4

Mack Brown House Site 3907 Wallace Road 1907–2005

ABOVE: The Mack Brown House was a two-story flat-front dwelling of wood frame construction with a shed roof of very shallow pitch. Entrance was in the third bay of the three-bay north facade, sheltered by a one-story hip-roof porch with turned, bracketed posts. The original wood siding was covered by stucco. Typically, this type of house would have had abundant Victorian trim embellishing the cornice. By the time this photograph was taken in 1993, it had all but disappeared.

The Mack Brown House was a good example of a vernacular house form which was popular in the early twentieth-century residential subdivisions of Prince George’s County. Urban vernacular dwellings such as this, sometimes referred to as freestanding row houses, were built on the narrow lots of the developing suburbs. Curiously, the Mack Brown House never had nearby neighbors but stood alone with a large vacant lot next door.

The house was built for the family of Mack and Jeannette Brown. Mack worked as a porter/driver. The house remained in the possession of the Mack family until 1952 and the property, as well as the once vacant lot next door, is now occupied by a modern dwelling.

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In each of the three houses, entrance is in the second bay of the two-bay facade, sheltered originally by a onestory hip-roof porch. The original wood siding of each house is now covered with synthetic siding, windows are modern replacements, and the front porches have been rebuilt.

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68-61-5, 17, 18

Owings Houses 4533, 4535, and 4537 41st Avenue Historic resources; built 1912

These three houses were built by Irvin Owings as investment properties.

Owings, a white man who lived in Hyattsville and was later elected mayor of that town, purchased a group of lots on Highland Avenue (now 41st Avenue) and built on them these three identical houses. All three had very narrow fronts with shallow shed roofs. All served as rental properties for a number of years. Despite modern changes, they are still representative of one type of early twentieth century urban vernacular dwelling.

Seaburn House Site 4529 41st Avenue 1912–2005

The Seaburn House was typical of a frequently built and popular house type during the early years of the twentieth century, well suited for the narrow subdivision lots of developing communities. This house was built for the family of John and Annie Seaburn after they purchased two lots in the growing community. The Seaburns raised their family in this house, and descendants of the family are still very active in the community. Although the house had been significantly altered, it exhibited the lines of the original form and was a noticeable feature in the North Brentwood community.

The house was demolished in 2005 and the site has not been redeveloped.

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NORTH BRENTWOOD African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

The Seaburn House was a two-story front-gabled frame dwelling with entrance in the second bay of the two-bay gable front; the entrance was sheltered by a one-story porch with turned posts. The plain cornice was returned on the principal facade.

68-61-7

A. A. Randall House 4504 41st Avenue Historic site; Built 1895

This house was built for Augustus A. Randall, son of Henry Randall, the first purchaser of lots in what was to become North Brentwood. In 1891 Henry Randall purchased several lots in the newly platted subdivision, and his large dwelling was built the next year. Within a few years four more dwellings were built on nearby lots for members of Randall’s extended family, one of them for the family of his son, Augustus. These were the only five dwellings shown on the 1896 plat of the area, and the community was called Randalltown because of these first residents. A. A. Randall worked for the Department of the Treasury; his wife was Maggie Hawkins, daughter of Gasaway Hawkins who had served in the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War—a direct link with Captain Wallace Bartlett, the developer of Brentwood. The A. A. Randall House is a two-story frame dwelling, one of the larger versions of this popular type. It is three bays wide, with entrance in the third bay, sheltered by a one-story porch with turned bracketed posts. The original wood siding of the house, shown here covered with brick-textured asphalt, is now covered with vinyl siding. A small diamond-shaped loft window lights the upper gable. A. A. Randall’s house is significant not only as a representative of the popular front-gabled house form, but also for its association with the Randall family and Captain Bartlett.

68-61-8

Edith Randall Mason House 4501 41st Avenue Historic resource; built c. 1895

The Edith Randall Mason House is a two-story frame dwelling with an unusual central flush crossgable, blind except for a diamond-shaped attic window. The principal west facade is sheltered by a onestory shed-roof porch with metal trellis posts.

The Edith Randall Mason House is an example of I-House dwellings that were built on wider lots in developing subdivisions near the turn of the twentieth century. (An I-House is so called because it is shaped like the letter “I” turned on its side. I-Houses have two stories and a single room on either side of a central passage that is aligned with the entrance in the middle of the facade.)

The subject house was built for Henry Randall on a lot that backed up to his own family home; it became the home of Randall’s daughter Edith. More typical of modest rural farmhouses of the 1890s, the I-House form was used for most of the houses built for members of Randall’s family. Like the other Randall houses, it was built on one of the larger lots to accommodate its width. It is significant as one of four I-House dwellings (three of which survive), all built before 1896 for members of the Randalls’ extended family. These four dwellings, plus the narrower front-gabled dwelling of Augustus A. Randall, were the only five dwellings shown on the 1896 plat of the area, and the community was called Randalltown because of these first residents.

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68-61-9

McKenzie-Bullock House Site 4538 41st Avenue c. 1912–1992

This house was built for the family of George W. McKenzie, who worked as an interior decorator in Washington, D.C. It later became the home of his daughter, Ora McKenzie Bullock, and remained in the possession of the family for 80 years. It was a particularly good example of the front-gabled house form and significant for its longterm ownership by several generations of the builder’s family. The house was severely damaged by fire in 1990 and demolished in 1992.

The McKenzie-Bullock House was a two-story front-gabled dwelling of wood frame construction. The entrance was sheltered by a one-story hip-roof porch with slim Tuscan posts. It was sheathed with German wood siding.

68-61-10 Nelson-Queen House Site 4505 Church Street 1912–1993 This house was built for the family of John and Alberta Nelson, who mortgaged the property to the Hyattsville Building Association, and by 1917 had defaulted on payments.

The Building Association foreclosed, and the property went to public sale in October 1917. After several years it was purchased by Emma Hawkins, who owned a large number of properties in North Brentwood. She sold the property in 1939 to Stanley and Sarah Queen, and it remained in the possession of the Queen family until it was purchased by the Town of North Brentwood in 1990. The house was soon after demolished to allow space for expansion of the neighboring town hall.

The Nelson-Queen House was a two-story, front-gabled dwelling of wood frame construction. Entrance was through a door with single-pane transom in the first bay of the three-bay west gable front, sheltered by a one-story shed-roof porch with turned posts. The house was sheathed with German wood siding; the cornice, boxed with crown molding, had wide returns at the gable front. The main entrance led into a shallow entry hall, behind which the stairhall filled a long side space and gave access to two adjoining parlors, front and back.

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68-61-11

African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church of Brentwood 4037 Webster Street Historic site; built 1920

The North Brentwood African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church is a building of a typical early twentieth century form, but unusual in this community in that it is constructed of brick. It has been a landmark in the community for over 90 years. Very early in the settlement of Randalltown, a group of residents meeting in one of the private homes soon evolved into two church congregations, Baptist and Methodist.

(See also 68-061-25, the James and Virginia Holmes House.) The latter group began to meet as early as 1913 in the home of Henson Primrose, which fronted on the line of the City and Suburban Railway. Over the years this Methodist congregation met also in the Firemen’s Hall just across Highland Avenue from the Reverend Primrose’s house. In 1920, five trustees of the church purchased a lot on the south side of John Street, and construction of the church began that summer under the leadership of the pastor, Chesterfield Jackson. The congregation moved from the Firemen’s Hall and began holding services in the lower auditorium while construction continued above.

The completion of the church building was celebrated in July of 1920; the cornerstone reads “Organized May 1913. Built by Rev. Chesterfield Jackson, July 18, 1920.” The five trustees, together with the Reverend Jackson, took out incorporation papers as the “African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church of Brentwood, Maryland” in 1921.

The church is front-gabled, built of brick painted white, with an entry tower set into the northeast corner. In the gable front is an off-center double window, filled with opaque stained glass and surmounted by a tripartite gothic-arch transom light. The nave is lighted by three windows on each of the long walls of the church, each bay filled with two stained-glass gothic-arch windows with tracery. Separating the bays are projecting brick buttresses. Set into the northeast corner of the gable front is a square entry tower.

A double row of header bricks forms the ogee-arch surround of the double doors. At the second level in both the north and east elevations of the tower are three slim lancet windows set off and highlighted by several belt courses of corbelled brick. The tower is sheltered by a shallow pyramidal roof.

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68-61-12

Henry Newton House Site 4502 Church Street c. 1901–2000

The Henry Newton House was a good example of a cross-gabled frame house, and one of the larger examples of the early housing stock in North Brentwood. This house was built for the family of Henry D. Newton, who purchased a group of lots in this block from the developers. Instead of building a narrow front-gabled dwelling on one narrow, deep lot, Newton built this larger, crossgabled dwelling straddling the line between his two lots, thus giving him a handsome and substantial house at a corner location. Henry Newton worked as a barber and raised his family in this house; it remained in his possession until 1924. A second generation of the Newton family continued to live and work in North Brentwood. The house was demolished in 2000 for the expansion of the First Baptist Church of North Brentwood.

68-61-13, 15, 16 Foursquares on Webster Street

From left to right, 3914, 3916, and 3918 Webster Street.

3914, 3916 and 3918 Webster Street Historic resources; Built c. 1920 These three lots were developed by Charles Lightbown, a white builder from Bethesda who was actively involved in the development of several nearby subdivisions: Brentwood, Hyattsville, and Mount Rainier. The three houses were sold to individual families around 1920, a period when the Foursquare was a very popular house type, particularly for larger lots in developing subdivisions. The central (3916), apparently the first of the three, was constructed in 1919 just before Lightbown sold the lot (Lot 4) to Albert Mansfield. The westernmost (3914) was constructed circa 1920 at about the time it was sold to the DeNeal family; it remained in the possession of the DeNeal heirs until 1963. The easternmost (3918) was built at about the same time and was sold to Sophie Randall, who retained possession of the house until 1959. All three houses are two-and-one-half stories high, of wood frame construction, and three bays by three; each has a brick chimney centered at the ridge of the hip roof, and a hip-roof dormer centered in the principal south plane of the roof.

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The Peter Randall House is a two-story house of wood-frame construction, later covered with stucco. It has a central crossgable lighted by a diamond-shaped window, and one of its gable ends is highlighted by a two-story semi-octagonal projecting bay. Entrance is in the central bay of the three-bay principal facade, sheltered by a one-story hip-roof porch which is now screened.

68-61-37

Peter Randall House 4508 Rhode Island Avenue Historic site; built c. 1891

The Peter Randall House is the earliest surviving dwelling built in the community which became North Brentwood. One of the larger of these early houses, it was home to one branch of the family that originally gave its name to the community.

The oldest surviving dwelling in Randalltown.

In 1891, the year in which the original plat was completed, Henry Randall purchased a lot in the northern part of the subdivision. The following year his son, Peter Randall, purchased the adjoining lot, and the two men built nearly identical frame houses side by side. Henry Randall’s house was completed in 1892 and Peter Randall’s by 1893. Both houses were frame dwellings of the I-house form (two stories, side-gabled, one room deep, with central stairhall and a parlor on each side), each with a central crossgable and rear kitchen wing, a form that was the most frequent type among rural farmhouses, but in this case adapted for an urban subdivision. Within a few more years, members of the Randall family had purchased and built houses on three more lots, and for many years afterwards, this northern section of the subdivision was known as Randalltown. Henry Randall operated a coal and ice supply company, and Peter Randall was employed by the Government Printing Office; both father and son served as trustees of the first school built in the community. Peter Randall was also elected to the town council after the community was incorporated as North Brentwood in 1924. The houses of Henry and Peter Randall were landmarks in the eastern section of North Brentwood, especially after the City and Suburban Railway Company completed (in 1898) the streetcar line along the right-ofway upon which the houses faced. Peter Randall’s family retained possession of his house until 1947 and since that time it has been the home of two other families. Both Peter Randall’s house and his father’s house remained prominent symbols of the earliest history of this community until the Henry Randall House was damaged by fire in 1994, and then demolished in 1995.

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68-61-19

Garland-Palmer House 4510 40th Street Historic site; built c. 1917

The Garland-Palmer House was constructed for the Reverend James L. Jasper, a prominent Baptist minister who visited the area in 1905 and subsequently helped found the First Baptist Church in North Brentwood. In 1912, Jasper purchased Lots 1, 2, 19, and 20 in Block 24 and by 1917 had overseen construction of the dwelling at 4510 40th Street. That same year, he had the neighboring house at 4512 40th Street (Sandy P. Baker House, 68-061-20) built. Jasper conveyed the Garland-Palmer House and property to Squire W. and Rosa B. Garland in 1924. During his tenure in the house, Squire W. Garland served as the Police Justice in Mayor Jeremiah Hawkins’ first cabinet and was also appointed a Justice of the Peace by Maryland Governor Albert Ritchie. Following Garland’s death, the property passed to his wife Rosa. Una Palmer, the current owner of the property and granddaughter of Squire Garland, resides in the house today, continuing eighty-five years of Garland-Palmer ownership. The Garland-Palmer House is significant as the home of a prominent and civic-minded African-American family that was central to the creation and evolution of the North Brentwood community. The property is also significant because of its association with the Reverend James L. Jasper, a pioneer in the construction of houses in North Brentwood. He acted as a small-scale developer at a time when housing discrimination based on race was common. This example of self-help is a common theme in the tight-knit community of North Brentwood.

This three-bay single-family dwelling is a freestanding structure reminiscent of the urban row house form. It is composed of a two-story main block, with a one-story porch spanning the façade (southeast elevation) and a full-width one-story, lean-to addition on the rear (northwest) elevation. The wood-frame dwelling has been reclad with aluminum siding and is set on a solid poured concrete foundation. The sloping roof is marked at the façade by an asphalt-shingled false mansard. Overhanging flared eaves and a boxed cornice finish the roof. A one-story, three-bay porch shelters the façade and is set on a solid concrete-block foundation.

The roof is supported by metal filigree posts, which are not original.

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68-61-20

Sandy P. Baker House 4512 40th Street Historic site; built c. 1917

The Sandy P. Baker House was constructed for the Reverend James L. Jasper, a prominent Baptist minister who visited the area in 1905 and subsequently helped found the First Baptist Church. In 1912, Jasper purchased Lots 1, 2, 19, and 20 in Block 24 and by 1917 had the dwelling constructed at 4512 40th Street, as well as the Garland-Palmer House at 4510 40th Street. Jasper conveyed the house and property to his daughter Addie and her husband, Sandy P. Baker, in 1920. During his tenure in the house, Sandy P. Baker, whose occupation is listed as “chauffeur” with the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in the 1930 census, served as Mayor of North Brentwood from 1937 to 1943. Lillian K. Beverly, the granddaughter of Reverend James L. Jasper—who is also a former mayor of North Brentwood and a community activist— continues to own and occupy the dwelling. The Sandy P. Baker House is significant as the home of a prominent African-American family that was integral in the development and stewardship of North Brentwood. The property is also significant because of its association with the Reverend James L. Jasper, who was a pioneer in the construction of houses in North Brentwood.

This vernacular single-family dwelling is composed of a two-story main block with a one-story, two-bay porch on the façade, and a two-story, front-gabled addition on the rear (northwest) elevation. The wood-frame dwelling has been reclad with aluminum siding and is set on a solid raised foundation that is faced with stretcher-bond brick. A hipped roof caps the dwelling and is covered with asphalt shingles. A three-sided oriel window projects from the southwestern bay. The three second-story openings hold one-over-one vinyl-sash windows with aluminum-clad surrounds and inoperable louvered metal shutters. A one-story, two-bay porch spans the width of the façade and is set on a solid foundation that is faced with stretcherbond brick. The half-hipped roof of the porch is covered with asphalt shingles and is supported by metal filigree posts, not original.

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68-61-21

Sis’ Tavern 4516 41st Street Built c. 1912

A well-known local watering hole that attracted acts such as Duke Ellington and Pearl Bailey.

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Owned by Samuel J. Mills, Arthur B. Adams, and Cornelius D. Mecutcheon, this building was initially operated as a grocery. It is probable that Thomas F. Randall, a member of the prominent Randall family who had been the earliest residents of North Brentwood, leased the grocery before purchasing it outright in 1911. A covenant of the property banned the sale of “intoxicating liquors” as long as the original principals of the sale and their descendants lived within a one-half mile radius of the property. Randall owned the property until 1919, at which time it was sold to Jeremiah Hawkins and his wife, Emma. Hawkins, elected as the first mayor of North Brentwood in 1924, leased the property to tenants during his ownership. The building came to be known as “Sis’ Tavern” during the 1950s and 1960s. Initially leased by Marie “Sis” Walls from Emma Hawkins, Walls purchased the property in 1966 and continued to operate the building as a tavern until its closure in 1969–1970. With the original liquor covenant no longer applying, according to local sources the tavern was a well-known local watering hole that attracted acts such as Duke Ellington and Pearl Bailey. It later became notorious for the disruption it caused North Brentwood’s residents due to its late-night brawls. Sis’ Tavern is significant as a central hub of social activity in North Brentwood’s development. Owned by local African-American residents, the property was an important commercial and social fixture in North Brentwood, first as a grocery and later as a tavern, and is still a recognizable landmark in the community.

The property is also significant because it was a commercial building operated by African-Americans for African-Americans.

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68-61-22

Quander-Dock House 4033 Webster Street Historic site; built c. 1926

In 1923, this property was purchased by Isaac D. Arnold, who promptly sold it to Manerva Smith. Smith lived in nearby Brentwood and owned the property for three years when she sold it to Richard I. and Maude E. Quander.

Based on census records it is reasonable to assume that the Quanders are responsible for the construction of the dwelling. Richard Quander was the first African-American mail carrier in North Brentwood. Quander is buried in Arlington National Cemetery in honor of his distinguished career in the United States military. In 1971, following 45 years of ownership by the Quander family, Arthur J. Dock purchased the property. Dock, a teacher and principal at local schools, was honored by The Washington Post as a leader in the field of education and presented with the Distinguished Educational Leadership Award. Also a former mayor of North Brentwood, Dock is the current owner and occupant of the dwelling. The house is a good example of the Craftsmanstyle bungalow. With only two owners, this dwelling conveys the strong family ties and pride that were instilled in the early development of this community and continue today.

The Quander-Dock House is a one-and-one-half-story, four-bay Craftsmanstyle dwelling with a bungalow form. Like many dwellings built at that time, the house is set on a rock-faced concrete-block foundation. The wood-frame dwelling has been reclad with cementitious siding. A side-gabled roof of asphalt shingles caps the dwelling and is finished with overhanging boxed eaves. The northeast slope (over the faรงade) features a four-bay wide dormer.

The first story of the faรงade (northeast elevation) features a one-story, fullwidth porch that has been screened.

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68-61-24

Wigginton-Brown-Bellows House 4005 Wallace Road Built c. 1910

The Wigginton-Brown-Bellows House is a large, two-story, wood-frame dwelling that sits prominently on a corner lot at the intersection of Wallace Road and 40th Street. In 1910, Mahalath F. Wigginton purchased a lot in the community and oversaw construction of the vernacular dwelling. In 1912, she purchased an adjacent lot, expanding the size of her property.

Wigginton, who later married Benjamin Brown, was named Supervisor of Colored Schools in 1920. Additionally, Mahalath Brown operated a corner store across from her dwelling for the residents of North Brentwood. Owned and operated by a woman, this was the only general store in North Brentwood not located near or along the US 1 corridor, where most commercial buildings were sited. In 1942, the Browns sold the property to William D. Bellows, Jr. and his wife Hattie. Hattie Bellows was a member of the Prince George’s County radiological staff, which was composed of a team of emergency response professionals during the Cold War. In 1988, the property at 4005 Wallace Road was conveyed to Debra Bellows Southerland. In 2002, following more than fifty years of ownership by members of the Bellows family, the property was sold to First Baptist Church, Inc. The church currently owns the property and the house is vacant. The Wigginton-Brown-Bellows House is significant as the home of prominent African-Americans, including a teacher, business woman, and a medical expert trained for an atomic attack.

This two-story, three-bay vernacular dwelling displays stylistic influences of the Craftsman style. A front-gabled roof of asphalt shingles features wide overhanging eaves with exposed rafters and end brackets. A small interior brick chimney pierces the ridge of the roof. The window openings contain original two-over-two, double-hung, wood sash. The façade contains a single-leaf, paneled wood door with twelve lights in the westernmost bay. Two window openings are located in the easternmost bays of the façade. The second story contains three window openings. The upper gable end features a four-light, wood-sash casement window set in a square-edged wood surround.

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68-61-25 James & Virginia Holmes House 4514 Banner Street Built 1904

The Holmes House, c. 1990. The house has since been remodeled, and its historic features, such as the two-over-two windows, attic story diamond window, and two-story porch have been removed or obscured by synthetic siding.

Soon after the construction of this house at the corner of Banner and Wallace Streets, church meetings were held here because a church had not yet been built in the fledgling community. The establishment of a church became a priority and the residents of North Brentwood formed two congregations, Baptist and Methodist, both having started in the Holmes’ residence. Following the death of her husband, Virginia Holmes continued to live in the house, later renting rooms for use as classrooms for the public school located across Wallace (formerly School) Street. The James & Virginia Holmes House is significant as the early location of worship for the growing African-American community of North Brentwood and as a place of education; both indicative of the success of a stable, growing community. The property is also significant because it was once owned (though not lived in) by Nannie Helen Burroughs, a prolific writer, orator, and teacher. In 1907 Burroughs founded the National Trade and Professional School for Women and Girls in Washington, D.C.

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69-05

Bladensburg

INC. 1854

East side of Anacostia River, south of fork (Northeast and Northwest Branches) One historic site

T

he Town of Bladensburg was established by an Act of the General Assembly in 1742. The town was named for Thomas Bladen, governor of the Maryland colony from 1742–1747. In 1747, Bladensburg was designated one of the tobacco inspection stations of Prince George’s County. The Eastern Branch of the Anacostia was at that time fully navigable, and the town, which was strategically located at the intersection of several important public roads, became one of the most important shipping and commercial villages in the county. By 1776, Bladensburg was exporting more tobacco than any other Maryland port on the Western Shore; it was characterized by waterfront wharves, a shipyard and ropewalk, tannery, taverns and stores, as well as the dwellings and establishments of various doctors, artisans, and merchants. All of the 60 one-acre lots that comprised the established town were developed by 1787.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, the branch had begun to silt up, preventing the continued success of the local shipping industry. The Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad opened operations in 1835, bypassing Bladensburg, and within a century of its establishment, the town began to fade in importance. The construction of the Alexandria Branch of the B&O late in the nineteenth century spurred a renewal of commerce and industry in the area, but by the early-twentieth century, Bladensburg had become a fairly quiet small town, with several churches, schools and stores, as well as a group of historic dwellings and the development of an industrial complex along the railroad line.

Bladensburg always had a substantial black population, although the number of enslaved persons and free blacks was smaller in proportion to whites than in other sections of the county. Many years before the Civil War, African-Americans were a recognized part of the commercial activity of the town. In 1790, for example, the Bladensburg inn preferred by President Washington was run by “an old black woman who keeps the best house in the town and calls herself Mrs. Margaret Adams.”

When a Freedmen’s Bureau school was established in Bladensburg; classes were held in an older building while a new building was being constructed. Classes began in the new building in April 1867. The first teacher was Sallie Cadwallader, a Quaker from Philadelphia who, when she left Bladensburg at the end of 1868, was remembered as a strong advocate of the freedmen.

The black community of Bladensburg was concentrated for the most part around the intersection of the old turnpike to Baltimore and the road to Annapolis, on the east side of the Anacostia. In the period following the Civil War, several churches were established.

An African Methodist Episcopal Church continued the tradition of the antebellum

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Dent’s Chapel, whose members had worshipped in a loft above a carpenter’s shop. Most notably, St. Paul’s Baptist Church was founded in 1866 by Sarah Miranda Plummer.

After 1872, St. Paul’s was housed in the former Presbyterian Church building. This mostly black community expanded during the last years of the nineteenth century as several white families conveyed or devised their fine older homes to the families of their former employees.

In 1923, the Board of Education authorized the construction of a new primary school for black children; it was located a short distance to the east of the existing, mostly black, community. This school was funded by the state and county, without assistance from the Rosenwald fund, and was replaced in 1940 by a new building in the Lynwood subdivision. The 1923 schoolhouse was converted and used for many years as the Decatur Heights Gospel Church; the new Bladensburg Town Hall now stands on its site.

After integration, the 1940 school was adapted for use as a public schools bus depot.

Perhaps because of the relatively low numbers of the population of enslaved persons in Bladensburg during the early years of the town’s history, and the fairly early success of free black workers, the African-American population of Bladensburg never seems to have formed a separate community, but has remained somewhat intermixed with the white population. And possibly for the same reasons, few specifically African-American landmarks survive in Bladensburg.

69-05-6

St. Paul’s Baptist Church 4107 47th Street Historic site, c. 1818 and 1908

St. Paul’s Church is a two-part brick church building with a long and important history, particularly to the African-American population of the Bladensburg area. It is located on a small lot in Bladensburg, and is now surrounded by warehouses and industrial buildings.

The main block of the church is the larger section, three bays by three, and contains the sanctuary; centered in the east gable front is a tall, double window with roundarch transom and lintel, flanked by two projecting buttresses with corbelled caps and two lower rectangular windows with flat brick lintels. The long north and south walls of the sanctuary have a boxed cornice returned at the gable ends, and three courses of brick corbelling below that.

Entrance to the church is through a tower that projects from the south wall of the sanctuary. Above the double door with its

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Sarah Miranda Plummer.

flat-arch lintel is a deeply recessed round window, and above that a pyramidal-roofed octagonal tower set on a rectangular brick base.

To the south of the entry tower is a two-bay front-gabled addition which repeats some of the features of the main block on a smaller scale, and which serves as generalpurpose room and pastor’s study.

The main block of St. Paul’s was built in 1818 to house

the Presbyterian congregation of Bladensburg; it remained the home of the Presbyterian congregation until 1873 when it was sold to a black Baptist congregation. The St. Paul’s Baptist congregation was founded

by Sarah Miranda Plummer, a former slave, in 1866. The daughter of enslaved persons who worked for the Calvert family at Riversdale and for the Hilleary family at Three Sisters, Sarah

Plummer had been sold to a new owner in New Orleans just before the beginning of the Civil War. In 1866 she was returned to her family in Maryland, and at that time she founded what was to become the St. Paul’s congregation. For several years, members worshipped in the Plummer house. In 1873 they purchased the old Presbyterian church and made that simple front-gabled brick building their church. In 1908 the church was damaged by fire; it was restored and the entrance tower and south wing were added, resulting in a two-part building with Romanesque Revival details. In 1973, the St. Paul’s congregation moved to a newer building in Boulevard Heights. The church is endangered by virtue of its location in an industrial area.

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ARDWICK African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

69-23

Ardwick Ardwick Ardmore Road, west of Veterans Highway (MD 410), Landover Hills vicinity Historic sites (2)

Until the late nineteenth century, the area comprising the present-day area of Ardwick was farmland; the land along the road from Bladensburg to Ardwick Station on the Pennsylvania Railroad had been part of the farms of William Beall and John Yost. Both Martenet’s map of 1861 and the Hopkins map of 1878 document limited development in the area that would become Ardwick. A few farms are located around the perimeter of the community, but none within the community boundaries. Ardwick was initially platted in 1889 as a railroad suburb by Thomas Mitchell, a Washington, D.C., real estate broker. The Washington Post reported that “Ardwick is a brand new town on the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad, near Hyattsville. It is beautifully located….and the streets of the little city are laid out in the most convenient and symmetrical form….Already a number of cottages have been erected and occupied, and Ardwick will shortly become an important station on the road, and though just over the Maryland line, is practically a suburb of the National Capital.” Despite this exuberant description, the original plat was soon abandoned, and the area remained rural, despite the location near the Ardwick railroad station. In 1897, Hugh Browne constructed a modest wood-frame dwelling on five acres of land. William Stanton Wormley, a prominent African-American teacher and artist from Washington, D.C., purchased the house and surrounding acreage in 1903.

The entrance to the Walter and Elsie Smith House, before the land surrounding it was subdivided.

Wormley was the grandson of successful businessman James Wormley, who in 1871 established the Wormley Hotel, located at 15th and H Streets in Washington. When James Wormley died in 1884, he left a substantial fortune to his children and grandchildren, who went on to take prominent positions in education, other professions, and black society in Washington, D.C. William Stanton Wormley’s home in Ardwick became a retreat for members and associates of the Wormley family. Soon other members of Washington’s black professional society were drawn to Ardwick to build houses away from the city. Before his death in 1919, Wormley began selling parcels of his land to friends and family. They erected dwellings of their own, creating a small community of professional African-Americans who commuted to Washington, D.C. Gradually the weekend retreat houses became permanent residences.

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69-23-17

William Stanton Wormley House 7533 Ardwick Ardmore Road Historic site; Built 1898–1926

The “Wortaycarbro” was a trap shooting club named for its founding families Wormley, Taylor, Carson and Brooks.

The Wormley House seen from the street.

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The Wormley House is a multipart frame dwelling which has been altered and enlarged over the years. It has considerable significance as the retreat home of the Wormleys, a black family prominent in Washington, D.C., especially in education circles. The settling of the Wormley family at this location brought about the beginning of the Ardwick community.

The original structure was of traditional I-house form. The entrance was centered in the three-bay east facade; that opening was closed in the 1920s, replaced by a large fieldstone chimney. At the same time the house was enlarged by the construction of south and west additions and of a small kitchen wing at the south end. It was at this time that the house was reoriented to face north. A stair hall was built west of the main block, and entrance to it was created through a small gable-roof vestibule which became the principal entrance to the house. A glassenclosed porch spans the east elevation of both the main block and the south wing.

Since 1903 the house has been the residence, both as a country retreat and as a year-round home, of members of the Wormley family. The Wormley House was constructed for Hugh Browne. In 1902, Browne sold the five-acre property and frame dwelling to his brother-in-law, Furman Shadd, an early graduate of the Howard University Medical School. Shadd sold the property one year later to his nephew, William Stanton Wormley, a wealthy artist and teacher in Washington, D.C. Wormley was the grandson of successful businessman James Wormley. The home of the younger Wormley became a retreat for his family and associates, with a tennis court and a trapshooting range. It was the weekend retreat of a group of black professionals from Washington, used particularly by the trap shooting club known as the “Wortaycarbro,” named for its founding families Wormley, Taylor, Carson, and Brooks. Wormley sold adjoining parcels of land to colleagues and relatives, and the retreat community of Ardwick was gradually populated by black professionals in Washington education circles. Wormley died in 1919, and in 1926 two of his sisters purchased the house from the other Wormley heirs and made it

ARDWICK African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

RIGHT: The east elevation, showing the sunporch and rubble-stone chimney.

BELOW: This detail from the Franklin Atlas of 1940 shows the three extant properties, which also comprise the core group of the black professional retreat community. The L-shaped building to the right of the Hunster house may be Hunster’s studio, which now exists only as a concrete foundation. According to Wormley descendants, the studio was a miniature version of Hunster’s unique bungalow. (See 69-023-27.)

their permanent home. At that time the orientation of the house was shifted, with the enlargement of the main block and the creation of a more formal entrance on the north. The house is significant as the focal point in the small Ardwick community, and in its association with a very important family of black professionals from Washington, D.C. It also illustrates the evolution of a modest dwelling and country retreat into an large, year-round home for succeeding generations.

The first floor interior of the Wormley House is a succession of expansive, low-ceilinged and light-filled rooms that look out on the lawn. On the first floor, a small kitchen is attached to the rear. The second floor contains large, airy bedrooms. Directly to the east of the Wormley house is a Cape Cod-style dwelling built in the 1940s by and for the Wormleys. Both houses are still occupied by members of the Wormley family.

An 1869 advertisement for Wormley’s grandfather’s hotel.

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The Hunster House.

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Thomas Hunster House 7523 Ardwick Ardmore Road Historic site; built c. 1920

In 1911, Thomas Hunster purchased property from his colleague, William Stanton Wormley, next to Wormley’s house in Ardwick. Hunster was a portrait and landscape painter and worked as the head of the art department in the District of Columbia’s segregated public schools. Born in Cincinnati in 1851, Hunster began his career in the Washington school system in 1874, serving as a teacher for 48 years. He designed the Exposition des Nègres d’Amerique a series of paintings dealing with the rise and progress of Negros in America between 1865 and 1900, which was displayed at the 1900 Paris World’s Fair (Exposition Universelle). In 1907, Hunster exhibited many of his paintings at the Negro Building at the Jamestown, Virginia, Tercentennial Exposition.

The Hunster House is a one-and-one-half story bungalow with hip roof; it fronts to the north toward Ardwick Ardmore Road, but is set far back from the road on spacious grounds dotted with large cedars and hollies. A spacious and partially enclosed porch shelters the north facade of the house and wraps around the long east side of the house. A smaller porch centered in the north facade gives access to the house. At the second floor, what was perhaps an artist’s studio is lighted by a bank of windows across the north front; above this bank of windows is a hip-roof dormer.

Hunster and his wife lived in a small cottage on the property while the main house was under construction. (Oral tradition maintains that this smaller building was a miniature replica of the Hunster House which afterward became Hunster’s studio; it is no longer extant.) Working with a local carpenter, Hunster was involved in the design and construction of the house, which was completed around 1920.

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The Thomas Hunster House is an unusual conglomeration of stylistic elements and features united in a dynamic arrangement. The attic windows, some only several inches square, are arrayed like those of an ocean liner’s navigating bridge, as if the house were peering forward into dark seas. The columns supporting the attic are articulated with a faux balustrade of pickets that float a foot off the ground in a plane beyond that of the porch, and are decorated with brackets with curiously solid Mayan-like carving. The design echoes the manner in which the attic windows step along the roof as if they are following a ziggurat. In photographs the house can appear to be an enormous bungalow; the arrangement of the windows in the attic story seem to belie their true size. It appears to be a tiny dwelling, yet seems larger on the inside than the outside.

The interior incorporates salvaged trim and elements from earlier nineteenth-century buildings. One enters into a dark, narrow hall with doors flanking on either side. This hall gives way to an enormous living room lit by skylights, at the center of which is a generous but low arched brick fireplace. Porches, now enclosed, flank the main space.

The attic is accessed by a stair off the entry hall.

Hunster continued to work in and modify the attic space until his death in 1929. This space, which may or may not have been used as a studio, is an intriguing warren of very small “rooms” on different levels that open onto each other. It is only possible for an adult to stand near the apex of the roof, and the “rooms,” despite being lit by banks of windows, are tiny and dim and offer none of the qualities normally associated with an artist’s studio. It seems best suited for a children’s playroom. Whatever its planned or actual use, the attic and the house as a whole represent an intriguing and unique artistic exploration of forms, spaces and ideas.

The bungalow was further distinguished by the paintings that Hunster incorporated into the interior: huge wall paintings and window-shades with scenery. The works have since been removed, and many have been on exhibit at Howard University, at the Anacostia Community Museum, and in District of Columbia schools.

The attic interior of the Hunster House. This space may have been used as Hunster’s studio.

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Walter and Elsie Smith House 4501 Elsie Court Built c. 1910

This large Colonial Revival house was built by a white couple ( John and Anna Jenks) circa 1910, and purchased in 1928 by Walter and Elsie Smith. The Smiths, both prominent in the black public school system of Washington, D.C., learned about the Ardwick area from colleagues in the teaching profession. The Wormleys and the Hunsters, both of whom worked in art and education in the public schools of Washington, D.C., had settled earlier in the Ardwick area. Like other Ardwick residents, they commuted to their schools by railroad. When the Jenks house was offered for sale in 1928, the Smiths, wishing to reside in a country setting, purchased it and made it their home.

The Smith House is a two-and-one-half-story frame house with gable roof and square floor plan. A one-story porch shelters the north facade and wraps around the west gable end. The porch, which is distinguished by its Tuscan columns, is partially enclosed on the east, where the principal entrance to the house is located. Two prominent gable dormers pierce the front (north) plane of the gable roof; each is lighted by a double window. The original wood siding is covered by white synthetic shingle.

The arrival of the Smiths increased the group of African-American families, prominent in education circles in Washington, D.C., who populated the small Ardwick community. Walter L. Smith was for 21 years principal of the prestigious Dunbar High School and Mrs. Smith was a distinguished English teacher at that institution. Walter Smith died in 1943, but Mrs. Smith remained in the house until her death in 1990.

Originally accessed from Ardwick Ardmore Road (see photograph, page 91), the house is now located on a cul-de-sac and surrounded by a small subdivision.

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Brookland North of Greenbelt Road off Northern Avenue Historic sites (2); historic resources (1) Glennville, now known as Glenn Dale, was platted Dorsey Chapel in 1992, in 1871. Within a few years of the establishment before restoration by M-NCPPC. of Glennville, a small group of African-American farmers began to settle on land to the north. This area became known as Brookland. The center point for this rural community was the Western Star Lodge which was built circa 1889. The nearest place of worship was twoand-one-half miles from Brookland and one of the trustees of the lodge began conducting worship services there. In 1895, five local men began raising money to build a church and purchased one-half acre west of the lodge “for the purpose of establishing a place of worship.” The small frame Brookland Methodist Episcopal Church was dedicated on September 16, 1900. However, from its earliest time, the church has been known as Dorsey Chapel after its first pastor, the Reverend A. B. Dorsey. The chapel served as the social as well as religious center of this rural community for over 70 years. Eventually, the congregation of Dorsey Chapel merged with that of Perkins Chapel to form the Glenn Dale United Methodist Church, and Dorsey Chapel officially closed in 1971. The wooded lot to the west was the scene of many camp meetings, and the lodge lot eventually became the church cemetery. The Brookland community has not grown, and today exists as a small cluster of houses in a still-rural area.

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Dorsey Chapel 10704 Brookland Road Historic site; built 1900 (M-NCPPC)

In its early days, Dorsey Chapel (also known as Brookland Methodist Church) was the focal point of the Brookland community. It is a small frame meetinghouse-style church, distinguished by its steeply pitched gable roof and the late-Victorian ornamental treatment of its principal gable front: alternating courses of sawtooth and rectangular Dorsey Chapel today. shingles, a quatrefoil bulls-eye ornament in the upper gable, and turned wooden finial at the ridge.

Each of the side walls of the chapel is lighted by three gothic-arch windows which have delicate tracery in the upper sashes.

The chapel was in nearly continuous use from the time of its construction until 1971.

By 1980, however, Dorsey Chapel was in deteriorating condition and was slated for demolition. Local families formed a Friends of Dorsey Chapel group and began negotiations to acquire the chapel from its owner, the Glenn Dale United Methodist

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Church. The chapel with its one-half-acre lot was conveyed to the Friends in 1989, and they in turn conveyed it to The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission in 1992. Since that time,

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the building has been carefully restored; it is being interpreted as an historical and cultural landmark in the African-American history of Prince George’s County and is open to the public for various events.

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Good Luck School 7600 Northern Avenue Historic resource; built 1899

T

he Good Luck School is one of the oldest extant schoolhouses in Prince George’s County. The school was originally designated as Colored School 2 in District 14; it was also known as the Glenn Dale Colored School. This oneroom schoolhouse is an example of vernacular educational architecture dating from the turn of the twentieth century.

This one-story, three-bay wide, three-bay deep, wood-frame schoolhouse was originally clad in wood German siding but has been reclad in vinyl siding. The front-gable roof has overhanging eaves, cornice returns, raking wood cornice, and was covered with asphalt shingles. Fenestration of the building consists of six-over-six, double-hung, wood-sash windows set in square-edge wood surrounds with wood sills. An exterior-side, rock-faced, concrete-block chimney is located on the south addition, which was constructed c. 1915.

In 1899, when the school was built, much of the land north of Glenn Dale was owned

by Shadrack Beall, who farmed many acres of land in the area. In 1879, Beall sold 12.5 acres to an African-American farmer, Elias Harrison. Harrison was associated with the small black farming community that became known as Brookland. In 1899, this small community saw the need for a school to instruct their young children and Harrison deeded one-half acre to the Board of School Commissioners for the purpose of establishing a school. Equidistant from the railroad village of Glenn Dale and the rural village of Good Luck, the new schoolhouse was commonly referred to as the Good Luck Colored School or the Glenn Dale Colored School. The original schoolhouse consisted of only the main block; the side and rear additions were not added until the early twentieth century. In 1907, the Good Luck Schoolhouse was damaged by fire. It was decided that the school was a valuable asset to its community and warranted reconstruction.

Repairs took two years to complete; it is not known where the displaced children were schooled during this period. It is possible that the rear addition was added at this time and the side addition shortly thereafter. Prince George’s County Public

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School files include the accounts of the condition of the school in the early twentieth century. The wood-frame building was described as approximately 20 feet wide and 30 feet deep. The single-room school had about 20 desks and could accommodate up to 48 pupils. The nearest water source was about a quarter mile away, but two privies were on site. (The location of the privies is unknown.) During the first quarter of the twentieth century, the Good Luck Schoolhouse became overcrowded and the building was deteriorating. In 1922, two Rosenwald schools were constructed in the nearby communities of Fletchertown and Duckettsville and eased the burden placed on the school. As a result, attendance at the Good Luck Schoolhouse gradually declined. Poor grades and an attendance of only eight children forced the closure of the Good Luck Schoolhouse in 1935. The Board of Education transferred the students to the Normal School in Bowie. In 1939, the property was conveyed to Oscar T. and Delia E. Banner.

Banner is responsible for adapting the Good Luck Schoolhouse for residential use.

Banner, born in 1879, was a federal government employee, working as a blueprint gallery foreman. The building has not been occupied for many years.

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Western Star Lodge Site & Cemetery Brookland Road Historic site

In May 1889, two acres of land were purchased by Thomas Williams, Jr., Elias Harrison, George Hawkins, and William Jackson, Trustees of the Western Star Lodge, from Jane Beall, widow of Shadrack Beall, and their children. This parcel was located on the eastern side of the Bealls’ plantation. A building, known as the Good Samaritan Lodge, was constructed on the property shortly afterwards by the Western Star Lodge, a local benevolent society. Residents of the Brookland community conducted worship services in the lodge until Dorsey Chapel was built to the west in 1900. The cemetery was called the Brookland Community Cemetery before the church was built. Another one-acre parcel was purchased by the trustees in June 1903 for the cemetery from Margaret Ann Beall, daughter of Jane and Shadrack Beall. It is unknown what the lodge looked like or when it was demolished.

Mrs. Beatrice Snowden of Glenn Dale furnished the following names of persons who are buried in the Dorsey Chapel Cemetery: Bell, Jackson, Plater, Snowden, and Barnes.

The cemetery is still owned by the Trustees of Dorsey Chapel Methodist Church of Glenn Dale, Maryland and is still active. However, there are no cemetery records listing who is buried there.

Cement markers in the shape of crosses at the cemetery.

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The Reverend Price Andrew Scott House, (70-049-36) built in 1921 at 9022 Franklin Street. While living in Lincoln, Scott served as pastor at two historic African Methodist Episcopal churches in Washington, D.C. This house together with its verdant setting is typical of the early dwellings in the community.

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Lincoln North side of Annapolis Road, Lanham Historic sites (1), historic resources (1)

L

incoln was established in the early twentieth century by African-Americans as a rural retreat located on a railroad line. In 1908, the Lincoln Land and Improvement Company, Inc., purchased nearly 200 acres along the Washington, Baltimore, and Annapolis (WB&A) Electric Railway and platted the community of Lincoln. Thomas J. Calloway, an African-American teacher, developer, and attorney from Washington, D.C., was vice president and general manager of the Lincoln Land and Improvement Company. Calloway envisioned the community as a vacation retreat and garden suburb for black people. The community was located near the WB&A which provided convenient transportation to and from these cities. In the early twentieth century, there were few options for affordable housing for middle-class African-Americans in Prince George’s County. Several other black communities developed at the same time in Prince George’s County including North Brentwood, Fairmount Heights, and Glenarden.

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However, Lincoln was the only community marketed as a rural retreat for African-Americans. The community was designed with “roomy” streets that were 50 to 70 feet wide and building lots that were 50 feet by 150 feet and sold for $270. The original radiating street plan for the community was only partially developed and the intended semi-circular design of Crescent Avenue with a community park inside was never realized. In 1910, noted black architect Isaiah T. Hatton designed the first house in Lincoln for Thomas Calloway. Hatton was an architect based in Washington, D.C. who studied under William Sidney Pittman. Hatton designed a number of prominent landmarks in Washington, D.C. By 1915, approximately ten families lived in Lincoln including the Isaiah Hattons. Hatton had designed several houses in the community.

Calloway noted that through Hatton’s guidance, the community was able “to maintain a high standard of excellence in home planning.” Hatton’s “leadership at Lincoln has helped us and we have helped him by putting practically all our business of designing in his hands.”

The community quickly became a retreat for a number of prominent black families who were attracted to the quiet rural setting. Lincoln had its own station on the streetcar line with a general store and schoolhouse located nearby.

In 1913, Dr. Daniel P. Seaton settled in Lincoln and established

the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Seaton served as pastor of the church and also as the community’s doctor. Frank Holland, a carpenter and graduate of Howard University, also chose to settle in Lincoln. Holland worked with Hatton and oversaw the construction of several houses in Lincoln. William A. Davis was a former grocery store owner from Philadelphia who relocated to Lincoln and constructed a building that served as a “store, dining room, hotel, and residence.” The general store was the community’s only commercial building.

The community was also the home of several organizations including the Alpha Progressive Club, a social club for the women of Lincoln, and the Lincoln Citizens Association.

Development in Lincoln peaked in the early 1920s. Several residents purchased multiple lots and a few even farmed on their land. The children of Lincoln attended school at the one-room schoolhouse in nearby Buena Vista or traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend classes. However, the community desired to have their own school, and in 1921, Calloway and members of the civic associations of Lincoln and Buena Vista successfully lobbied the Board of Education to allocate funds for the construction of a school in Lincoln. The school was funded by $5,000 from the Board of Education, $800 from the Rosenwald Fund, and $700 raised

by the community. The school opened in 1922 and Calloway was selected as the school’s first principal.

In the 1930s, growth in Lincoln began to decline. Due to decreasing ridership as a result of the increasing popularity and accessibility of the automobile, the railroad ceased operations in 1935. Residents who did not own cars were landlocked and the lack of public transportation in the area made it difficult to travel to the District of Columbia. As a result, the community returned to its roots as a vacation and retreat community for Washington, D.C.’s, professional AfricanAmerican population.

Although Thomas Calloway envisioned that Lincoln would eventually gain its own municipal government, the community remained a loosely knit, semi-rural community.

Unlike other African-American communities, Lincoln never applied for incorporation. The community remained largely rural until the 1970s when a building boom began. In the 1980s, several historic structures were demolished, including the Lincoln railroad station and the original Bethel A.M.E. Church.

In 1986, the original schoolhouse was sold to a church which operates the campus as a private school. Additional suburban development has begun to surround the community on the north and west.

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Seaton Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church Site 5503 Lincoln Avenue 1916–1984

The original Seaton Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church stood immediately south of the new church that was built in 1983–84. The original 1916 church, however, was an important element in the then-new and developing community of Lincoln.

The 1916 church was a front-gabled building of wood frame construction, with shallow crossgables on each of the long sides, and a corner entry tower and porch; it fronted west onto Lincoln Avenue. Centered in the west gable front was a three-part window, surmounted and set off by a shallow semi-elliptical molding. Each of the north and south sides of the nave was varied by a projecting crossgable which formed a shallow transept.

There was a two-story pyramidal-roof square tower on the south side, set back slightly from the southwest corner of the building; entrance was into the west face of this tower through a small pedimented entry porch. The church was sheathed with German wood siding, painted white, as was all of the trim. On the interior, the walls of the nave were covered below the chair-rail with dark vertical wainscoting, and there was a small, slightly raised altar at the east end.

The first services in the new community of Lincoln were held in the small general store run by W.A. Davis, and were soon conducted by the Reverend Daniel P. Seaton, who had purchased a lot in Lincoln in 1913. In that same year, four of the new residents, acting as trustees of the Bethel A.M.E. Church of Lincoln, purchased a lot for the construction of a church. Services continued to be held in the Davis store and in Seaton’s home while money was raised to build the church. Construction of the Bethel A.M.E. Church was underway in 1916. Daniel Seaton died in 1918; his will contained a legacy to the Bethel Church, and since that time, in his memory, the church has been known as Seaton Memorial A.M.E. Church.

The church was a focal point of the Lincoln community for nearly 70 years. By the early 1980s, however, with the new residential construction in Lincoln, the church was no longer large enough for the expanding congregation. The trustees purchased adjoining lots in 1982, and in the following year began construction of a new brick church building. The 1916 church was demolished in 1984.

Seaton A.M.E. Church shown here in a 1983 photograph.

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Daniel P. Seaton House Site 5510 Lincoln Avenue 1915–1990

The site of the home of one of Lincoln’s most important early residents, this house was built for the Reverend Dr. Daniel P. Seaton, writer, world traveler, and spiritual leader, to whom the church in Lincoln was dedicated.

Dr. Seaton’s house was a large, two-and-one-half story cross-gabled house of wood frame construction; it had several distinctive architectural details including pedimented gables and pseudo-Palladian windows in the gable ends and dormers. The lines of the house were varied by a two-story semi-octagonal projecting bay on the principal facade and a one-story wraparound porch with slim Tuscan columns.

The house was the most handsome and substantial dwelling in the new and growing community of Lincoln. Although Dr. Seaton lived in Lincoln only a few years after the completion of the house, his influence upon and contribution to the community were so great that the house, as well as the church which was to bear his name, remained an important feature and landmark long after his death.

Daniel Peter Seaton was born in 1835 near Baltimore of free parents and was educated in Pennsylvania and New York. He received both a medical degree and a license to minister. He pastored churches in Pennsylvania, Delaware, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C., and was a presiding elder for the Potomac District of the African Methodist Episcopal Baltimore Conference. He traveled extensively and in 1895, after three trips to Palestine, published The Land of Promise, an analysis of the Palestinian culture from a religious perspective. Seaton retired in 1913 and purchased a lot in the fledgling community of Lincoln. Following the philosophy of black self-help, he hired black professionals and craftsmen to design and build his new dwelling; it may have been designed by architect Isaiah T. Hatton, as were most of Lincoln’s early dwellings, but this has not been substantiated. During this period, a small African Methodist Episcopal congregation was forming in Lincoln; a lot was purchased and construction began on a church to be known as Bethel A.M.E. Church. During the years of construction, Seaton served as pastor of the congregation, which met sometimes in the general store and sometimes in Seaton’s house. Seaton died in 1918, before the church was fully completed; his will contained a legacy to the Bethel Church, and since that time the church has been known as Seaton Memorial A.M.E. Church.

Dr. Seaton’s House in 1983, before it was demolished.

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70-49-33 Thomas J. Calloway House 9949 Elm Street Historic site; built 1910 National Register of Historic Places

The Calloway House is a hip-roof structure of the compact Foursquare plan, twoand-one-half-stories high, of wood frame construction. Entrance is in the second bay of the east facade, sheltered by a onestory porch with slim Tuscan columns and plain balustrade; the porch wraps around and shelters part of the south elevation which fronts on the railroad right-of-way.

The original German siding of the house is now covered with white aluminum siding.

The lines of the building are varied by hip dormers centered in the south and east planes of the roof and a one-story semioctagonal projecting bay on the south elevation.

The Thomas Junius Calloway House is representative of the modest Foursquare, one of the popular dwelling forms in the growing subdivisions of the early twentieth century. It was built in 1910 for one of the most influential of the early residents of Lincoln, and was one of the earliest dwellings built in the new community of Lincoln.

This house is typical of houses being built in the suburbs of the early twentieth century; it represents the popular American Foursquare form. Thomas Junius Calloway was the general manager of the Lincoln Land and Improvement Company, and the prime mover in the promotion of the new Lincoln community. His house is nearly identical to the house designed by Isaiah T. Hatton for his family, and it is very likely that Hatton designed the Calloways’ house as well.

Writing in 1915 about the developing Lincoln community, Calloway indicated that through Hatton’s guidance the community had been able to maintain a high standard in home planning, and in return the community had helped Hatton “by putting practically all our business of designing into his hands.”

Thomas Junius Calloway was a man of considerable importance in the progress of African-Americans on a national level. A graduate of Fisk University, he received a law degree from Howard University in 1904, and he practiced law in Washington, D.C. He was an organizing member of the Negro Development Company, and by the time the Lincoln community was beginning, he had been actively involved in Negro participation in the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1889 and the Jamestown Tercentennial Exposition in 1907. Calloway was instrumental in acquiring Rosenwald funding for the Lincoln School and served as its first principal. He was the only black representative from Prince George’s County to serve on the Maryland Inter-Racial Commission when it formed in 1927; he served until his death in 1930. The Calloway House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.

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Lincoln School today is a complex of connected structures, of which the southernmost section (the main block) is the original schoolhouse. This section is one-and-one-halfstories high, side-gabled, and of wood frame construction; it is, as is the rest of the complex, now covered with a brick veneer. The building fronts west onto Baltimore Avenue, with entrance through a double door centered in a shallow projecting crossgable and approached by a flight of steps.

The projecting entranceway is flanked by banks of five windows which lighted the classrooms. The building rests on a high basement which also contained school spaces.

The main block is connected at its north gable end with a series of large wings of more recent construction.

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Lincoln Rosenwald School 5201 Baltimore Avenue Built 1922

The Lincoln School is scarcely recognizable as a schoolhouse of the 1920s. At the time of its construction in 1922, however, it was a model of its type, one of the largest and best equipped of the Rosenwald schools of the period.

The school that served the black children of this area at the time of Lincoln’s beginnings in 1910 was located nearly a mile to the southwest in a rural area known as Vista. By 1920, with the growth of Lincoln, the one-room Vista school had far exceeded its capacity.

Residents of Lincoln, seeking authorization from the Board of School Commissioners for a new school, formed a community club; this organization, under the leadership of architect Isaiah Hatton and educator/developer T. J. Calloway, petitioned the school board and began the process of raising local funds for school construction. A lot in Lincoln was purchased in 1922, and local funds were raised through entertainments and subscriptions.

Calloway, who had considerable experience in fundraising and school administration, was able to secure Rosenwald funding for the school construction, and the school board agreed to appropriate funds to complete the project. Though not quite finished, Lincoln School (Colored School 5 in Election District 14) opened late in 1922, with four classrooms, six teachers, a library, cloak rooms and a large community hall; it was lighted with electricity, had new desks and a piano, and was soon fitted with a steam heating plant and modern toilets with running water.

Major additions were constructed in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and for many years the building complex was used as a public school resource center. It was declared surplus in 1982 and transferred to the county, which subsequently sold it to a church. Although the building is no longer recognizable as an early schoolhouse, it was an important factor in the history of the Lincoln community, a product of its progressive residents.

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Shown here in a 1993 photograph, the Hatton House was a hip-roof structure of the compact Foursquare plan, two-and-one-half stories high, of wood frame construction.

Entrance was in the first bay of the principal facade, sheltered by a one-story porch with square paneled posts on bases of molded concrete block. It was clad in German siding.

The lines of the building were varied by a shed dormer centered in the principal plane of the roof and a one-story, semi-octagonal projecting bay on one of the side elevations.

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Isaiah T. Hatton House Site 5502 Center Avenue 1911–2003

The Isaiah T. Hatton House was typical of dwellings built in the suburbs of the early twentieth century; it represents the popular American Foursquare type. The house was designed by Isaiah T. Hatton, one of a rising generation of black architects in Washington, D.C., and one of the first to build in the newly established Lincoln community. It was completed in 1911, when Hatton and his bride moved into their new home. Early records indicate that Hatton was commissioned to design many of the other early dwellings in Lincoln.

He is known to have worked with carpenter Frank Holland on many of these houses, including the house (no longer standing) built in Lincoln for Holland’s family. In the next several years, Hatton was to make a name for himself, designing several important buildings in Washington: the Industrial Bank Building (1917), the Whitelaw Hotel (1918-19), the Southern Aid Society Insurance Company Building/ Dunbar Theatre (circa 1920), and the Murray Palace Casino (1920).

He also designed buildings in Philadelphia, Norfolk, Richmond and Newport News. Hatton was also active in the efforts of the Lincoln community toward the building of its own schoolhouse.

Isaiah Hatton died at the age of 33 in 1921, cutting short what had appeared to be a promising career in architecture. Before his death he had sold his Lincoln house to a cousin, Jacob Sanders, whose family became active members of the community. Abandoned and determined to be unsound, the house was demolished in late 2003.

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The Burke-Jackson House is a two-story, side-gabled dwelling of wood frame construction. Entrance is into the central bay of the three-bay northwest facade; the third bay is enclosed by a one-story front-gabled addition. The second-story windows of the facade are asymmetrically aligned, giving emphasis to the frontal addition. A one-story porch shelters the rest of the facade. The house stands in a semi-rural setting on the right-of way of the old electric railway.

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Burke-Jackson House 4907 Lottsford Vista Road Historic resource; built c. 1918

The Burke-Jackson House is a modest frame dwelling, asymmetrical in plan. It has had several alterations and additions, but its significance lies in its associations with prominent individuals in the local African-American community of the early twentieth century.

Edwin and Georgia Burke were among the early residents of Lincoln, from which Edwin Burke commuted to his work as part of the security staff at the U.S. Capitol.

In 1918 the Burkes moved into this house in a nearby rural area known as Vista.

They had the house designed and built by two members of the Lincoln community: architect Isaiah Hatton and carpenter Frank Holland. Their new house fronted on the tracks of the WB&A a short distance southwest of Lincoln and closer to the oneroom Vista schoolhouse where Georgia Burke taught. It was in this schoolhouse that the children from the Lincoln community were educated. By the time the Burkes moved into their new house, however, with the growth of Lincoln, the Vista school was drastically overcrowded; Mrs. Burke began offering an evening session at her new home for the overflow of students. It was not until 1922 that the new Lincoln Rosenwald School was opened; Mrs. Burke was appointed the first teacher of the upper grades.

The house of Edwin and Georgia Burke remains in the possession of their descendants. It is a modest example of early twentieth-century rural housing, but it is significant because of its associations with a locally well-known architect and carpenter, and with a leading teacher in the community—members of a growing and progressive black middle class.

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70-49-34

Holland-Green House Site 9944 Elm Street, Lanham 1914–1985

This is the house where Peaches— of “Peaches & Herb”—grew up.

This house was constructed by the brothers Frank and Benjamin Holland as a residence for Frank Holland. The Hollands were carpenters and worked in association with Isaiah T. Hatton, architect and community resident. Frank Holland was active in the community, serving on the Executive Committee of the first Citizens’ Association, and served as secretary of the organization to raise funds for the Lincoln Rosenwald School construction in 1920. Holland was also a trustee for Bethel A.M.E. Church Congregation, which would become Seaton Memorial A.M.E. Church. Holland’s widow sold the house in 1927 to Edward and Julia Gibson. The house eventually was owned by Jane Green, granddaughter of Edward and Julia Gibson. Her daughter, Linda Green, grew up in this house and spent her teenage years in Lincoln. Green(e) worked as one-half of the musical duo Peaches & Herb from 1977– circa 1984, recording songs such hits as “Shake Your Groove Thing” and “Reunited.” In 1981 the duo became the first black entertainers to perform in communist China.

The Holland-Green House was an unusually narrow two-bay, two-and-one-half-story variant of the American Foursquare. It had a hip roof with a hip-roof, three-light dormer centered on the roof ridge. The windows were of two-over-two light configuration.

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71A-22

Fletchertown South of Bowie One historic resource

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n the late nineteenth century, Gabriel Fletcher, an African-American farmer, began purchasing land to establish a family farm near Bowie. Fletcher was born circa 1857 in Maryland; the 1880 census lists Fletcher as a single 23-year-old biracial man living with his mother and siblings in Queen Anne, Prince George’s County. His occupation is listed as “laborer.” In 1892, Fletcher purchased a 13.5-acre lot (lot 6) from the estate of George W. Wood for $150. The following year at a public auction, Fletcher purchased lot seven for $500, which contained 6.32 acres. By 1900, the census notes Fletcher living in Bowie with his wife of 14 years, Virginia, and their five children. He is listed as owning his home and his occupation is listed as farmer.

Within a few years, several other members of the extended Fletcher family began to develop and work farms in the immediate area. By the early years of the twentieth century, this community of small farms came to be known as Fletchertown after the members of Gabriel Fletcher’s family. Early settlers included, in addition to the Fletchers, families named Hawkins, Chittams, Fleet, Williams, Spriggs, and Thomas. Many of the residents worked for the railroad, which was the impetus for the establishment of the Bowie community; others were farm workers, and most maintained their own small farms. Because of its closeness to Bowie, Fletchertown never developed into a self-sufficient community; unlike some other rural communities (for example, Chapel Hill), Fletchertown never had its own church. Residents of Fletchertown attended the churches of Bowie, in particular Ascension Roman Catholic Church, and until the 1920s, children from Fletchertown went to the school on Horsepen Hill, a short distance to the northeast. There were apparently many joint social gatherings with the residents of Duckettsville, approximately one-and-one-half miles to the northwest.

Duckettsville was a community similar to Fletchertown; it started with the purchase of land at the turn of the twentieth century by a black family named Duckett. Many of the older residents who still live in the community are descendants of the original

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Duckett family. Like Fletchertown, Duckettsville was a community of small farms and modest frame farmhouses, and families whose livelihood depended on the railroad town of Bowie. Many of these families (the Ducketts, Dorseys, Brooks and Halls) attended the churches of Bowie or of nearby Pleasant Grove. Duckettsville children attended the model school on the campus of the Bowie Normal and Industrial School (now Bowie State University) until a Rosenwald-funded school was built in the community in 1922.

At the same time a school was built in Fletchertown for the children of that community.

By the mid-twentieth century, Fletchertown remained a small rural village; however, residents soon began selling off portions of their property and new houses were constructed in the community. Development continued in the late twentieth century.

Both Fletchertown and Duckettsville offer a glimpse into the rural black communities early in the previous century. Most of the original housing stock is now gone, although each community still includes a few examples of the typical early frame I-House dwellings. Fletchertown is gradually being constricted by the construction of largescale subdivision houses on both the north and west; Duckettsville is framed by landfill expansion on the east and by construction of subdivision housing on the south.

71A-22-1

Fletchertown Rosenwald School Site 13016 Old Fletchertown Road 1900–2000

The Fletchertown School in the 1990s, long after it was converted to a residence.

Before the 1920s, the children of Fletchertown had no school of their own, but walked to the school for black children on Horsepen Hill one mile to the northeast.

When the Horsepen school became overcrowded and deteriorated, the residents of Fletchertown petitioned the Board of Education for a new school. The Board proposed building one school to serve Fletchertown and Duckettsville. However residents of both communities protested the combination, and by June 1921 the board recommended the construction of two schools, one in Fletchertown and one in Duckettsville. Trustees were appointed for the Fletchertown school, and one of them, Lawrence Hawkins (nephew of Gabriel Fletcher, one of the first residents of Fletchertown), sold to the Board of Education one acre on which to erect the schoolhouse. Construction of the Fletchertown School (Colored School 4 in Election District 14) was partially supported by Rosenwald funds, and the school opened in 1922; at the same time a similar school, also supported by Rosenwald funds, was built in Duckettsville (Colored

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School 3 in Election District 14). These were among the smaller local schools built under the Rosenwald program; each school had only one classroom and one teacher.

The Duckettsville School no longer stands; the Fletchertown School had been converted into a small residence, and was demolished around 2000.

The Fletchertown School was a one-story, side-gabled frame structure. It was one of the smaller of the Rosenwald schools built in Prince George’s County, but it served as many as 50 students during some periods. The original entrance was in the gable end, but it had been closed off and a new entrance and new windows constructed in the long south elevation. The building was not immediately recognizable as a schoolhouse in its later years; its original board siding had been covered by gray asphalt shingle.

The Fletchertown and Duckettsville schools were among the last of the smaller schoolhouses built for blacks in Prince George’s County. The Rosenwald Fund was in its early years, and the next decade would see larger, more substantial school buildings erected under this program. The Fletchertown School, with a large number of students crowded into one room under the supervision of one teacher, was in effect the end of the first era in black education in Prince George’s County.

71A-22-2

Nettie Brown House Site 13011 Old Fletchertown Road c. 1930–1999

The Nettie Brown House in the 1990s.

The land on which this house stood belonged to Lawrence and Benedict Hawkins, nephews of Gabriel Fletcher. It was sold in 1930 to Arthur and Nettie Brown, and it is possible that the house was not built until the Browns purchased the property. The house was more likely built while the Brown family rented the property from the Hawkins brothers. It was modest, but typical of the period; it probably exemplifies many of the early houses built, but no longer standing, in the communities of both Fletchertown and Duckettsville.

The Brown House was typical of the small I-House forms which were being built in the early years of the twentieth century.

Consisting of two spaces on the first story and two on the second, a central stair and (often) a kitchen to the rear, this was an easy and economical house to build. The screened porch would have originally been open.

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71A-22-4

Noble Strother House 12500 Fletchertown Road Historic resource; built 1924

Noble Strother, an employee of the federal government, came to Fletchertown from the District of Columbia. In 1921 he purchased six acres near the western edge of the area already settled and farmed by members of the Fletcher family. His family apparently lived for several years in a small building on the property, and then in 1924 he had this large frame house built. This commodious American Foursquare was by far the most substantial house at that time in Fletchertown. It remained in the possession of the Strother family until 1967.

The Noble Strother House is the most substantial of the early dwellings surviving in the community of Fletchertown. It is of the American Foursquare form and of wood frame construction. Typical of most Foursquares, it has a hip roof, and in this case, the principal plane of the roof is lit by a hip-roof dormer. A screen-enclosed, hip-roof porch shelters the principal facade.

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71B-02

Huntington/Bowie

INC. 1916

Junction of Amtrak and Popes Creek Railroad lines Historic sites (2)

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he town of Bowie (first called Huntington) was the direct result of the construction of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad. Farmers from southern Maryland had long tried to establish a railroad connection with the markets in Baltimore, and the project was finally begun shortly after the end of the Civil War. Construction began in 1868 on a 73-mile railroad line between Baltimore and Pope’s Creek on the Potomac in Charles County; at a point 18 miles northeast of Washington, D.C., the Pennsylvania Railroad constructed a branch from the main line into the federal city. The station established at this junction was named Bowie in honor of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Company’s president, Oden Bowie, who was elected governor of Maryland in 1869, shortly after construction of the line began.

In 1870, the town of Huntington was platted around the Bowie Station; approximately one square mile was surveyed and laid out with small narrow lots and streets forming a rectangular grid over the diagonal railroad line. The purchase of lots began immediately and houses began to go up, many occupied by people and families working on construction of the railroad. The Washington spur line began operation in July 1872, and the Pope’s Creek line to southern Maryland opened in January 1873. Over the years, the spur line came to be more heavily used than the original main line to Pope’s Creek, and the original name of the town (Huntington) was soon displaced by the name Bowie.

By 1880, there were approximately 60 families, half black, half white, and among them a substantial number of settlers from Germany. The railroad was the biggest employer, and the population included conductors, engineers, baggage masters and brakemen as well as many railroad laborers. Bowie has from its beginning had a substantial black population; by 1900, more than 40 percent of the town’s population (by then nearly 450) was black, and by far the majority of these men worked as railroad “hands” or laborers. A few years later, Calvin Chase, editor of The Washington Bee, the leading African-American newspaper of Washington, D.C., at that time, ran prominent columns in his newspaper advertising excellent home sites: “The first opportunity offered colored people to secure Homes on Weekly payments of 50 cents a week or Two Dollars per month;” “the best depot on the Baltimore and Potomac railroad;” “Stores, churches and schools already built; the most healthful spot in the State of Maryland.”

As in all other developing communities, the focal points were church and school. By 1885 a congregation of black Methodists had formed and, after meeting for worship in various places, built their church in 1909. Many other local African-Americans belonged to the Roman Catholic Church. During the late nineteenth century the black children of Bowie attended a one-room school a short distance south of town. After the establishment of the Normal School near Bowie in 1908, primary school students attended a model school on the Normal School campus, and later still, when Rosenwald

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Huntington/Bowie Railroad Station, view from the southwest, late nineteenth century.

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funds for black schools were available, a school was built within the town boundaries.

The old junction town began to fade in prominence in the 1950s when the Levitt Corporation began to develop Belair at Bowie on the old OgleWoodward estate, Belair, four miles to the south. Many of the older buildings in the junction village had by this time been destroyed, and new shops began to take their places. The new Belair subdivisions were sequentially annexed by the older incorporated town, so that today the original junction village (Huntington) comprises one section of the much larger City of Bowie and is enjoying something of a renaissance as a center for antiques and craft shops.

Many descendants of the old families, both black and white, still reside in the community.

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71B-2-10

Ross Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church and Parsonage 13111 and 13105 11th Street

The Ross Memorial Methodist Church and its parsonage stand on adjoining lots at the center of the railroad junction town of Bowie, reminders of the early black institutions of the town.

A Methodist church was built near the Popes Creek railroad tracks in 1884 and was attended by white members of the Bowie community. At the same time, a congregation of black Methodists was forming and met for many years in the homes of its members.

As the black congregation grew, members began to meet in one of the town’s hardware stores, and in 1909 they began the planning and construction of the church building.

Completed later that year, the church was known as Ross Memorial Methodist Church after the first pastor, Nathan Ross. In 1924, the white Methodist congregation began construction of a new church near the north end of the town (6th Street), farther away from the railroad; members of the Ross Memorial congregation were encouraged to use some of the structural material from the 1884 church. This they did, and in the mid-1920s constructed the clipped-gable bungalow next to their church; it served as the parsonage, first occupied by the family of the Reverend J. A. Arter. The parsonage is a one-and-one-half-story front-gabled dwelling of bungalow form and of wood construction. The front gable is clipped to form the jerkinhead profile, and the main (north) facade is sheltered by a one-story porch with stencilled, jigsawn balustrade; above the porch, centered in the main facade, a double window lights the loft level. The building is sheathed with German siding, painted white.

In its original (1909) form, shown below, the side walls of the nave were lighted by three gothicarch windows, and another pair of these windows flanks the central gabled entry vestibule on the north gable front.

The church is a front-gabled meetinghouse-style structure of wood frame construction, now covered with white synthetic siding. Entrance was through a paneled double door approached by a flight of steps. A small porthole window lighted the upper north gable above the entry vestibule. The church was converted into a residence many years ago; at that time, the gothic-arch windows were replaced by modern rectangular windows, and the small entrance vestibule was enlarged to add more living space. Later, the German wood siding was covered with synthetic siding. In the 1980s, the house was renovated to serve again as a church. Ross Memorial Church was closed in the late 1960s, and members of the congregation joined with the white congregation of First Methodist Church on 6th Street in Bowie. Both Ross Memorial and its parsonage were then used as residences, and the church was significantly altered during the 1970s. In the 1980s, the two lots on which the church stands were acquired by the congregation of Faith Independent Baptist Church, and the building was renovated to serve again as a church. Although the church building is greatly altered from its original form, it is, together with the adjoining parsonage, an important reminder of the early black community in Bowie.

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71B-2-23

Knights of St. John Hall 13004 12th Street Historic site; built c. 1907

The Knights of St. John Hall was built as a meeting place for the St. John’s Auxiliary, the black members of the local Ascension Roman Catholic Church. The Knights of St. John Hall is a long, narrow building of wood frame construction, which was built to serve the black Roman Catholic congregation of the town of Bowie. It is front-gabled and one story high, raised on a partial basement; entrance is in the south gable front Ascension Church had been built in Bowie in 1893, an outgrowth of the early (pre-Revolutionary) Jesuit mission Catholic church at Whitemarsh, now known as Sacred Heart. With the increase in population in the railroad junction late in the nineteenth century, and the relative difficulty of access to the Whitemarsh church, the Jesuits built Ascension Church near the train line in 1853 to accommodate the parishioners. For many of Ascension’s early years, the majority of its congregation was black. Joint church activities, such as picnics and fairs, with the predominantly white congregation of Sacred Heart were continuous through the years, but there was still a separation of the races in social activities. The construction of St. John’s Hall allowed for separate meetings of various kinds to be held by the black members of the congregation. The hall is protected by a preservation easement held by the Maryland Historical Trust.

71B-2-32

Bowie Rosenwald School Site 13216 10th Street 1927–1980

These photos of the Bowie School were taken soon after it was constructed.

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The first school for black children in the Bowie area was constructed in the late 1870s on Horsepen Hill, a short distance east of the railroad junction town. As the black population of Bowie grew, residents requested establishment of an elementary school within the corporate limits of the town. A two-acre piece of land in Bowie was purchased in 1926 for construction of a schoolhouse with sufficient area for playground purposes. Money for the purchase was raised jointly by the Board of Education and the local black community, and construction of the building was supported by the Rosenwald fund. The Board of Education authorized the architectural firm of Linthicum and Linthicum to draw up plans for a schoolhouse similar to those being planned for Ridgeley, Lakeland, and Laurel. The Bowie School (Colored School 1 in Election District 14) opened in 1927, with two large, high-ceilinged classrooms, each of which served at least three grade levels, a central storage area, and an entranceway flanked by two cloakrooms. Of the four schools built on this plan, only the Ridgeley School survives.

HUNTINGTON/BOWIE African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

With the start of school desegregation in 1954, the Bowie School and others like it were closed and sold. This school was converted into two living units, and remained residential until its demolition in the late 1980s and replacement by a modern house. Its site is important to the history and development of the black population of Bowie.

71A-21

Bowie State University 13900 Jericho Park Road

The Bowie State University campus is located on approximately 275 acres north of the City of Bowie, adjoining the Amtrak Railroad line to Baltimore. The history of Bowie State University began with the establishment of the Baltimore Colored Normal School in 1865 in Baltimore. In 1908, the trustees of this institution offered their assets to the State of Maryland, and the State agreed to maintain a permanent normal school for training black teachers. In June 1910, the State purchased a 187-acre tract of land near Bowie, and contracted for the construction of the first building: a 50-foot by 50-foot dormitory for women; the men’s dormitory was a converted barn. The new institution opened in September 1911 as the Maryland Normal and Industrial School at Bowie.

There were 58 students enrolled in a two-year program, and the principal was Don S. S. Goodloe.

Within the first year, the black elementary school at Bowie was placed under the Normal School, thus giving teachers-in-training a model school for practice. The Normal School grew gradually, with the construction of new buildings; in 1938, the program was expanded to a four-year degree program, and the institution’s name became Maryland State Teachers College at Bowie. In 1963, the institution became Bowie State College, reflecting the change in curriculum from the granting solely of teachers’ certificates to the granting of liberal

Primary school children playing in front of the Administration Building at the Maryland Normal and Industrial School, July 1918.

This building has since been demolished. Photograph from the Goodloe family archives.

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arts degrees. Finally in 1988, it became the Bowie State University, an official campus of the University of Maryland system. In 1990 the campus had 2,600 undergraduates enrolled in 26 programs, and 1,200 graduate students enrolled in 14 programs.

A vintage photograph of the Bowie State University Administration Building with the figure of a student at the open window.

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No original buildings remain on the campus; all present construction is modern. Bowie State’s significance lies in the fact that it was Maryland’s first black post-secondary school. It has grown in less than a century from a one-building school for the training of black teachers to a multimillion dollar, racially integrated institution for the conferring of liberal arts degrees.

71A-30

D.S.S. Goodloe House 13809 Jericho Park Road Historic site; built 1916 National Register of Historic Places

The D.S.S. Goodloe House is a brick and frame dwelling of the Colonial Revival style. It is significant not only for its architecture but for its importance in the African-American history of Prince George’s County.

Of wood frame construction entirely faced with brick, the house consists of a two-and-one-halfstory main block with a two-story rear kitchen wing; each section has a hip roof. Noticeable features of the house are its substantial size, its tall exterior corbelled brick chimneys, its gable dormers with Palladian-style windows, its stick-style decorative details and wraparound porch. Interior plan of the house is that of the traditional Foursquare, with central stairhall and flanking double parlors.

The Goodloe House is significant for its association with Don Speed Smith Goodloe, the first principal of Maryland’s first black post-secondary school. In 1910 the State of Maryland purchased a large tract of land near Bowie in order to set up a permanent normal school for training black teachers; this institution opened the following year as the Maryland Normal and Industrial School (now Bowie State University). Goodloe guided the school through its formative years, serving as principal until 1921.

In 1915, Goodloe purchased 38 acres just west of the Normal School campus, and contracted with the Moore Architectural Company to prepare plans and specifications for a 2-story, 10-room brick veneer house for his family. John A. Moore was a black carpenter/ architect who is known to have worked in northeast Washington from 1911 through 1923; he prepared plans and specifications for Goodloe, who hired local black laborers to construct the house. Lumber for the framing was cut on the Goodloe property, and bricks for the veneer were made on the property. The house was completed in 1916 and assessed at a value of $2,000, a substantial value for this period. It remained in the possession of Goodloe’s heirs until 1990.

The Goodloe House is significant not only for its architecture but also for its association with principal Don S. S. Goodloe, who guided through its formative years an institution which was very important in the black education movement. The house is also significant because it was designed by a black carpenter/architect who was one of only a few AfricanAmericans in the profession at that time; the original building specifications survive. Because of its architectural and historical significance, the Goodloe House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

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Ridgley Discontiguous resources on both sides of Central Avenue (MD 214), between Jonquil Avenue and I-95/495, Landover Historic sites (3)

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Mildred Ridgley Gray on a visit to the Ridgeley School and surrounding buildings in 2007.

or over one hundred years, members of the Ridgley family have been prominent citizens and landowners influencing education, community, and land development on both sides of Central Avenue where it joins Ritchie Road. Lewis Ridgley was born circa 1831. He was married to Mary Watters on Christmas Day, 1855, by her father, the Reverend Watters, and their residence was located in the county. By 1860 he was living with his wife Mary and two children near Elk Ridge Landing in Howard County, but by 1863 he is found in the U.S. Civil War Draft Registration Records under Prince George’s County. By 1870 Lewis and Mary and their six children (Natias, Isaiah, Eleanor, Arthur, Ida, and Noah) were listed in the census as living in Bladensburg. (By 1880, Emma, Teana, Arabella, and Sareana had been added to the family.) In 1871, the Ridgleys entered into an agreement to purchase 52 acres and cultivate tobacco at the northwest corner of what is now Morgan Boulevard and Central Avenue (MD 214).1 (The land was part of the large Concord property owned by the Berry family.)

“We had five acres of lilacs...”

According to the 1900 census, the widowed Mary Ridgley was residing with her son Arthur, his wife Mary Eliza, and their young son in the farmhouse on the Ridgley property. Arthur Ridgley, noted in the census as a gardener, was born in 1867 and married Mary Eliza Dyson in 1898. By 1910, Ridgley, now a farmer like his father, was residing on Central Avenue in his father’s house with his wife and six children as well as his mother, Mary Ridgley. Upon the death of his mother, Ridgley and his family took primary ownership of the property.

By 1938, aerial photographs show that the majority of the property was cultivated as cropland, with wooded areas north and south of the former Randolph Village Elementary School. The tract was improved by a tobacco barn and perhaps as many as six dwellings and tenant houses near Central Avenue. The surrounding area was similarly rural in character with woods, fields, and cultivated land. At one time a “carriage house” existed on the property and “people came from all around for dances.”2 Arthur and his wife Mary raised 13 children on the Ridgley 1

2

Fifty-two acres is a large amount of land; it is likely Ridgley was a free man by at least 1850. Ridgley may also have been working and living on the Berrys’ land before entering into the agreement with them.

Interview with Mildred Gray, October 6, 2009.

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The family’s surname is variously spelled Ridgley, Ridgely, and Ridgeley in documents of the period. “Ridgley” is the preferred spelling for the family surname today; “Ridgeley” correctly refers to the school, and “Ridgely” is used to refer to the church.

Hopkins’ Map of 1878 which shows the location of the Ridgely Methodist Episcopal Church, center, and Lewis Ridgely’s property, center left.

farm. Their youngest child, Mildred, was born in 1920. She recalls that “the main crop on the farm was tobacco…corn to feed the pigs…my mother had what was called a truck garden with chickens, eggs, strawberries, and string beans…and we had five acres of lilacs… those five acres of lilacs were taken to market and also sold on Central Avenue…that money was used to pay taxes…but the string beans, the vegetables and the poultry and eggs and the like, that was my mother’s money. And she put it in the bank. And with her money she was able to buy land.” In 1909, Mary Eliza Dyson Ridgley had purchased 5 1/3 acres on the south side of Central Avenue to the east of Ritchie Road. The land was sold to her

by Samuel Lofton, who was also a trustee of the Ridgely Methodist Episcopal Church.

Presumably, the Ridgleys used the land to grow flowers or produce; aerial photographs from 1938 show it as largely unimproved, with fields and trees. Later this would become the location of the Ridgeley Rosenwald School. The Ridgleys were active in their community.

Besides serving as a trustee for the Ridgeley School, Arthur Ridgley, Sr., was also a trustee of the Ridgely Methodist Episcopal Church, as was his father. Mary Eliza Dyson Ridgley was a teacher at the first Ridgeley School, a Sunday school teacher at Ridgely Methodist Episcopal Church and president of the Ladies’ Aid Society. After being educated there as an elementary school student, then at another Rosenwald school (Highland Park) Mildred Ridgley Gray served as principal at the Ridgeley Rosenwald School when it became a school for children with special needs.

The allied themes of family, faith, community and education are represented by the Ridgley farm, church and school. Together they tell a compelling story about AfricanAmericans establishing their place in the American landscape through hard work, perseverance, and acumen.

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72-05

Ridgely Methodist Episcopal Church 8900 Central Avenue Historic site; built 1921 National Register of Historic Places

The first church at this location was built in the late 1870s on a half-acre of land that had been deeded by the Berrys to Lewis Ridgely and two other trustees, Joseph Beall and Richard Cook “provided the said premises shall be kept and used as a place of divine worship for the use of the ministry and members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.” Shortly thereafter, the community built what became known as Ridgely Methodist Episcopal Church. Burials were later placed nearby.

This was part of the large landholdings of Thomas E. Berry on the north side of the “central turnpike;” in 1892, Mrs. Berry deeded another acre adjoining the church lot on the west, “provided that said lot shall be kept for Divine Worship and cemetery.” The church came to be known as Ridgely Church in honor of its most active trustee, Lewis Ridgely; members of Ridgely’s family continued to be active in the church and in the local black education movement. Several members of the family became teachers in the local school, both while classes were held in the nearby “benevolent hall” or lodge, and after the adjoining Rosenwald school was built in 1927. There were only a few dwellings in this small community scattered along both sides of the Central Avenue; the church and lodge were its most important elements.

Ridgely is a small, meetinghouse-style church of wood-frame construction, distinguished by a series of stained-glass windows and an adjoining burial ground with hand-carved concrete stones. Entrance is through a vestibule centered in the south gable front. The nave is lighted by pointed-arch windows filled with stained-glass memorials. The building rests on a poured concrete foundation; in its southeast corner is a cornerstone which reads “Ridgely M. E. Church, 1887–1921.”

A row of headstones near the woods at Ridgely Church.

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In 1921 the church burned to the ground and was soon afterwards replaced a short distance to the west by the present structure. The cemetery just west of the church continued to be used, and it is distinguished by its hand-carved gravestones. During the years of growth in this part of the county, particularly in the 1970s, the church became somewhat isolated in an area dominated by highways and shopping centers. When the widening of Central Avenue was planned, the State Highway Administration undertook relocation of the church, away from the avenue’s right-of-way. After its relocation, it was fitted out with new basement spaces and rededicated in February 1990. In 2005 the Ridgely Methodist Episcopal Church and Cemetery was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

75A-28

Ridgeley School 8507 Central Avenue Historic site; built 1927

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n 1927 the Prince George’s County Board of Education received a request from what was even then called the “Ridgeley colored school,” asking that a new building be erected. School had been held first in the church, and then in what were known as the two “benevolent halls,” (no longer extant) that stood nearby. Arthur Ridgley, Sr., offered two acres of land (owned by his wife Mary Eliza Dyson Ridgley) approximately 400 feet off Central Avenue—with a deeded right-of-way—to the Board of Education in exchange for a one-acre tract fronting directly on Central Avenue. On the two-acre tract the board constructed the new Ridgeley School, in part with funds from the Rosenwald school program. It is the best example of nine surviving Rosenwald schools originally built in Prince George’s County.

Linthicum and Linthicum, an architectural firm from Raleigh, North Carolina, that was commissioned to build many of the county’s Rosenwald schools, was contracted to build a two-room schoolhouse similar to those designed for Bowie, Lakeland, and Laurel. The school opened in 1927—a prototype of the black elementary schools constructed in the late 1920s: two large Ridgeley School in 2011, its restoration nearing completion.

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classrooms, each of which served at least three grade levels, a central passage with an “industrial room” and an entranceway flanked by two cloakrooms.

Ridgeley School is a one-story hip-roof schoolhouse of wood frame construction, typical of the two-room schoolhouses designed by Linthicum and Linthicum in Prince George’s County in the 1920s. It is sheathed with unpainted cedar shingles as it was historically.

Entrance is in the north facade, in the projecting central bays which form a sheltered entranceway. There is a bank of five side-by-side windows in each of the east and west elevations; these windows lighted the two classrooms which made up the original school building. The two classrooms were separated by a central passage, and the sheltered entranceway was flanked by two cloakrooms, one cloakroom accessible from each of the two classrooms. The original schoolhouse was built in 1927, and a rear addition was constructed within the next 20 years.

The building served as an elementary school for more than twenty years, then was used for the education of special needs children in the 1950s. Used by the Board of Education for decades as a bus lot, the property has been restored as a museum and community center by The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.

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William and Mildred Ridgley Gray Residence 8118 Central Avenue Historic site; built 1955

In 1945 Arthur and Mary Ridgley subdivided the 52-acre tract and devised individual parcels to each of their children; Mildred Ridgley and her husband William S. Gray received Parcels 6 and 7 (totaling 9.6 acres). About ten years later, the Grays commissioned Robert H. Hill to construct their dwelling on the two parcels. Hill, a prolific African-American builder active during the 1940s and 1950s, constructed approximately 500 houses for black families, and offered low-interest home loans during an era of housing discrimination. The design of the Gray Residence was influenced by the residential fashions of the period, including the Modern Movement, as well as the specifications of Mildred Ridgley Gray herself. In 2001, Mrs. Gray transferred the property to the Mildred Ridgley Gray Charitable Trust, Inc., with the intent to bring “public awareness to the historical background of a community in Prince George’s County, formerly known as Ridgeley, Ridgely or Ridgley.”

Combining visual cues from both the French provincial and western-ranch styles in a simplified, yet formal manner, this residence signals a clear break from the frame dwellings and farm-related structures

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previously built on the property. The house is composed of a one-story, hipped-roof main block with a half-hipped garage on the easternmost end and half-hipped wings on the east (side) elevation and rear (north) elevations. An enclosed porch projects from the west (side) elevation.

William Gray.

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The Gray Residence is an excellent example of Robert H. Hill’s work, and of the flexibility of mid-twentieth-century houses to the specific needs of owners. The house is also representative of the increasing prosperity of the Ridgley family from the late nineteenth through the twentieth century and their transition from farming to other occupations, notably education. The property reflects the gradual subdivision and development of land in Prince George’s County in the twentieth century as its character changed from that of the predominantly rural to the predominantly suburban.

DeAtley and Lillian Ridgley House 7900 Central Avenue Built 1939

In 1938, Arthur and Mary Ridgley conveyed a 100-square-foot parcel of their 52-acre property to their son, DeAtley1. On this small parcel, DeAtley Ridgley and his wife, Lillian, erected a modest one-story, wood-frame single-family dwelling. The house is clad with German siding and is capped by a cross-gable roof. A central-interior brick chimney marks the ridge of the roof, which is covered with asphalt shingles. Paired and triple six-over-one, double-hung, wood-sash windows fenestrate the façade (south elevation).

A version of a one-story I-house, the original open porch of this frame dwelling has been enclosed.

Following World War II, in 1945, Arthur and Mary Ridgley subdivided the remainder of their 52-acre tract in order to deed individual parcels to each of their children; DeAtley and Lillian Ridgley received Parcels 1 and 3 (totaling 9.6 acres). The couple actively pursued development of their land and platted the “Ridgley Manor” subdivision, 1

Pronounced de-OT-ley.

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which was located directly west and north of their house. This subdivision comprised four blocks with twenty-four residential lots. The Ridgleys sold most of their property in the early 1950s, but the house lot remained in the family until 1990. By 1965, there were at least seven dwellings located along Central Avenue that were owned by various members of the Ridgley family. By 2011, only the DeAtley and Lillian Ridgley House and the Gray Residence were extant.

DeAtley Ridgley was born ca. 1912 and is listed in the 1930 federal census as living with his parents. He married Lillian Tyler prior to World War II and after the war, the couple began to actively develop their acreage. By 1953, the Ridgleys were in the process of creating a subdivision from Parcel 3, which was located east of the Ridgley Manor subdivision and the DeAtley and Lillian Ridgley House. However, before Ridgley legalized the subdivision, he sold the land to Frank Fleming. Fleming never finalized the subdivision plat and, instead, sold the property in 1964 to the Board of Education. The Randolph Village Elementary School was then constructed on this property.

By the 1970s, the Ridgleys had moved to California, but continued to own the singlefamily dwelling located at 7900 Central Avenue. Following their divorce in 1971, DeAtley Ridgley transferred his rights to the house to his former wife, who continued to own it until 1990.

72-43 The site of this Ridgley farmstead consisted of two main houses, a tenant house, tobacco barn, privy, corncrib, garage and shed that were accessed by a common drive. This aerial photo was taken just before 1998 when the resources were demolished.

Arthur Jr. and Louise Ridgley Farmstead Site 8302-8304 Central Avenue Early-mid 20th century–1998

This farmstead was an example of the small tobacco and truck farms common in southern Maryland during the first half of the twentieth century. The property was originally part of the larger 52-acre farm owned by the Ridgley family since 1871. Arthur Ridgley, Jr., purchased this parcel from his father in 1945 and in the latter half of the decade added additional acreage and buildings.

The westernmost of the two main houses (8302) may have been constructed in the early twentieth century and moved to the property.

The one-story frame dwelling had a cross gable roof and a front porch with tapered wood posts with scroll-sawn knee brackets. The easternmost of the two main houses (8304) was a more modest, onestory gable-front house probably dating to the mid-twentieth century (it does not appear on the 1938 aerial). The outbuildings included an early- to mid-twentieth-century tobacco barn with a gable roof and vertical board siding; a mid-twentieth-century frame, gable-roof

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garage; a small frame corn crib; and a one-story gable-front concrete block building that may have served as a tenant house.

The property was surveyed in 1996 when the Morgan Boulevard Metrorail was being developed; all the buildings had vanished by 1998. Except for two parcels fronting Central Avenue still owned by the Ridgley family, this property and other portions of the 52-acre farm are now owned by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

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Fairmount Lodge 92 at 5501 Addison Road, as it appeared c. 1980. Heavily remodeled by 1990, the c. 1940s building once closely resembled the Old Treasury on the State House grounds in Annapolis.

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Fairmount Heights

INC. 1935

Bounded by Sheriff Road, Balsamtree Drive, 62nd Place, and Eastern Avenue Historic sites (4), historic resources (13) National Register of Historic Places In the late-nineteenth century, the area that would become Fairmount Heights comprised several small farms. These were purchased and consolidated by land speculators in the first decades of the twentieth century. Fairmount Heights contains six subdivisions platted between 1900 and 1923 by different developers. The first was platted as Fairmount Heights in 1900 by Robinson White and Allen Clark, two attorneys and developers from Washington, D.C. The initial platting contained approximately 50 acres that were divided into lots typically measuring 25 by 125 feet. White and Clark encouraged African-Americans to purchase property, and the subdivision became one of the first planned communities for black families in the county. White and Clark sold the lots at affordable prices, making home ownership attainable for many. The earliest dwellings were wood-frame construction and of modest size; however, several substantial houses were also built. Early on, the neighborhood was home to several prominent African-Americans, including William Sidney Pittman, a noted architect and son-inlaw of Booker T. Washington. Pittman took an interest in the development of his own neighborhood. He formed the Fairmount Heights Mutual Improvement Company, whose purpose was to construct a social center for the community. Pittman had Charity Hall constructed, which was used for social events, as a church, and as the community’s first school. In 1908, the Washington, Baltimore and Annapolis Electric Railway opened, providing easy access for Washington, D.C., commuters. (Residents of Fairmount Heights used the neighboring Gregory Station, located in Seat Pleasant.) Because of the early success of Fairmount Heights and new transportation options available nearby, several new subdivisions were platted adjacent to it. Waterford, a very small subdivision

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adjacent to the northeast corner of Fairmount Heights, was platted by J.D. O’Meara in 1907. Mount Wiessner was platted by the Wiessner family in 1909 and featured lots approximately 50 by 125 feet. In 1910, Elizabeth Haines platted North Fairmount Heights on approximately 15 acres of land. The Silence family platted West Fairmount Heights (also known as Bryn Mawr) in 1911 around their family farmstead.

Other African-Americans, encouraged by the development in Fairmount Heights, soon settled in the area. In addition to the Pittmans, James F. Armstrong (supervisor of Colored Schools in Prince George’s County), Henry Pinckney (White House steward to President Theodore Roosevelt), and Doswell Brooks (supervisor of Colored Schools in Prince George’s County and the first African-American appointed to the Board of Education) all erected houses in the neighborhood. Many residents worked as clerks or messengers for the federal government. In 1920, developer Robinson White constructed 19 bungalows on 62nd Avenue in the original Fairmount Heights subdivision. In 1922, approximately 35 acres of farmland located east of Fairmount Heights was purchased by the Weeks Realty Company and platted as Sylvan Vista.

The development marked the sixth and final subdivision making up the presentday Town of Fairmount Heights. Sylvan Vista had deep, narrow lots, generally measuring 25 by 125 feet, similar to the original subdivision of Fairmount Heights.

The neighborhood was designed around a market circle with radiating streets.

Although the lots were of similar size, the dwellings were generally smaller and more modest than the houses built in the earlier subdivisions. After several unsuccessful attempts to incorporate in the 1920s, the Town of Fairmount Heights was officially incorporated in 1935 with a mayor-council form of government. The town included all six subdivisions platted between 1900 and 1923. In 2011, the Fairmount Heights Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The district was nominated under Criterion A and its significant themes include community planning and development, politics and government, and African-American ethnic heritage. The period of significance extends from 1900 to 1960. The district contains 301 contributing resources and 261 non-contibuting resources, distributed over approximately 144 acres.

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72-09-9

Fairmount Heights Elementary School 737 61st Avenue Historic site; built 1912

The Fairmount Heights Elementary School is one of the largest buildings in the community. Before its construction, classes were held in nearby Charity Hall, but in early 1911 a group of residents approached the Board of School Commissioners and requested that an elementary school be built. The board agreed, and a building committee (which included W. Sidney Pittman) was appointed. Architect Pittman was chosen to submit a design for the school, and in April 1911 the board ordered that the school be erected in accordance with Pittman’s plans and specifications. A few months later, the board purchased four unimproved lots at the corner of Chapel (now 61st) Avenue and Addison Road. The school was constructed and ready to open by June 1912.

The Fairmount Heights Elementary School is a two-story, hip-roof frame structure.

The original entrance was through double doors centered in the west facade; an enclosed shed-roof porch now obscures this entrance, and a new double-door entrance has been constructed to the south. The two windows that flank this new entrance have been reconfigured with round arches for the use of the building as a church. The pyramidal-roof cupola, which originally housed the school bell, survives but has been enclosed. The eaves have a deep overhang, punctuated by exposed rafter ends, which have a curved jigsawn profile.

By 1915 enrollment had increased to 160 pupils; there were five teachers, four classrooms and a carpentry shop. At that time this was the only public school with “industrial” training facilities for black students in Prince George’s County.1 This building served as the public school for Fairmount Heights until 1934 when a new eight-room brick school was built at the corner of Addison and Sheriff Roads. At that time, the old school property was purchased by the Mount Zion Apostolic Faith Church. The building has served as a church since then.

1

The St. Thomas’ Church-supported Croom Industrial and Agricultural Institute offered similar training during the same period. See 86A-027-24.

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72-09-17 Samuel Hargrove House 5907 K Street Historic resource; built 1918 The Hargrove House was built in the North Fairmount Heights subdivision, platted in 1910. It was built for (and probably by) brick mason Samuel Hargrove; it is an unusual dwelling form, with molded brick detail, and is possibly unique in Prince George’s County.

The Samuel Hargrove House is a brick town dwelling with unusual molded brick decorative detail. It is two stories high with a shallow hip roof and has a long, narrow floor plan well suited to the lots of the Fairmount Heights subdivision. Most of the long west elevation is sheltered by a one-story porch supported by square brick posts. The main entrance to the house is in the second bay of the narrow north facade, and the remainder of that facade is lighted by large paired windows set in segmentally arched wooden enframements. There is a wide belt course of links and bands at the first story.

The second story is embellished with two more of the same belt courses beneath which is a wide band of alternating floral-motif panels. Molded beads arranged in a shallow segmental arch further decorate each opening on the north facade.

Samuel Hargrove was born in North Carolina in 1870; he was listed as a brick mason in the 1910 census, the year in which he and his wife purchased four lots in the newly platted North Fairmount Heights subdivision. There was a small house on the property at that time, and it is not certain whether that house may be incorporated into the present brick structure, or whether the Hargroves lived in the smaller dwelling while constructing the new one. In any case, the present large brick house was finished by 1918 when the assessed value of the improvements leaped to a very substantial $1,750, nearly three times the value at which they had been assessed consistently since 1910. The property was conveyed by Hargrove’s son, Earl W. Hargrove, to Maggie Simms in 1929. Shortly thereafter Simms conveyed the property to Virginia Cooper in 1931. Cooper sold the property in 1938 to Cornelius B. and Lillian R. Weeks. Members of the Weeks family have owned the property since that time.

The John N. Francis House (72-009-22) at 5909 K Street, stood directly east of the Hargrove house on three lots, and was similar in style. It was Italianate, but executed in wood rather than brick. Three bays across, it had a front porch and a bracketed cornice. The house was built in 1912 for Francis, a foreman for the water company, and demolished circa 1995 by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

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72-09-18

William Sidney Pittman and Portia Washington Pittman House 505 Eastern Avenue Historic site; built 1907

William Sidney Pittman.

The house was known to the family as “Little White Tops.”

The Pittman House was designed and built as a family home by architect William Sidney Pittman in 1907, the year in which he married Portia, daughter of his former mentor, Booker T. Washington.

Pittman (1875-1958) had attended Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and then received a degree in Architectural and Mechanical Drawing from Drexel Institute in Philadelphia in 1900. He returned to Tuskegee to teach until 1905, at which time he opened his own architectural office in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, D.C. After their marriage in 1907, the Pittmans moved into the house that he had designed in the developing suburb of Fairmount Heights. (The house was known to the family as “Little White Tops;” possibly the name derives from roof decorations that have long since disappeared.) Actively involved in the progress of this new community, Sidney Pittman established the Fairmount Heights Mutual Improvement Company. His wife, a professional musician, gave frequent piano recitals at their new home.

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The Pittman House is a front-gabled dwelling that stands on high ground overlooking the boundary between Prince George’s County and the District of Columbia. The gable front is sheltered by a one-story porch that wraps half way around the east (side) elevation of the house. The long sides of the house are varied by flush crossgables centered in the east and west elevations. There is a one-story, shed-roof projecting bay at the end of the wraparound porch; its three windows light the dining room of the house. A one-story kitchen wing extends to the north. The original German siding is now covered with aluminum siding. The interior features a Classical Revival mantel, multiband moldings and staircase details typical of the period. In 1906 Pittman had won a national competition for the design of the Negro Building at the Tercentennial Exposition at Jamestown, Virginia. This exposition building, completed in 1907, assured Pittman widespread fame and respect in a new but increasing group of African-American architects. The Pittmans left Washington at the end of 1912, moving to Dallas, Texas, where Pittman spent the rest of his life. The house was sold in 1915 to Ellen Adams and is still owned and occupied by her descendants. The dwelling became a boarding house with a dance pavilion on the grounds, and later a private residence for the family. Typical of the suburban dwellings which were being built in the early years of this century, the Pittman House is significant because it was designed and occupied by one of the area’s first and most prominent black architects.

72-09-23 Alice Dorsey House 910 59th Avenue Built c. 1904 The Alice Dorsey House is one of the larger dwellings among the early housing stock in Fairmount Heights.

Basically square in plan, it is a variation on the Foursquare form which was very popular at the turn of the twentieth century, in this case varied by a pedimented crossgable asymmetrically placed on the main facade.

The Alice Dorsey House is a variation on the popular Foursquare house form and is two-and-one-half stories high, with a hip roof and of wood frame construction. Entrance is in the second (center) bay of the irregular four-bay east facade through a door with a single-pane transom and a plain board surround. A small pediment surmounts the northernmost two bays, an unusual feature for a house with a hip roof. This feature gives the house an irregular appearance and suggests that the house was significantly altered in the past. The main east facade is sheltered by a one-story hip-roof porch with turned posts and plain balustrade. The original wood siding is covered with synthetic siding.

Two lots in the first subdivision of Fairmount Heights were purchased by Alice R. Dorsey, who had the house built circa 1904. She listed herself as a messenger for the U. S. Treasury in the 1910 census; she was then 51 years of age, had been born in South Carolina, and lived in this house with her sister, Anne Bryant, and her daughters, Marion Dorsey and Daisy Thornton, and Daisy’s two children.

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72-09-24

James F. Armstrong House 908 59th Avenue Historic site; built c. 1905

The James F. Armstrong House exhibits typical and fine detail in its wraparound porch, pediment and projecting bays. This house was built for Armstrong, who, like many of the other early settlers in Fairmount Heights, was a graduate of Tuskegee Institute.

Armstrong had subsequently attended Howard University Law School, graduating in 1904. In the following year he purchased three lots in the original Fairmount Heights subdivision and had the house built. It remained in the ownership of his family for nearly 90 years.

The James Armstrong House is a two-and-one-half-story cross-gabled house of wood frame construction. Its principal east facade exhibits gable-front-and-wing plan, with the wing to the left and the gable front to the right. Entrance is in the second bay of the twobay wing, and there is another entrance in the first bay of the front-gabled section. Both entrances are sheltered by a one-story hip-roof porch with plain rail balustrade, turned posts, jigsawn openwork brackets and a decorative rail frieze; this porch wraps around and shelters both the front-gabled section and the entrance bay of the wing. The wide, three-bay front-gabled section is lit by a two-story projecting semi-octagonal bay with two-over-two windows in all faces; above this projecting bay, the modillioned cornice forms a pediment at loft level. Within the pediment is a four-pane round-arch window with wood keystone molding.

The Armstrong House is a good example of late-Victorian domestic architecture and one of the handsomest of the early dwellings in the Fairmount Heights community. In 1911 James Armstrong was appointed as a member of the building committee for the proposed Fairmount Heights Elementary School, and a few years later was named Director of Manual Training at that school. He also served until 1919 as the Supervisor of Colored Schools in Prince George’s County. He continued to be active in Fairmount Heights community affairs, serving as chairman of the citizens association and as one of the first council members after the town was incorporated.

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72-09-25

Fairmount Heights Methodist Episcopal Church 716 59th Avenue Historic resource; built 1911

Fairmount Heights Methodist Episcopal Church (now known as Grace United Methodist Church) was originally established in 1909, and the first services were held in Charity Hall. For a short time after this, services were held in Pastor Joshua Barnes’ home near the church’s present location. In 1909, after Barnes’ death, the trustees of the church acquired two unimproved lots on Fairmount Avenue and began to raise money for the construction of a church. The building was completed in 1911 and was a simple frame meetinghouse-style structure, with three gothic-arch windows in the principal gable front and a small belfry at the ridge. In 1950, under the pastorship of the Reverend Edward S. Williams, the church was enlarged, the entry tower was constructed and the entire structure was covered with stucco.

Fairmount Heights Methodist Episcopal Church is a large stucco-covered building of wood frame construction; it is cross-gabled in form, with a corner entry tower. The six bays of the main block are lighted by gothic-arch windows with tracery, and the principal east gable front is lighted by a tall gothic-arch window flanked by two smaller ones, all filled with stained glass. Entrance is into the east facade of the entry tower, through plain wooden double doors with a single pane transom. Above the transom, a wide arch is inset in the stucco surface, giving the entrance a round-arch enframement. Above the entrance a window in the form of a cross is inset in the stucco covering. The tower has a shallow pyramidal roof, and is lighted on the south side by a tall louvered window.

72-09-26 Trammell-Taylor House 717 59th Avenue Historic resource; built c. 1910 One of the most substantial houses in the early development of this community, the TrammellTaylor House was built for John and Martha Trammell, who purchased two unimproved lots from developer Robinson White in 1907. John Trammell worked as a waiter in a restaurant when he first settled in Fairmount Heights. The Trammells remained in their family home until 1937.

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The Trammell-Taylor House is a frame dwelling with Classical Revival decorative details.

It is two-and-one-half stories high, side-gabled and of wood frame construction. It is distinguished by its deep boxed cornice returned at the gable ends, and its cornice decoration of jigsawn brackets alternating with smaller modillions. Entrance is in the central bay of the three-bay west facade and is sheltered by a one-story gabled entry porch with Tuscan columns. Above the entry porch is a narrow nine-pane diamond-shaped window, and a single-pane octagonal window lights the loft level in each gable end. In 1961 this house became the home and law office of Circuit Court Judge James H. Taylor, a Marylander who was educated at Howard University and was admitted to the Maryland Bar in 1956. During the 1960s, he served as Assistant State’s Attorney for Prince George’s County and Master for Juvenile Cases. In 1969 he was appointed to the Seventh Judicial Circuit Court and served there until 1988.

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Towles-Brooks House 708 59th Avenue Historic resource; built c. 1910

The Towles-Brooks House is a good example of a cross-gabled suburban dwelling with lateVictorian decorative detail. It is representative of a popular house form of the early twentieth century, particularly the type built on one large subdivision lot.

The Towles-Brooks House is two-stories high, cross-gabled, and of wood frame construction. It is clad with synthetic siding. Entrance is in the third bay of the threebay main east gable front, sheltered by a one-story hip-roof porch that wraps around the house and leads to a secondary entrance in the cross-gabled wing. The porch has turned posts with jigsawn brackets and an openwork criss-cross balustrade. The plain boxed cornice is returned at the gable ends.

This house was built circa 1910 by Samuel Towles, shortly after he purchased two unimproved lots from developer Robinson White. Samuel Towles, like many others who settled in Fairmount Heights, commuted to Washington, D.C., where he worked as a messenger for the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The property passed to his nephew, Lawrence Brooks, who served on the Town Council of Fairmount Heights and as its mayor from 1967 to 1972. Brooks died in 1990.

In the 1960s the Brooks family ran a store that stood nearby called the Brooks Market.

According to Margaret Brooks, who was interviewed shortly before her death in 2009, the market sold a roster of items with an early-twentieth-century savor, including kerosene, cold cuts, candy, tobacco, and loose cigars. Coal oil was sold outside, from the porch.

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72-09-28 Louis Brown House 701 58th Avenue Historic resource; built c. 1920s The Louis Brown House is a Tudor Revival-style dwelling, It was built by and for Brown, a carpenter, who was associated with several other buildings in the town. The Brown House is a two-story asymmetrical cross-gabled dwelling of wood frame construction. It has considerable variety in the lines of its gables and dormers; a wraparound porch shelters the entrance into the asymmetrical west facade and wraps around to shelter much of the north elevation as well. The porch roof is supported by pairs of tapered wood posts on high bases of molded concrete block. The original wood siding is now covered by synthetic sheathing of two different colors and textures.

A small house was built on the lot as early as 1905, after the lot was purchased by Daniel Brown, and it was the home of Daniel Brown’s family for nearly a generation. This earlier building was demolished when the present house was built in the late 1920s by Louis, son of Daniel Brown; the younger Brown resided in the house for the remainder of his life. The house stands on the boundary between Prince George’s County and the District of Columbia.

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World War ll Monument 701 59th Avenue Historic site; erected 1946

The World War II Monument was erected to honor the citizens of Fairmount Heights who served in the armed forces during the war.

In the early years of the Fairmount Heights community this small park was the property of the Reverend Joshua Barnes. The earliest Methodist worship services were held in his house on this site before the construction of the Fairmount Heights Methodist Episcopal Church in 1911. The monument, together with the curved wall and grassy park area, serves as a entryway into the town from Eastern Avenue.

The World War II Monument is an obelisk, constructed of blocks of gray granite and orange sandstone in random arrangement. The principal section of the monument is a pyramid, rising from a square base of the same random stone. The base rests on a single, wide course of granite; a similar course of granite forms a line of demarcation between the base and the pyramid, and two more

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courses form horizontal lines of decoration. The monument stands in a triangular lot with benches and shrubs fronted by a curved section of brick wall. Originally, on each face of the square base was a projecting rectangular panel and on each panel was attached an inscribed cast-metal plate (all plates are missing). It was documented that on the south (principal) plate was inscribed: “In honor of the men and women of Fairmount Heights who served in World War II/Erected in November 1946 by the Monument Memorial Committee.” The monument and park are currently slated for restoration.

72-09-30 Isaac Brown House 715 59th Place Historic site; built c. 1911

The Isaac Brown house, photographed in 1995.

This is a good example of a house form that was popular in the developing suburbs of the early twentieth century. The house was built circa 1911 for Isaac and Maria Brown, who had purchased two unimproved lots from developer Robinson White in 1909. The Browns did not reside in the house but instead used it as a rental property. The house remained in the possession of the family until 1954, when it was sold by the heirs of Isaac and Maria Brown. For more than 30 years afterwards, this was the home of the Gordon family.

The Isaac Brown House is a two-story, front-gabled frame house. Entrance is in the first bay of the two-bay northwest gable front. This facade was originally sheltered by a onestory hip-roof porch with plain rail balustrade, and turned posts with jigsawn openwork brackets. There is a brick chimney centered at the ridge, and the boxed cornice is returned at the gable front. Siding is plain horizontal board. Houses of this type were built over a nearly 50-year time period; they were particularly suitable for the deep, narrow lots of early twentieth-century residential subdivisions. Similar dwellings, and those of a slightly larger form, can be found in communities like Fairmount Heights, North Brentwood, and Bowie. Although very simple in plan, this dwelling is a representative and therefore important example of a type of house popular in these developing suburbs.

Marjorie Osborne is a former long-time neighbor and recent owner of the Isaac Brown House. In an oral history related to Charlotte King in June 2008, Ms. Osborne recalls the Isaac Brown House as a gathering place for residents of the neighborhood. The previous tenant, Mrs. Hester Gordon, was an “aunt” to everyone on 59th Place. Ms. Osborne also describes the house as originally having no running water and no central heat. The bathroom is an addition to the rear of the house. The original porch collapsed in the 1990s and was rebuilt without the decorative brackets and turned posts.

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72-09-31

William B. Coles House 730 60th Avenue Historic resource; built 1906

The William B. Coles House is prominently sited on one of the highest hills in the Town of Fairmount Heights. It was built in 1906 on a group of lots (amounting to approximately 1/3 acre) in the first subdivision of the town. It was built by Ezra and Florence Kemp, who bought four unimproved lots from developer Allen C. Clark in 1900.

In 1908, after the death of Ezra Kemp, his widow sold the property to William B. and Isadora Coles, who raised their family in this house.

The Coles House is cross-gabled and two-and-one-half stories high, of wood frame construction. Entrance is in the third bay of the three-bay east gable front, through a door with a transom and sidelights; the facade is sheltered by a one-story porch with turned posts and plain balustrade. The original wood siding is now covered with white aluminum siding, and the windows have black synthetic louvered shutters. The grounds are defined by a low stone wall, with gateposts which lead to the main entrance. Like many of his neighbors, William Coles commuted to Washington, D.C., where he worked as a clerk in the U.S. Department of the Treasury. An interesting detail about the house is a surviving legal agreement in which it is recorded that, in 1914, William Coles contracted with the Detroit Heating Company to have a complete system of central heating installed in the house.

The property passed, after the deaths of William and Isadora Coles, to their son, William T. Coles, and remained the home of his family until 1936.

A similarly styled dwelling is the Juliet Hill House (72-009-34) located at 604 60th Place, and built for Juliet Hill circa 1910.

72-09-32

John S. Johnson House 612 60th Place Historic resource; built 1911

The John S. Johnson House is a cross-gabled frame dwelling, typical of the houses built on larger lots or groups of lots in developing subdivisions of the early twentieth century. It was built in 1911 for John S. Johnson, who had settled in Fairmount Heights a few years earlier and rented a house three blocks to the north of the present house. In 1908, Johnson, who worked as a Pullman porter, purchased from developer Clark two unimproved lots on Addison Avenue (now 60th Place) and in 1911 had this house constructed. Johnson later became the first president of the United Citizens Associations of Fairmount Heights.

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The Johnson House is two stories high and of wood frame construction; it is distinguished by its decorative wraparound porch and its setting on a partially wooded corner lot. Entrance is in the third bay of the three-bay principal gable front, sheltered by a one-story porch with turned posts and decorative jig-sawn brackets; the porch turns and wraps around part of the side elevation. The windows were originally two-over-two in configuration as shown in this photograph, but have since been replaced with vinyl in a one-over-one configuration.

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Henry Pinckney House 608 60th Place Historic resource; built c. 1905

The Pinckney House is representative of the American Foursquare, a popular dwelling type with a basically square floor plan. Wider than the standard front-gabled house form and typically built on several lots, the Foursquare was one of the most substantial house forms in the subdivisions of the early twentieth century.

The Henry Pinckney House is a large, two-story dwelling of Foursquare plan; it has a hip roof pierced by gable dormers on three planes of the roof. Entrance is in the center bay of the main east facade through a shallow projecting pavilion surmounted by a small pedimented crossgable which breaks the east plane of the roof. Unlike the pedimented dormers in the north and south planes, this east dormer does not include a window. The original wood siding is now covered by aluminum siding.

Henry Pinckney was born in South Carolina and moved to the area when Theodore Roosevelt did to serve as steward to Roosevelt during his vice presidency and then during his presidency. Pinckney was known throughout Washington, D.C., especially at Eastern Market, because he frequently made purchases for the President there. He also delivered

LEFT: The Pinckney House today BELOW: Henry Pinckney’s son Roswell playing with Teddy Roosevelt’s son Quentin at the south front of the White House, Washington, D.C.

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messages for Roosevelt. The Pinckney children played with the Roosevelt children as well. His work under Roosevelt helped him to secure positions with other political figures following Roosevelt’s tenure. Henry Pinckney died in 1911, leaving the house to his wife Lenora and three children, Roswell, Theodore, and Lenore Emily. Lenora Pinckney worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and was, with her husband, one of the founding members of the First Presbyterian Church of Fairmount Heights. Henry Pinckney’s great-granddaughter, Emily McGhee, taught English at Fairmount Heights Senior High School. The current owner was one of her pupils. Henry Pinckney’s greatgrandson, Kevin Clay Pinckney, wrote an extended essay called “Henry Pinckney, White House Steward.” Material from this work was used for a 2008 exhibition called The Working White House: Two Centuries of Traditions and Memories, held by the White House Historical Association and the Smithsonian Institute Traveling Exhibition Service.

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Cornelius Fonville House 602 60th Place Historic resource; built 1912

The Fonville House is representative of the Foursquare houses popular in the early years of this century; it is one of the larger houses of the early building period in this community. It was built by Cornelius Fonville, who worked as a messenger for the Bureau of Engraving, and who settled in Fairmount Heights with his wife and family in the early years of the development.

The Fonville House is two stories high with a hip roof; its floor plan is basically square, three bays by three. Entrance is in the central bay of the main, southeast facade, which is sheltered by a one-story porch.

The original wood siding of the house is presently covered with white vinyl siding, and the original wood columns have been replaced by metal tracery supports. The house rests on a high brick basement, and a flight of steps provides access to the porch.

“A fine eight room dwelling with cellar, furnace and all modern improvements….

Fairmount Heights is on a boom.”

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In 1912, The Washington Bee, Washington’s principal African-American newspaper, reported that it was “a fine eight room dwelling with cellar, furnace and all modern improvements…Fairmount Heights is on a boom.” Fonville was active in the citizens associations of Fairmount Heights and was one of the leaders in the movement toward the town’s incorporation in 1935.

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Doswell Brooks House 6107 Foote Avenue Historic resource; built 1928

The Doswell Brooks House is a small bungalow, representative of a dwelling type that was frequently popular in the years between the world wars. This house is also significant for the prominence of its owner and resident, Doswell Brooks.

The Brooks House is one-and-one-half stories high, with hip roof, and of wood frame construction. The entrance is centered in the northeast façade, sheltered by a screened porch inset beneath the principal plane of the roof, supported by paneled, tapered posts set on molded block bases. Centered in the principal plane of the roof is a small hip-roof dormer that encloses two narrow windows. The original wood siding of the house is now sheathed with yellow synthetic siding, and the building stands on a high basement of molded concrete block.

The Brooks House was built in 1928 on a lot in the Mount Wiessner subdivision of Fairmount Heights, the third subdivision to be platted in the community. It was built for Doswell and Anita Brooks after they purchased unimproved Lot 8. Doswell Brooks was active in the Prince George’s County school system; he served as Supervisor of Colored Schools beginning in 1922, and in 1956 was appointed as the first African-American member of the Board of Education. He also served as a member of the Fairmount Heights Town Council and as mayor of the town from 1955 until shortly before his death in 1968. This bungalow remained the home of Anita Brooks for nearly 20 years after the death of Doswell Brooks.

RIGHT: The Doswell Brooks House.

The James A. Campbell House (72-009-37) at 709 61st Avenue, was built by carpenter Louis Brown in 1921 and was similar in style to the Doswell Brooks House. A frame bungalow with a pyramidal roof, it was topped by a semi-octagonal dormer and was four bays across, with an entrance sheltered by a porch in the westernmost bay. Campbell served as the Mayor of Fairmount Heights from 1943–1955. The house was demolished in 1991.

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Charity Hall as it looks today.

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Charity Hall 715 61st Avenue Built c. 1908

Charity Hall, although drastically altered from its original form, is an important historic feature of the Fairmount Heights community. The main block of the building was constructed by the Fairmount Heights Mutual Improvement Company to serve as a public hall for religious, charitable, and social functions.

The Mutual Improvement Company had been organized by architect William Sidney Pittman, and one of its purposes was to provide a social center for the community. In 1908 the company purchased two unimproved lots on Chapel (now 61st) Avenue and erected the main part of this building, following Pittman’s design. The building then served not only as a social hall, but also briefly as the first location of Methodist church services in 1909. It also served as a classroom until the public school was completed in 1912. In 1924, the two lots were purchased by Malkiah Charity, one of the original directors of the Mutual Improvement Company, and the building continued to be used as a gathering place for a variety of religious, social and charitable events. It has, apparently, always been known as Charity Hall.

The hall suffered serious damage by fire and was rebuilt in the 1960s. In recent years, the building has been enlarged by both a rear wing and two asymmetrical flanking additions to the gable front. Consequently it bears little resemblance to its original form; it is, however, an important element in the history of the Fairmount Heights community.

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Robert S. Nichols House 802 58th Avenue Historic resource; built 1908

The Robert S. Nichols House was certainly one of the community’s most handsome and substantial houses when it was built in 1908 by John F. Collins, who sold the house and two lots in 1909 to Robert S. Nichols. Nichols had come to Maryland from Texas and worked in the U.S. Pension Office in the District of Columbia. He settled with his young family in this new house on White (now 58th) Avenue and soon became active in community affairs. He headed the citizens committee which pursued and brought about the establishment of the public school in Fairmount Heights, and in 1912 served on the building committee of that school. Nichols worked toward the incorporation of Fairmount Heights and, in 1935, when the town was incorporated, he was elected as its first mayor. He served two consecutive one-year terms. The house remained in Nichols family ownership until after the death of Robert Nichols in 1960.

The Robert S. Nichols House is a two-part frame dwelling: the main block is two-andone-half stories high with a hip roof, and attached to its north elevation is a two-story hip-roof wing inset from the principal east facade. The east entrance to the main block is sheltered by a porch with turned posts and jig-sawn brackets, which wraps around to shelter another entrance into the wing. There is a hip-roof dormer in the east plane of the roof.

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Bungalow Row 62nd Avenue between Foote Street and Addison Avenue Built 1920

In 1920, developer Robinson White had 19 small frame bungalows, of identical form and style, built on the lots on both sides of a block of Fairview (now 62nd) Avenue in the original Fairmount Heights subdivision. These one-story, four-room dwellings closely resemble the “Rosita” style of bungalow being produced by Sears, Roebuck and Company during this period, and it is likely that they were all built from Sears material. Each had a hipped roof and central chimney and a shed-roof porch sheltering the three-bay principal facade. Most were built into a slope and rested on a high basement; others were built on more level ground and rested on a simple foundation. Robinson White began to sell these small, inexpensive dwellings as soon as they were completed; by 1926 he had sold seven of the bungalows and by 1929 three more. He rented to tenants some of the unsold bungalows, gradually selling all of the rest by the time of his death in 1939.

Pictured here are 611, 609, and 607 62nd Avenue. Since this photograph was taken in 1991, 609 has been replaced with a new house, 607 has been remodeled to serve as a church, and 611 is intact but its porch has been removed.

Another identical bungalow, the Rice House (72-009-44) also built in 1920 by developer White, stood at 904 59th Avenue; it was purchased by the Town of Fairmount Heights and demolished circa 2001. These small bungalows illustrate the importance of mail-order houses in developing communities of the post-World War I era, and represent a significant trend in the development of Fairmount Heights.

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Municipal Center Site 717 60th Place 1942–2000

The Fairmount Heights Municipal Center was constructed as a fire hall; it later served as a health clinic, library, general meeting space and, most importantly, as the town hall.

The lots on which it stood were purchased by the town between 1939 and 1941, and two citizens undertook to erect a building to serve both as a fire house and a meeting place.

The Municipal Center was a two-part building, constructed of brick and concrete block.

The main block was two-and-one-half stories and front-gabled, fronting west on 60th Place.

The gable front originally had a wide garage door in the first bay; it had been partially filled in, and the closed inset space was lighted by a window. At the west end of the roof ridge stood a small gabled belfry which originally housed the fire bell. In the 1960s the walls of the entire building were covered with white stucco; a formstone veneer was applied to the first story of the west front, and formstone trim was applied around the windows.

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The main block was completed and in use by 1942; a fire engine was purchased and stored in the garage space on the first story, and the second story was used as the town’s principal meeting space. The south wing was built in 1946. Within a few years the Fire Department had moved out of the building, and offices were created for the mayor and council, the town clerk, and health and police departments. A health clinic was maintained in the building for several decades. In 1948 a library was established in the wing and was maintained for more than a decade.

The Municipal Center in the 1980s.

In the 1990s the town offices and meeting space were reestablished in the newer community center building in Sylvan Vista, and the Town of Fairmount Heights demolished the older building.

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Prince Albert Washington House 49 Eastern Avenue Historic resource; built 1922-24

The Washington House was built on property purchased by Prince Albert Washington in 1921 in the West Fairmount Heights subdivision; this was the fifth subdivision (platted in 1911) to make up the community of Fairmount Heights. Washington spent the next two years, with the help of friends, building a house (Model 3085) with plans and materials ordered from Sears, Roebuck and Company. This model was nearly identical to Sears popular “Westly” model.

The Prince Albert Washington House is a one-and-onehalf-story, side-gabled frame bungalow. Principal entrance is in the central bay fronting on Eastern Avenue and is sheltered by a façade-wide front porch.

The porch is inset beneath the principal plane of the roof and supported by four tapered, paneled wood posts that rest on bases of molded concrete block.

The first story is sheathed with wood siding painted white, and the gables are sided with brown rectangular shingles. Centered in the front plane of the roof is a large balconied dormer, whose overhanging eaves are supported at the apex and corners by decorative stick-style brackets.

Prince Albert Washington’s mother had emigrated from Darmstadt, Germany, and his father was from Columbia, South Carolina. Washington served in the armed forces during World War I before beginning work at the Department of the Interior.

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Washington purchased the Fairmount Heights property, began the building project and then moved into the house with his new bride in 1924.

His daughter, Anne Donelson, now a grandmother, still owns and occupies the house with her family.

RIGHT: The house under construction in the 1920s.

BELOW: The house today.

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72-09-48 Dorsey-Bush House 5603 Addison Road c. 1905 The Dorsey-Bush House was presumably constructed by Samuel Fowler, a carpenter by trade, who had purchased the lots in 1904 from Robinson White, the original subdivider.

The dwelling remained in the Fowler family until 1919, when it was conveyed to Charles M. Dorsey. Dorsey enlarged the property with the purchase of Lot 3 in 1923. The Dorsey family owned the property until 1984, when it was purchased by the current owners, Tyrone and Carolyn Bush. Although altered, the building still retains sufficient integrity to convey its significance as an early twentieth-century dwelling constructed in the Town of Fairmount Heights.

This two story, two-bay single-family dwelling has a rectangular, detached row house form. The wood frame structure is covered with stucco that conceals the original German siding. Set on a solid stretcher-bond brick foundation, the dwelling is capped by a shed roof covered with asphalt shingles. The roof is finished with overhanging eaves, a boxedwood cornice, sawn wood brackets and a wide fascia board on the façade (northeast elevation). A centered gable projects from the façade of the dwelling. A brick chimney rises from the interior of the dwelling and pierces the roof.

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Fairmont Heights High School 1401 Nye Street, Capitol Heights Historic site; built 1950

Fairmont Heights High School opened in September 1950 and was originally known as Fairmont Heights Junior-Senior High School. Constructed as the larger of two high schools for black students in Prince George’s County, Fairmont Heights was the culmination of many years of struggle for the area’s African-Americans seeking a modern school facility equal to those schools attended by white students.

Fairmont Heights High School is a 174,128 square-foot building constructed of concrete block with a stretcher-bond brick veneer. The school has an irregular form loosely based on an H-shaped plan with large appendages on the southeast and northwest corners.

Much of the building features a wide fascia composed of concrete panels over a stretcherbond brick string. The main entry is located in a canted elevation in the northeast corner of the courtyard. Window types are predominantly casement and awning, with a small number of double-hung windows.

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Fairmont Heights High School soon after construction. The car is a 1956 Ford Fairlane.

Serving the western part of the county, Fairmont Heights was the first school to offer the twelfth grade to its students. Under the leadership of its first principal, G. James Gholson, the students were afforded a broad curriculum focused on the humanities. With the landmark United States Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the school became the local focus for numerous initiatives over almost twenty years to desegregate the schools of Prince George’s County.

Such initiatives included the “freedom of choice” plan, becoming a “Model Urban School,” and extensive busing of students to and from area schools. In 1972, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a classaction suit on behalf of all African-American students, for nine African-American parents (one did not sign the affidavit) of students residing in the immediate community. John Williams, President of the Fairmont Park, North Englewood, Chapel Oaks Civic Association and Jesse Warr, newly elected first black member of the School Board, recruited all plaintiffs. (Williams served as lead plaintiff, though the suit was filed in the name of Sylvester Vaughns because Williams was the only plaintiff employed by Prince George’s County Schools.) The action, filed in the United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit, 1972, sought to further eliminate segregation within the county’s schools. Vaughns v. Board of Education of Prince George’s County resulted in the transfer of approximately 32,863 students in an effort to abolish the last vestiges of the dual-school system. Several efforts to close the school in the 1970s and a proposal to change the name of the school in 1983 were thwarted by the dedication of students, faculty, alumni, and community. Fairmont Heights High School is a significant landmark as a point of pride and achievement in the black community.

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Glenarden

INC. 1939

Both sides of Martin Luther King, Jr. Highway Between Barlowe Road and Dellwood Avenue Glenarden developed along the line of the WB&A Electric Railway which opened in 1908. This high-speed, interurban line spurred the development of a number of new communities such as Lincoln, a garden suburb promoted by Thomas J. Calloway, that was easily accessible by the WB&A line and that attracted black professionals from Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. Lincoln was platted in 1908. Two years later, William R. Smith, a Washington businessman, began buying up property which fronted on the WB&A line three miles southwest of Lincoln. By 1913, Smith’s property had been subdivided as Glenarden and Glenarden Heights; the subdivision featured a circle with a garden center and radiating lots at the location of the WB&A station. In 1921 an area on the opposite side of the tracks was subdivided as Ardwick Park and then later resubdivided as Glenarden Woods.

The first residents of the new Glenarden community built modest houses: small cottages and bungalows, as well as narrow, two-story front-gabled dwellings suited to the narrow lots. By 1920 there were 25 households in Glenarden, and the largest group of working men was employed by the railroad (both the Pennsylvania Railroad and the WB&A).

A Rosenwald school was built in 1922, and St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church opened in the same year, both located in the section known as Ardwick Park. (Established to serve the growing African-American population of Glenarden and the surrounding area, St. Joseph’s Catholic mission was formed in 1921.)

During the 1930s the Glenarden Civic Association worked toward improved community services, and in 1939 Glenarden became the third (after North Brentwood and Fairmount Heights) AfricanAmerican municipality to be incorporated. By this time the WB&A Electric Railway had closed down, forced out by increased use of the automobile; its right-of-way was converted This photograph taken in the early days in Glenarden shows a marching band in a parade.

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into the George Palmer Highway (now Martin Luther King, Jr. Highway). During the 1940s a two-story municipal hall was constructed and a local post office was established.

The 1922 schoolhouse was replaced with the modern Glenarden Woods Elementary School, which opened in 1957. Much of the early housing, however, was in deteriorating condition, and during the 1970s Glenarden qualified for and received U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funding for urban renewal and rehabilitation.

Substandard housing was removed and replaced by new building stock. The town hall was replaced by a large municipal building, and a local branch of the county library system was constructed, both designed by resident architect Anthony Johns.

Although very little of early Glenarden remains to be seen, the community has a long history and has been described as “the heart and hub of the black community of Prince George’s County.”

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Smith’s Barber Shop 7907 Martin Luther King, Jr. Highway Built 1948

R

aymond Smith opened a barbershop on George Palmer Highway in 1948.

Smith recalls that there were a number of businesses owned by AfricanAmericans on the block serving the community of Glenarden including his barbershop, two restaurants, a dry cleaner, and a gasoline station.

Raymond Smith was born in Prince George’s County in 1918. He moved to Glenarden as an adult when it was a small, unincorporated town. Raymond Smith is still a very active presence in the community. Smith’s daughter, Royette, notes that Smith’s Barber Shop supports many local sporting teams including baseball, softball and track groups.

Although Raymond Smith opened his barbershop in 1948, he began his entrepreneurial efforts ten years earlier, going door-to-door cutting hair. He learned his trade by observing his mother and then practicing on his brothers and sisters. He began cutting residents’ hair with hand clippers when he was between 12 to 14 years old. He charged “15 cents for a child and 25 cents for grown ups.” When asked how he became interested in being a barber he replied, “Well, there was another fellow around in Glenarden cutting hair for 15 cents for children and 25 cents for grown ups, and then he kind of got overgrown with cutting hair [sic], and he stopped and I started.” His barbershop is the only one in which he has ever worked.

When Smith was discussing how he saved enough money to open his barbershop he said that, “Well, when I came from the Navy, I was cutting hair in the Navy, and we used to get tips, we didn’t get paid for cutting hair, but the boys would tip you for certain haircuts that you’d give them that they could get. When I came home I had some money to build a barbershop.” He chose the location because he was living in the area on McLain Avenue

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and was familiar with this piece of land on Glenarden Parkway.

Smith and a few “fellows” built it brick by brick, “but I did most of the inside myself.” Raymond Smith stated that “this section was first [the barbershop], but the fellow that was helping me on the other side, he wanted a gas station, so he did that other side and used it for a gas station.” Later on, the former gas station became a restaurant, then a post office, then a cleaning establishment, and then a beauty parlor. When the last tenant left “I told my daughter I was going to rent it out and she said she wanted it.” Royette Smith opened

her own business, Royálity Hair Salon, in 1990.

People from various local communities come to Smith’s Barber Shop; the building has never been used for anything else.

Years ago, it was an important social meeting place. “The police department would come in every Saturday, they would dress up, put on their new uniforms and come out and we would just inspect them. The community—it’s okay. I mean not like it used to be because a lot of the old people have died.”

Royette Smith noted that “this is the only African-Americanowned business in Glenarden. I

Smith’s Barber Shop is a one-story commercial building with a rectangularplan and two storefronts. Raymond Smith is shown at right in this 1994 photograph.

guess he was one of the first and he’s still here. All the rest of them are gone now.” Raymond Smith says that his business has been very successful. It has given him four houses and the barbershop.

Upon retirement he plans to give his daughter the entire property to run. Royette Smith states that “several people have expressed interest in the space to continue its use as a barbershop.” She plans to write “Smith’s Place” over the building to keep it “theirs.”

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78-39

Little Washington Bounded by Washington Avenue on the north, Douglas Avenue on the northeast, Sansbury Road on the southeast, South Cherry Lane on the south, and D’Arcy Road on the southwest

L

ittle Washington is a small mid-twentieth-century neighborhood located north of the community of Westphalia. Historic maps document that the neighborhood was rural until the platting of the first subdivision in 1941. Martenet’s Map of 1861 shows virtually no development in the area that became Little Washington.

By 1878, the Hopkins Atlas documents a few dwellings constructed to the north and west of the present day neighborhood.

Little Washington was platted in three separate sections from 1941 to 1949. The first section, along Alms House Road (now D’Arcy Road) was platted in 1941 by Leon E. Tayman of Upper Marlboro. Section 1 contained nine lots, ranging in size from 0.32 acres to 0.88 acres. Lots were long and narrow, with approximately 100 feet of frontage along the main road. In 1947, Tayman platted Section 2, off of Alms House Road, on a newly established road known as South Cherry Lane. Section 2 included 22 lots on approximately 16 acres. Lots on the north side of Cherry Lane were very long and narrow, while those on the south side were shallower with the same frontage.

Little is known about subdivider Leon Tayman, who was a white man. He was a resident of Upper Marlboro, and the 1930 census notes that he was born in 1886 and lived with his parents, one brother, several nieces and nephews, and a domestic servant. Tayman’s profession was listed as an agricultural day laborer. In 1949 after the death of his wife,

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Tayman sold an undeveloped portion of his land to Charles Reithmeyer and Willy Grusholt, who subsequently platted Section 3 of Little Washington. Section 3 included 41 lots on almost 27 acres of land located between Alms House Road on the west and Sansbury Road on the east. Reithmeyer and Grusholt worked together on several other residential developments in Prince George’s County including North Forestville (1946-1950) and Old Towne Village (1964-1965).

Similarities in building form and design of several buildings in Little Washington and in North Forestville suggest that Reithmeyer and Grusholt, or another development company, likely acted as operative builders, constructing several houses for sale in their new subdivisions. In Old Towne Village, a townhouse and condominium development, Reithmeyer and Grusholt acted as community builders for a fully planned community that included a pool, golf course, and tennis court. The flat land of the community is improved by buildings that date from circa 1941 to the present. The majority of buildings are wood-frame construction built between 1941 and 1955. Buildings in the survey district are typically located close to the road. The first houses constructed in the neighborhood have bungalow forms and are typically small, one-and-one-halfstory front-gabled dwellings with a one-story entry porch or portico. The predominant architectural style in Little Washington is the Modern Movement, with a variety of minimal traditional, split-level, and ranch houses. Regardless of when constructed, the dwellings in Little Washington have minimal ornamentation. The community is surrounded by industrial development.

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Evans Grill 9206 D’Arcy Road Built 1946

A

frame roadhouse which was in its heyday nearly triple its current size, Evans Grill was the home to many famous R&B performers of the 1950s and 1960s. It later went on to become a hot spot for go-go music in the 1980s.

In February 1946, Clarence and Pearl Evans purchased Parcel 4 in Section 1 of Tayman’s Little Washington. Born in 1915 and raised in Prince George’s County, Clarence Evans served in the United States Army during World War II. After retiring from the military, he oversaw construction of Evans Grill, a small roadside tavern catering to locals and local bands. Evans, who received his beer and wine license on June 27, 1946, “noticed that crowds of as many as 300 people were gathering on weekend nights in the park outside a nearby convenience store, often playing guitars and

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The dance hall was to the left of the existing building.

socializing.” Interviewed in 1994

by The Washington Post, Evans remembered, “It was all black and all I seen was black and they couldn’t stay in the place, just go in and buy what they wanted to, come back out in the yard and sit on logs and trees…That’s what made me go build Evans Grill—to get them from outdoors in the hot sun or the cold and rain.” Evans shortly thereafter purchased an adjacent vacant lot from Tayman, increasing the size of his property to approximately 1.61 acres. This additional land allowed Evans to expand operations and construct a large music hall capable of holding 1,500 people that became a must-stop for performers on the Chitlin’ Circuit.1

A poster from the 1980s. See page 254 for information on Baltimore’s Globe Poster Printing Corporation.

Before the civil rights movement gained widespread traction, during the Jim Crow era, AfricanAmerican entertainers could not eat at the same establishments in which they performed, and often had trouble purchasing meals before and after shows in proximity to the venues. Evans put his establishment in context, stating, “Another thing you had to keep in mind: black people couldn’t go anywhere downtown, so if you had the ability to set up a place like this and they wanted to have fun and see live entertainment, they had to come through this. That’s how the Chitlin’ Circuit really got started, off this kind of environment.” In his book Hog and Hominy, Frederick Douglass Opie states, “The routine went: drive for hours, stop, set up the bandstand, play for five hours, break down the bandstand, and drive for several more hours. On the road, performers often settled for sandwiches from the colored window of segregated restaurants until they arrived at the next venue.” Evans Grill provided patrons and performers alike a comfortable social environment.

1

See the entry on Wilmer’s Park in “Other Resources” for more on the Chitlin’ Circuit.

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The grill steadily climbed in stature from a place to see live local bands to a bona fide stop on the Chitlin’ Circuit. Clarence Evans recalled how he first attracted the big names in African-American entertainment to his venue in the country, “I went and saw a lot of people at the Howard Theater and Turner Arena and talked to them, and then I started working the big entertainment.” And big entertainment he provided.

E Rain or shine, you were there and it was a ball.

vans Grill was known best for its Wednesday-night showcases, which materialized out of a matter of convenience for Evans and the entertainers. Wilber Fletcher, author of Clarence Evan’s biography, explains, “They’d [performers] often just be sitting around, trying to put ends together to go to the next place for the next week. They were very glad to get that stopover—it was a good booster for them.”

Evans Grill “provided a post-war venue for beloved performers such as Duke Ellington, B.B. King, Ray Charles, James Brown, Bill Doggett, Sam Cooke, and the Drifters.”

Smaller venues such as Evans were integral to the success of the Chitlin’ Circuit and the entertainers “because it offered the only way for them to perform for their fans during a period when the white media did not cover and mainstream venues did not book black artists.” Many African-American entertainers got their start on the small stages afforded by clubs like Evans Grill. The larger city venues and the smaller clubs such as Evans Grill did not compete in this way; instead, they harmoniously spread and fostered the musical talents of America’s black entertainers. For African-Americans in the Washington metropolitan area, Evans Grill quickly became the spot for mid-week entertainment.

One of those musicians was Diz Russell. Commenting on Evans Grill’s heyday during the 1950s, Russell said playing there “wouldn’t get in the way of a weekend engagement in D.C. And if you were heading south or north, you always had that drop-over where you could make a few bucks with Evans. We’d call him up and say, ‘Well, whatcha got for next Wednesday or the one after?’ Ike and Tina, B.B. King—everybody coming through here would make that Evans Grill stop. We always knew we could pick up a few bucks cause we were coming through Evans.”

Clarence Evans’ hands-on management approach paid dividends in the numbers of people attending shows at the grill and the quality of musicians clamoring to play there.

Eddie Daye, who sang at Evans Grill with the Four Bars, remarked that it was “just a down-home, country place, even had the appearance of just a country building that housed a lot of people fortunate to be able to see name entertainment.” For Evans, the appearance of the building was not as important as the social function it served, and the music it showcased. Although Evans Grill was relatively isolated in Prince George’s County, people would see the posters for shows and “get dressed up…have new shoes to go to this place down long, dark, dusty roads in Forestville.” Show-goers would “meet in front of it for show-and-tell, where you’d stand up with a new outfit so everybody could see it. Rain or shine, you were there and it was a ball.”

Evans Grill’s audience was, for the most part, entirely African-American. Ironically, the erosion of segregation, which had given rise to the success of Evans Grill, led to its eventual decline. By the start of the 1960s, Washington, D.C., clubs had started opening their doors to African-Americans, effectively luring away the same people who had cemented Evans Grill’s place on the Chitlin’ Circuit. Patron Millie Russell recalls

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the shift. “After being denied going to ‘quality’ places you’d read about, well naturally you want to venture out and you don’t look back at what you used to go to.” The advent of rock ’n’ roll, “which promised—or threatened, depending on your view—to bring the two races together” began in the District when “Elvis Presley hit town on his first national tour in ’56, followed by Dale Hawkins and Roy [Orbison] in 1958, the same year Bo Diddley moved to Washington from New Orleans.” Downtown Washington, D.C., had developed a music scene accessible to African-Americans. As a result, Evans Grill was no longer able to attract the big-name talent.

Undaunted by the end of an era of live music at the grill, Clarence Evans adapted his venue to serve the music community that grew out of the 1970s disco era. Embracing this era, Evans Grill played host to scores of disco parties. The 1980s brought a change to go-go music, and the venue once again adapted to function as one of the areas wellknown go-go clubs. It is not known when the last event took place, but demolition of the large music hall occurred between 1993 and 1998. Although the remainder of the building is currently vacant, its history is still fondly remembered by many.

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79-19

Upper Marlboro

INC. 1870

On the Western Branch of the Patuxent River Historic sites (6) When Prince George’s County was established in 1696, the already-established port town of Charles Town on the Patuxent River (at the mouth of the Western Branch) was selected as the seat of government. After the establishment of Marlborough and other port towns in 1706, however, Charles Town began to fade in prominence, and by 1718, residents petitioned for the removal of the County Seat to Marlborough, approximately three miles inland on the Western Branch. This was accomplished in 1721, by which time Marlborough was known as “Upper” Marlborough to distinguish it from Lower Marlborough in Calvert County. (Early in this century, the name of the town came to be abbreviated to Upper Marlboro’, and today is consistently spelled Upper Marlboro.) From 1721 until early in the 20th century, Upper Marlboro was the commercial, political and social center of Prince George’s County.

Upper Marlboro society was dominated by some of the county’s most prominent white planters, politicians, merchants, and lawyers, but the town has always had a substantial black population and a long-standing free black population. During the early part of the nineteenth century, blacks were part of the congregation of the Methodist Church on the western edge of the town and of the Roman Catholic Church near the eastern edge of town. As soon as the Civil War ended, a group of free blacks purchased land and built a Methodist meetinghouse on the south side of town near the Western Branch, and then worked with the Freedmen’s Bureau toward the establishment of schools for their children. The Freedmen’s Bureau school was built in 1867; until it was completed, classes were conducted in the Methodist meetinghouse. This little enclave, clustered around the school and church, became one of the centers of the African-American community in post-Civil War Upper Marlboro; several black families acquired and moved frame tenant houses to this community

from the nearby large farms of their former masters.

In 1921, when the new Marlboro High School was opened for white students, the older high school (a four-room wood frame building) was moved to this community, reassembled and opened as the county’s first secondary school for black students. It was replaced in 1934 by the first Frederick Douglass High School, located just south of the County Courthouse.

During the late-nineteenth century, black members of St. Mary’s Catholic Church established a local benevolent society for social and cultural activities and to provide financial assistance for emergencies.

A small complex of black-owned businesses developed around St. Mary’s Beneficial Society Hall. This complex included the home of James Diggs, a graduate of Hampton Institute who taught for nearly 50 years in the black schools of Upper Marlboro, as well as the Diggs family sweet shop and a popular pool hall. Except for the benevolent society hall, this streetscape of modest frame buildings was demolished during the 1980s.

Another community of African-American families began to develop on the east side of Upper Marlboro, after the construction of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad through the town. This area, sometimes known as Sugar Hill, grew up along the road toward Hills Bridge on the Patuxent, and was in part populated by the families of men working on the construction of the railroad between 1868 and 1873.

Today Upper Marlboro is a bustling government center, with busy court activity and a greatly enlarged modern courthouse, an equestrian center which draws crowds from near and far, as well as law offices, planners’ offices, churches and numerous shops.

Upper Marlboro has always had a special importance in the history of the county, and has always had a substantial and active black community.

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79-29

Craufurd Quarters 5611 Old Crain Highway Historic site; built late 18th Century

These two wood-frame, brick-nogged structures are located on a tract of land patented as Bacon Quarter 1 in 1986.

Hall, purchased in 1741 by David Craufurd I.1 His grandson, David Craufurd III, inherited this property that by 1801 consisted of around 700 acres, with several buildings and at least 36 enslaved laborers. The building technology employed in the two houses indicates that they were probably constructed during the ownership of the first two David Craufurds, between 1741 and 1801.

“The impact of African architectural concepts has ironically been disguised because their influence has been so widespread; they have been invisible because they are so obvious.”

—John Michael Vlach

Quarter 1, with its wood-shingled walls, corrugated metal roof and front porch, can easily be mistaken for an early-twentieth century tenant house. Quarter 2 was badly burned circa 1975 and is little more than a shell. Both have long been unoccupied, but are basically identical: each a story-and-one-half with a moderately pitched gable roof, oriented to the south with entry doors in the long wall. Each is framed of hewn timbers, mortised together and filled with brick nogging. The interiors consist of two downstairs rooms with an undivided loft above accessed by a boxed stair. The stove flues which run through the center are late-nineteenth century replacements for the original fireplaces, which were probably located in walls where, in Quarter 1, there is a 5 foot, 6 inch section without nogging.

Quarter 2 is too deteriorated to furnish clues to its original fireplace location. Along the bank of the creek to the west of Quarter 1 are an outhouse and a long, low shed of unknown purpose. Both structures are framed with hewn members joined by mortise and tenon, and may be of comparable age to the cabins. Both were whitewashed on the interior.

The cabins were possibly built by Craufurd’s enslaved laborers. David Craufurd II’s will of 1801 mentions two slave carpenters. It is likely that if the cabins were constructed by slave labor, they were African-Americans: by 1730 the population of enslaved laborers was largely American-born. The cabins were likely erected with specific instructions, at the direction of the owner.

The information on these two houses is largely taken from a December 1985 paper written by Elizabeth Hannold in the archives of M-NCPPC’s Historic Preservation Section. Drawing on a diverse selection of secondary resources, Hannold makes some observations about early plantation life that are worth repeating here, as they speak directly to these structures and the lifeways of those who inhabited them. While noting that the cabins “seem uncommonly luxurious in the number 1

Historic Site 72-029 is technically the “Site of Overseer’s House.” This house, built in 1745, was moved to 6601 South Osborne Road in 1993, completely restored, and is now known as Bacon Hall (Historic Site 82A-044).

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of rooms, the size of the windows, the wood floors, [as opposed to earth] the enclosed staircase, and in the quality of their construction” she also writes: The [relative] lack of space in the cabins should be viewed from a number of perspectives.

Firstly, slave life did not allow much opportunity for passing time in the house. Theirs was a life of work and the primary function of the quarters was to provide a place to eat, usually, and to sleep. Secondly, these structures would have been very sparsely furnished.

Thirdly, it seems likely that few whites of the day enjoyed significantly better housing. Dell Upton claims that 80 to 90 percent of the white population of the Chesapeake region lived in one-room houses through the eighteenth century. And in the nineteenth century, George McDaniel asserts, the houses of the poor, white landowners and laborers in rural southern Maryland were quite similar in form, size, and design to those of the slaves....Whether they were perceived as miserably cramped or as sufficiently spacious, these houses would have had an important psychological value for their inhabitants, as they provided the one space in which the slave could feel autonomous. In them, away from the sight and power of the white masters, the slave was free, or relatively so, to do as he wished. Moreover, in the house the role of the slave could be discarded for that of a father, a mother, or a child.2 Hannold further notes that scholars of African-American architecture “caution against looking for overtly African elements in slave-built structures.” Quoting John Michael Vlach “the impact of African architectural concepts has ironically been disguised because their influence has been so widespread; they have been invisible because they are so obvious,”3 Hannold concludes, “At the very least it can safely be stated that if the cabins were constructed by slaves for slaves, the care taken in their construction gains added significance.”4 BELOW LEFT: Plan of the first floor of Quarter 1, drawn

by Elizabeth Hannold, 1985.

BELOW RIGHT: Quarter 2.

2

3

4

Hannold, Elizabeth. “An Examination of Two Cabins on the Craufurd Plantation,” for AMCV 351, December 2, 1985, pp. 16-17. Collection of Historic Preservation Section, M-NCPPC. Vlach, John Michael. The Afro-American Tradition in Decorative Arts. 1978, Cleveland Museum of Art, p. 136.

Hannold, “An Examination of Two Cabins on the Craufurd Plantation,” p. 14.

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79-19-20 Union Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church 14418 Old Marlboro Pike Historic site; built 1916 Known today as Union United Methodist Church, this building is a significant landmark in the African-American history of Upper Marlboro. Although it has been altered by the addition of a large modern wing, it is an important symbol of the local black Methodist community.

Union Church is a front-gabled church of meeting-house style, and of wood frame construction. It is distinguished by its three-story entry tower which projects from the west gable front of the building; entrance is through a paneled double door with a pointed-arch transom. Marking the division between the second and third stories of the tower is a pent roof on all four sides, and above this an open belfry surmounted by a steep eight-faceted pyramidal roof. Flanking the entrance tower in the gable front are two pointed-arch windows, and five similar windows light the long south side elevation of the nave. The windows are filled with colored glass memorial panes dating from 1973.

The original wood siding of the church is covered with white aluminum siding. A long modern addition extends north at right angles to the original church building.

Union Church has been a symbol of the local black Methodist community for 80 years.

Opened in 1916 as Union Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church, it continued the tradition of Union Chapel (see 79-046), the black Methodist chapel established in Upper Marlboro at the end of the Civil War. During the early years of this century, plans were made to replace the deteriorating Union Chapel at a location closer to the center of Upper Marlboro and farther from the swampy land near the Western Branch. In 1913, one-half acre fronting on the Old Washington-Marlborough Turnpike was deeded to the trustees of Union Chapel. This land was about 1,500 feet north of the old chapel and just across the turnpike from the site of the antebellum Methodist Church. Construction of the new Union Church was under the direction of Joseph Wyvill, a white carpenter/ builder associated with many buildings in the Marlboro area, and much of the construction work was done by members of the Union Chapel congregation.

Union Memorial Church was opened in 1916 and has since that time been an established landmark in the community, closely associated with Upper Marlboro’s African-American population. It was used for high school graduation exercises and other special events until the construction of the first Frederick Douglass High School in the 1930s. In 1968, through Conference policy, the church was renamed Union United Methodist Church.

In 1992 the large wing was added, significantly enlarging the church building. In spite of this change, Union Church is still a local landmark and continues the 130-year-old tradition of the black Methodist community of the county seat.

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79-19-25

St. Mary’s Beneficial Society Hall 14825 Pratt Street Historic site; built 1892 National Register of Historic Places

St. Mary’s Beneficial Society Hall was, for nearly a century, the center of the social, religious and charitable activities of the black Roman Catholic community of Upper Marlboro. In the 1980s it was adapted for a new use, but is still a visible symbol of its former role.

The hall is a one-story, front-gabled building of wood frame construction, with molded returned cornice in the gable front. Entrance is through a double door, centered in the principal west gable front, and sheltered by a hip-roof porch. There are no other openings in the gable front. At the south end of the porch is a small square, flat-roof box-office that was built after 1940 for the social events that took place in this building.

The building is sheathed with German wood siding painted white; the four windows which light the side walls have new louvered wood shutters, painted black. The porch is framed by short stretches of white picket and wrought-iron decorative fences.

St. Mary’s is one of only two surviving black benevolent society lodges of the nineteenth century. The building is representative of the growth during Reconstruction of black benevolent societies, which, together with schools and churches, were the main forces that sustained the newly freed population during this time. The St. Mary’s Beneficial Society was founded in 1880 with the purpose of providing financial assistance for emergencies, as well as death benefits, to its members. Four of the charter members were Matthias Simmons, Stephen Perry, James Forbes and Dominic Quander, all active in the black community of Upper Marlboro. In July 1887, the society purchased a lot a short distance from St. Mary’s Catholic Church, and the lodge building was completed by 1892. Membership in the society assured emergency financial assistance and provided a center for social and cultural events. The building resembled the school buildings of the period: one-story and front-gabled, with a simple entrance porch.

During the construction of the present St. Mary’s Catholic Church (May 1898 to May 1899), the Beneficial Society Hall was consecrated and used for church services. The building has seen many uses over the years. The society continued to function, but with the increasing availability of life and health insurance, it gradually lost its Benevolent Society purpose. The hall then became a meeting place for special events, as well as a rental facility for local group meetings. In the late 1980s, the property was sold to an Upper Marlboro law firm, who carefully rehabilitated the building for use as their law offices. Its original name and use, however, are clearly displayed on the front of the building, and the building is still a symbol of one aspect of the African-American heritage in the county seat. The hall was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.

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79-46

Union Methodist Episcopal Chapel Site and Cemetery Valley Lane Historic site; markers dating from 1865

This is the site of the first Methodist church and cemetery for the black community of Upper Marlboro. Built in 1865, the church building served also as the location of the first classroom for black students until the Freedmen’s Bureau school opened in 1868 on adjoining land.

Today it is a tranquil grassy area bordered by woods and dotted with gravestones commemorating more than a century of burials.

In October 1865, Dr. Frederick Sasscer, a leading citizen of Upper Marlboro, deeded five acres along the Western Branch in Upper Marlboro to three black men, brothers Henson and Nicholas Greenleaf and George Bowling, who had been appointed trustees by the Washington Colored Methodist Conference. The land, somewhat removed from

the main part of town, was to be used for the establishment of a church and a burying ground for members of the local black Methodist community. The period immediately following the Civil War saw the building of many black churches, principally Methodist, and the Upper Marlboro church was completed early in this period. It was known as Union Chapel and belonged to the Methodist Circuit which also included Brooks Chapel at Nottingham, Niles Chapel at Centreville and Carroll Chapel at Mitchellville.

Members of Union Chapel were, from the beginning, active in the Negro education movement.

The three trustees became the president, secretary and treasurer of the Free Colored School Society which pushed for the

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establishment of a school in Upper Marlboro. For two years before the Freedmen’s Bureau school was completed, classes were held in Union Chapel.

For more than a half century, Union Chapel was a focal point for the black community of Upper Marlboro. In 1916 Union Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church was built to replace the old chapel. The building served for several years as a community gathering place. After it was torn down, its site was the scene of camp meetings. The graveyard has continued to be used and is cared for by the congregation of the newer Union Church.

Now a quiet and secluded area apart from the center of town, the chapel site and graveyard are reminders of the historic church that once stood there.

79-63-14

John Henry Quander House 3708 Old Crain Highway Historic site; built c. 1870

The Quander House is a rare example of a post-Civil War freedman’s dwelling. Although many of these modest dwellings must have been built by the newly freed people during the early years of Reconstruction, few have survived.

The Quander House is a small, two-story side-gabled dwelling of wood frame construction. The gable roof is covered with metal painted green, and the eaves are highlighted by scalloped vergeboards. The main block originally consisted of two small parlors on the first story and two small bedrooms above, lighted by windows in the gable ends; a one-story kitchen wing, with shed roof and brick chimney, was later built onto the rear of the main block. The building fronts on the south side of the old road which led to the Mount Pleasant Ferry and is adjoined by an extensively planted garden.

John Henry Quander had been a member of the large enslaved workforce of Mordecai Plummer, one of the county’s most extensive slaveholders; Plummer’s plantation, Poplar Ridge, was located near the Patuxent River about two miles north of Upper Marlboro.

In 1870, John Henry Quander and his wife, Henrietta Tilghman, were still living with their seven children in the area of Poplar Ridge, but within a few years they had moved their family south to the outskirts of Upper Marlboro. In October of 1875, Quander The Quander House, looking southwest along Mount Pleasant Road with the garden to the left.

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purchased from Henry W. Clagett, nephew of Mordecai Plummer, approximately one-and-one-half acres on the road which led to the Mount Pleasant Ferry. The deed clearly indicates that this small house was already standing at this time; it was very likely built by Quander himself. The Quanders’ new home was immediately south of the large new house, Bowling Heights, built circa 1870 for the daughter of Mordecai Plummer at the time of her marriage to John Bowling. The men of the Quander family worked as farm laborers, and it is likely that they relocated in order to work on the Bowlings’ developing new farm, especially after the death of Mordecai Plummer in 1873.

“The tea parties were held outside on the beautiful lawn… under the walnut tree.”

The large Quander family continued farming their own and other land in the Marlboro vicinity, and for several generations remained very active in the black community of Upper Marlboro. Members of the Roman Catholic Church, they were among the founders of the St. Mary’s Beneficial Society. Gabriel Quander, son of John Henry, was a delegate to the Colored Catholic Congress,1 which first met in Washington in 1889. His brother, William Dominic Quander, served for some time as trustee for the Upper Marlboro school, and William’s daughter, Henrietta Quander Walls, continued after him in the same position. The extended Quander family has continued to be much involved in church and in education. This modest house is fondly remembered by the third generation of Quander children who grew up in it: for the family and church gatherings there and the huge walnut tree which provided shade and fruit.

Evelyn Quander Rattley was interviewed when she was 83 years old in 2008. Her father and his siblings were born in the house and grew up there. “We were there for Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays, weddings, picnics, lawn parties, teas...oh, we had so many of the teas.

We dressed up for teas...[the house] seemed large, and very comfortable and just so warm and loving...there was a big potbelly stove in the main room that kept the whole house warm....All the linens in the house had beautiful lace on them...We would pray, we would sing...

The tea parties were held outside on the beautiful lawn...under the walnut tree. Outside there was a meat house...where they smoked the meat. And then there was an open space with an awning over it where we ate in the summer time....They raised chickens and had hogs and cows...one cow. And a vegetable garden...The kitchen was outside... there was plenty of food always. Plenty of food and just happiness.”

1

This movement was an initiative born in the black Roman Catholic community to address the injustices facing the country’s African-Americans.

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80-18

Chapel Hill Old Fort Road between Gallahan Road and Washington Lane, Piscataway area Historic resources (2)

ABOVE: Long Quarters, on the Hatton farm. Although demolished long ago, it is likely that, before they built their own dwellings and developed their own small farms, some of the Chapel Hill families lived in this converted farm building.

Long Quarters was later used to house soldiers stationed at Fort Washington during World War I. BELOW: The residence of William Delaney at 12510 Old Fort Road, which was demolished after 1993.

C

hapel Hill is a small rural community which grew up near the intersection of the old roads connecting Fort Washington, Fort Foote, and the village of Piscataway. This was land that, before the Civil War, had been the large plantations of the Hatton, Edelen, Thorne, and Gallahan families, located on tracts known as “Boarman’s Content” and “Frankland.”

The community took its name from the ancient private Roman Catholic chapel erected for the Digges family on their Frankland tract; by the end of the nineteenth century the chapel was gone, but gravestones marking a group of burials can still be seen on its site.

By the 1880s several families of free blacks and freedmen began to settle and establish farms on land that they purchased from the families of former plantation owners. Descendants of these first African-American families still live in the community today.

The Freedmen’s Bureau School was established here in 1868; following an established pattern, it served also as a place of worship before the construction of a Methodist meetinghouse on the adjoining land. The first meetinghouse was constructed probably by 1880 and certainly before 1883, when the two-acre parcel immediately north of the schoolhouse (on which the Methodist meetinghouse had already been constructed) was legally conveyed to the church trustees. By this time, the two buildings, church and school, had become the focal point of what was to become the Chapel Hill community.

In 1887, several five-acre parcels owned by the Hatton family were sold to two black men, Jeremiah Brown and Albert Owen Shorter. Brown served as the pastor of the new Methodist Church at Chapel Hill and also taught classes at the school. Shorter was a member of a free black family that had worked for the Hatton-Robey family and he had married Alice, the daughter of Jeremiah Brown, in 1872. During this period, Albert and Alice Shorter lived on part of the Hatton family farmland, known as Pleasant View, located close to the crossroads which would become the community of Chapel Hill.

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By 1905, several other African-American families, including the Hensons, Colberts, Brooks, Hawkins, and Delaneys, had settled in the Chapel Hill area. In 1906, Albert Owen Shorter purchased another, larger parcel of land north of and adjoining the Hatton land. On this land Shorter built a frame dwelling and developed a fruit and vegetable farm. Many of his grown children lived on this property or on nearby small farms.

T

he Chapel Hill community continued to grow as children of the original families married, built additional dwellings and raised their own families. A benevolent society lodge was built in 1922, offering emergency support for members as well as a gathering place for community events. Most of the families continued to farm the land and transport their produce to the markets in Washington, D.C. Many worked in District and Federal government offices and commuted to Washington every day; others held jobs at nearby Fort Washington, which was still the headquarters of the Defenses of the Potomac and the 12th Infantry.

In 1922, a new Rosenwald school was constructed immediately adjacent to the 50-year-old Freedmen’s Bureau schoolhouse, and three years later another new classroom building replaced the older building. This 1920s schoolhouse complex continued in use until 1952 when students were transferred to the new Sojourner Truth School in Oxon Hill. For the next 20 years the Rosenwald complex was used as a community center by Chapel Hill citizens.

The period from the 1920s to the 1940s was probably the heyday of the Chapel Hill community. In 1927 the new Livingston Road was constructed, providing a direct route southeast from Broad Creek on the Potomac to the village of Piscataway, but the main concentration of Chapel Hill’s farms and dwellings was along the old north-south road, by this time known as Old Fort Road. By the late 1930s the Chapel Hill neighborhood included approximately 35 houses, several general stores, the church and two connected schoolhouses, and a benevolent society lodge. Families still farmed and carried produce to the Washington markets, commuted daily to their employment with the District and Federal governments, and attended local school and church. Memories of childhood in Chapel Hill reflect a strong, stable community of closely related families who took care of one another and were largely self-sufficient.

The last 35 years have seen many changes to Chapel Hill, including the demolition of many of the older buildings. Several commercial establishments have been constructed at the south end of the community along Livingston Road; older houses have been replaced by new, and several new residential subdivisions are developing along Old Fort Road.

Reminders of the old community are becoming harder to find, but archival records and the recollections of those families who have spent their lives there make it possible to get a glimpse of the small rural African-American community of Chapel Hill.

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80-18-1

Grace Methodist Episcopal Church Site and Cemetery 11700 Old Fort Road Historic resource, 1902–1989

T

his is the location of three sequential building stages of black Methodist worship in the rural community of Chapel Hill. The modern church building, constructed in 1975, now occupies this historic place; the site, however, is of considerable importance because it was the focal point of the historic Chapel Hill community.

The 1902 sanctuary was typical of the Methodist churches of the period: a simple front-gabled meetinghouse of wood frame construction with gothic-arch windows. A generation later, in 1927, a corner tower was added, and the entrance to the sanctuary was relocated in the tower.

The first meetinghouse for Methodist worship was built here sometime before 1883; in October of that year, members of the Edelen family (local white landowners) sold to six black trustees of the “Methodist Episcopal Church on Chapel Hill” two acres of land on which the church stood. The trustees included Jeremiah Brown, who served as the church’s first pastor, and a member of the Shorter family who would settle much of the nearby land. The church was located on land adjoining the Freedmen’s Bureau school which had been established in 1868, and it is likely that the first worship services had been held in the schoolhouse before the Methodist meetinghouse was completed. These two buildings became the focal point of the rural farm community of Chapel Hill.

In 1902, a new Methodist church was constructed to replace the original meetinghouse.

This 1902 church building continued in use until 1975 when the present brick church was built. Renovated and connected to the new church by a modern breezeway, the older building was used for more than 10 years for auxiliary church functions, but was destroyed in 1989 to allow for construction of a modern addition to the 1975 church. The bell from the old church tower was preserved and installed in a freestanding lattice bellcote which stands on the church grounds, the only physical remnant of the historic church. It symbolizes the important early stages of the Methodist center of this historic community.

The church as it looked in the 1980s.

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80-18-2 Chapel Hill Rosenwald School Site Parcel 165, Old Fort Road 1922, 1923—c. 1981

ABOVE: The two-part 1920s schoolhouse

This is the site of the first school in the important post-Civil War farming community of Chapel Hill. Together with the nearby Methodist meetinghouse, the three phases of this school complex formed the focal point of the community.

before it was demolished.

BELOW: The east facade of the 1923 schoolhouse. Note the unusual row of twoover-two windows, each surmounted by the three-light transom.

BELOW: Excerpt from the “Survey of Colored Public Schools,” 1924.

The “ancient leftover” refers to the Freedman’s Bureau School.

A Freedmen’s Bureau school was established here in 1868; located on the east side of the road between Fort Washington and Upper Marlboro, this one-room schoolhouse housed up to 57 pupils during its first few years of operation. It was probably used also as a place of worship before the construction of a Methodist meetinghouse (on adjoining land to the north) some years later. After 1872 when the Freedmen’s Bureau ceased operations, this schoolhouse (Colored School 2 in Election District 5) was operated by the Board of School Commissioners as part of the public school system.

In 1922, a new school building was constructed immediately west of and adjacent to the 50-year-old Freedmen’s Bureau schoolhouse.

Partially supported with funds from the Rosenwald program, the new schoolhouse was constructed on the same plan as the schools built at Fletchertown and Muirkirk in the same year. Classes for grades 1 through 3 of the Chapel Hill students continued to be held in the older building, while grades 4 through 7 had their classes in the new building. The 1924 survey of “Colored Public Schools” reported on the fine new Rosenwald building, but stated that “the other [in which 35 primary children are penned] is an ancient leftover that ought to have been torn down.”

The next year, a new classroom building was indeed provided, also partially supported by the Rosenwald fund. The old Freedmen’s Bureau school structure was moved on logs to the adjoining church property, where primary classes continued to be held while a new structure was built in its place. When the new building was complete, it became the classroom for grades 1 through 3; it was connected to the 1922 Rosenwald school building. For the next several years, the old Freedmen’s Bureau school remained on the church grounds as an auxiliary storage building, and was later destroyed.

After the two-part 1920s schoolhouse was closed in the 1950s, it continued in use as a community center for Chapel Hill citizens for 20 more years. It was demolished c. 1981.

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80-18-3 Albert Owen Shorter House Site 12506 Livingston Road c.1906—c.1950

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his is the site of the house built by one of the patriarchs of the Chapel Hill community. Albert Owen Shorter lived and worked his entire life in this area; like many others he made the transition from the end of the plantation society to the developing early years of small farming communities.

Much of the land in this area had been owned before the Civil War by the Hatton family, and it was on one of the Hatton family farms that Shorter worked. He was born in the early 1850s of a free black family which had worked for the Hatton-Robey family before the Civil War, and Shorter continued in their employment during the Reconstruction period. In 1887 he purchased five acres from Hatton descendants for “services rendered.” By this time he had married Alice Brown, the daughter of Jeremiah Brown, who was the pastor of the new Methodist meetinghouse. During the later years of the nineteenth century, the extended Shorter family, the Brown family and several others lived on part of the old Hatton farmland (known as Pleasant View) near the crossroads which would become the community of Chapel Hill; these families began to develop their small farms.

The plat for the “Shorlan Farms” subdivision undertaken by Marguerite Shorter Lancaster. (“Shorlan” is a contraction of Marguerite’s family and married names.) The Albert Owings Shorter House was located near the center of Lot No. 1.

The Albert Owen Shorter House was two stories high and side-gabled, of wood frame construction. Its entrance was in the central bay of the three-bay main facade, and above this entrance was another door that led out to a second-story porch. The main facade was dominated by this facade-wide two-story porch; it had a plain rail balustrade on both stories. The Shorter house was somewhat different from the traditional farmhouse in that it had a shallow two-story wing extending from one gable end of the main block. Unfortunately, no photographs are known to exist of this house, which was destroyed many years ago, probably in the mid-twentieth century.

In 1906, Shorter purchased another, larger parcel of land (78.8 acres) adjoining the smaller parcels he was already farming; it was probably at this time that he built the subject house. Over the years he developed a fruit and vegetable farm. Many of his grown children lived on this property or on nearby small farms. When the road to Piscataway (Livingston Road) was cut through in 1927, his farmhouse fronted on this new road. Many of the families who lived in Chapel Hill during its heyday were close relatives of Shorter, and his house and farm constituted the family gathering place. Shorter willed the farm to his son, Albert Owen Shorter, Jr., and his daughter Marguerite Shorter Lancaster subdivided the property in 1950. By 1965 a modern house was built on the property, which today is owned by a Lancaster. Although the original dwelling and the farm buildings are gone, their site is significant in the history of the Chapel Hill community.

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Charles Ball House 12127 Old Fort Road Built c. 1915

Typical of the modest farmhouses built around the turn of twentieth century, the Charles Ball House is one of few surviving examples of the early building stock in the community of Chapel Hill.

The Charles Ball House today is two stories high and side-gabled, of wood frame construction. Entrance is in the central bay of the east facade, and this facade is sheltered by a one-story porch with turned posts that wraps around and shelters part of the north gable end. There is a two-story rear wing at right angles to the main block, flush with the north gable end. A new one-story wing has been added on the south gable end, extending the lines of the main block and slightly inset from the east facade.

Charles Ball, who had moved to this area from Virginia and who worked both on road construction and as a chef at Fort Washington, had married Ommie Lancaster, a widow from Accokeek; they raised their family in this house. Later, in the 1920s, they sold part of the three-acre lot to Ommie Ball’s son, who built a dwelling on it.

The Ball House was constructed on a tract of land known as “Rich Hill.” Charles H. Ball purchased three acres of this tract in 1915 from William T. Thorne, Jr., a prosperous farmer, and Ball most likely had the dwelling constructed during his ownership. The property was conveyed to his daughter, Agnes Ball Beck, and her husband, Clarence, in 1946. The property remained in the Ball-Beck family until 1995.

ABOVE: The Charles Ball House today.

LEFT: When photographed in the mid-twentieth century, the house had a facade-width screened porch and was surrounded by a well-tended garden. Note an automobile of the period parked at far right.

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Lancaster House

12123 Old Fort Road Historic resource; Built 1925

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he Lancaster House is a crossgabled cottage, framed by a porch which gives it a bungalow appearance. It is one of a few surviving early buildings in Chapel Hill.

Entrance is nearly centered in the east facade, and the entire east facade and south gable end and wing are sheltered by a wraparound porch. The building is sheathed with plain board siding, and part of the southerly section of the porch is screen-enclosed. The tapered square porch posts rest on bases of molded concrete block, making the wraparound porch the most noticeable feature of this house.

TOP: The Lancaster House today.

ABOVE: A mid-twentieth century photo of the house looking north on Old Fort Road. Although the hydrangea bushes have disappeared, the Adirondack chairs appear to be in their same location today.

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The Lancaster House represents one of the few surviving early dwellings associated with the Shorter family, among the earliest settlers in the Chapel Hill community. It was built in 1925 for Arthur Lancaster and his wife, Marguerite Shorter, on land subdivided from the property of Lancaster’s mother and stepfather. Charles and Ommie Ball in 1915 purchased three acres along the main road through the developing community, on which they built their house (Historic Resource 80-018-04). Arthur Lancaster, son of Ommie Lancaster Ball, was raised in this house, and when he married Marguerite Shorter, the Balls divided their three-acre lot and deeded to Lancaster the northernmost 1.1 acre. On this land the Lancasters built this house and raised their family. Marguerite Shorter was a granddaughter of Albert Owen Shorter and had been raised on the farm that her grandfather developed during the early years of the twentieth century.

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Colbert Houses Site 12210 and 12212 Old Fort Road 1910–2007

The Colbert Houses Site illustrates two generations of house building by the Colbert family, members of which were among the early settlers in Chapel Hill. The house was the main dwelling of the second generation of the family and the small cottage was built for the third generation.

The main building was a two-story, cross-gabled wood frame dwelling which fronted (westward) on the road. Entrance was through the west gable front, through a one-story porch that had been enclosed. The house was sheathed with narrow board siding, painted yellow. A short distance to the south, also fronting on the main road, was a tiny, onestory front-gabled wood frame cottage.

Members of the Colbert family came from Charles County and settled in the Chapel Hill area as early as 1905. Family tradition suggests that before building their first family home, the family lived in “Long Quarters,” an earlier farm building on the Hatton family property that had been converted into a dormitory-like structure. In 1905 William and Isabella Colbert built their first house and worked their farm, located at the southernmost edge of the developing community of Chapel Hill near the intersection of the roads to Fort Washington and Piscataway. The subject house was built by Jesse Colbert, son of William and Isabella, the second generation of the family in this community. In 1910, shortly after his marriage, Jesse Colbert purchased five acres along the main road of the community and built the cross-gabled frame house for his growing family. In this house, Colbert and his wife raised their large family; a generation later they built the small cottage to be used sequentially by their children as they grew up and started their own families.

RIGHT: The main building.

BELOW: The cottage.

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Croom

(St. Thomas’ Parish) 86A-27 Croom Road at St. Thomas Church Road Historic sites (3)

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room is a rural village in the southeastern portion of the county, named for the tract “Croome” a short distance to the northwest.

This was the location of the chapel-of-ease built (1742–45) for St. Paul’s Parish, one of the original two This picturesque frame dwelling was photographed in 1983 at Episcopal parishes in the county. This chapel, known as 14305 Croom Road. Built in 1918, it was owned free and clear Page’s Chapel until 1850, was located less than five miles

by Robert H. Diggs. Diggs was a farm laborer of mixed race, inland from Nottingham, the principal Patuxent River who lived here with his wife Mamie and their seven children. port in this area; Nottingham was a busy commercial port The house is no longer standing. town during the eighteenth century. As siltation caused a decrease in commerce on the river and an increase in inland population movement, a small village began to develop around the 1740s chapel early in the nineteenth century. By the mid-nineteenth century the village included a blacksmith and wheelwright shop, several general stores, and several cobblers’ and carpenters’ establishments near the century-old St. Thomas’ Church. In 1857, a post office was established in Croom, located in the principal store; it operated until 1948.

The community of Croom was located in an area of intense agriculture, and that part of the county that, before the Civil War, had the largest ratio of enslaved persons per total population. After emancipation, many members of this large labor force remained in the Croom area to work as tenant farmers and sharecroppers, making up a significant proportion of the population. During that period, a school was built for black children in Naylor, the area just south of Croom; known as Croom School (Colored School 2 in Election District 4) it was replaced by a new building on the site early in the twentieth century. By the early 1890s, another school (Colored School 3 in Election District 3) was built near the northern edge of Croom, adjoining the property which would, after 1900, become the site of St. Mary’s Methodist Episcopal Church. (See 86A-013, page 220.)

RIGHT: The Sexton’s House, built c. 1860, is located behind the old St. Thomas’ Church Rectory (Historic Site 86A-027-08). A small frame building now used for hay storage, this was the residence of the church caretakers, who were African-Americans. The building is referenced in the reminiscences of May Bolton, whose husband Richard served as St. Thomas’ rector from 1917–1919. She writes in her unpublished memoirs that “[Alice] a big and strong Negro woman…lived in a little cottage behind the rectory…and had two or three babies.” A man called “Uncle Bill” tended a large garden nearby, and “besides being the Sexton and our gardener he was ‘the grave digger.’”1 1

“Our Story” by May Bolton, wife of the Rev. Richard C. Bolton, undated, collection of St. Thomas’ Parish Archives.

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Both of these schools were influenced and supported by the opening of the Croom Industrial and Agricultural Institute in 1902. That institute, a major element in the black education movement of southern Prince George’s County, was established in connection with St. Thomas’ Parish, in order to prepare “young colored men and women”

86A-12

for employment in scientific agriculture and household economics.

Croom also was the location of St. Simon’s Chapel, one of only two chapels established in the county for black Episcopalians. St. Simon’s was built in 1894 for the AfricanAmerican members of the St. Thomas’ congregation. For many

years, St. Simon’s maintained a substantial black congregation; it merged again with the congregation of St. Thomas’ in 1964. Croom today remains a quiet rural agricultural community, served by two small stores and St. Thomas’ Church. The St. Thomas’ Episcopal Parish National Register and County Historic Districts have recently been designated.

St. Simon’s Episcopal Church Site and Cemetery 14201 St. Thomas’ Church Road Historic Site, 1894–1970s

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ABOVE: Shown here before 1903, St. Simon’s was a front-gabled meetinghouse-style church of wood frame construction, typical of country chapels of the period. Below: This 1942 photo of St. Simon’s shows that a square bell tower with a pyramid-shaped roof was added at some point. The church has also been painted a light color. By 1959 it would be clad in dark asphalt shingles. (Both photos courtesy the Reverend Francis P. Willes, St. Thomas’ Parish Archives.)

y the 1890s, St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church in Croom was already 150 years old. St. Simon’s Mission, established in 1894, started as a Sunday school for African-American children of the parish shortly after the election of the Reverend Francis P. Willes as rector in 1892. In 1894 a small chapel (St. Simon’s) was built for black congregants on the grounds of the rectory, and religious instruction was offered by Suzanne and Katharine Willes, sisters of the rector. Although St. Thomas’ Parish had been ministering to members of the black community for generations, the construction of St. Simon’s allowed for separate educational and social events among the black community and attracted a larger black congregation. By 1896, the church school at St. Simon’s was flourishing, a success that led to the establishment of the Croom Industrial and Agricultural Institute by Suzanne Willes a few years later.

In 1902, the congregation of St. Simon’s petitioned the Bishop Henry Yates Satterlee of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington for a full-time Negro priest, and the Reverend August Jensen was installed in that year.

Soon after his arrival, the chapel was moved; the small frame structure was lifted onto rolling logs and transported by this means to the south side of St. Thomas Church Road. Services were held in the chapel en route during the moving process, which took several weeks. After the chapel was stabilized in its new location, a vicar’s house was built on the lot immediately adjoining. By May 1902, St. Simon’s recorded twenty-three communicants, with a total increased to sixty-two one year later. The St. Simon’s vicar served not only St. Simon’s but St. Phillips in Aquasco (before the move to Baden in the twentieth century) and St. Mary’s, Charlotte Hall in St. Mary’s County. The vicar always lived at

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the St. Simon’s vicarage but served all of southern Maryland’s Episcopal congregations on the Prince George’s County side of the Patuxent River.

The Reverend Jensen experienced a personal tragedy in 1903 when his daughter died from whooping cough. Her death raised the question of whether the new mission should have its own cemetery. The congregation overwhelmingly responded in the affirmative, and St. Simon’s Cemetery was established approximately one-quarter-mile to the southeast of the chapel, in an one-acre clearing through the woods.

That same year Eloise Constance Jensen became the first of many whose bodies are interred there.

ABOVE: The Reverend Robert Wellington Bagnall (1883-1943) served as vicar of St. Simon’s from 1904–1906.

BELOW: St. Simon’s Sunday School ,1953. Courtesy of Ms. Janice Diggs (front row, center).

BOTTOM: Myrtle Pinkney, Gloria Spencer, and Frances Spencer at St. Simon’s Church, Easter Sunday, 1959.

Photograph courtesy of Ms. Janice Diggs.

With the exception of Willes and the last priest, the Reverend Richard D. Hartman, the vicars of St. Simon’s were all African-Americans and deployed and supported by the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. According to Pauli Murray, whose uncle, the Reverend John E. G. Small, served as vicar from 1921–1931, the diocese supplied the vicar with an automobile—a rare privilege in those days. It was used to travel the circuit holding services and visiting parishioners scattered throughout Prince George’s and Saint Mary’s counties.1 Murray wrote that, “The people who attended the two churches [St. Thomas’ and St. Simon’s] were intimately acquainted with one another’s families, and the easy familiarity common to rural life marked their daily interchange.”2 St. Simon’s Chapel was closed in 1964 and its congregation re-merged with St. Thomas’ congregation. The chapel and the vicarage were demolished in the mid-1970s.

The cemetery is secluded in a wooded area one-quarter mile south of the chapel site, visible neither from the road nor from the chapel site. It is tranquilly beautiful and well maintained by the Cemetery Committee of St. Thomas’ Parish, whose congregation includes many members of the families buried there. Both the chapel and the cemetery have been commemorated with a roadside historic marker installed by St. Thomas’ Parish.

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2

Pauli Murray, Songs in a Weary Throat: An American Pilgrimage (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1987), 50–52.

Idem, 53–54

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RIGHT: The partially restored main building at the Croome Settlement School.

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Croome Settlement School 14409 St. Thomas Church Road Historic Site; c. 1905, 1920s

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ABOVE: Miss Lilly (Elizabeth) and Katharine Willes, daughters of the Reverend Willes, have tea in Croom, early 20th century.

nly two buildings survive from the Croome Settlement School, but they mark the site of an important effort in the Negro education movement. The principal among the surviving buildings has been converted into a residence; it is two stories high, cross-gabled and of frame construction, now partially restored. This dwelling, constructed 1905, once served as the principal building of the school, and included two classrooms, kitchen and dining room, with dormitory rooms on the second story. On the immediate grounds of this building were five small, one-story, front-gabled accessory buildings, built after 1925, that also served as small classrooms and dormitories. Only one is extant.

In 1894, St. Simon’s Chapel was established for Negro members of the local Episcopal parish; religious education was offered by Suzanne and Katharine Willes, sisters of the rector of St. Thomas’ Church.

After the success of this school, Suzanne Willes took up the cause of Negro education as her life’s work, following the well-known principles of Booker T. Washington regarding practical preparation of black youth for the work force. By 1899 she had begun to solicit funds not only locally, but from New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, to establish an institute for the education of African-American boys

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and girls. In 1902 she was able to purchase 60 acres of land to be used for the establishment of her school. (In that same year, the small St. Simon’s Chapel was moved to the newly acquired school property.)

By 1903, Suzanne Willes had arranged for the construction of a large hall that was to serve as the center of the school activities, as well as other smaller school buildings. The Croom Industrial and Agricultural Institute of Prince George’s County, Maryland, was incorporated in 1903, and had as its chief object the “extension and improvement of industrial education as a means of opening better and wider avenues of employment to young colored men and women.” The Institute gave instruction in cooking, household economics, sewing and dressmaking, as well as scientific agriculture.

ABOVE: A 1929 notice for a benefit picnic.

RIGHT: Rachel A. Henry was a teacher and the head of the school for many years at the Croome Institute. This photograph was taken circa 1930, when she was 52. She is standing near the porch of the institute’s main building. In 1930 the Croome Institute had 27 boarding students, all female, ranging in age from 11 to 18.

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By 1918 the institute was in financial difficulty, and the trustees filed a petition for dissolution. The court approved the dissolution of the institute, but allowed Miss Willes to continue the school under management completely separate from the Episcopal Church. Reopened as the Croome Settlement School, the establishment worked toward the “industrial and educational betterment of the colored boys and girls of Southern Maryland…[on a] non-sectarian foundation but broadly religious.” Again scientific agriculture and household skills were the principal courses, and students came from various parts of southern Maryland; the school also served for many years as a home for District of Columbia Child Welfare wards. For more than 20 years the Croome Settlement School prepared African-American youth for the working world, until it was again beset with financial difficulties during World War II. The school closed finally in 1952; two years later, the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision would lead to school desegregation throughout the south.

Catherine (Kitty) A. Tomes Pinkney (1912-2009) following her graduation from the Croom Institute, stayed on as Supervisor of Matrons. After the closure of the school in 1952, Mrs. Pinkney and her husband, George Wilmer Pinkney, purchased the one-acre property that included the school buildings and converted the large main building on the school property into their home. Mrs. Pinkney, a foster child herself, and her husband, raised not only their own three children, but opened their home to twenty-three foster children throughout the next three decades. Mrs. Pinkney was also the first AfricanAmerican to attend St. Thomas’ Church after integration and the closing of St. Simon’s in 1964. Mrs. Pinkney continued to live in the dwelling on the Croom Institute’s site until 2005, when she conveyed the property, which included 1.08 acres and various foundations and remnants of the former workshops and dormitories, to the present owners.

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87B-36

Woodville/Aquasco Both sides of Aquasco Road (MD 381) One mile north of the county line Historic sites (3)

Aquasco is a rural village near the southeast corner of Prince George’s County, named for a nearby tract (known by the Native American name “Aquascake”) first surveyed and patented in 1650. This area was intensely agricultural and characterized by fertile farmland fed by Swanson’s Creek on the west and the Patuxent River on the east.

The river was also crucial to the history of this area, providing a transportation route for shipping the tobacco crop to market. By 1747, tobacco production in the area was sufficient to warrant the proposal of a tobacco inspection warehouse site at Trueman Point, the landing on the Patuxent just two miles north of the southeasternmost tip of the county. As it happened, an inspection station was never established at Trueman Point, but the landing played an important role in commerce and transportation from its earliest period.

During the eighteenth century, tobacco plantations were scattered around the area on large tracts of land, and there was no definable concentration of population. The main road through the area was developed by the end of the eighteenth century, and a village began to form along it during the early years of the nineteenth century. It was known as Woodville, after the Wood family, one of the early families to settle there. Farming continued to be the principal occupation of the area, but by the mid-nineteenth century, the little village had also a grist mill, several small stores, a local tavern, a blacksmith’s shop, an Episcopal and a Methodist church, a school and a post office.

The southeastern section of the county, always principally agricultural, had the largest ratio of enslaved persons per total population before the Civil War. After emancipation, many members of this large labor force remained in the Woodville/Aquasco area to work as tenant farmers, making up a significant percentage of the population. In 1867, during the Freedmen’s Bureau period, a school was built for black children at the southern edge of the village, and it served also as a site for Methodist services. Ten years later, a second schoolhouse was established for black children at the northern edge of the village, and the Freedmen’s Bureau school building continued as the John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church. Much later, in 1934, the 1877 schoolhouse was replaced by the large Woodville School.

This small house at 21601 Aquasco Road was built in 1877 as the second school for black children in Aquasco. It served this purpose for 57 years until it was replaced by the Woodville School in 1934. The building was demolished early in 2011.

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Woodville was also the location of the first chapel, St. Phillip’s, established for black Episcopalians.

The village of Aquasco is today a loose grouping of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century buildings, with some modern infill, clustered along both sides of Aquasco

Road. The area around it is still principally agricultural. Near the southeast edge of the village, a road leads eastward to Eagle Harbor, a 1920s black retreat community on the Patuxent.

Many African-American families still farm the nearby land but there are few physical reminders

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of the substantial early black population of the area. The sites of John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church and St. Phillip’s Episcopal Church, as well as the Woodville School, are therefore important landmarks in the African-American history of the area.

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John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church Site and Cemetery 22919 Christ Church Road Historic site; 1906–1961

The John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church was built in 1906 on the site of a house of worship that dated from the 1870s. The church that stands on the site today was built in 1961. Along the west side of the present church is an extensive graveyard, which covers the site of the earlier church, a simple frame meetinghouse with belfry and bell.

A headstone at the cemetery.

The first church on this site was built soon after the end of the Civil War. In 1866, James Gray, a freedman, purchased two acres of land on the south side of Woodville (Aquasco) from one of the white landowners of the area. Within two months, Gray conveyed this land to himself and four other black trustees, with the understanding that they were to erect a house of worship for members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. A Freedmen’s Bureau school was erected by the fall of 1867, and, as was the usual pattern, there was a strong association between the school and the church; of the five trustees of the church, three ( James Gray, Walter Thomas, and Richard Douglas) served for many years as trustees of the school. Worship services soon began in the new school building, but it was not until the spring of 1868 that the Freedmen’s Bureau provided a teacher to begin classes there. By the end of the first academic year, the school had come to be known as the John Wesley School (Colored School 1 in Election District 8).

When the Freedmen’s Bureau ceased operations in 1872, the administration of black schools was taken over by the County Board of School Commissioners.

In May 1877, this board authorized construction of a new schoolhouse on the north edge of the Woodville community, nearly two miles north of the John Wesley building. After that time, the Freedmen’s Bureau building was used exclusively for Methodist services and, as John Wesley Methodist Church, continued to serve the local black population.

Early in this century, John Wesley Church began a building program to replace the 40-year-old meetinghouse. The new building, a plain frame frontgabled meetinghouse with bell tower, was dedicated in November 1906. In 1961, the present church building was constructed just to the east of the 1906 church, and the older building was demolished. Since that time, the graveyard has been extended over the site of the older building. Then in 1973 the congregation of St. Thomas Methodist Church at Baden merged with that of John Wesley; the combined congregation is now known as Christ United Methodist Church, and services take place at the former John Wesley Church. Although nothing remains of the two earlier forms of the John Wesley Church, its site (together with its cemetery) is significant because it represents one of the early church/school complexes established by freedmen immediately following the Civil War.

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87B-34

Woodville School 21500 Aquasco Road Historic site; built 1934

The Woodville School is a rare and outstanding example of the rural schoolhouses of the county. It is a one-story, three-classroom frame building; built in 1934, it is the largest of the schoolhouses built in that period for the black children of Prince George’s County.

The original German lap siding of the schoolhouse is covered by white aluminum siding, and the main west facade is lighted by two banks each of five large windows. The entrance, a double door sheltered by a small gabled canopy, is centered between the two banks of windows. This double door leads into an entry hall, which in turn leads to a small transverse hall which gives access to the kitchen in the rear central space, the single classroom on the north and the two classrooms on the south. Set in each of the north and south planes of the hip roof is a chimney; these chimneys served the stoves that warmed the three classrooms.

The Woodville School is the third school built to serve the black children of the Woodville/Aquasco area. The first school building was established in 1867 on the south side of Aquasco. Methodist worship services were held in this building, known first as the John Wesley School, and in the spring of 1868 the Freedmen’s Bureau provided a teacher to begin classes there. When the Freedmen’s Bureau ceased operations in 1872, the administration

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of black schools was taken over by the Board of School Commissioners, and the John Wesley School came to be known as Colored School 1 in Election District 8.

In 1877, the Board of School Commissioners authorized construction of a new school for black students on the north side of the village, and after that time the Freedmen’s Bureau building was used exclusively for Methodist services. The new school served until 1934 when the present Woodville School was constructed. In March of that year, after frequent requests from local residents, the County Board of Education (which superseded the Board of School Commissioners) agreed to build a new school. The Rosenwald school program had officially closed in 1932, and the new Woodville School was erected by labor furnished by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, with materials purchased by the County Board of Education. Designed by Washington, D.C., architects Upman & Adams for a considerably larger number of pupils than the average rural school of the period, the new school was the largest and best-equipped school building of its type.

After 1954 and the integration of the county’s schools, the Woodville School was closed and sold; it was purchased by the Knights of St. John’s Commandery 373, the black auxiliary of the local Roman Catholic Church. Since that time, the building has been used as a meeting place and social hall for the African-American Roman Catholic population of the Woodville/Aquasco area; it is possibly the best-surviving example of the schoolhouses built before the advent of school integration.

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St. Phillip’s Episcopal Church Site and Cemetery 16205 St. Phillip’s Road Historic site; 1878–1976

This is the site of the first chapel established for black Episcopalians in Prince George’s County. The church itself no longer stands, but the old bell survives, enclosed in a freestanding bellcote on the edge of the graveyard.

St. Mary’s Episcopal Church was established in Woodville (Aquasco) in the midnineteenth century, a mission chapel of St. Paul’s at Baden and part of St. Paul’s Parish.

There were blacks numbered among the congregation of St. Mary’s, as there were in other Episcopal churches, but after the Civil War, the congregation divided along racial lines.

In 1878, under the leadership of the Reverend Josiah Perry, rector of St. Paul’s Parish, the vestry purchased one acre of land on the west side of Aquasco. St. Phillip’s chapel was erected there soon afterwards for the use of the black Episcopalians of the Aquasco area.

It was a small, front-gabled meetinghouse with entrance through a vestibule in the gable front, and four pointed-arch stained-glass windows lighting each side of the nave. In 1894, the second Episcopal chapel for black communicants in the county, St. Simon’s in Croom, was established, out of the congregation of St. Thomas’ at Croom.

St. Phillip’s Chapel was repaired and remodeled in 1932, with the construction of a low apse on the south gable end and the enlargement of the north vestibule. Like St. Simon’s in Croom, St. Phillip’s had a sizeable and active congregation through the middle of the twentieth century; in 1964, St. Simon’s Chapel was closed and its members merged again with the St. Thomas’ congregation. Services continued at St. Phillip’s until 1976 when the chapel was destroyed by fire. Since that time, the congregation has maintained the old graveyard and its grounds, and has purchased and taken over the old St. Michael’s Catholic Church building in Baden.

There are approximately 108 marked graves and an unknown number of unmarked graves in the cemetery, which is still in use.

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87B-38

Eagle Harbor

INC. 1929

Southeasternmost point of Prince George’s County The summer colony of Eagle Harbor began to develop in the 1920s at the site of the early eighteenth-century river port, Trueman Point, on the Patuxent River. This is the southeasternmost point of Prince George’s County and an area that has always been exclusively agricultural.

Although its closely-set, small dormers give it a charmingly ancient appearance, this cottage at 18401 Elm Trail was constructed about 1940. Its early or perhaps first owner was the widowed Sylvia Van Loo, a Washington, D.C., native. In the 1930 U.S. Census she listed her occupation as “maid” in a private house. Standing alone on the northwest corner of Block 15 since it was built, the house was sold by Van Loo in the early 1950s and has since had several owners.

Trueman Point on the Patuxent served as the river port for local farmers throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In 1747 it was considered for the designation of an official tobacco inspection warehouse. Although this designation was never realized, Trueman Point did connect the farmers of southern Prince George’s County with Baltimore and other ports, and it continued to be heavily used by local planters for shipping tobacco and other merchandise.

In 1817, George Weems established the Weems Steamboat Company and acquired landings, including Trueman Point, up and down the Patuxent River. This steamboat traffic continued on the Patuxent from that time until the early 1930s; during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a considerable amount of this traffic was recreational. A small farming village began to develop during the first half of the nineteenth century, several miles inland from Trueman Point, along the public road between Brandywine to the north and Benedict in Charles County. Known as Woodville during the nineteenth century, it is today known as Aquasco.

In 1925, developer Walter L. Bean purchased several parcels of land from families who had long owned considerable amounts of property in this section of the county.

Bean purchased this land, adjacent to Trueman Point, with the idea of creating a resort community for middle-class African-Americans from the Washington metropolitan area. The land was surveyed and platted in small lots which were then heavily advertised in the black newspapers of Washington, D.C. The sales manager for Eagle Harbor was M. Jones, who during the years of 1925 and 1926 released voluminous advertisements for the new vacation and recreation spot. Boating, fishing, tenting, bathing, hunting and sports would be offered; there would be 4,000 feet of sandy beach, and a $50,000 hotel was under

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An advertisement for Eagle Harbor in the Washington Tribune, 1926.

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construction. Eagle Harbor was only 30 miles from Washington, D.C., over fine roads, and the community would be “a high class summer colony for the better people.” Lots were offered for $50 or less, and prospective buyers could (for $1.00 roundtrip bus fare) visit the resort for inspection. The sales office was located in the Shaw section of Washington, D.C., a busy quadrant of theaters, offices, and successful black businesses. This was a period when Highland Beach, north of Annapolis, was a popular summer community, and Eagle Harbor also began to attract a good number of middle-class black residents of Washington.

People began building small cottages for their summertime use, and by 1928 the Eagle Harbor Citizens Association was already exploring the idea of incorporation; the town was officially incorporated in 1929.

Eagle Harbor is still a small and quiet river community today; there are piers for fishing and boating, a town hall and public parkland, but not a trace of the hotels that once attracted visitors.

There are approximately 60 dwellings, only four of which are from the early building period; most of the buildings are for summer use only, and for most of the year the atmosphere of the community is quiet and rural.

As summer approaches, however, activity increases considerably, for Eagle Harbor is still a popular family gathering place.

TOP: An early cottage at 23500 Wilson Drive, photographed in 1993.

Originally owned by Charles T. Moran and Carrie Stokes, the property was purchased for $14.63 by Joseph A. Wade at tax sale “at the Court House door in the town of Upper Marlboro”1 on September 15, 1941.

BOTTOM: 23414 Patuxent Avenue: a Craftsman-style c. 1930s bungalow on the river. Note the exposed rafter tails, low-pitched gables and flat-sawn porch balusters so characteristic of this style.

Now demolished, this cottage was photographed in April 1993.

1

Land Records of Prince George’s County, Liber 628, folio 184.

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87B-39

Cedar Haven Southeasternmost point of Prince George’s County North of Eagle Harbor on the Patuxent River

E Members of the community often gathered at the waters’ edge to watch ships go up and down the Patuxent River.

stablished in 1927, Cedar Haven was designed as a summer refuge for African-Americans. The community was located on a three-hundred acre parcel, about an hour outside of Washington, D.C., and along the Patuxent River. The founders of Cedar Haven hoped it would rival the adjacent summer colony of Eagle Harbor to the south, established just a year earlier.

Although Cedar Haven never achieved the popularity of Eagle Harbor, it was an important place for African-Americans in Prince George’s County. Cedar Haven, like Eagle Harbor, was built on lands that were once a part of the Trueman Point Landing (Historic Site 87B-028), a river port along the Patuxent. In 1817, Trueman Point was acquired by Weems Steamboat Company and served as a steamboat port into the twentieth century. The steamboat company went bankrupt not long after Cedar Haven and Eagle Harbor were established, leaving the wharf open for use by the new resorts. Early advertisements for the community spoke of an “exclusive” community of hills, beaches, woodlands, and meadows with fishing and crabbing, sports, hotels, dinners, and dancing. The promotional literature claimed that a “60 foot boulevard sweeps across the stately crescent shaped beach, lined with stately cedars from end to end.” All the streets and avenues were fifty feet wide and every lot fronted on a street, avenue, or boulevard. Advertisers claimed that Cedar Haven was a safe place for children, where they could escape the dangers of city streets and learn the names of the country’s greatest black leaders from the street names. They could swim at the natural beaches or enjoy the playground. Visitors could enjoy the summer activities by the water and stay for the fall foliage. For summer visitors, there was a bathhouse on Crispus Attucks Boulevard equipped with an 80-locker dressing room, separated for men and women, as well as trained attendants. A lounging porch faced the water. Members of the community often gathered at the water’s edge to watch ships go up and down the Patuxent River. Those without houses could stay at the Cedar Haven Hotel, a large bungalow with a full length porch resting on stone piers, which was equipped with gas, electricity, a garage, and a dance hall; the hotel was renowned for its chicken dinners. Early construction in Cedar Haven consisted of small bungalows and cottages with porches and large setbacks. Many trees were cleared to make room for new houses, but trees were also planted along the roads to provide shade. Sears, Roebuck, and Company kit homes, such as the Magnolia, the Bellhaven, and the Whitehall, were used as models for new homes in the community. Residents were encouraged to order homes from Sears or model homes after their patterns. Some of the most notable

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201

A typical sun-dappled street in Cedar Haven today.

houses in the neighborhood included “Sojourn,” “White Cedars,” and “Bellana.” The first house, “Sojourn,” was built in 1927 by Mr. and Mrs. William H. Thompson and was a small, front-gabled house clad in wood shingles with an enclosed front porch. It was later improved with a large addition, fireplace, and paved driveway. “White Cedars,” owned

by Mrs. Z. Ella M. Gunnell and Mrs. Mary Hawley, was a ten room, two-apartment bungalow, with a screened porch surrounding the entire dwelling. The “Bellana,” named after owner Anna E. Bell, still stands and is a front-gable house on a raised pier foundation with an open flatroofed porch. The “Bellana” was built in the style of the Sears, Roebuck, and Company “Magnolia” model, although it is unknown whether the house was actually purchased as a kit from Sears.

The streets in Cedar Haven were laid out in a grid, with the north/ south thoroughfare, Banneker Boulevard, anchoring a number of smaller streets. Richard Allen Street is the main road running east and west, though it is quite narrow and without curbs or lighting. Most of

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An early bungalow at 22801 Booker Washington Avenue.

the other streets are small, and many do not run far off the main road.

Most of the streets were never fully extended or paved. Some streets, like Coleridge-Taylor, have only one house on them. The roads are narrow, with no curbs, street lights, or sidewalks, and are heavily shaded by rows of trees and dense woods to the west. Many of the lots are undeveloped and dense foliage has grown over them. All the streets in Cedar Haven were named after significant figures in African-American history, such as the poet Paul Dunbar, the founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Richard Allen, and Mr. Blanche K. Bruce, the first AfricanAmerican to serve a full term in the U.S. Senate. Other important figures after which streets were named include John Cook, Henry Garnett, John Langston, Charles Young, Phyllis Wheatley, Crispus Attucks, Benjamin Banneker, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Alexander Crummel, Daniel Payne, and Mary McLeod Bethune. Although Cedar Haven never achieved the success Eagle Harbor did as a resort community, its history, landscape, and architecture make it a significant African-American site in Prince George’s County.

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Resources Outside Communities

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Churches & Cemeteries OUTSIDE DOCUMENTED COMMUNITIES

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99-02

St. Mark’s Methodist Episcopal Church 601 Eighth Street, Laurel Built 1921

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landmark on the western edge of the City of Laurel, St. Mark’s Church has a long history of significance to the local AfricanAmerican community.

St. Mark’s is a front-gabled church building with a corner entry tower. Constructed of rusticated concrete block, the north and south long walls of the nave are three bays long, lighted by gothic-arch windows separated by slim buttresses. The east gable front is lighted by a large tripartite stainedglass window, and the gable above it is covered with dark wood shingles. A two-story tower, with flared pyramidal roof and finial, is set into the northeast corner of the church building; entrance is into the east face of the tower through a pedimented porch with decorative posts of the same rusticated block.

A group of black Methodists had been worshipping in a small frame building owned by James Hebron, one of their number. In 1891, Hebron and two other men acquired from the Jenkins family of Montpelier a lot on the west side of Church (now Eighth) Street. The frame building, Hebron Hall, was then moved to the new lot where it stood across the street from the recently (1884) constructed Laurel Colored School. Together these two buildings became the nucleus of the black community of Laurel. In 1895, this church became part of the Laurel Charge of the Methodist Conference, and the same pastor served both St. Mark’s and Queen’s Chapel.

In 1921, a building program was undertaken, and construction began on a new church building. George Levi, a laborer experienced in masonry, is credited with molding the block with which the church was built. Before

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construction began, Hebron Hall, which had served 30 years as the house of worship, was moved a short distance south on the east side of Eighth Street where it served as a social hall. Late in the 1940s, the congregation set up a building fund, and 30 years later the west addition was constructed, expanding the sanctuary and providing a pastor’s study and fellowship hall.

St. Mark’s has served an active congregation, largely because of the stable black community of Laurel, many members of which worked at the Laurel Mills or the Muirkirk Furnace. St. Mark’s is significant not only because of its unusual appearance, but because it represents the religious center of a long-standing urban black community.

The Regional District Act (Article 28 of the Maryland Code) that provides the planning and zoning authority for The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission does not include the City of Laurel; therefore, this building is not a Prince George’s County historic site.

69-21

Cherry Hill Cemetery 6821 Ingraham Street, Beacon Heights Grave markers date from 1884 Historic site (M-NCPPC)

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herry Hill is significant as a rare surviving example of a late-nineteenth-century burial ground for members of the local black community. It was once part of the farm that was amassed by Josiah Adams, who had been part of the labor force at the Riversdale plantation before the Civil War. Beginning in 1871, Adams began to purchase parcels of land that he developed into a farm of 49.5 acres. When Adams died in 1884, he divided the land into seven lots and devised them individually to some of his children. The largest lot was delineated around Josiah Adams’ dwelling; in the southwest corner of that lot, Adams designated a small graveyard in which he was to be interred and which was devised to all of his children as a family burial ground.

A large inscribed stone was erected in memory of Josiah Adams. In the years following Adams’ death, many members of the Adams family and their relatives (e.g., Becketts, Plummers, Quinces, and Edwards) were buried in this graveyard; some of these burials were marked by chunks of sandstone, and others were unmarked.

Cherry Hill Cemetery is located on the east side of Ingraham Street in the subdivision of Beacon Heights. A 5.8-acre parcel was left undeveloped, and it comprises all that is known of the subject cemetery. The topography of this land is fairly steep, dropping 55 feet toward Furman Parkway to the east; the easterly section of the property is wooded. Chunks of sandstone, uninscribed, were once arranged in rows, marking the burials; most of these stones had been disturbed, and many lost, before the property was repossessed by the county and rehabilitation of the cemetery was undertaken. Since that time, a concrete bench has been installed at the high point of the land, several stones have been replicated or reset, and a park sign has been erected at the road frontage.

The property was sold in 1931 by Adams’ granddaughter, but remained in the family.

When the surrounding land was sold at the time of the 1955 subdivision, there was a verbal agreement that the cemetery would remain undisturbed, but the memorial stone for Josiah Adams has since disappeared. In the early 1990s the undeveloped 5.8-acre parcel was acquired by The MarylandNational Capital Park and Planning Commission, which has made it into a park-like setting with several memorial markers. The Cherry Hill Cemetery is now a peaceful oasis in a developed residential area, and a rare and important reflection of an early local black community.

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72-45

Harmony Memorial Park 7101 Sheriff Road, Landover Historic resource; established 1960 with burials dating from 1825

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armony Memorial Park is a very large (historically African-American) cemetery, and contains approximately 64,000 graves. The Colombian Harmony Society was founded in 1825 in Washington, D.C., by a group of free Negroes, with its major objective to establish a dignified burial place for blacks. In 1829 the society purchased a tract of seven lots at 5th Street and Boundary Street (now Florida Avenue) in the District of Columbia. The cemetery which the society established there was known as “Harmoneon.” In 1859 it was moved to a new site on Rhode Island Avenue, and the name was changed to “Harmony Cemetery.” The Rhode Island Avenue site was used for another century, when the cemetery was filled almost to capacity, and the society began to look for another location. Louis H. Bell, a Maryland real estate investor, offered land on Sheriff Road, and his proposal was accepted in 1959.

In May 1960 the society began the five-month process of removal and re-interment of 37,000 graves to the new site, reported to have been one of the largest cemetery moves in history. Although originated for the use of African-Americans, the Harmony Cemeteries have interred persons of many races, religions and nationalities. Harmony Memorial Park now has a generous care fund to ensure its beauty and upkeep in perpetuity. The Columbian Harmony Society, which established the original cemetery, continues its operations, not only in regard to the cemetery but also in research and publication on subjects of African-American interest.

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75A-30

Lincoln Memorial Cemetery 4001 Suitland Road, Suitland Historic resource; Burials date from 1928

Lincoln Memorial Cemetery is a commercial, nonsectarian, privately owned AfricanAmerican cemetery. It has approximately 51,000 graves. This cemetery was started in 1927 by James Easley Edmunds from Lynchburg, Virginia, for black residents of the Washington metropolitan area. It was developed on land which was part of the old Landon dairy farm. The park-like grounds were designed by Bishop W. McCollough Mausoleum at Lincoln Cemetery. landscape architect John H. Small of Washington, D.C. The cemetery provided a dignified final resting place for African-Americans in an era when burial grounds for whites and African-Americans were segregated, and cemeteries were in short supply in the District. In the 1920s and 1930s, Lincoln Memorial was one of only two known public cemeteries for African-Americans located in the metropolitan area. The cemetery was apparently named to evoke positive associations with Abraham Lincoln, and the founding board included some of the most prominent African-American leaders in the District in the early twentieth century.

The most noticeable architectural feature of the cemetery is at the top of the hill, which has a view of the surrounding area. It is a small mausoleum in stylized classical temple form. In front of the temple opening is a bronze statue of the seated Bishop W. McCollough, a work of sculptor Ed Dwight in 1991. The inscription reads “Built in honor of Bishop W. McCollough by Bishop S. C. Madison. Successor to Bishop C. M. Grace, founder of United House of Prayer for all People Church on the rock of the Apostolic faith.”

The entrance to the cemetery from Suitland Road is through a wrought-iron archway with the legend “Lincoln Cemetery.” This archway opens onto a landscaped circle from which several roadways lead to the south and to higher ground.

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74A-4 Holy Family Roman Catholic Church 12010 Woodmore Road, Woodmore Historic site; built 1890

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oly Family is a large and wellproportioned church, with Gothic revival and stick-style decorative elements. It was built as a mission of Sacred Heart Church at Whitemarsh to serve the black Roman Catholic community of the rural Woodmore-Mitchellville area. This community had been worshipping earlier in a small log building known as Brookes Chapel. Isaac Wood, a local white carpenter whose family gave its name to the Woodmore area, was a member of the Roman Catholic church at Whitemarsh, a predominantly white parish. Recognizing a need for a local Roman Catholic mission for the tenant farmers of the Woodmore community, Wood in 1889 deeded an acre of his Woodmore land to the Archdiocese of Baltimore “for the erection thereon of a church or chappel [sic].� On February 9,1890, the parishioners themselves laid the cornerstone that began the construction of the Holy Family Mission. The church was completed in 1892.

Holy Family Church was served by the Jesuit priests from Sacred Heart until 1938 when it was transferred to the care of the Josephites, whose primary work was ministering to the black community and better suited to address the religious needs of the parishioners.

By 1938, the population of the mission had increased to such an extent that Holy Family was given resident parish status. With the recent development in this area of residential subdivisions, the congregation of Holy Family has become an even mix of black and white families. Since 1972, it has been pastored by the Diocese of Washington and has been maintained in excellent condition.

The church is a large, five-bay-long, front-gabled structure with German wood siding and a steeply pitched roof. Entrance is through two gabled porches at the south gable front; each porch has a double door surmounted by a gothic-arch transom with rosette tracery.

Stick-style motifs with pendants adorn the apex of the south gable front, as well as those of the two entrance porches. High in the gable front is a small round window, also with rosette tracery, and between the entry porches is a tripartite, lancet window. Standing at the ridge of the south gable front is a tall bellcote with stick-style ornamentation and pyramidal roof surmounted by a cross. Each of the long walls of the nave is lighted by five gothic-arch windows. The interior of the church is distinguished by its wood-paneled, vaulted ceiling with exposed roof trusses. Holy Family Roman Catholic Church is an outstanding example of late-Victorian ecclesiastic architecture. It is particularly significant as the substantial and lasting product of African-American Roman Catholics in a rural agricultural community.

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74B-6

Carroll Methodist Episcopal Chapel 1811 Mitchellville Road, Mitchellville Historic site; built c. 1900

Carroll Methodist Episcopal Church is a simple frame chapel of meetinghouse style, representative of modest country churches of the turn of the twentieth century. Now nearly surrounded by modern residential development, it still offers a glimpse of the local black community of an earlier period.

Known now as Carroll Chapel, this building is front-gabled and of wood frame construction. Entrance is through a double door in the small gabled vestibule at the south gable front. The sides of the church are three bays long; windows are rectangular and may always have been in this form. The original board siding is now covered with white synthetic siding. The roof is covered with standing-seam metal. The interior walls are finished with beaded wainscoting.

In 1877, the white congregation of McKendree Chapel made plans to replace their church, constructed in 1841. The McKendree trustees deeded the old chapel to five black trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The black congregation did not, however, move into the old chapel, but one month later purchased a half acre of property a short distance west of McKendree Chapel. Members of the congregation believe that the present chapel was built soon after this; the building appears to be of early twentiethcentury construction, although it may well contain elements of the 1870s structure.

Certainly a chapel for the black Methodist community of Mitchellville did exist as early as 1877, for it is mentioned in an 1877 record of the Marlboro Circuit (which included, in addition to this congregation, those of Union Chapel in Upper Marlboro, Niles Church at Meadows, and Brooks Church at Nottingham). This 1877 report was recorded

by Pastor O. Carroll, and it is probably in his honor that the chapel was named.

In 1920/30 a Rosenwald school for black children was built a short distance west on Mitchellville Road; together the two buildings helped to define the community. By the 1960s membership was decreasing as many congregants joined the larger Mount Oak Methodist Church a few miles to the northeast. In recent years the building has been used by a small Baptist congregation. Carroll Chapel, with its simple plan and rectangular sash windows, has the appearance of a schoolhouse rather than a church.

It is representative, though, of many other modest country churches of the twentieth century (most of which have been either modified or destroyed) and therefore has significance in this stillsemirural community.

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74B-10

Mount Nebo African Methodist Episcopal Church & Cemetery 17214 Queen Anne Road, Queen Anne Historic site; built 1925

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he old Mount Nebo A.M.E. Church was built to replace an earlier church building. In June 1877, one acre from the Plummer family’s Poplar Ridge tract was sold to three black men of the Queen Anne area; these men (Richard Wood, George W. Larkins, and Wilson Turner) were acting as trustees for the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the land was to be “for the use of the African Methodist Church and as a burial ground for colored persons.” The one-acre lot adjoined the recently (1875) completed school for black children of the Queen Anne vicinity. A small log church was completed within a few years, and together with the schoolhouse, became a focal point for the local black community.

The old Mount Nebo African Methodist Episcopal Church is a one-story, front-gabled church building of wood frame construction, typical of the small meetinghouses of the early twentieth century. Centered in the south gable front of the building is a small entry tower with pyramidal roof. Entrance is in its south face through a paneled double door.

There is a rear addition that extends the sanctuary to a fourth bay, and turns to form a shallow ell wing. Northwest of the church is a small graveyard bordered by woods.

Both school and church fronted on the old road between Upper Marlboro and Queen Anne. A century earlier Queen Anne had been a thriving commercial port town, but by the late 1870s it was a quiet river crossing with a few stores and dwellings, and a significant black and biracial population. One of the most prominent residents of Queen Anne, William Lane Watkins, is closely associated with the Mount Nebo church and school.

Watkins was born in 1852, son of an enslaved woman and a white father; he was educated in Massachusetts and received a medical degree from Boston University. He returned to Prince George’s County in the late 1870s and married a daughter of Wilson Turner, one of the trustees of Mount Nebo A.M.E. Church. Watkins practiced medicine in the Queen Anne area and taught school at the Queen Anne school (located next to Mount Nebo Church). He was also active in local politics, serving on the Republican State Central Committee for several years, before his death in 1929.

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76B-8

St. Paul’s Methodist Episcopal Church 6634 St. Barnabas Road, Oxon Hill Historic resource; built 1915

St. Paul’s Methodist Episcopal Church is significant for its long history of Methodist worship in the local African-American community. The church is now part of a large multisection complex that incorporates a small frame church structure as its northeasternmost element; this small church is representative of the modest frame churches of this period.

The church is front-gabled, three bays by four, with pointed-arch windows filled with stained-glass memorials; entry is through a three-story tower built into the northeast corner. The church building is sheathed with synthetic siding. Immediately west of the tower, set into the foundation, is an inscribed cornerstone that reads: “This cornerstone was removed from the original 1888 church structure and affixed to the 1915 foundation.”

As early as 1791, traveling clerics preached to a group of AfricanAmericans who had obtained their freedom.

St. Paul’s may be the oldest black congregation in Prince George’s County. As early as 1791, traveling clerics preached to a group of African-Americans who had obtained their freedom and built a meeting house for worship. This group of people may be connected to a congregation of African-Americans who, by 1867, were worshipping together in a schoolhouse provided by the Freedmen’s Bureau. In 1887 this congregation acquired land on which to build their own church, just over a mile southeast (inland) from the Freedmen’s Bureau schoolhouse; a Methodist meetinghouse was constructed in 1888 at the location where the parish hall now stands, and served until 1915 when the present sanctuary was built next to it. The 1888 church was destroyed in the 1920s, its place taken by a series of later additions. St. Paul’s has made the transition from a struggling rural congregation at the end of the Civil War to an urban middle-class congregation of the twenty-first century. Although the building retains little of its historic appearance, its background is unusually important in the history of African-Americans in the county. Its congregation may well reach back to the 1790s, and may be the first documented African-American congregation in Prince George’s County.

St. Paul’s Church today.

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76B-16

Mount Hope African Methodist Episcopal Church Site & Cemetery 7043 Allentown Road, Camp Springs Historic site, 1891–1962

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his is the site of a late nineteenth-century church, one of a small number of historic African Methodist Episcopal Churches in the county. Although the church building has been gone for more than 40 years, the graveyard remains a quiet oasis. The graveyard is bordered by a shallow wooded area, and only a few inscribed stones are visible in the grassy area.

In 1891, a local farm owner sold two acres to three local black men (David Reeder, Henry T. Mills, and James E. Young) who were serving as “trustees of a certain colored Methodist Church,” for the purpose of “erecting thereon a house for public worship.” Within a few years a small church was built and came to be known as Mount Hope African Methodist Episcopal Church. It became part of a circuit with two already established churches: Union-Bethel A.M.E. Church near Brandywine and Metropolitan A.M.E. Church in Clinton; these three churches were served by the same pastor.

In 1902, the Board of School Commissioners responded to the request of the black community of Camp Springs and authorized that a school for black children be built. Following a pattern that had been established during the era of the Freedmen’s Bureau, a partnership developed between church and school; in this case, a school site was selected near an established black church, Mount Hope. In 1924, at the time of the building of the second school at Camp Springs, the trustees of Mount Hope (Jeremiah Bruce, John Dodson and John H. Wright) gave permission for the school children to use the two-acre churchyard as a playground. This partnership ended in 1954 when the school was closed and sold the following year.

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77-12

St. Luke’s Methodist Episcopal Church Site & Cemetery Dower House Road West & Leapley Road, Upper Marlboro Historic site; 1893–1970s

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wood frame chapel called St. Luke’s Methodist Episcopal Church was established in 1877 on this site and stood until the late 1970s; today only the graveyard remains.

In 1967, the St. Luke’s congregation merged with the Jackson Methodist Church in Forestville, and in 1968 moved into the newly constructed Westphalia United Methodist Church, located on Westphalia Road.

In the period following the Civil War, there was a small community of black farmers south of Centreville, a small crossroads village on the then-developing Washington-Marlborough Turnpike.

In 1867, the Freedmen’s Bureau established a school for black children in this community.

William Niles, a local white farmer, deeded one acre to four men as trustees “for the erection thereon of a school house for the use of the blacks forever” to be located on the Niles farm near Centreville. An unusual detail of the deed specified land for playgrounds as well; the school opened in 1868. A decade passed before a church was built in this community, but, as was the general pattern during this period, worship services were probably held in the schoolhouse until the church building was completed. In 1877, three black trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church purchased 3/4 acre of land, approximately 1/4 mile northwest of the schoolhouse, for the purpose of erecting a house of public worship. The chapel was completed before June 1877 when Pastor Carroll of the Marlboro Circuit recorded Niles Chapel as one of his four churches. Named for the original benefactor of the school property, the Niles Chapel was probably a modest log structure; it was replaced in 1893 by a frame structure of typical front-gabled form.

Meadows grew up around Niles Chapel and the old schoolhouse. Early in the twentieth century, a lodge (or “colored hall”) was constructed a short distance south of the church. By 1928 the old schoolhouse was in need of replacement, and the Board of Education purchased for that purpose two acres between the lodge and the church. Constructed with Rosenwald funds, the Meadows school (Colored School 2 in Election District 9) was completed in 1929. This complex of buildings (the new Rosenwald school, the social hall and the Methodist church) was the center of the Meadows community.

Meadows was short-lived, for in August 1942, in a Declaration of Taking, several thousand acres were acquired for the building of the Camp Springs Army Air Field (Joint Base Andrews Naval Air Facility Washington). Many families were required to vacate their homes and farms; at Meadows, the school and lodge were destroyed, and the congregation diminished in size. Services continued to be held at St. Luke’s until the completion of the Westphalia church in 1968.

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82A-19

Boys’ Village of Maryland Cemetery 11301 Crain highway, Cheltenham Historic site; active from 1887–1937

In 1872, Enoch Pratt, a Baltimore businessman century and was possibly established during Horn’s and philanthropist, purchased a 1,200-acre tract tenure. This small section is located southwest of the in Cheltenham as a place to which delinquent cemetery maintenance building, approximately fifty African-American boys of Baltimore could be feet from the tree line. The four identified granite sent for rehabilitation. Pratt and his wife, Maria, headstones are arranged in one row aligned north immediately conveyed 752 acres to the House of to south. All of the markers have a segmental arch.

Reformation and Instruction for Colored Children. Three of the headstones are legible. The marker The institution was opened in January of 1873. leaning against a mature oak reads: Williams Jones The 1878 Hopkins Map notates the “House of / From Baltimore City / Died March 10, 1887 / Reformation” with General Aged 17 Years. The short marker John Watts Horn acting as with footstone reads: Anthony superintendent. The first boys, Johnson / From Baltimore Co / thirteen in total, were housed Died March 21, 1880 / Aged 11 in buildings associated with the Years. The short marker, without 752-acre parcel donated by Pratt footstone, reads: Ashbury Brown in 1872. The first institutional / From Annapolis. Md / Died buildings were constructed April 5, 1887 / Aged 15 Years. shortly thereafter. The facility The ages of these markers, and the originally operated more like a inscriptions indicating that two A marker from Section One. school than a prison. The boys of the boys were from Baltimore, worked the school farm and suggests that this was the original lived in dormitories, rather than cells. Recaning cemetery associated with the Boy’s Village of chairs was a specialty of the facility. The first Maryland. These were young men, the same age superintendent, John Watts Horn, born 1834 in as the boys detained in the reformation facility.

Dumfries, Scotland, was a Maryland veteran of the Depressions in the ground along the line of extant Civil War (1861–1865). Horn fervently protested markers suggest the presence of additional burials the policy of placing black children in prison, and that are no longer marked. after retiring from the military with the rank of Section Two, which includes the concrete-block general, turned his attention to the improvement markers, was established during the period of of black youth. In 1937, the institution was taken ownership by the state. This section is located over by the State of Maryland. The land on which northwest of the cemetery administration the Boys’ Village cemetery is located was conveyed building, approximately fifty feet from the tree to the Cheltenham State Veterans Commission line. Section 2 is sited southwest of Section 1. in 1976 for use as a veterans’ cemetery. It is likely There are approximately eight rows of markers that the Boy’s Village of Maryland Cemetery was aligned southwest to northeast. The doubleincluded with this transaction because the property corner, concrete-block markers are composed of would be developed into a new cemetery. The large aggregate and protrude from the ground Cheltenham State Veterans Cemetery is currently approximately five inches. None of the markers active, while the Boys’ Village of Maryland have inscriptions. Many of the markers have Cemetery is not. The cemetery is divided in two settled into the ground, making their identification sections. Section One dates from the late-nineteenth impossible without excavation. Likewise, some

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markers have deteriorated completely due to the effects of exposure to water. Although the markers appear to date from the early twentieth century, this does not confirm when the burials took place. The concrete blocks could have replaced earlier markers or were placed as an afterthought—they are all the same form and material. It is unlikely that the approximately 100 people buried here all died at the same time. The names of those buried in Section 2 remain unknown.

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Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church & Cemetery 4004 Accokeek Road, Accokeek vicinity Historic resource, built 1906

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sbury Methodist Episcopal Church is a large, white frame building and has a long history of significance in this rural area of southern Prince George’s County. The history of Asbury Church begins in 1876, when one-and-one-half acres of farmland were deeded to three black trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church. A small chapel was built soon after

this, but was replaced in 1906 by a larger frame church with a handsomely shingled bell tower.

Asbury Church is a frontgabled building of wood-frame construction, with a tall entry tower centered in its south gable front. The sides of the church are five bays long, lighted by gothic-arch windows; two similar windows flank the tower at the south gable

front. With the exception of the tower above the first story, the original wood siding is covered with white aluminum siding. The tower is highlighted by three courses of patterned shingles, rising to a steep flared pyramidal roof supported by molded brackets. A one-story brick addition extends eastward from the north section of the Continued on following page.

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Continued from previous page.

nave, enclosing the fifth bay on the east elevation.

In 1958, the church building was rebuilt and enlarged, but the bell tower was carefully preserved. The brick wing was added in 1974. The cornerstone in the southeast corner of the foundation records the important dates in the physical development of the church: 1876/Asbury M.E. Church/1958 July 1906.

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There is a cemetery west of the church with many old stones representing local families of long standing.

The church and grounds have been maintained through the years by a substantial local black population. There are approximately 80 marked graves and an unknown number of unmarked graves. The markers are in rows and appear grouped by families. The oldest markers lie immediately west of the church. The form, size, and materials of the markers

vary widely, and include concrete and marble tablets, granite headstones (some with footstones), concrete crosses, wooden crosses, pieces of slate, concrete columns, and edge markers. Some of the family plots are delineated with marble footstones. Located throughout the cemetery are numerous grave depressions. The grave markers are a mix of the manufactured and handmade. Family names appearing frequently on the markers include Brooks, Moore, Pinkney, Sharp, and Duckett.

Union-Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church & Cemetery 6810 Floral Park Road, Brandywine Historic resource; built 1955

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wo church structures stand on the property of the original Union-Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, organized in the period after the Civil War. This has been the site of three separate phases of the church history beginning in the 1870s. Today, the large church complex stands in a rural area west of Brandywine, on grounds bordered by woods and including a graveyard north and west of the church.

The 1955 church is a front-gabled, brick building with a projecting entry tower centered in the south gable front. Slim brick buttresses separate the round-arch windows which light the long sides of the church; two similar round-arch windows flank the tower on the south gable front, and a smaller round-arch window surmounted by a cross-shaped opening lights the tower above the double door. The church surface is covered with stucco except for the buttresses and the quoin-like trim around the door and windows.

In 1868, Jane P. Williams deeded two acres to the trustees of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The first church was built soon afterwards (it appears on an 1878 map of the area) and it may have been rebuilt or replaced in 1887; it was a frontgabled building of wood frame construction, with entrance in the south gable front.

In 1900, an adjoining piece of land was purchased and the graveyard was extended to the west. By 1906, plans were being made for enlarging the church. The Baltimore Conference minutes of that year indicate considerable growth in the congregation under

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the Reverend Joseph Cordell: “This is one of the best circuits within the bounds of our conference. It is growing so rapidly in population that it will in a short time demand the entire services of a pastor. The church building is inadequate to accommodate the people…therefore the pastor and members are collecting funds to enlarge the building.”

Soon after this, a bell tower was built at the southeast corner of the church, and entrance to the nave was changed to the east face of the tower; the original entrance was replaced by a double pointed-arch window. An east wing was also constructed, enlarging the usable space. This frame church was destroyed by fire on New Year’s Day 1948, leaving only the basement intact. Services were held in this basement space for several years while the congregation raised money to finance the rebuilding; the new church was completed in 1955. In 1962, Mount Hope (in Camp Springs) and Metropolitan (in Clinton) A.M.E. Churches were closed, and their congregations merged with that of Union-Bethel. The expanded congregation of Union-Bethel grew steadily, and by 1988 plans were underway to construct a larger church building. This modern building was completed in 1991, and is connected to the 1955 church by one of its low wings.

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86A-13

St. Mary’s Methodist Episcopal Church Site and Cemetery South side of Croom Airport Road, east of Route 382 Historic site, 1918–1965

This is the site of an early-twentieth-century chapel building that served the black Methodist population of the Croom area for more than 50 years. The church building no longer stands, but a small cemetery is still maintained on the property.

The chapel, built in 1911, was a small front-gabled meetinghouse-style building, of wood frame construction, with entrance through the principal (north) gable front. Three pointed-arch windows lighted each of the long sides of the nave, and the north entrance was flanked by similar windows. A triangular transom surmounted the double door, and above the door, the upper gable was embellished with saw-tooth shingles and a diamond-shaped loft-level window.

A meetinghouse two miles inland from Nottingham on the Patuxent had served the black Methodist population of the Croom-Nottingham area since the period immediately following the Civil War. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, the African-American residents of Croom began to seek the establishment of a chapel in their vicinity. In 1900, a 1.38-acre parcel on the north edge of Croom was acquired by four black men as trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church. For some years, services were held in a small log structure, until the wood frame chapel was completed in 1911. Named St. Mary’s, this congregation was always closely associated with the Brooks Methodist Episcopal Church, located less than a mile south of Croom. The same minister served both churches.

In the late 1960s, St. Mary’s Church was destroyed by fire and its congregation joined Brooks-Myers Church.

The small cemetery on the former grounds of St. Mary’s has thus become the property of Brooks-Myers Church, which continues to use and maintain it. The tranquil and beautiful site is bordered by woods on two sides and is a quiet reminder of an important historic gathering place for African Americans.

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Gibbons Methodist Episcopal Church Site & Education Building 14107 Gibbons Church Road, Brandywine Historic site; education building c. 1920

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his is the location of a black Methodist church of the late-nineteenth century; on its site is a brick church of the 1960s, a graveyard and an education building of the 1920s.

In 1887, James H. S. Gibbons, a prosperous white farmer and

member of Immanuel Methodist Church at Baden, deeded one acre of land near Brandywine to Nathaniel Scott, John Briscoe, Samuel Fleet, William Pinkney, and John Green, as trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

These five black men were members of Brooks Methodist Church near Nottingham, but

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wished to build a new church closer to their Brandywine dwellings. In 1889, they erected a small frame church on the newly acquired land; in honor of the grantor, it was called Gibbons Methodist Episcopal Church.

The church was typical of the rural chapels of that era: a modest gabled building of wood frame

construction, with a small entry tower and porch. The church was remodeled in 1916; then in the 1920s, the small frame social/ education building was erected.

In 1929 a new schoolhouse was built directly across the road from Gibbons Church, its construction

supported by Rosenwald funds.

Before this time, AfricanAmerican children of the Brandywine area had attended school a short distance to the northwest, but with the building of the Rosenwald school, the location of these two institutions, Gibbons Church and Brandywine

School, became a focal point for the African-American population in this area. In the 1960s, a building program was initiated for the purpose of replacing the 1889 church building. A brick church was completed in 1968, and the Victorian chapel was demolished.

The social/education building is a small building of wood frame construction. It is one story high and L-shaped, sided with plain horizontal board, with an entrance in the east gable front. To the west of this building is the graveyard.

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Nottingham-Myers Church is shown here in a May 1983 photograph in its original configuration. An addition has since been built onto the south elevation.

86B-05

Nottingham-Myers Methodist Episcopal Church & Cemetery 15601 Brooks Church Road Historic site; built 1939

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he main block of this church was built in 1939, but it was preceded by earlier structures on the site. In 1867, John H. Skinner, a prominent landowner in the Nottingham area, deeded one acre of his Mansfield Farm to five black trustees for the purpose of establishing a Methodist church and a schoolhouse. A small log meeting house was soon constructed, built by the local families with materials provided by the Freedmen’s Bureau. This building served not only as the first schoolhouse for black children in the area, but as a place of worship that came to be known as Brooks Church in honor of one of the original trustees. The log building was replaced by a frame structure, completed in 1889. The main block of the present church was built during the pastorship of Frederick Myers. The Reverend Myers supervised the construction of the building, which was carried out by members of the congregation. In honor of the pastor, the church was renamed Brooks-Myers Methodist Episcopal Church. A south addition was completed late in 1983, adding a choir/conference room and pastor’s study.

Now known as Nottingham-Myers, this church is significant not only for its architecture, but also for its important place in the religious and education history of AfricanAmericans in rural southern Prince George’s County.

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87A-10

St. Thomas Methodist Episcopal Church & Cemetery 18810 Aquasco Road, Baden Historic site; built 1911

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t. Thomas Methodist Church is typical of the rural chapels of the turn of the twentieth century. It stands on the site of the Freedmen’s Bureau school and church that were established after the Civil War. For more than a century this complex was a focal point of the black community in the Baden-Aquasco area.

St. Thomas Church is a small front-gabled building of wood frame construction, with a small entry vestibule at its west gable front; the entrance into this vestibule has a gothic-arch transom. The nave is three bays long, lighted by gothicarch windows with tracery. The building is covered with plain horizontal wood siding. In the foundation at the southwest corner of the nave is a cornerstone which reads: “St. Thomas M.E. Church A.D. 1911.” Along the north side of the unpaved entrance drive is a graveyard bordered by woods on the north and west.

building was used for both Methodist services and for classes, until 1878 when a school building (Colored School 2 in Election District 8) was completed. From this time on, the 1868 building was used for Methodist services until it was replaced in 1911. At that time, during the tenure of the Reverend Robert F. Coates (19081920), the present building was erected just west of the original structure, and the old building was torn down.

The new church was typical of rural chapels of the meetinghouse style, with its gabled entry vestibule (or narthex) and gothicarch windows. A rear addition was built in 1963, providing an altar space flanked by pastor’s study and choir loft. In just a decade, however, regular use of the enlarged church came to an

end; the decreasing size of the congregation led to its merging with John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church on the south side of Aquasco. The combined congregation is now known as Christ United Methodist Church and worships at the John Wesley Church.

St. Thomas Methodist Church is similar to several others of its period and type (e.g., Carroll Chapel, Ross Memorial and Ridgely). St. Thomas retains much of its original fabric; unlike others of its type, its gothic-arch windows have not been replaced by modern rectangular windows, and its board siding has not been covered by synthetic material.

St. Thomas is now in seriously deteriorating condition, but it is significant both architecturally and historically.

In 1867, local farmer George Orme deeded one acre to eight black trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church “for the use of the congregation of the said church and for a free school.”

Under the auspices of the Freedmen’s Bureau, construction was completed in 1868. The

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Schools OUTSIDE DOCUMENTED COMMUNITIES

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71A-16

Collington Rosenwald School 5201 Church Road, Collington Historic resource; built 1927

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ABOVE: The Collington School in 1927 and BELOW, the building today.

he Collington School is a two-classroom building, typical of the larger rural schools built during the late 1920s under the Rosenwald program. The first school for black children in this area was constructed in 1875. Having originally only one room, this schoolhouse was gradually enlarged and extended. In 1924, when this building was serving an overflow group of 100 students, the Colored Public School Trustees reported that this was one of the oldest school buildings in the county, and that, although the students’ parents were much attached to the old building and did not like to contemplate “abandoning the house where they sat in school,” a larger Rosenwald school should be sought. The local population petitioned the Board of Education for a new and larger schoolhouse; one acre of land immediately west of the old schoolhouse was purchased with money raised by the community, and the Rosenwald fund contributed to construction of the building.

The Collington School is a one-story building with hipped roof. The original wood siding is now covered with gray synthetic shingle; the foundation is of decorative molded concrete block. Originally each classroom was lighted by a bank of five windows across the west facade, as shown in the c. 1927 photograph. From the recessed entryway, doors led north and south into the two large classrooms. The central section of the building, accessible from both classrooms, served as a kitchen. A central projection in the rear provided a cloakroom for each classroom.

The new Collington School (Colored School 2 in Election District 7) opened in 1927, its plan typical of the Rosenwald-funded schoolhouses of this period. The new school served seven grades in two large classrooms and offered its students substantial improvements over the older school building. It operated as a public school for less than 25 years, closing before 1952. At that time, the schoolhouse was sold to the Roman Catholic Church, and the priests of Holy Family Roman Catholic Church in Woodmore used it as the location for religious instruction for the local black Roman Catholic community.

In the 1960s, the school building was sold to the present owner, who converted it into two apartments.

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Highland Park Rosenwald School 6501 Lowland Drive, Highland Park Historic site; built 1928

The Highland Park School is now part of a larger school complex, but it has considerable significance in the history of black education in the county. The original structure, with Colonial Revival-style decorative details, is a good example of an architect-designed school building. It was built in the same year as the Community High School in Lakeland, and these two schools became the county’s second and third high schools for African-American students.

The original Highland Park School, built in 1928, is a large, brick, hip-roof building; an arched entrance is centered in the main (east) façade, in a projecting frontispiece surmounted by a shaped parapet. Built into a hillside, the building stands on a high foundation which encloses a full story below grade. This original structure now constitutes the northernmost wing of a larger building complex formed by successive additions.

This school was a focal point in the streetcar suburb of Highland Park. The county’s first black high school was established in Upper Marlboro in 1921–22 to serve the southern part of the county. In 1927, plans were made to build two more high schools, partially supported by the Rosenwald fund; the high schools at Lakeland and Highland Park were completed the following year. Designs for the two schools were prepared by the architectural firm of Linthicum and Linthicum of Raleigh, North Carolina. Community High School at Lakeland was to serve students from the northwestern portion of the county, and the Highland Park School was to serve students from the north-central area.

The Highland Park School opened with seven teachers, serving all grades from first through twelfth. It served secondary-level students until the Fairmont Heights High School opened in 1950; after that it served as a junior high school and elementary school.

Additions were constructed in 1949, 1958, and 1965. A plaque commemorating the school was installed by the Prince George’s County Historical and Cultural Trust and the Board of Education in 2001.

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76B-15

Camp Springs Rosenwald School 7039 Allentown Road, Camp Springs Built 1924

There has been a school for African-American children on this site since 1902. In June of that year, the Board of School Commissioners ordered that a school be established near Camp Springs, and the building committee was directed to select a site. A deed for three quarters of an acre was executed in October 1902; it included a right-of-way from the public road. By January 1903, the one-room school had been completed, set back from the main road through Camp Springs and accessible by the long right-of-way.

Within 20 years, the one-room school was overcrowded, and the Board of Education (which had superseded the Board of School Commissioners) was petitioned to provide a new school building for the community. The present building was constructed in 1924 with the support of Rosenwald funds. Architect Russell Mitchell drew up the plans, and W.E. Fowler of Seat Pleasant was contracted to have the building completed by October 1924. The Camp Springs School (Colored School 2 in Election District 6) opened that year with two fairly spacious classrooms. Adjoining the school property on the west stood Mount Hope A.M.E. Church, whose trustees gave written permission for the schoolchildren to use the two-acre church yard as a playground.

The Camp Springs School is a modest frame building typical of the plainer schoolhouses of the Rosenwald period. It is a one-story, side-gabled building of wood frame construction; entrance is through the central bay of the main south facade. The banks of windows that once lighted the east and west gable ends have been covered by wood siding and replaced by new entrances in both gable ends. Attached to the rear elevation at right angles is a lower wing, which may incorporate the earlier one-room school.

After the beginning of school desegregation, the Camp Springs School was sold in 1955. Since that time it has been considerably altered to serve as a kitchen and cabinet shop. It is still recognizable as a Rosenwald-period school building, and is a significant site in the history of black education in Prince George’s County.

The Camp Springs School today.

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Clinton Rosenwald School 9122 Piscataway Road, Clinton Historic resource; built 1927

ABOVE: The Clinton School soon after its construction. Note the chamfered decoration in the covered entryway, the flag pole, and what may be a privy at right.

BELOW: Today the building has been substantially modernized and enlarged; its original form is scarcely recognizable, but its main block still represents a typical schoolhouse of the Rosenwald period.

This building stands on the site of the Freedmen’s Bureau school, built in 1868–69 for black children in Surratts Election District 9. This school opened in the midst of much local controversy over teachers, trustees and deeds. The school lot adjoined the farm of the Surratt family, where Mary Surratt had kept a tavern/post office/polling place until 1864. (In July 1865, Mary Surratt was hanged for implication in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.) The deed for the school lot was finally executed in 1878; it specified that the schoolchildren were permitted to use Mrs. Surratt’s well. By this time, an African Methodist Episcopal Church had been built on the land immediately adjoining the school lot on the west; together the school and church became an important center for the local black population.

The one-room Freedmen’s Bureau school continued in use, despite frequent changes in teachers and trustees, for 57 years. In January 1925, patrons of the school began to petition the Board of Education for a new building.

In the following year, the board appropriated funds toward this end, and construction was supported with Rosenwald funds.

The school (Colored School 1 in Election District 9) opened in 1927 on the site of the older school. Typical of the larger, twoclassroom schools, it operated until the beginning of school integration in the early 1950s. The school building was sold in 1955 to the Clinton American Legion Post 259, which undertook the modern alterations and additions. Although today the modern building is not recognizable as a Rosenwald school, it is significant for its role in the history of African-American education in the county.

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84-17

Sharpersville School 15508 Berry Road, Accokeek vicinity Built c. 1877

Sharpersville School may be the oldest surviving African-American schoolhouse still standing in Prince George’s County; it is likely that it incorporates the one-room schoolhouse built in 1877 by the Board of School Commissioners, and, if so, is the first schoolhouse built in this area for African-American children after the period of Freedmen’s Bureau schools.

Sharpersville School is a small one-story frame building that incorporates an early oneroom schoolhouse. The gable-roof main block has a two-bay west gable front. A low shed addition extends to the south, enclosing the two-bay south elevation of the building; there is a second entrance into the west front of this addition.

Before the establishment of the Sharpersville School, a school had been established by the Freedmen’s Bureau a short distance to the north in the area known as Lower Piscataway; the school opened in October 1868 with 20 pupils, a number that more than doubled within a few years. After the Freedmen’s Bureau ceased operations in 1872, the school continued to operate under the aegis of the Board of School Commissioners.

The Sharpersville schoolhouse is closely associated with Augustus Lancaster (1820–1894), a local black farmer, who was himself illiterate, but whose children had attended the Freedmen’s Bureau school. In 1877 Lancaster purchased 13 acres from William H. Gwynn, owner of extensive lands in the Piscataway area. Lancaster then offered one acre, adjoining his farmhouse, to the Board of School Commissioners for the erection of a new schoolhouse. The school which was erected here became known as Colored School 1 in Election District 5. In spite of its small size, at times it served seven grades. As other schools were built over the years, students were transferred to newer and larger schools, but the Sharpersville School continued to operate until approximately 1940.

Augustus Lancaster served as a school trustee from the time of the school’s opening until his death in 1894; two of his sons served as trustees until 1923 and 1940. The Lancaster family continued to live in the farmhouse immediately to the south of the schoolhouse.

In 1945, the acre on which it stands was deeded back to Augustus Lancaster’s son, Dominic. After that time a south shed addition was built to enlarge the schoolhouse as a family dwelling.

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RIGHT: The asymmetrical projection is an original feature shared with certain other Linthicum and Linthicumdesigned Rosenwald schools, such as the Brandywine school, BELOW, at 14110 Gibbons Church Road, which was absorbed into a large brick residence in 1988.

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T.B. Rosenwald School 14000 Crain Highway, Brandywine Built 1926 The T.B. School replaced an earlier, smaller schoolhouse constructed during the period of the Freedmen’s Bureau. It was built to serve the younger black children of the T.B. and Townshend areas of southern Prince George’s County.1 The one-story hip-roof building has been significantly altered to serve today as a sales office for a used car company. The original entrance on the west facade has been converted into a window, and two new entrances opened: one in an enclosed porch area in the first bay of the west facade and another in the first bay of the south elevation.

The earlier Freedmen’s Bureau school operated (since 1872) a short distance west of the village of T.B. That first schoolhouse was probably a very simple one-room structure typical of the period immediately after the Civil War. In April of 1920, the Board of School Commissioners acquired by tax sale a one-acre lot on the east side of the Washington-La Plata Road, a lot which had for 12 years been the property of the United Order of True Reformers. The school was not built, however, until after the board (by then the Board of Education) purchased a second one-acre lot adjoining on the east. In September 1925, a contract was awarded to the architectural firm of Linthicum and Linthicum to prepare plans for a school to be built on the T.B. site; plans were similar to those schools planned for Laurel, Lakeland, Bowie and Westwood. Like these other schools, the T.B. School (Colored School 1 in Election District 11) was partially funded through the Rosenwald program with matching contributions from the local black community.

The T.B. school operated until the eve of school desegregation. It was auctioned, along with several other black schoolhouses, in 1952, and in the late 1960s was remodeled into a sales office for the Brandywine Sales and Service used car company.

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T.B. is named for two of the largest nineteenth-century landowners in the area: William Townshend and Thomas Brooke. Tradition maintains the name was derived from a boundary stone carved with T and B, marking Townshend’s property to the west and Brooke’s property to the east.

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87A-12

Poplar Hill School 19104 Croom Road, Baden Historic site; built 1936

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he Poplar Hill School is a small frame schoolhouse, the second schoolhouse in this immediate vicinity to be built for the education of black children. It replaced the school that was built in 1878. It is a one-story gable-roof school building; it is three bays wide, with entrance into the third bay of the west facade. The original wood siding has been covered with white aluminum siding, and the large windows have been replaced with small modern ones.

The first school at Poplar Hill was built in 1878 on land that was sold to the Board of School Commissioners by J. Allen Hawkins. Hawkins was a freedman and former enslaved laborer of local planter John L. Turner. After Emancipation, Hawkins worked as a farm hand and by 1868 was able to purchase a five-acre parcel from Dr. Mathias Latimer. Hawkins worked his small farm with his wife, Charity, and their family, and in 1877 offered one acre of his farm to the Board of School Commissioners for the establishment of a school. Until that time, classes had been held a short distance to the north in the Freedmen’s Bureau building, which also served as St. Thomas Methodist meetinghouse. The new school (Colored School 2 in Election District 8) was built in 1878 on the north side of the road from Woodville (Aquasco) to Magruder’s Ferry; Hawkins’ deed to the board specifically granted the school children use of his spring, and Hawkins served for many years as trustee of the new school.

The new school, known as Black Swamp School from its location near the Black Swamp Creek, served to educate the local black children for nearly 60 years. In February 1935, however, the Board of Education (successor to the Board of School Commissioners) entertained a request for a new school building. In the following year, another acre of the Latimer land was purchased (on the south side of the road, across from the Black Swamp

Poplar Hill School

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School), and the new and larger school was finished within the year. The old Black Swamp School was sold and enlarged to serve as a private residence.

Even this replacement school, which has been known as the Poplar Hill School, is a very small building. It is uncertain why such a small building was erected, considering that it was built as late as 1936; the much larger Woodville School was built in 1934. The new Poplar Hill school operated for only 25 years. It was closed in 1952, and purchased by the Order of Elks, Lodge 1003. The fraternal order has renovated the building and continues to use it as a social center. The building is not immediately recognizable as a school building, for its form is unlike both the early Freedmen’s Bureau structures and the schools built during the Rosenwald era. It is therefore not representative of the traditional school form, but it is a reminder of the progress of black education in the rural areas of the county.

87A-57

Black Swamp School 19011 Croom Road, Brandywine Historic site; built 1899

The original Black Swamp School was constructed in 1878 on one acre that the Prince George’s County Board of School Commissioners purchased from J. Allen Hawkins and his wife, Charity, in 1877. The property was a portion of the 5½ acres that Hawkins, a former enslaved laborer, had purchased in 1868 from Dr. Mathias Latimer. The land was part of Latimer’s plantation, Cole Brooke. Hawkins had been actively involved in the education of African-Americans in the area since at least 1872 when he was named by the Board of School Commissioners as one of three trustees for the former Freedmen’s Bureau school in the district. The school, known as Converted to a dwelling after nearly four decades as a school house, the St. Thomas, had been constructed in Horsehead, building sits close to Croom Road and faces south. The south elevation part of the Aquasco district, in 1868. The school of the vestibule contains a paneled wood entry door; The east elevation gained its name from the congregation that of the classroom block has three bays, with single, six-over-six, wood held services in the school building, St. Thomas sashes in the center and right bays, and a half-light wood entry door in Methodist Episcopal Church. Officially “Colored the left bay. This door replaced an original window. School No. 2, District 8,” Black Swamp School served as a replacement for the Freedmen’s Bureau School in Horsehead. The new school gained its colorful appellation from its proximity to Black Swamp Creek.

The 1878 school house was destroyed by fire in 1898 and in 1899 the Board of School Commissioners authorized the construction of a new building. By the end of July of that year, a new schoolhouse measuring 30-by-24-by-11 feet had been completed at a cost of $426.05, with an additional $79.00 for furnishings. Expenses for

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Black Swamp School during the 1888–89 school year included $25.81 for rent, which may indicate that classes were held in a rented space during construction. Some text books appear to have been saved from the fire, with 55 new books issued by the county during the year, bringing the total number of text books allotted the school to 175.

The annual report also reveals that enrollment in the one-room school reached a high of 34 during the spring session, but average attendance ranged between 11 and 18 for the four school semesters. In 1923-24, a committee of the Colored Public School Trustees Association conducted a survey of the 42 “Colored Public Schools” in Prince George’s County. The association was formed in May 1921 with the object of promoting better educational conditions for African-American students, with an emphasis on aiding schools in financial need. Isaiah Gray, a trustee of Black Swamp School, served on the committee. The objectives of the committee in publishing the report were explicitly stated: committee members sought “to encourage and inspire patrons to take greater personal interest in improving their school plants, to bring about a greater sympathy and interest on the part of white officials and employers, and to inform ‘outsiders’ as to educational [sic] conditions in our county.” The committee visited Black Swamp School on January 8, 1924. They reported: “The school building is not so old, but was poorly built.” They urged the community to “organize and gradually work out plans for improved conditions.” If everyone in the community participated and raised money through different activities, the committee stated, “you will not only soon have a new building, but you will have a new spirit in your community that will not stop at school house improvements.”

After the Colored Public School Trustees Association Report, classes continued to be held in the one-room Black Swamp School for more than a decade. In February 1935, the community petitioned the Board of Education for a new school building. In 1936, the board acquired two acres a short distance away, on the opposite side of Croom Road, for construction of a new school that opened the same year. The land was purchased from Ann R. Latimer, the daughter of Dr. Mathias Latimer who, nearly 70 years earlier, had sold the 5½ acres to freedman J. Allen Hawkins. The Black Swamp School property was purchased for $100 by Daniel Skinner in October 1936. Skinner modified the school house for use as a dwelling, and the property remained in the family for 70 years. The property is protected by a perpetual preservation easement held by M-NCPPC, and is being restored to its original appearance by the current owner.

SCHOOLS African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

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Dwellings, etc.

OUTSIDE DOCUMENTED COMMUNITIES

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Slaves’ Infirmary Poplar Hill on His Lordship’s Kindness (81A-001) 7606 Woodyard Road, Clinton Historic site; National Historic Landmark The brick portion of this T-shaped building was probably constructed in the second quarter of the nineteenth century.

Three bays wide with chimneys at each end, it has a frame wing at the rear. It is believed to have once served as an infirmary for the slaves on this plantation. African-American women often served as midwives and healers, delivering babies or attending to ailments.

Constructed from 1784–1786, Poplar Hill is a five-part brick Georgian mansion that was built for Robert Darnall on a tract known as His Lordship’s Kindness. The plantation was later owned by Darnall’s relations the Sewalls and Daingerfields.

ABOVE: The Infirmary BELOW: Poplar Hill Mansion

The Infirmary is situated to the east of the mansion in a group of original dependencies that include a smoke house, wash house, pigeon cote, and privy.

Today Poplar Hill is owned and operated by the John M. and Sara R. Walton Foundation, and is protected by a preservation easement held by the Maryland Historical Trust.

Group tours are available by request.

69-24-25

Mount Hope Slave Quarter Ruin Behind 2422 Parkway Street, Cheverly Historic resource; c. 1840s

The Mount Hope Slave Quarter Ruin has historically been associated with the Mount Hope Plantation (Historic Site 69-024-11) at 1 Cheverly Circle. The ruins are located approximately 400 feet northeast of the plantation house. The Mount Hope Plantation was the home of Fielder Magruder, Jr., of the prominent Magruder

family of Maryland. The 716acre plantation was established around 1839 by the young Magruder and was home to 12 slaves in 1840, 18 in 1850, and 25 in 1860. There are references to slave quarters on the property in the census records and tax assessments of this era. However, it is unclear whether they refer to this structure specifically. If

this chimney was a part of a slave quarter it would likely date to the 1840s to 1860s, when the Magruder’s plantation and slave holdings grew.

The chimney ruin is approximately ten feet tall and more than seven feet wide at the base and is built of roughcut, ironstone laid in a slightly

DWELLINGS, ETC. African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

235

ABOVE: The much-taller chimney c. 1925, before it was modified BELOW: The chimney today.

irregular course and held together by a mix of mortars including the original mortar, as well as modern mortars used for repairs, including Portland cement. Larger stones, emulating quoins, run along the corners of the chimney. The original cap of the chimney is missing; however, there is a newer rounded concrete cap over the flue. There is an iron lintel across the fireplace that is not present in the 1920s photograph. There is a metal bar inside the chimney that may be original, as it was designed to hold hooks for cooking. The chimney is situated on a hill sloping eastward, and is supported under the east elevation by a large stone that protrudes from the north and east elevations. The east elevation was likely the exterior elevation; it has a four-foot-high, two-foot-deep shelf on the east elevation with a stone on the southeast end. There are no other visible remains of a dwelling and there are no visible marks on the chimney indicating where the walls of the house may have intersected with the chimney.

The Town of Cheverly, in which the ruins now rest, was once a part of the plantation of Fielder Magruder, Jr., known as Mount Hope. The plantation grew tobacco and other crops. It rested atop a hill, overlooking Washington, D.C., Magruder and his wife never had children of their own, so after his death in 1888 and his wife’s death in 1894 the plantation of approximately 193 acres were left to Magruder’s sister Matilda and her husband Dionysius Sheriff. That land, and neighboring land owned by Sheriff were sold by his heirs to Robert Marshall for the development of Cheverly. As he walked about the property that would become Cheverly, Marshall recalled coming across a slave cabin ruin along a shaded lane, that he believed belonged to the Mount Hope plantation. His assertion was supported by later observers who believed the stone construction was similar to other buildings associated with the plantation, including a dairy. Cheverly historian Raymond Bellamy conducted significant research on the site from the late 1970s through the early 1990s. The research was inconclusive in determining whether the chimney that remains was actually part of a slave quarter or if it was something else. Due to the size of the chimney, some believe it was a part of an overseers’ house from another nearby plantation, while others believe the chimney was nothing more than a backyard barbecue.

Although photographs from the 1920s, when Robert Marshall laid out Cheverly, depict the chimney with fallen timbers around it, the exact appearance or construction of the structure, as well as its use, remains a mystery. Furthermore, the timbers in the picture do not appear to be related to the chimney. If the chimney did belong to a slave quarter, then it was likely the home of an enslaved woman, Mary Barnes, who was either African-American or of mixed-race, and who was a widow with eight children. It may also have been the home of a former enslaved laborer of the Magruders, Henry Hawkins, who was said to have lived near the main house with his wife and six children.

As he walked about the property that would become Cheverly, Marshall recalled coming across a slave cabin ruin along a shaded lane.

As little structural evidence of the past remains above ground or in archival records, an archeological survey will have to be conducted to learn more about the resource, its age and origins, and its inhabitants.

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70-4

Franklin Pierce House 9301 Good Luck Road, Lanham Historic site; built c. 1907

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he Franklin Pierce House survives in a subdivision of modern single-family houses. It was built circa 1907 to replace an older house which had been destroyed by fire. The older structure had been the home of Henry King for most of the second half of the nineteenth century, and later the home of the Kagle and Hoffman families.

The Pierce House is a two-story side-gabled house of wood frame construction, with two interior brick chimneys marking the location of the central hall. Typical of the I-house form, it has a single parlor on each side of the central stair hall. A one-story porch shelters the main north facade, and the principal roof plane is punctuated by a central flush crossgable, highlighted by sawtooth shingles and a tiny diamond-shaped window. There is a two-story rear kitchen wing centered at right angles to the main block. Over the past thirty years the shutters have been removed from the upper stories and the porch has been screened.

The earlier house and the 1-1/8 acre on which it stood were sold in 1904 to Franklin Pierce, a African-American railroad worker from Virginia. Within a few years, the house was destroyed by fire, and Pierce had the subject house constructed close to the old foundations. In this house the Pierces raised their large family. Several of Franklin Pierce’s sons worked with him on the railroad, while his wife and their daughter-in-law took in laundry at home. The house is still the home of Franklin Pierce’s descendants. The house follows the plan of a so-called “I-house,” with central stair hall and flanking parlors, and has a rear kitchen wing forming a T. Part of its significance lies in the fact that it was built for a family of laborers, members of an emerging class of black middle-class landowners.

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237

The drive as it exists today at the Colbert Family Farm Site. The Colberts’ house was located at the end of this drive, directly to the left.

In the Colberts’ era the farm was sparsely wooded.

71B-19

Colbert Family Farm Site 9016 Race Track Road, Bowie Historic site; c. 1874–1945 (Archeological Site 18PR950)

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ignificant as the site of a free black homestead from the antebellum period, this eight-acre parcel was purchased from Joshua T. Clarke by three African-American brothers, Joseph Calvert, James H. Calvert, and William T. Calvert in 1874. The brothers later changed the spelling of their last name to Colbert. James H. and William T. Colbert sold their interest in the eight-acre tract to Joseph Colbert in 1891.

Joseph Colbert added a 12-acre parcel to his holdings in 1900 and 67 ¾ acres in 1902, for a total of 87 ¾ acres. The property remained in the possession of the Colbert family until 1946.

The Colbert Family Farm Site was discovered through archeological excavations required through the subdivision review Process. Artifacts recovered from the site indicate that the Colberts may have been living on the property prior to purchasing the land in 1874.

Several varieties of nineteenth-century whitewares, including flow blue, banded, and transfer printed types, were recovered. William Jackson Calvert, the father of Joseph, James, and William Calvert, is found in the 1860 census in Prince George’s County and his occupation is listed as laborer. A Jackson Calvert is also found in the 1850 census in Anne Arundel County and is listed as a laborer. Therefore, it is probable that William Jackson Calvert moved his family from Anne Arundel to Prince George’s County some

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time between 1850 and 1860 and possibly built a house (of which only traces of the foundation remain). A house is shown in the location of the site on the 1861 Martenet map, but the owner’s name is not listed.

The Calverts/Colberts were Roman Catholics and probably attended White Marsh Catholic Church1 until Ascension Roman Catholic Church was built in 1893. A oneroom school house was built for black students on nearby Horsepen Hill to the south of Bowie in 1877. Joseph and Harriet Colbert’s children probably attended this school, as several of them are listed as “at school” in the 1880 census. Later, primary school students attended a model school on the Maryland Normal School campus, which opened in 1911.2 William Colbert, a son of Joseph and Harriett Colbert, was appointed a trustee of the school in 1913. Joseph and Harriet Colbert were able to expand their land holdings in the early twentieth century, possibly from the wages Joseph earned as a railroad laborer.

A large quantity of buttons was found near the Colbert house foundation, so it is likely that Harriet Colbert and some of her daughters took in laundry or served as seamstresses in the local community. By 1910, Joseph Colbert had apparently retired from his railroad job and was working as a farmer on his own land. Joseph Colbert died in April 1917 and his wife, Harriet, died shortly afterwards in December 1917. They were both buried in the Ascension Roman Catholic Church cemetery, located just a few miles west of their farmstead. The 1920 census indicates that Abraham, age 37, Cecelia age 39, and Louise Colbert age 27, continued to live in their parents’ house. Abraham Colbert’s occupation is listed as farmer in 1920. Abraham Colbert’s occupation in 1910 was a laborer at the Department of the Interior. He most likely traveled to work over the railroad line.

After his parents’ deaths, Abraham apparently took over the farming operations on the property.

By 1930, William Colbert and his family were living on the Colbert property, along with his sister, Louise Colbert. William Colbert had a job with the Post Office. In 1945, several of the Colbert heirs apparently agreed to sell their parents’ land and a trustee was appointed to sell the property and divide the proceeds. The Colbert house may have burned down, as many burned artifacts were recovered in the archeological excavations.

Later owners built the current house on the property circa 1947 and sold off several smaller parcels next to Race Track Road. The property is planned to be developed as a housing subdivision, but the Colbert Family Farm Site will be preserved on the lot containing the 1947 house.

1 2

Many Roman Catholic African-Americans attended White Marsh.

The Maryland Normal School later became Bowie State University and is located just to the north of the Colbert farmstead. See chapters on Education and Bowie for photographs of children at this school in 1918.

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239

73-12

Slave Quarters at Northampton Site 10951 Waterport Court, Largo Historic site; early 19th century–after 1938 (M-NCPPC)

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ow completely obscured by subdivisions, the Northampton site includes the foundations of several buildings of an important early plantation.

Northampton was a 1,000-acre tract which came into the possession of Thomas Sprigg in 1673; the plantation remained the home of the Sprigg family for five generations. The early plantation house was destroyed by fire in 1909, and a subsequent dwelling was destroyed in 1967. The considerable acreage that once comprised the Northampton plantation has been developed into the large residential subdivision of Lake Arbor. Two small parcels of land (totaling 12.6 acres) have been reserved as parkland, and on this land are located the ruins of the mansion, several domestic outbuildings, a tobacco barn and two slave quarters (one built of wood and a larger one of brick). The parkland where the quarters are located is now nearly surrounded with townhouse complexes. Beginning in 1987, intensive archeological work has been undertaken on both quarters, and a considerable amount of information has been uncovered about the people who resided in them and their lifeways. The brick quarter has been stabilized and partially rebuilt for interpretive tours.

The brick quarter was recorded in a 1936 Historic American Buildings Survey photograph when families were still living in it. The building was one-and-onehalf stories high and side-gabled, with two entrances near the center of its south facade, indicating its duplex plan. Windows lighted the north (rear) elevation of the building as well as the two gable ends. A wide brick chimney was centered at the ridge and served back-to-back fireplaces in the adjoining dwelling spaces; on one side, the hearth lintel was fashioned out of a straightened iron wagon wheel.

The brick quarter is the only known two-family brick slave quarter surviving in Maryland. It was probably built early in the nineteenth century by Samuel Sprigg after he inherited Northampton from his uncle, Osborn Sprigg, in 1815. Osborn Sprigg’s will provides evidence of the relationship between master and slave. Ten of his slaves were freed by his will. For example, “Tom” was freed and given livestock, a horse, and a silver watch, as well as the house in which he then lived, for the rest of his life. “Frank,” together with his wife and children, was also freed, and was given the house in which his father then lived, for the rest of his life. Osborn Sprigg ended his will by charging his heir to be kind and friendly to the servants who had been freed by his will, and to continue to treat those old and infirm servants “in the same humane manner which heretofore they have been accustomed to.”

Soon after he inherited Northampton, Samuel Sprigg was elected governor of Maryland, and after his term in Annapolis (1819–1822), spent the rest of his life at Northampton. He was a member of the vestry of nearby St. Barnabas’ Church, president of the Board of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company,

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The brick quarter in 1936.

and was known as “a gentleman of amiable manners and a favorite of the People”—a man of “immense wealth” and one who “attended diligently to all the concerns of his farms.” When Sprigg died in 1855, he left his large plantation to his wife, Violetta; the plantation workforce at that time included 61 enslaved laborers.

Violetta Sprigg continued to live at Northampton for another 10 years, but in March 1865 sold the property (by then 713 acres) to John Contee Fairfax and George W. Riggs. Members of the Fairfax family made Northampton their home. In 1869, Fairfax inherited the title of 11th Lord Fairfax, Baron of Cameron; he chose to remain in the United States and resided at Northampton until his death in 1900. Through archival records, such as wills, inventories, census records and estate files, pulled together by oral history, it is possible to identify the families (Hawkins, Smith, and Pongee) of those Northampton slaves and freedmen who occupied these quarters, and who farmed the land for another several generations. Several of their direct descendants remain in this area of Prince George’s County today, and are involved in the research, rehabilitation and interpretation of the site. The survival of this type of building as an interpretive shell is highly unusual; the information about the slave and later free families, and about their way of life, together with the physical archeological information, make the Northampton slave quarters an outstandingly important site.

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76A-14

Butler House 6403 Oxon Hill Road, Oxon Hill Historic site; built 1853 National Register of Historic Places

The Butler House is a modest frame dwelling which once also served as a post office. Since 1853 it has been the home of the Butlers, a free black family. According to family tradition, Henry Alexander Boteler (Butler) brought his family from Charles to Prince George’s County circa 1853. He moved into this house and completed the construction of it. According to this same tradition, the house was originally built to be used as a post office, but it became the Butler family dwelling and the nucleus of the farm which the family gradually developed around it, including chicken house, meat house, barns and other necessary domestic and agricultural outbuildings. The house was deeded to Henry Alexander Butler in 1873. Historic photographs, family records and portraits indicate the substantial status and aspirations of the family.

This photograph of the Butler House was taken several years ago; today the house has all but collapsed.

The house faces west, fronting on an old unpaved road; it is two stories high with a steep gable roof, and there is a lower shed-roof kitchen addition at the north gable end. The main block is one room deep, and there is an entrance in the southernmost bay of both west and east elevations. The building was originally sheathed with plain wood siding.

There is a one-story screened porch across the east (rear) elevation.

The Butlers maintained a successful small farm for several generations, with the house and property passing down through the children and grandchildren of Henry Alexander Butler. It remains in the possession of his descendants today. The house has been altered in appearance by the application of the formstone veneer.

Although the house is seriously deteriorating condition, it is of considerable historical importance because it represents the progress of a free black family in the period before the Civil War. The Butler House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.

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72-10

Van Horn-Mitchell House 4706 Mann Street, Deanwood Historic site; built 1803

The Van Horn-Mitchell House was built at the beginning of the nineteenth century as a plantation house for a family of white landowners, but during most of the twentieth century it has been a site important to the county’s black history.

The house is two-and-one-half stories high, side-gabled and built of brick, presently painted white. Entrance is in the central bay of the west facade, which overlooks the boundary (Eastern Avenue) between Prince George’s County and the District of Columbia. A modern flat-roof porch, with brick posts and balcony, shelters this facade.

Three gable dormers (modern additions) pierce each plane of the gable roof, and a flush chimney rises at the ridge at each of the north and south gable ends. Built onto the south gable end is a small one-story hip-roof wing, also built of brick. The main block consists of a central stairhall with a parlor on each side, running the full depth of the house.

The Van Horn-Mitchell House stands on part of a tract called “Fife Enlarged,” most of which is now within the District of Columbia. This was the home property of Alethea and Archibald Van Horn. Archibald Van Horn served as Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates and was subsequently elected to the United States Congress (1807-11), after which he again served in the Maryland House of Delegates until his death in 1817.

The property passed to the heirs of his daughter, and for most of the second half of the century was the home of the James Fowler family. With the development of subdivisions like Fairmount Heights at the beginning of the twentieth century, this area gradually came to be populated by black families. In 1940, the house and lot were purchased by Benjamin and Clara Mitchell, leaders in the Muslim faith, who had come to Washington from Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Under their ownership, this was a gathering place for such prominent black individuals as Portia Washington Pittman, Mohammed Ali, Elijah Mohammed, Malcolm X, and Anwar Sadat.

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82B-34

Charles Duckett Log Cabin Patuxent River Park, Croom vicinity Built mid-late 19th century; (M-NCPPC)

The Duckett Cabin is a one-room side-gabled building roughly 16 by 14 feet, constructed of squared chestnut logs. All logs appear to be hand hewn; they are joined at the corners by full-dovetail notching, chinked with a modern white cement mixture, with small wedges of wood randomly inserted in the chinking. Entrance is through a fivefoot high batten door roughly centered in the south facade. There is a rear door opposite it in the north elevation, and only two windows: one in the east gable end and one in the north elevation. A new exterior stone chimney was built at the west gable end, and a new wood shingle roof was installed. At this time also a new partial second-story loft (accessible by ladder) was built on the interior; in its original form, the cabin probably had a full second-story sleeping space.

The cabin originally stood on the plantation of Henry B.B. Trueman on the old Aquasco Road near its intersection with the road to Nottingham. Trueman’s was a small plantation, only 64 acres, and he raised a comparatively small amount of tobacco, as well as wheat, corn and oats; his labor force in 1860 consisted of 10 enslaved laborers. The 1860

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census indicates only one slave house on the plantation acreage. After emancipation, this log quarter may have been the dwelling of the family of four freed persons, formerly slaves of the Trueman family, who remained on the land to work at the Trueman farm.

The farm near Aquasco has remained in the possession of Trueman’s descendants to the present day. In the 1970s, when museum exhibits were being collected for the Patuxent River Park, Robert Trueman donated the log cabin. It was dismantled, moved and reassembled at the Jug Bay Park.

The origins of Duckett Cabin remain unclear; however, research has provided some theories on its construction and possible residents. It appears that the cabin may have been built anytime between 1840 and 1910, and was occupied until the 1920s. Two possible residents include Charles Duckett and Lewis Gross. The current interpretation used in the Patuxent Village is that the cabin was built in the 1880s by Charles Duckett, a former slave on the Trueman Farm. Before building the cabin, Duckett enlisted in the Union Army with the 19th Regiment of the United States Colored Troops and transferred to the Navy in 1864. He was discharged from service in 1866 and returned to the Trueman Farm as a farm hand in 1870. Duckett likely married another former slave, Juliet Blake Gross. Juliet’s son Lewis Gross and his wife Georgianna lived on the Trueman farm until the 1920s and may have been the final residents of the Trueman cabin, along with Charles Duckett’s widow.

The Duckett cabin, in excellent condition, stands in a wooded area near the Patuxent River, part of an interpretive park program; isolated from its historical context, it is nevertheless significant as a rare surviving example of its type. A wood frame building believed to have been a slave dwelling still stands on the grounds of Melford, but it is much altered and has been converted into a farm office. The only other known surviving log quarter, at Bleak Hill, was demolished in the late 1970s.

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82B-35-17

Turton-Smith House 17414 Nottingham Road, Nottingham Historic site; built 1850s

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he Turton-Smith House is a small mid-nineteenth century vernacular dwelling situated on the bank of the Patuxent River. It is the last surviving structure in the village that dates from the nineteenth century. The main block is of wood frame construction, a low two-and-one-half stories, side gabled and nearly square in plan; it has a steep gable roof with an extended west plane. The house is sheathed in painted cedar shingles. Attached to the north is a small side-gabled, one-story kitchen addition; to the south and east is a one-story porch. A one-and-one-half-story summer kitchen, now used as an office, stands a short distance southwest of the house.

The house was built by Richard Turton, a white man, shortly after he acquired the one-acre lot in 1850. The Turton family owned considerable property in the Nottingham District during the nineteenth century. He lived in the house only a short time, however, dying at the age of 28 in 1857. After the death of his widow, the property was left to his four siblings. Since his estate was insufficient to pay his debts, however, a trustee was appointed to sell the real estate.

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The Nottingham District has had a long-standing African-American population; after the Civil War, several schools and churches were built for the local black population, and several black families acquired property in and near the village of Nottingham. The Savoy family, a local black family of long standing, owned and occupied the Turton-Smith House from 1877 to 1902. The house was after that home to Dewitt L. Washington from 1905 to 1933. By the middle of the twentieth century, the property was owned and occupied by members of several local white families, the Downings and the Ryons. In 1968 the house was purchased by the Smith family. It has since been sold again and rehabilitated. The property is one of many examples of multiracial historic property ownership in the county.

82B-35-19

Wiseman House

17501 Watershed Drive, Nottingham Built 1901 The Wisemans are a black family of long standing in Nottingham. In 1885, Elizabeth Caroline Wiseman purchased one of the oldest houses in the village and lived there with her daughter, working for other village families as a seamstress.

In February 1901, the fire which destroyed a hotel the adjoining Plater house also destroyed the Wiseman’s. This house was rebuilt on the remains of the old foundation. For many years, Mrs. Wiseman’s house served as a weekend hostel for hunters and fishermen. It remains to this day in the Wiseman family.

Resting on a high stone foundation infilled with brick, the Wiseman House consists of two three-bay sections, each with a central doorway and chimney at the west end.

Windows are two-over-two double-hung sash.

A modest two-family dwelling which stands on the south side of the old road which led to the principal warehouses and pier, the Wiseman House is one of the very few historic duplexes surviving in Prince George’s County.

One of the very few historic duplexes in Prince George’s County.

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247

Savoy Family Tenant House Site 12801 Missouri Avenue, Brandywine 1920–c.1995 This dwelling was constructed circa 1920 by Frank A. Robinson of Ferndale Farm. Robinson was a farmer and builder who built the original Bank of Brandywine (Historic Site 85A-032-30) and the residence of Dr. Robert E. Baden. The house was never supplied with electricity or plumbing—a hand-dug well provided water.

The house was built for the Savoy family who were long-term tenants of the Robinsons. Eliza and John Henry Savoy had been living on the farm since at least 1866 when they were noted in the St. Thomas’ Episcopal Parish register as living “at Thos. W. Robinson’s;” the farm was at that time known as Potomac Landing. Before that, the Savoys were listed in the 1860 census as living at the St. Thomas’ Rectory in Croom, “servants” of the Reverend Samuel R. Gordon. They had at least three children: Mary Emily, born 1866, William Henry, born 1872, and John Henry born 1873. Joseph and Clovinia Savoy lived in this house from the time of its construction. Although the house suffered a chimney fire circa 1965-66, Savoy descendants lived there until the late twentieth century. The house is no longer extant.

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ABOVE: Frank A. Robinson, Joseph Savoy, and Norris Gross cultivating potatoes at Ferndale Farm, 1927.

Courtesy Franklin A. Robinson, Jr, via Robinson Family Papers, AC/NMAH.

BELOW: Located near the southwest intersection of Dyson Road and Missouri Avenue, the tenant house at Ferndale Farm was a two-story, four-room, woodframe dwelling with clapboard siding set on wood pilings. Windows were six-oversix in configuration and the house had a central chimney and standing-seam metal roof. Photo c. 1987, courtesy of Franklin A. Robinson, Jr.

Commercial Resources OUTSIDE DOCUMENTED COMMUNITIES

OTHER RESOURCES African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

249

Members of the Civil Patrol Squadron in 1946 at Columbia Air Center.

82B-38

Columbia Air Center Site 1600 Croom Airport Road Historic site, 1941–1958 (M-NCPPC)

The first AfricanAmerican-owned -and-operated airport on the Eastern Seaboard.

T

he Columbia Air Center opened in 1941 under the leadership of John W. Greene, Jr., and Dr. C. M. Gill and was the first and only African-American-owned-and -operated airport on the eastern seaboard for nearly two decades. Greene discovered a love of flight long before he moved to the Washington, D.C., area. He grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and went to the Hampton Institute in Virginia to study mechanical engineering in 1920. In 1922, Greene finished school in Virginia and moved to Boston, where he began flying lessons. By 1929 Greene earned his private pilot license and a limited commercial transport license. In 1933 he was the second African-American man in the United States to earn his commercial pilot license and in 1936 he became a certified engineer and airplane mechanic. By 1940, Greene received certification to teach aviation mechanics in Washington, D.C., and Boston and was a member of the Caterpillar and Harvard flying clubs. The same year he moved to Washington, D.C., to teach aviation mechanics at Phelps Vocational High School and started the “Cloud Club” with other local black aviators out of Beacon Airfield in Virginia. Within the year, the Cloud Club relocated to Prince George’s County due to increasing tensions with white pilots at the airfield in Virginia. The white pilots

250 OTHER RESOURCES African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

One of the hangars at Columbia Air Center.

The light-colored V-shape at the center of the building’s roof is a wind sock.

and the airfield owner accused the African-American pilots of committing infractions against their rules, which the Cloud Club took as a sign they were not welcome there.

The Cloud Club members believed this same type of behavior could happen at any whiteowned airfield, thus they needed to find a place of their own. In 1941, John W. Greene, Jr., and the other Cloud Club leaders found a potato farm along the Patuxent River, south of Upper Marlboro in Croom. They leased the property from Rebecca Fisher and quickly leveled a runway, and built an office and a hangar at what they called “Riverside Field.”

Greene was named the airport manager. With the onset of World War II, civilian flight was restricted and Riverside Field was used by the U.S. Navy to train pilots from 1941–1944.

In 1944, when the airfield returned to civilian control, Greene and his partner, Dr. Gill, created and submitted their future plans for the airfield and by 1945 the Columbia Air Center, as it was renamed, was a “Designated Landing Area” and had received full authority for civil aircraft operations. By 1946, the Columbia Air Center had expanded its services with eight runways, an additional large hangar, a snack bar and tie downs for planes based at the field. The center offered charter flights and lessons as well, since it was certified as a “Primary Flying School.” In 1949, the airport had four hangars where planes could be stored and repaired; the airport also sold parts as an authorized dealer for several companies. In 1950, the Columbia Air Center was the busiest airport in Prince George’s County, with the ability to accommodate up to 150 flights in and out each day. The center and its leader, Greene, saw the busy airport as more than a place for arrivals and departures; Greene was an advocate for youth education and was dedicated to teaching young people to fly. With this in mind, the Columbia Air Center offered a variety of lessons in aviationrelated fields, including navigation, meteorology, civil air regulation, theory of flight, parachuting, aircraft instruments, engines, and plane servicing. In 1946 the center had twenty-five students and owned four aircraft. The Columbia Squadron, the first AfricanAmerican civil air patrol, formed at the Columbia Air Center at the same time. Under Greene’s leadership the center ran successfully as an airfield and a school. In 1956 Greene retired from his position but he continued to advocate aviation education for young people for the rest of his life. Following Greene, Charles E. Wren and Herbert H. Jones, Jr. operated the field as the “W and J Flying Service.” They later formed a partnership with William L. Taylor and Albert L. Young and called the field the “Capitol Flying Club.” The Columbia Air Center operated under these new names until 1958 when the Fisher Family decided not to renew their lease due to increasing problems with vandalism. The next year, the land was given to The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission and was incorporated into the Patuxent River Park. No trace of the airfield remains, but interpretive signage has been installed to commemorate the achievement represented by Columbia Air Center.

OTHER RESOURCES African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

251

86B-37

Wilmer’s Park 15710 Brandywine Road, Brandywine Historic site; 1950s–1960s

O

riginally purchased as a hunting ground in 1947, Arthur Wilmer paid $6,500 for the old tobacco farm in Brandywine once owned by the Grimes family.

Before he owned Wilmer’s Park, Arthur Wilmer owned the Little Harlem supper club in northwest Washington, D.C. After finishing shows nearby, Wilmer’s club drew in African-American entertainers like Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, and Ella Fitzgerald for meals and drinks. Wilmer took advantage of these connections and, along with Evans Grill (see page 162), Wilmer’s Park became an important stop on the Chitlin’ Circuit1 in the early 1950s. During the 1940s and 1950s, African-American entertainers could perform at upscale urban clubs and theaters; however, many of these clubs did not allow African-American patrons. Wilmer and other African-American club owners opened their venues to all patrons during the time of segregation. The Chitlin’ Circuit brought up-andcoming black entertainers to parks, clubs and theaters; Wilmer’s Park is the last remaining Chitlin’ Circuit venue in southern Maryland. A number of notable musicians played at Wilmer’s Park on their way up the music charts, including a young Chuck Berry, Stevie Wonder, The Dells, Smokey and the Miracles, The Delfonics, Roy Hamilton, Chubby Checker, The Temptations, Fats Domino, B.B. King, Jackie Wilson, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Duke Ellington, Otis Redding, Count Basie, Patti La Belle and the Blue Bells, Sam Cooke, and Gary U.S. Bonds. In the early 1950s, Ray Charles brought in 15,000 fans to the Park. He was soon followed by another large headlining act, James Brown.

An important stop on the “Chitlin’ Circuit.”

Wilmer accommodated his performers and patrons on the southern 11 acres of his property with a number of facilities, allowing a variety of acts to perform throughout the year. This large property was a perfect rural setting to host the variety of acts that performed on the Chitlin’ Circuit. The first buildings on the site, constructed in the early 1950s, were a 6,000 square foot dance hall with five apartments A poster for a concert at Wilmer’s below it, and a restaurant. The dance hall had a jukebox, bar, and pool Park from the 1970s. tables. This venue could be used year-round. It was decorated inside with murals that were reproductions of Duke Ellington album covers designed by Washington, D.C., artist Eddie Henderson. In the mid-1950s Wilmer added a ticket booth by Brandywine Road with a nearby playground and picnic area for families. There was a vending stand in the area that sold trinkets, food, and liquor for the 1

Both a real and symbolic term for venues that supported rhythm and blues performers, the “Chitlin’ Circuit” is also a play on the colloquial term “Borscht Belt.” Historically, Baltimore was the first city on the Chitlin’ Circuit, which stretched through the south, bending west throughout Texas, extending northeast to Chicago, offering continuous opportunities for black entertainers.

252 OTHER RESOURCES African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

The dancehall today.

events. Wilmer also added a covered stage behind the dance hall with wooden bleachers built into the hill that could accommodate large crowds. The old tobacco barn is located behind this stage and dates to the Grimes Farm. Motel rooms for the entertainers were added in later years near the restaurant and were mostly used as dressing rooms.

There was a smaller stage near the entry on Brandywine Road used for more modest acts and crowds. Wilmer’s Park also offered hot air balloon rides from the field behind the barn. Wilmer built a house for his family not far from the dance hall, on the same property. Some of Wilmer’s other relatives and close friends lived in the apartments below the dance hall. As a result of their regular exposure to the music scene their father brought to the park, many of Wilmer’s family members took an interest in the music business. After his death, Wilmer’s children took over the park, hoping to continue the musical tradition there. As desegregation took hold in the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, urban clubs opened their doors to all performers and patrons, dramatically impacting attendance at venues like Wilmer’s.

Desegregation also opened up professional sports teams to all players, thus fewer teams remained to play at the park during the day. As African-Americans made great strides, attendance at Wilmer’s Park suffered. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Wilmer family opened their gates to a variety of acts, including rock groups, heavy metal, reggae and go-go music. The park hosted an annual Jerry Garcia celebration and many Rastafarian events. In the early 2000s the property was sold to the Arthur W. Wilmer Foundation, LLC, a for-profit real estate development group. Future plans for the rural site include a retirement community and a city center, which may eventually have a concert venue incorporated into the property.

OTHER RESOURCES African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

253

A

s of this writing, no photographs are known to exist that document Wilmer’s Park or Evans Grill during their heyday. It is hoped that some sense of the excitement that accompanied attendance at these venues has been conveyed by reproductions of the few available vintage posters.

(A full-color version of one is found in the fold-out photographs at the end of the book.) The posters were produced by the Globe Poster Printing Corporation in Baltimore. Founded in 1929, “Globe designed and printed Day-Glo saturated posters for virtually every African-American musician of note—from Howlin’ Wolf and James Brown to Prince and Tupac.”1

In Mixing Messages: Graphic Design in Contemporary Culture (1996, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Smithsonian Institution) author Ellen Lupton writes, “Although the direct, unpretentious style of Globe’s posters might be deemed a crude ‘vernacular’ by some designers, the posters are viewed as a language of authority by the audience that reads them. According to Ken Moore of Icycle Productions, a company that promotes music events in Washington, D.C., ‘Globe pretty much sets the standard in making the show “official.” People in the Metro area are conditioned to recognize that, when they see a Globe poster, they know the show is really going on. You see fliers and handbills all the time, but if someone goes to the expense of ordering from Globe and putting up the posters, people feel really good that an artist or group actually is going to be there.’”2 In 2011, Globe’s collection, including wood type, images and illustrations, was acquired by the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and will be used and studied by students in the printmaking, graphic design, and illustration fields.

1 2

254 OTHER RESOURCES African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

Lewis, John, “Best of Baltimore 2011,” Baltimore magazine, August 2011.

Dolan, Michael, “How Globe Poster Turned Its World Day-Glo,” Washington City Paper, September 9, 1994.

255

!! !

67

!

!

70

!! ! !! !

!! !

71A !

!

!

!

Butler House

76B

Asbury Church

00 PLANNING AREA

Historic Property / C O M M U N I T Y National Register of Historic Places

1

2

Miles 4

!

! John Henry Quander House

! Columbia Air Center Site

! Charles Duckett Log Cabin

! Nottingham-Myers Church

Holly Grove School Site

St. Thomas' Episcopal Parish Historic District

82B

St. Mary's Beneficial Society Hall

79

Mount Nebo Church

AQ UA S CO

EAGLE HARBOR

! ! Black Swamp School ! Poplar Hill School

87A

! Woodville School !

CEDA R St. Philips Chapel Site !87B ! H AV E N John Wesley Church ! ! !

Historic and Cultural Resources in Prince George's County, Maryland 0

74B

Westwood School Site

86B Wilmer's Park

!

St. Thomas Methodist Church

85B

A F R I C A N - A M E R I C A N

Îź

84 ! !

Sharpersville School

Brandywine School Site

!

! ! !! !

86A Gibbons Church Site

! Savoy House Site T.B. School

85A!

Union Bethel A.M.E. Church

!

!

CROOM

St. Mary's Church Site

82A

Boys' Village of MD Cemetery

! 81A

Clinton School

!

Carroll Chapel

Mitchellville School Site

74A

! !! !

UPP ER MARLBORO

78

Meadows School Site

77 !

St. Luke's Church Site

Forestville School Site

Camp Springs School

81B CHAPEL H ILL

! !

80! !

Grace Church Site

!Notley Hall Amusement Park

Salubria Site

!

Mt. Hope Church

76A

75A

!

LI T T LE WA S H I N G T O N

75B R I D G L E Y Lincoln Memorial Cemetery

!

Capitol Heights School Site Dupont Heights School Site

St. Paul's Oxon Hill School Site

83

72

G LEN A RD EN

! Harmony Park 73!

74A !!! ! !

FA I R M O U N T!!

Highland Park School Northampton Site ! ! !! !

HEIGHTS !!!Ridgely Church !!

North Kenilworth Site Mt. Hope Slave Quarter Ruin

69 !

Mitchellville Store Site

71B Collington School71A 74B

Calloway House

71A

! Colbert Family Farm Site !! ! !! F L E T C H E R T O W N

71A ! Goodloe House

LINCOLN !! !

NORTH ! !

CK B R E N T W O O D B L A D E N S B UARRGD W I! Holy Family Church

68

Cherry Hill Cemetery

!

Pierce House

BROO KLAND

Duckettsville School Site

BOWIE

64

Abraham Hall

!! ! 62 !

Edward Gross House Site

LAKELAND

Riversdale Dependency

65

66

61

! Bowie State University

RO SS VI LLE

60

60 St. Mark's Church ! 62 99 62

Laurel School Site

Historic and Cultural Resources

RIGHT: Charles Duckett Log Cabin.

CENTER: Holy Family Church, Woodmore.

BOTTOM: Mitchellville Store.

ABOVE: Gray Residence, Landover.

LEFT: Smith’s Barber Shop, Glenarden.

256

RIGHT: Dorsey Chapel, Brookland.

BELOW: Colbert Family Farm Site, Bowie.

ABOVE LEFT: Fairmount Heights WW II Monument.

ABOVE: Turton-Smith House, Nottingham.

LEFT: Gibbons Education Building.

257

RIGHT: Chapel Hill Rosenwald School.

CENTER: Wilmer’s Park, Brandywine.

BELOW: North Brentwood A.M.E. Zion Church.

ABOVE: Abraham Hall, Rossville.

LEFT: Crauford Quarters, Upper Marlboro.

258

Appendices

APPENDICES African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

259

Statistics

Comparison of resources between the 1996 and 2012 editions

Edition

1996

2012

Historic Sites

16

61

45 more*

Historic Resources

20

34

14 more†

Documented Properties

71

72

44 more‡

Archeological Resources

0

15

15 more

Total Individual Properties

107

182

74 more

Historic Communities

14

19

5 more§

National Register Properties

1

6

5 more

National Register Districts

0

2

2 more

the Sexton’s House at St. Thomas’ Rectory (86A-027-08).

Archeological resources that are also historic sites are not included in this number. †

Of the original 20 historic resources, 16 were elevated to historic site status, 28 were elevated from their status as documented properties, four remained as historic resources, and two are new.

‡

Of the original publication’s 70 documented properties, 42 had been elevated to historic site or historic resource status by 2011. This publication’s 72 properties include 44 that are wholly new to it.

§

The five additional communities are Brookland and Ridgley, where the discovery of additional resources prompted their inclusion as communities; Little Washington and Lakeland, which were long-established communities but are newly documented here; and North Kenilworth, a vanished early suburb. Cedar Haven was grouped with Eagle Harbor in the previous publication.

* The 45 new historic sites comprise 10 properties that were newly documented and were listed as historic sites as part of the 2010 Historic Sites and Districts Plan, 16 properties that were elevated from historic resource status, 15 properties that were elevated from their status as documented properties, and four properties that were already historic sites but were not included in the 1996 publication: the Edward T. Gross House Site (62-016), the Mitchellville Store Site (71B-007), Crauford Quarters (79-029) and

Demolished Buildings

Nine properties documented in the 1996 survey had structures that are no longer extant. The suffix “site” has therefore been added to their names in this publication:

PGID Name

Location

Date Demolished

68-061-04 Mack Brown House

North Brentwood

2005

68-061-06 Seaburn House

North Brentwood

2005

68-061-12 Henry Newton House

North Brentwood

2000

70-049-37 Isaiah T. Hatton House

Lincoln

2003

71A-022-01 Fletchertown Rosenwald School

Fletchertown

2000

71A-022-02 Nettie Brown House

Fletchertown

1999

72-009-42 Fairmount Heights Municipal Center

Fairmount Heights

2000

72-009-44 Rice House

Fairmount Heights

2001

80-018-06 Colbert Houses

Chapel Hill

2007

260 APPENDICES African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

Resources by Type

The symbol ★ denotes a resource that is new to the 2012 edition. NR stands for National Register of Historic Places, HS stands for historic site, and HR stands for historic resource. If the designation of a property is new to this edition, the designation is shown in bold. Properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places are also historic sites; however, the National Register districts of Fairmount Heights and North Brentwood are not Prince George’s County historic districts.

Old Towns (3) 69-005

Bladensburg

71B-002 79-019

Dwellings (82) 62-016 HS

★

Edward T. Gross House Site

Bowie

62-023-17 HS

Thomas Matthews House

Upper Marlboro

68-061-01

Jeremiah Hawkins House Site

68-061-02 HR

Robert Orr House

Suburban Communities (6)

68-061-03 HR

William H. Thomas House

Lakeland

68-061-04

Mack Brown House Site

North Brentwood

68-061-05 HR

Owings House No. 1

North Kenilworth

68-061-06

Seaburn House Site

72-009 NR

Fairmount Heights

68-061-07 HS

A. A. Randall House

72-026

Glenarden

68-061-08 HR

Edith Mason House

Little Washington

68-061-09

McKenzie-Bullock House Site

68-061-10

Nelson-Queen House Site

Rural Communities (6)

68-061-12

Henry Newton House Site

Rossville

68-061-13 HR

Foursquare No. 1

Brookland

68-061-15 HR

Foursquare No. 2

Fletchertown

68-061-16 HR

Foursquare No. 3

Ridgley

68-061-17 HR

Owings House No. 2

Chapel Hill

68-061-18 HR

Owings House No. 3

Croom (St. Thomas’ Episcopal Parish)

68-061-19 HS

★

Garland-Palmer House

68-061-20 HS

★

Sandy P. Baker House

68-061-22 HS

★

Quander-Dock House

68-061-24

★

Wigginton-Brown-Bellows House

68-061-25

★

James and Virginia Holmes House

66-000

★

68-061 NR 69

78-039

★

★

62-023 70-000

★

71A-022 72/75A 80-018 86A-027

★

Retreat Communities (4) 69-023

Ardwick

70-049

Lincoln

87B-038

Eagle Harbor

87B-039

Cedar Haven

68-061-37 HS

Peter Randall House

69-023-17 HS

William Stanton Wormley House

69-023-27 HS

Thomas Hunster House

69-023-28

Walter and Elsie Smith House

70-004 HS

Franklin Pierce House

70-037 HR

Burke-Jackson House

70-049-32

Daniel P. Seaton House Site

70-049-33 NR

Thomas J. Calloway House

70-049-34

★

Holland-Green House Site

APPENDICES African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

261

Dwellings (contd.)

70-049-36

★

The Reverend Price Andrew Scott House

80-018-07

★

82B-034

William Delaney House Site Charles Duckett Log Cabin

70-049-37

Isaiah T. Hatton House Site

82B-035-17 HS

★

Turton-Smith House

71A-022-02

Nettie Brown House Site

82B-035-19

★

Wiseman House

71A-022-04 HR

Noble Strother House

85A

★

Savoy Family Tenant House Site

71A-030 NR

D.S.S. Goodloe House

86A-027

★

Robert H. Diggs House Site

Colbert Family Farm Site

86A-027

★

Vicar’s House Site at St. Simon’s Church Site

72-009-17 HR

Samuel Hargrove House

86A-027-08 HS

★

Sexton’s House at St. Thomas’ Rectory

72-009-18 HS

William Sidney Pittman House

87B-038

★

23414 Patuxent Avenue Site

John N. Francis House Site

87B-038

★

18401 Elm Trail

72-009-23 HR

Alice Dorsey House

87B-038

★

23500 Wilson Drive

72-009-24 HS

James Armstrong House

87B-039

★

22801 Booker Washington Avenue

72-009-26 HR

Trammell-Taylor House

18PR890

★

John Dodson House Site

72-009-27 HR

Towles-Brooks House

18PR928

★

Robert Holland Farmstead

72-009-28 HR

Louis Brown House

18PR936

★

Aquilla and Lucy Henson House

72-009-30 HS

Isaac Brown House

72-009-31 HR

William B. Coles House

72-009-32 HR

John S. Johnson House

69-024-25 HR

72-009-33 HR

Henry Pinckney House

73-012 HS

72-009-34

Juliet Hill House

79-029 HS

71B-019 HS

72-009-22

★

★

★

72-009-35 HR

Cornelius Fonville House

72-009-36 HR

Doswell Brooks House

72-009-37

James A. Campbell House Site

72-009-39 HR

Robert S. Nichols House

72-009-41

Bungalow Row

72-009-43 HR

Prince Albert Washington House

72-009-44

Rice House Site

72-009-48

Dorsey-Bush House

72-010 HS

Van Horn-Mitchell House

72-043

Arthur Jr. and Louise Ridgley Farmstead Site

72-061 HS

★

William and Mildred Ridgley Gray Residence

72-065

★

DeAtley and Lillian Ridgley House

76A-014 NR

Butler House

79-063-70 HS

John Henry Quander House

80-018-03

Albert Owen Shorter House Site

80-018-04

Charles Ball House

80-018-05 HR

Lancaster House

80-018-06

Colbert Houses Site

262 APPENDICES African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

Slave Quarters (4)

18PR787

★

Mount Hope Slave Quarter Ruin Northampton Slave Quarter Site

★

Craufurd Quarters

★

Molly Berry Site

Cemeteries (5) 69-021 HS

Cherry Hill Cemetery

72-045 HR

National Harmony Memorial Park

75A-030 HR

Lincoln Memorial Cemetery

82A-019 HS

★

Boys’ Village of Maryland Cemetery

82B-047

★

Chew Road Slave Cemetery (18PR879)

Fraternal Lodges/Meeting Halls (8) 62-023-07 NR

Abraham Hall

68-061

★

North Brentwood Municipal Building Site

70-091 HS

★

Western Star Lodge Site and Cemetery

71B-002-23 HS 72-009

Knights of St. John Hall ★

Fairmount Lodge 92 Site

72-009-38

Charity Hall

72-009-42

Fairmount Heights Municipal Center Site

79-019-25 NR

St. Mary’s Beneficial Society Hall

Churches/Cemeteries (28) 62-023-21 HS 66-012

Queen’s Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church Site & Cemetery ★

Embry African Methodist Episcopal Church

68-061-11 HS

North Brentwood African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church

69-005-06 HS

St. Paul’s Baptist Church

70-028 HS

Dorsey Chapel (Brookland Methodist Episcopal Church)

70-049-15

Seaton Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church Site

71B-002-10

Ross Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church & Parsonage

72-005 NR

Ridgely Methodist Episcopal Church & Cemetery

72-009-25 HR

Fairmount Heights Methodist Episcopal Church

74A-004 HS

Holy Family Roman Catholic Church & Cemetery

74B-006 HS

Carroll Methodist Episcopal Chapel

74B-010 HS

Mt. Nebo African Methodist Episcopal Church & Cemetery

76B-008 HR

St. Paul’s Methodist Episcopal Church & Cemetery

76B-016 HS

Mt. Hope African Methodist Episcopal Church Site & Cemetery

77-012 HS 79-019-20 HS

St. Luke’s Methodist Episcopal Church Site & Cemetery Union (Memorial) Methodist Church

79-046 HS

Union Methodist Episcopal Chapel Site & Cemetery

80-018-01 HR

Grace Methodist Episcopal Church Site & Cemetery

84-014 HR

Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church & Cemetery

85A-018 HR

Union-Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church & Cemetery

86A-012 HS

St. Simon’s Episcopal Church Site & Cemetery

86A-013 HS

St. Mary’s Methodist Episcopal Church Site & Cemetery

86B-001 HS

Gibbons M.E. Church Site, Education Building, & Cemetery

86B-005 HS

Nottingham-Myers (Brooks Methodist) Church & Cemetery

87A-010 HS

St. Thomas Methodist Church & Cemetery

87B-033 HS

John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church Site & Cemetery

87B-036-12 HS 99-002

St. Phillip’s Episcopal Chapel Site & Cemetery St. Mark’s Methodist Episcopal Church

APPENDICES African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

263

Schools (37)

Commercial Establishments (6) 68-061-21

62-023-20 HR

★

Sis’ Tavern

★

Mitchellville Store Site

66-013

72-060

★

Smith’s Barber Shop

66-014 HS

78-039-01

★

Evans Grill

86B-037 HS

★

Wilmer’s Park

18PR311

★

Notley Hall Amusement Park

71B-007 HS

Archeological Resources (15)

68

Muirkirk Rosenwald School ★

Community High School at Lakeland (Rosenwald School) ★

70-049-35 70-087 HR 71A

Lakeland Rosenwald School Site

North Brentwood Rosenwald School Site Lincoln Rosenwald School

★

Good Luck School

★

Duckettsville Rosenwald School Site

18PR175

★

Addison Plantation (80-050)

71A-016

Collington Rosenwald School

18PR305

★

Harmony Hall (80-024-11)

71A-021

Bowie State University

18PR398

★

Thomas Clagett Plantation

71A-022-01

18PR510

★

Willow Grove Site

18PR692

★

Salubria Site

18PR651 NR

★

Clagett House at Cool Spring Manor (74B-015)

71B

Fletchertown Rosenwald School Site ★

71B-002-32 72

Bowie Rosenwald School Site ★

72-009-09 HS

18PR705

★

Richard Duckett Site

72-021 HS

18PR707 HS

★

Fairview Plantation (71A-013)

72-064 HS

18PR787

★

Molly Berry Site

18PR833

★

18PR879

Mitchellville Rosenwald School Site Glenarden Rosenwald School Site Fairmount Heights Elementary School Highland Park Rosenwald School

★

Fairmont Heights High School

75A

★

Capitol Heights Rosenwald School Site

Marbury Site

75A

★

Dupont Heights Rosenwald School Site

★

Chew Road Slave Cemetery (82B-047)

75A

★

Forestville Rosenwald School Site

18PR890

★

John Dodson House Site

75A-028 HS

18PR928

★

Robert Holland Farmstead

76B

18PR936

★

Aquilla and Lucy Henson House

18PR311

★

Notley Hall Amusement Park

Airfield 82B-038 HS

Columbia Air Center Site

Monument 72-009-29 HS

Fairmount Heights WW II Monument

Hospital 81A-001 NR

Slaves Infirmary at Poplar Hill on His Lordship’s Kindness

Ridgeley Rosenwald School ★

76B-015

Camp Springs Rosenwald School

77

★

Meadows Rosenwald School Site

79-019

★

Upper Marlboro Rosenwald School Site

80-018-02

Chapel Hill Rosenwald School Site

81A-013

Clinton Rosenwald School

84-017

Sharpersville School

85A-026

T.B. Rosenwald School

86A-027-24 HS

Croome Settlement School

86B

★

Holly Grove Rosenwald School Site

86B-021

★

Brandywine Rosenwald School Site

87A

★

Westwood Rosenwald School Site

87A-012 HS

Poplar Hill School

87A-057 HS

★

Black Swamp School

87B

★

Woodville School Site (1877)

87B-034 HS 99

264 APPENDICES African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

Oxon Hill Rosenwald School Site

Woodville School ★

Laurel Rosenwald School Site

Resources by Designation

The symbol ★ denotes a resource that is new to the 2012 edition. If a property designation is new to this edition, the property is shown in bold. Properties in the National Register of Historic Places are also historic sites.

National Register of Historic Places (8) Abraham Hall

62-023-07

North Brentwood Historic District

68-061

Thomas J. Calloway House

70-049-33 71A-030

D.S.S. Goodloe House

72-005

Ridgely Methodist Episcopal Church & Cemetery

72-009

Fairmount Heights Historic District Butler House

76A-014

St. Mary’s Beneficial Society Hall

79-019-25

Historic Sites (61) 62-016

★

Edward T. Gross House Site

62-023-07

Abraham Hall

62-023-17

Thomas Matthews House

62-023-21

Queen’s Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church Site & Cemetery Community High School at Lakeland

66-014 68-061-07

A. A. Randall House

68-061-11

North Brentwood African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church

68-061-19

★

Garland-Palmer House

68-061-20

★

Sandy P. Baker House

68-061-22

★

Quander-Dock House

68-061-37

Peter Randall House

69-005-06

St. Paul’s Baptist Church Cherry Hill Cemetery

69-021 69-023-17

William Stanton Wormley House

69-023-27

Thomas Hunster House

70-004

Franklin Pierce House

70-028

Dorsey Chapel (Brookland Methodist Episcopal Church) Thomas J. Calloway House

70-049-33 70-091

★

71A-030

Western Star Lodge Site and Cemetery D.S.S. Goodloe House Knights of St. John Hall

71B-002-23 71B-007

★

Mitchellville Store Site

71B-019

★

Colbert Family Farm Site

72-005

Ridgely Methodist Episcopal Church & Cemetery

APPENDICES African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

265

Historic Sites (contd.)

72-009-09

Fairmount Heights Elementary School

72-009-18

William Sidney Pittman House

72-009-24

James Armstrong House

72-009-29

Fairmount Heights World War II Monument

72-009-30

Isaac Brown House

72-010

Van Horn-Mitchell House

72-021

Highland Park Rosenwald School

72-061

★

William and Mildred Ridgley Gray Residence

72-064

★

Fairmont Heights High School

73-012

Northampton Slave Quarter Site

74A-004

Holy Family Roman Catholic Church & Cemetery

74B-006

Carroll Methodist Episcopal Chapel

74B-010

Mt. Nebo African Methodist Episcopal Church & Cemetery

75A-028

Ridgeley School

76A-014

Butler House

76B-016

Mount Hope African Methodist Episcopal Church Site & Cemetery St. Luke’s Methodist Episcopal Church Site & Cemetery

77-012 79-019-20

Union (Memorial) Methodist Church

79-019-25

St. Mary’s Beneficial Society Hall

79-029

★

Union Methodist Episcopal Chapel Site & Cemetery

79-046

John Henry Quander House

79-063-70 82A-019

Craufurd Quarters

★

Boys’ Village of Maryland Cemetery

82B-038

Columbia Air Center Site

86A-012

St. Simon’s Episcopal Church Site & Cemetery

86A-013

St. Mary’s Methodist Episcopal Church Site & Cemetery

86A-027-08

★

Croome Settlement School

86A-027-24

Gibbons M.E. Church Site, Education Building, & Cemetery

86B-001

Nottingham-Myers (Brooks Methodist) Church & Cemetery

86B-005 86B-037

★

87A-010

Wilmer’s Park St. Thomas Methodist Church & Cemetery Poplar Hill School

87A-012 87A-057

Sexton’s House at St. Thomas’ Rectory

★

Black Swamp School

87B-033

John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church Site & Cemetery

87B-034

Woodville School

87B-036-12

St. Phillip’s Episcopal Chapel Site and Cemetery

266 APPENDICES African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

Historic Resources (34) 62-023-20

Muirkirk Rosenwald School

68-061-02

Robert Orr House

68-061-03

William H. Thomas House

68-061-05

Owings House No. 1

68-061-08

Edith Mason House

68-061-13

Foursquare No. 1

68-061-15

Foursquare No. 2

68-061-16

Foursquare No. 3

68-061-17

Owings House No. 2

68-061-18

Owings House No. 3

69-024-25

★

70-037 70-087 71A-022-04

Mount Hope Slave Quarter Ruin Burke-Jackson House

★

Good Luck School Noble Strother House

72-009-17

Samuel Hargrove House

72-009-23

Alice Dorsey House

72-009-25

Fairmount Heights Methodist Episcopal Church

72-009-26

Trammell-Taylor House

72-009-27

Towles-Brooks House

72-009-28

Louis Brown House

72-009-31

William B. Coles House

72-009-32

John S. Johnson House

72-009-33

Henry Pinckney House

72-009-35

Cornelius Fonville House

72-009-36

Doswell Brooks House

72-009-39

Robert S. Nichols House

72-009-43

Prince Albert Washington House

72-045

National Harmony Memorial Park

75A-030

Lincoln Memorial Cemetery

76B-008

St. Paul’s Methodist Episcopal Church & Cemetery

80-018-01

Grace Methodist Episcopal Church Site & Cemetery

80-018-05

Lancaster House

84-014 85A-018

Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church & Cemetery Union-Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church & Cemetery

APPENDICES African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

267

Documented Properties (72) 66-012

★

Embry African Methodist Episcopal Church

66-013

★

Lakeland Rosenwald School Site

68

★

North Brentwood Rosenwald School Site

68-061

★

North Brentwood Municipal Building Site

68-061-01

Jeremiah Hawkins House Site

68-061-04

Mack Brown House Site

68-061-06

Seaburn House Site

68-061-09

McKenzie-Bullock House Site

68-061-10

Nelson-Queen House Site

68-061-12

Henry Newton House Site

68-061-21

★

Sis’ Tavern

68-061-24

★

Wigginton-Brown-Bellows House

68-061-25

★

James and Virginia Holmes House

69-023-28

Walter and Elsie Smith House

70-049-15

Seaton Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church Site

70-049-32

Daniel P. Seaton House Site

70-049-34

★

70-049-35 70-049-36

Lincoln Rosenwald School ★

70-049-37 71A

Holland-Green House Site The Reverend Price Andrew Scott House Isaiah T. Hatton House Site

★

Duckettsville Rosenwald School Site

71A-016

Collington Rosenwald School

71A-021

Bowie State University

71A-022-01

Fletchertown Rosenwald School Site

71A-022-02

Nettie Brown House Site

71B

★

Mitchellville Rosenwald School Site

71B-002-10

Ross Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church and Parsonage

71B-002-32

Bowie Rosenwald School Site

72

★

Glenarden Rosenwald School Site

72-009

★

Fairmount Lodge #92 Site

72-009-22

★

John N. Francis House Site

72-009-34

★

Juliet Hill House

72-009-37

James A. Campbell House Site

72-009-38

Charity Hall

72-009-41

Bungalow Row

72-009-42

Fairmount Heights Municipal Center Site

72-009-44

Rice House Site

268 APPENDICES African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

Documented Properties (72) 72-009-48

Dorsey-Bush House

72-043

★

Arthur Jr. and Louise Ridgley Farmstead Site

72-060

★

Smith’s Barber Shop

72-065

★

DeAtley and Lillian Ridgley House

75A

★

Capitol Heights Rosenwald School Site

75A

★

Dupont Heights Rosenwald School Site

75A

★

Forestville Rosenwald School Site

76B

★

Oxon Hill Rosenwald School Site

76B-015

Camp Springs Rosenwald School

77

★

Meadows Rosenwald School Site

78-039-01

★

Evans Grill

79-019

★

Upper Marlboro Rosenwald School Site

80-018-02

Chapel Hill Rosenwald School Site

80-018-03

Albert Owen Shorter House Site

80-018-04

Charles Ball House

80-018-06

Colbert Houses Site

80-018-07

★

81A-013 82B-035-19

Clinton Rosenwald School ★

82B-034

Wiseman House Charles Duckett Log Cabin

84-017 85A

William Delaney House Site

Sharpersville School ★

85A-026

Savoy Family Tenant House Site T.B. Rosenwald School

86A-027

★

Robert H. Diggs House Site

86A-027

★

Vicar’s House Site at St. Simon’s Church Site

86B

★

Holly Grove Rosenwald School Site

86B-021

★

Brandywine Rosenwald School Site

87A

★

Westwood Rosenwald School Site

87B

★

Woodville School Site (1877)

87B-038

★

23414 Patuxent Avenue Site

87B-038

★

18401 Elm Trail

87B-038

★

23500 Wilson Drive

87B-039

★

22801 Booker Washington Avenue

99

★

Laurel Rosenwald School Site

99-002

St. Mark’s Methodist Episcopal Church

APPENDICES African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

269

Resources by Community The symbol ★ denotes a resource that is new to the 2012 edition. NR stands for National Register of Historic Places, HS stands for historic site, and HR stands for historic resource. If the designation of a property is new to this edition, the designation is shown in bold. Properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places are also historic sites.

Rossville (5) 62-016 HS

★

Edward T. Gross House Site

62-023-07 NR

Abraham Hall

62-023-17 HS

Thomas Matthews House

62-023-20 HR

Muirkirk Rosenwald School

62-023-21 HS

Queen’s Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church Site and Cemetery

Lakeland (3) 66-012

★

Embry African Methodist Episcopal Church

66-013

★

Lakeland Elementary Rosenwald School Site

66-014 HS

Community High School at Lakeland (Rosenwald School)

North Brentwood (26) 68-061

★

North Brentwood Rosenwald School Site

68-061

★

North Brentwood Municipal Building Site

68-061-01

Jeremiah Hawkins House Site

68-061-02 HR

Robert Orr House

68-061-03 HR

William H. Thomas House

68-061-04

Mack Brown House Site

68-061-05 HR

Owings House No. 1

68-061-06

Seaburn House Site

68-061-07 HS

A. A. Randall House

68-061-08 HR

Edith Mason House

68-061-09

McKenzie-Bullock House Site

68-061-10

Nelson-Queen House Site

68-061-11 HS

North Brentwood African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church

68-061-12

Henry Newton House Site

68-061-13 HR

Foursquare No. 1

68-061-15 HR

Foursquare No. 2

68-061-16 HR

Foursquare No. 3

68-061-17 HR

Owings House No. 2

68-061-18 HR

Owings House No. 3

68-061-19 HS

★

Garland-Palmer House

68-061-20 HS

★

Sandy P. Baker House

270 APPENDICES African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

North Brentwood (contd.)

68-061-21

★

Sis’ Tavern

68-061-22 HS

★

Quander-Dock House

68-061-24

★

Wigginton-Brown-Bellows House

68-061-25

★

James and Virginia Holmes House

68-061-37 HS

Peter Randall House

Bladensburg 69-005-06 HS

St. Paul’s Baptist Church

Ardwick (3) 69-023-17 HS

William Stanton Wormley House

69-023-27 HS

Thomas Hunster House

69-023-28

Walter and Elsie Smith House

Brookland (3) 70-028 HS

Dorsey Chapel (Brookland Methodist Episcopal Church)

70-087 HR

★

Good Luck School

70-091 HS

★

Western Star Lodge Site and Cemetery

Lincoln (8) 70-037 HR

Burke-Jackson House

70-049-15

Seaton Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church Site

70-049-32

Daniel P. Seaton House Site

70-049-33 NR

Thomas J. Calloway House

70-049-34

★

70-049-35 70-049-36 70-049-37

Holland-Green House Site Lincoln Rosenwald School

★

The Reverend Price Andrew Scott House Isaiah T. Hatton House Site

Fletchertown (3) 71A-022-01

Fletchertown Rosenwald School Site

71A-022-02

Nettie Brown House Site

71A-022-04 HR

Noble Strother House

APPENDICES African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

271

Bowie (5) 71A-021

Bowie State University Campus

71A-030 HS

D.S.S. Goodloe House

71B-002-10

Ross Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church and Parsonage

71B-002-23 HS

Knights of St. John Hall

71B-002-32

Bowie Rosenwald School Site

Glenarden (2) 72-026

★

Glenarden Rosenwald School Site

72-060

★

Smith’s Barber Shop

Ridgley (5) 72-005 NR

Ridgely Methodist Episcopal Church and Cemetery

72-043

★

Arthur Jr. and Louise Ridgley Farmstead Site

72-061 HS

★

William and Mildred Ridgley Gray Residence

72-065

★

DeAtley and Lillian Ridgley House

75A-028 HS

Ridgeley Rosenwald School

Fairmount Heights (28) 72-009

★

Fairmount Lodge #92 Site

72-064 HS

★

Fairmont Heights High School

72-009-09 HS

Fairmount Heights Elementary School

72-009-17 HR

Samuel Hargrove House

72-009-18 HS

William Sidney Pittman House

72-009-22

★

John N. Francis House Site

72-009-23 HR

Alice Dorsey House

72-009-24 HS

James Armstrong House

72-009-25 HR

Fairmount Heights Methodist Episcopal Church

72-009-26 HR

Trammell-Taylor House

72-009-27 HR

Towles-Brooks House

72-009-28 HR

Louis Brown House

72-009-29 HS

Fairmount Heights World War II Monument

72-009-30 HS

Isaac Brown House

72-009-31 HR

William B. Coles House

72-009-32 HR

John S. Johnson House

72-009-33 HR

Henry Pinckney House

72-009-34 72-009-35 HR

★

Juliet Hill House Cornelius Fonville House

272 APPENDICES African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

Fairmount Heights (contd.)

72-009-36 HR

Doswell Brooks House

72-009-37

James A. Campbell House Site

72-009-38

Charity Hall

72-009-39 HR

Robert S. Nichols House

72-009-41

Bungalow Row

72-009-42

Fairmount Heights Municipal Center Site

72-009-43 HR

Prince Albert Washington House

72-009-44

Rice House Site

72-009-48

★

Dorsey-Bush House

Little Washington 78-039-01

★

Evans Grill

Upper Marlboro (6) 79-019

★

Upper Marlboro Rosenwald School Site

79-019-20 HS

Union (Memorial) Methodist Church

79-019-25 NR

St. Mary’s Beneficial Society Hall

79-029 HS

★

79-046 HS

Crauford Quarters Union Methodist Episcopal Chapel Site & Cemetery

79-063-70 HS

John Henry Quander House

Chapel Hill (7) 80-018-01 HR

Grace Methodist Episcopal Church Site & Cemetery

80-018-02

Chapel Hill Rosenwald School Site

80-018-03

Albert Owen Shorter House Site

80-018-04

Charles Ball House

80-018-05 HR

Lancaster House

80-018-06

Colbert Houses Site

80-018-07

★

William Delaney House Site

Croom (5) 86A-012 HS

St. Simon’s Episcopal Church Site & Cemetery

86A-027

★

Vicar’s House Site at St. Simon’s Church Site

86A-027

★

Robert H. Diggs House Site

★

Sexton’s House at St. Thomas’ Rectory

86A-027-08 HS 86A-027-24 HS

Croome Settlement School

APPENDICES African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

273

Woodville/Aquasco (4) 87B

★

Woodville School Site (1877)

87B-033 HS

John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church Site & Cemetery

87B-034 HS

Woodville School

87B-036-12 HS

St. Phillip’s Episcopal Chapel Site & Cemetery

Eagle Harbor (3) 87B-038

★

23414 Patuxent Avenue Site

87B-038

★

18401 Elm Trail

87B-038

★

23500 Wilson Drive

Cedar Haven 87B-039

★

22801 Booker Washington Avenue

274 APPENDICES African-American Historic and Cultural Resources

Sources/Further Reading Prince George’s County Land Records

Secondary Sources

Land Records, Wills, Inventories, Manumission records, Tax assessments, Slave statistics, Estate files, Plats, Equity Court Records.

Prince George’s County Board of Education Closed School Files, Plant Maintenance Department Journal of the Board of School Commissioners (1865-1921) Journal of the Board of Education (1921-1940).

The Afro-American Institute for Historic Preservation and Community Development. A Study of Historic Sites in the Metropolitan Washington Regions of Northern Virginia and Southern Maryland Importantly Related to the History of AfroAmericans. Part III. 1978.

Battle, Thomas Cornell. Published Resources for the Study of Blacks in the District of Columbia: An Annotated Guide. Ph.D. diss., George Washington University, Washington, D.C., 1982.

Betty Bird & Associates. “African-American Historic Resources in Prince George’s County, Maryland”. National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Nomination. October 2003.

Blachly, Linda. Bibliographic Resource Guide to Prince George’s County, Maryland Historical Literature. (1995) Bolton, May, wife of the Rev. Richard C. Bolton. “Our Story”.

Collection of St. Thomas’ Parish Archives. Undated.

Brugger, Robert J. Maryland, A Middle Temperament, 1634-1980.

Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988.

Butler, Loretta M. Mosaic of Faith: African-American Catholic Presence in Prince George’s County, 1696-1996.

Callcott, Margaret. The Negro in American Politics, 1870–1912.

Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969.

Calloway, Thomas J. “The American Negro Artisan”. Cassier’s Magazine. 25 (Nov.-Apr. 1903-1904): 435-445.

Chronology of Lakeland Urban Renewal Project. Lakeland Vertical File. [Prince George’s County Historical Society Library.]

Constitution of St. Mary’s Beneficial Society of Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Typescript.

Dozier, Richard K. Tuskegee: Booker T. Washington’s Contribution to the Education of Black Architects. Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1992.

Entwisle, Elaine. Ridgley-Zion United Methodist Church and Cemetery. Prince George’s County Genealogical Society, 1983.

Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration.

Washington, City and Capital. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1937.

Floyd, Bianca Patrice. “Bible, Book and Voting Booth: Early Black Institutions and Political History, 1870-1920”. Final Report for Fiscal Year 1984-1985. M-NCPPC. ———“The First Black-Owned Airport on the Eastern Seaboard Was Built at Croom in the 1940s: Columbia Air Center”.

Maryland Hawk, May 30–June 5, 1985: 5.

Federal Records Population Schedules, Federal Census, E.S. Bureau of the Census, National Archives.

Pension Files, U.S. Civil War, National Archives.

Records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872, National Archives.

United States Service Records, U.S. Civil War, National Archives.

Specific Records Aerial photographs of Prince George’s County, 1938-2009.

Atlas of Prince George’s County, Maryland, Volume 1, published by Franklin Survey Co., Philadelphia, PA., 1940.

Church records: Vestry records, conference records.

Colored Public School Trustees Association, A Survey of Colored Schools of Prince George’s County, Maryland, 1923/24.

G.M. Hopkins, Atlas of Fifteen Miles Around Washington Including the County of Prince George, Maryland, 1878.

G.M. Hopkins, Map of the Vicinity of Washington, D.C., 1894.

S.J. Martenet, Map of Prince George’s County, Maryland, 1861.

Prince George’s County Historic Sites and Districts Plan, 1981: M-NCPPC, 1981.

Prince George’s County Historic Sites and Districts Plan, 1992: M-NCPPC, 1992.

Prince George’s County Historic Sites and Districts Plan, 2011: M-NCPPC, 2011.

Rosenwald Fund files, Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee.

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, Sanborn Map Company, New York, New York.

BIBLIOGRAPHY African American Historic and Cultural Resources

275

———“Highlights in Black History: Prince George’s County Black History Study Final Report—Fiscal Year 1983-1984”. M-NCPPC. ———Records and Recollections: Early Black History in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Upper Marlboro, Maryland: M-NCPPC, 1989.

Frazier, E. Franklin. The Black Bourgeoisie: The Rise of a New Middle Class. New York: The Free Press (MacMillan Publishing Company, Inc.), 1957.

Gray, Mildred Ridgley. “Like Those Who Dream: A History of Ridgley Methodist Episcopal Church, Prince George’s County, Maryland.”

1990.

Green, Constance McLaughlin. The Secret City: A History of Race Relations in the Nation’s Capital. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967.

“A History of the St. Mary Beneficial Society, Upper Marlboro, MD”.

Photocopy of handwritten manuscript. [Prince George’s County Planning Department.]

Hannold, Elizabeth. “An Examination of Two Cabins on the Crauford Plantation,” for AMCV 351, December 2, 1985. Collection of M-NCPPC’s Historic Preservation Section.

Horton, James Oliver. Free People of Color: Inside the AfricanAmerican Community. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993.

Jones, William H. Recreation and Amusement Among Negroes in Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1927.

Kendall, Kristie. “North Kenilworth: Rediscovering an Early Twentieth Century African-American Subdivision”. Independent Study, Dr. Donald W. Linebaugh, University of Maryland, 2008.

Kulikoff, Alan. Tobacco & Slaves. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1986.

The Lakeland Community Heritage Project. Lakeland: African Americans in College Park (Images of America). Arcadia Publishing, 2009.

Lankford, John. Lankford’s Artistic Churches and Other Designs.

Washington, D.C.: Hamilton Printing Company, 1924.

Little, M. Ruth. “The Other Side of the Tracks: The Middle Class Neighborhoods That Jim Crow Built in Early-TwentiethCentury North Carolina”. In Exploring Everyday Landscapes, ed.

Annmarie Adams and Sally McMurray, 268-280. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1997.

McDaniel, George W. “Survey of 19th Century Houses of Black Families in Southern Maryland, Phase II. Maryland Commission on Afro-American History and Culture, 1977.”

———Hearth & Home, Preserving a People’s Culture.

276 BIBLIOGRAPHY African American Historic and Cultural Resources

Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984.

McLoud, Melissa. “Craftsmen and entrepreneurs: Builders in late nineteenth century Washington, D.C. Ph.D. diss., George Washington University, Washington, D.C., 1988.

M-NCPPC Planning Department. Oral History Interviews: AfricanAmerican Heritage Survey Update 2008. The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, 2008.

Meier, August. Negro Thought in American, 1880-1915: Racial Ideologies in the Age of Booker T. Washington. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 1968.

Murray, Pauli. Songs in a Weary Throat: An American Pilgrimage.

New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1987. 50-52.

Pearl, Susan G. Maryland Historical Trust State Historic Sites Inventory Forms. Maryland Historical Trust.

———African-American Heritage Survey, 1996. M-NCPPC, 1996.

———Fairmount Heights, Maryland, A History: From Its Beginnings (1900) to Incorporation (1935). M-NCPPC, 1991.

———Glenarden: The Past in Perspective. M-NCPPC, 1995.

———St. Simon’s Church and Croom Industrial and Agricultural Institute. Prince George’s County Historical Society New and Notes. February/March 1983.

The Prince George’s County, Maryland, Retired Teachers’ Association. “The Public Schools of Prince George’s County from the Seventeenth Century to Nineteen Hundred Fifty”. 1976.

Proctor, John Clagett. “Figures in First Washington Council”. Star.

June 17, 1934.

Provine, Dorothy S. Registrations of Free Negroes, 1806-1863, Prince George’s County, Maryland. Washington, D.C.: Columbian Harmony Society, 1990.

Robinson, Franklin A. Jr. St. Thomas’ Parish Register, Croome, Prince George’s County, Maryland 1849-1906. Heritage Books Inc., 1998.

Rowe, Carolyn Corpening and Thomas, Jane Taylor and Woods, Beverly Babin. Prince George’s County Maryland (Black America Series). Arcadia Publishing, 2003.

Royall, Roderick. “Ridgley Church has new site for new life”. Prince George’s Journal. May 5, 1989.

Sams, Daniel. “A Brief History of the Ridgley Family in Prince George’s County”. The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, 2009.

Sies, Dr. Mary Corbin, Department of American Studies, University of Maryland, in cooperation with the Lakeland Community Heritage Project. “Lakeland East of the Railroad Tracks”. June 2010 Simpson, Pamela H. Cheap, Quick and Easy: Imitative Architectural

Materials, 1870-1930. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1999.

Stabler, Jennifer A., Ph.D. Antebellum Plantations in Prince George’s County, Maryland: A Historic Context and Research Guide.

M-NCPPC, 2009 Thorton, Alvin and Karen Williams Gooden. Like A Phoenix I’ll Rise: An Illustrated History of African Americans in Prince George’s County. Upper Marlboro, MD: Pyramid Visions, Inc., 1997.

Virta, Alan. Prince George’s County: A Pictorial History. 3rd ed.

Virginia Beach, VA: The Donning Company/Publishers, 1998.

Vlach, John Michael. The Afro-American Tradition in Decorative Arts.

1978, Cleveland Museum of Art. Wagand, Charles. The Mighty Revolution: Negro Emancipation in Maryland, 1862–1864.

Wilson, Frank Harold. Footsteps from North Brentwood: From Reconstruction to the Post-World War II Years. North Brentwood Historical Society and Smithsonian Institution Anacostia Museum, 1993.

Writers’ Program of the Works Progress Administration in the State of Maryland. Maryland, A Guide to the Old Line State. New York: Oxford University Press, 1940.

BIBLIOGRAPHY African American Historic and Cultural Resources

277

Index A. A. Randall House, 75 abolition, 10 Abraham Hall, 5, 11, 53, 55, 58, 60, 258 Adams, Arthur B., 82 Adams, J. Lee, 68 Adams, Josiah, 11, 207 Adams, Mrs. Margaret, 87 Addison, Colonel John, 41 Addison, Thomas, 41 Addison plantation, 41, 42 Admirathoria plantation, 51 Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, 3 Africa, 39 African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church, 5, 11, 19, 65, 73, 77, 87, 103, 104, 203, 212, 214, 218, 228 African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church of Brentwood, 77 African religious practices, 42 Alabama, 137, 243 Albert Owen Shorter House Site, 180 Alice Dorsey House, 138, Ali, Mohammed, 243 Allen, Richard, 203 Allentown Road, 50, 214 Alpha Progressive Club, 103 American Civil Liberties Union, 155 American Foursquare style, SEE: Foursquare style American Legion, 57, 228 Anacostia, 32, 33, 68, 87, 95 Anacostia Community Museum, 95 Annapolis, 14, 15, 20, 32, 33, 37, 87, 101, 132, 199, 216, 240 Anne Arundel County, 20, 37, 56, 68, 238 antebellum plantations, 6 Aquasco, SEE: Woodville/Aquasco Aquilla and Lucy Henson House, 50 Archdiocese of Baltimore, 210 Ardwick, 31, 34, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96 Ardwick Station, 34, 91 Ardwick Park, 33, 157 Ark, (British ship) 8, 19 Arlington National Cemetery, 83 Armstrong, General Samuel Chapman, 25 Armstrong, James F., 26, 33, 134 Arnold, Isaac D., 83 Arthur Jr. and Louise Ridgley Farmstead Site, 130 278 INDEX African American Historic and Cultural Resources

Arthur Sr. and Mary Ridgley House, 20 Arthur W. Wilmer Foundation, LLC, 253 Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church, 5, 217 Ascension Roman Catholic Church, 111, 120, 239 Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition Speech, 26 Attucks, Crispus, 203 Bacon Hall, 6, 168 Baden, 18, 25, 28 Baden, Dr. Robert E., 248 Bagnall, the Reverend Robert Wellington, 187 Bailey, Pearl, 82 Baker, Sandy P., 80, 81 Ball, Ommie Lancaster, 181-182 Ball, Charles H., 181-182 Baltimore City, 10, 13, 14, 19, 20, 24, 30, 32, 33, 34, 37, 62, 65, 87, 91, 101, 105, 107, 117, 121, 132, 157, 163, 167, 196, 210, 216, 218, 252, 254 Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, 62, 87 Baltimore and Potomac Railroad, 14, 91, 117, 167 Baltimore Colored Normal School, 121 Baltimore Conference (African Methodist Episcopal), 65, 105, 218 Baltimore magazine, 254 Bank of Brandywine, 248 Banks, Theresa, 16 Banneker, Benjamin, 203 Banneker Boulevard, 202 Banner, Oscar T. and Delia E., 100 Banner Street, 31 Barnes, Mary, 236 Barnes, Pastor Joshua, 140, 142 Bartlett, Captain Wallace A., 32, 33, 68, 75 baseball, 15 Basie, William “Count�, 252 Battersea land grant, 41 Battle, Thomas, 20 Bayne, Dr. John H., 45 Beacon Airfield, 250 Beall, Jane, 100 Beall, Joseph, 12, 126 Beall, Margaret Ann, 100 Beall, Shadrack, 99, 100 Beall, William, 91 Bean, Walter L., 37, 196 Bean, William, 31 Beck, Agnes Ball, 181

Beckett family, 207 Belair, 6, 17, 118 Belair at Bowie subdivision, 118 Bellamy, Raymond, 236 “Bellana” cottage, Cedar Haven, 202 Bell, Anna E., 202 Bell, Louis H., 208 Bellows, Hattie, 84 Bellows, Jr., William D., 84 Belt, Amelia, 44 Beltsville, 17, 53, 61, 63 benevolent hall, 28, 126, 127 benevolent society lodge, 55, 177 Benevolent Sons and Daughters of Abraham, 11 Berry, Chuck, (music artist) 252 Berry family, 124 Berry, Caroline, 48 Berry, John Thomas, 47 Berry, Jr., William P., 48 Berry, Mary, 48 Berry, Roger Bernard, 47 Berry, Thomas E., 126 Berry, William P., 47, 48 Berry, Molly. SEE Berry, Mary (aka Molly) Berwyn community, 62, 63 Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, 103, 104, 105, 110, 218, 263, 267 Bethesda, Maryland, 78 Bethune, Mary McLeod, 203 Beverly, Lillian K., 81 Bishop of Washington, 26 Black History Program, M-NCPPC’s, 4, 8 Black History Survey, M-NCPPC’s, 4 Black Swamp Creek, 231, 232 Black Swamp School, 9, 231, 232, 233 Bladensburg, 11, 25, 34, 87 Bladensburg Pumping Station, 69 Bladensburg Town Hall, 88 Bladen, Thomas, 87 Bleak Hill, 245 Board of School Commissioners, 5, 45, 58, 66, 99, 107, 135, 179, 193, 194, 214, 227, 229, 230, 231, 232 Boarman’s Content, 175 Bolton, May, 185 Bolton, the Reverend Richard C., 185 Bonds, Gary U.S., 252 “Borscht Belt”, 252

Boston, 250 Boston University, 212 Boteler, Henry Alexander, 242 Boulevard Heights, 89 Bowie, City of, 13, 17, 28, 30, 32, 36, 66, 100, 111, 113, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 127, 143, 230, 257 Bowie, Elizabeth L., 44 Bowie, Governor Oden, 117 Bowie, Richard, 44 Bowie, Robert W., 47 Bowie, Sr., John, 43 Bowie, Walter, 43 Bowie, William, 45 Bowie Normal and Industrial School, 13, 113, 100, 117 Bowie Rosenwald School Site, 120 Bowie State College/University, 17, 30, 36, 113, 121, 122, 123, 239 Bowling, George, 172 Bowling Heights, 174 Bowling, John, 174 Boys’ Village of Maryland Cemetery, 216 Brandywine, 28, 30, 50, 71, 196, 214, 218, 220, 221, 230, 232, 248, 252, 253, 258 Brandywine Rosenwald School, 28-30, 221, 230 Brent, Robert, 69 Brentwood, (1904 subdivision) 69, 75, 78 Brentwood Colored Citizens Association, 69, 71 Brentwood Flashes, 15 Brentwood plantation, 69 Brentwood Road, 69 Brentwood, Town of, 68, 70, 83 Briggs, Louisa, 56 Briscoe, John, 220 Britain, 9 Broad Creek, 177 Broadwater, Tommie, 17 Brook, Baker, 49 Brookefield of the Berrys, 47, 48, 49 Brookes Chapel, 210 Brookes family, 49 Brooke, Thomas, 230 Brook family, 113 Brook Hill, 49 Brookland, 14, 97, 99, 100, 257 Brookland Community Cemetery, 100 Brookland Methodist Episcopal Church, 97 Brooks Chapel, 172 INDEX African American Historic and Cultural Resources

279

Brooks Church at Nottingham, 211 Brooks, Doswell, 13, 134, 147 Brooks, Anita, 147 Brooks family, 218 Brooks, Margaret, 141 Brooks Market, 141 Brooks Methodist Episcopal Church, 21, 220 Brooks-Myers Church, 220 Brown, Alice, 138, 175, 180, 185 Brown, Arthur and Nettie, 114 Brown, Ashbury, 216 Brown, Daniel, 142 Browne, Hugh, 91, 92 Brown, Benjamin, 84 Brown, Jeannette, 73 Brown, Mack, 73 Brown, Isaac and Maria, 143 Brown, James, (music artist) 164, 252, 254 Brown, Jeremiah, 175, 178, 180 Brown, Louis, 36, 147 Brown, Pleasant, 66 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 13, 155, 190 Bruce, Blanche K., 203 Bruce, Jeremiah, 214 Bryn Mawr subdivision, 134 Buena Vista community, 30, 37, 103 Bungalow Row, 150 Bungalow style, 34, 35, 36, 68, 83, 93, 94, 95, 119, 134, 147, 150, 152, 157, 162, 182, 199, 201, 202, 203 Burke, Edwin and Georgia, 109 Burke-Jackson House, 109 Burroughs, Nannie Helen, 85 Bush, Tyrone and Carolyn, 154 Butler House, 242 Cadwallader, Sallie, 87 California, 130 Calloway, Cab, 252 Calloway, Thomas J., 27, 35, 101, 106, 107, 157 Calloway, Thomas Junius, 33 Calvert County, 12, 20, 167 Calvert family, 12, 89 Calvert Hills, 63 Calvert, James H., 238 Calvert, Joseph, 238 Calvert, William Jackson, 238 280 INDEX African American Historic and Cultural Resources

Calvert, William T., 238 Camp Springs community, 28, 30, 50, 214, 215, 219, 227 Camp Springs Rosenwald School, 28, 227 Capitol Flying Club, 251 Capitol Heights, 28, 30 Caroline’s Walk subdivision, 48 Carroll Methodist Episcopal Chapel, 172, 211, 223 Carroll, Pastor O., 211, 215 Carr’s Beach, Annapolis, 15 Carter, Edwin, 66 Caterpillar Flying Club, 250 Cedar Haven Hotel, 201 Centreville, 172, 215 Chapel Hill, 25, 28, 30, 35, 50, 57, 58, 111, 175, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 258 Chapel Hill Rosenwald School Site, 179 Chapel Hill Freedmen’s Bureau School, 25 Charity Hall, 132, 135, 140, 148 Charity, Malkiah, 148 Charles Ball House, 181 Charles County, 11, 20, 117, 183, 242 Charles Duckett Log Cabin, 244 Charles, Ray, 164, 252 Charles Town, 167 Chase, Calvin, 117 Chattanooga, Tennessee, 250 Checker, Chubby, 252 Chelsea plantation, 6 Cheltenham, 51, 71, 216 Cheltenham State Veterans Commission, 216 Cherry Hill Cemetery, 5, 12, 207 Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, 240 Cheverly, Town of, 34, 235, 236 Chew family, 49 Chew, the Reverend John Hamilton, 43 Chew Road Slave Cemetery, 49 Chicago, Illinois, 252 China, 110 “Chitlin’ Circuit”, 163, 164, 252 Chittams family, 111 Christ United Methodist Church,193, 223 Cincinnati, Ohio, 94 City and Suburban Railway, 32, 68, 77, 79 Civil Patrol Squadron, 250 Civil Rights Movement, 16 Civil War, American, 10, 13, 14, 20, 25, 32, 33, 39, 44, 45, 46, 48, 49, 53,

59, 68, 75, 87, 89, 117, 124, 167, 170, 172, 173, 175, 179, 180, 185, 191, 193, 195, 207, 213, 215, 216, 218, 220, 223, 230, 242, 247 Clagett, Henry W., 174 Clagett, Joseph White, 48 Clagett, Richard, 43 Clagett, William Digges, 48 Claggett, the Reverend Thomas John, 43 Claggett, Sophia, 43 Clagett House at Cool Spring Manor, 48, 49 Clark, Allen C., 33, 132, 144 Clark, Appleton Prentiss, 33 Clarke, Joshua T., 238 Classical Revival style, 138, 141 Clinton, Maryland, 25, 28, 30 Clinton American Legion Post, 259, 228 Clinton Rosenwald School, 5, 28-30, 228 Cloud Club, 250, 251 Coates, the Reverend Robert F., 223 Coffin family, 11 Coffin, Charles, 11, 57 Colbert, Abraham, 239 Colbert, Cecelia, 239 Colbert family, 16, 183, 238, 239, 257 Colbert Family Farm Site, 238 Colbert, Harriet, 239 Colbert Houses Site, 183 Colbert, James H., 141, 220, 238 Colbert, Jesse, 183 Colbert, Joseph, 238, 239 Colbert, Louise, 239 Colbert, Sr., Larry, 16 Colbert, William and Isabella, 183 Colbert, William T., 238 Cold War, 84 Cole Brooke plantation, 232 Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel, 203 Coleridge-Taylor Street, 203 Coles, William B. and Isadora, 144 College Park, Maryland 62, 63, 66 College Park Airport, 16 Collington, 28, 30, 50 Collington Rosenwald School, 225 Colombian Harmony Society, 208 Colonial Revival style, 96, 123, 226 Colored Catholic Congress, 174 Colored Public School Trustees Association, 233

Colored School 1 in Election District 9, 28 Colored School 2 in Election District 7, 28 Colored School 2 in Election District 9, 28 Colored Troops during the Civil War, 33, 68, 75 Columbia Air Center Site, 16, 250, 251 Columbia Squadron, 251 Community Club (of Lincoln and Buena Vista), 27, 37 Community High School, Lakeland, 28, 30, 226 Compton Basset plantation, 6 Concord plantation, 6 concrete block, rock-faced, 35, 36 Confederacy, 10, 19 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 17 Conway, William, 69 Cooke, Sam, 164, 252 Cook, John, 203 Cook, Richard, 12, 126 Cooper, Virginia, 136 Cordell, the Reverend Joseph, 219 Cornelius Fonville House, 35, 146 Cottage City, Maryland, 68 Cousins, Jr., Mayor James R., 17 Craftsman style, 70, 83, 84, 199 Craufurd I, David, 168 Craufurd II, David, 168 Craufurd III, David, 168 Craufurd Quarters, 168-169 Crispus Attucks Boulevard, 201 Croom, 11, 21, 25, 26, 43, 135, 185, 186, 188, 189, 190, 195, 220, 231, 232, 233, 244, 248, 250, 251 Croom Airport Road, 43, 220, 250 Croome Settlement School, 26, 188, 190 Croom Industrial and Agricultural Institute, 26, 135, 186, 189 Croom Road, 43, 185 Croom Freedmen’s Bureau School, 25 Crummel, Alexander, 203 Curry, Wayne, 18 Delfonics, The, 252 Dells, The, 252 Daingerfield family, 235 Dallas, Texas, 138 Daniel P. Seaton House Site, 105 Daniels Park, 63 Darnall, Robert, 235 Davis, William A., 103, 104 INDEX African American Historic and Cultural Resources

281

Daye, Eddie, 164 Deanwood subdivision, 21 DeAtley and Lillian Ridgley House, 129, 130 Delaney family, 175, 177 Delaney, William, 175 Delaware, 105 Delftware, 21 Dellwood Avenue Striders, 16 DeNeal family, 78 Dent’s Chapel, 88 desegregation, 16, 121, 190, 227, 230, 253 Detroit Heating Company, 144 Diddley, Bo, 165 Diehl, Adam, 51 Digges family, 175 Diggs, James, 167 Diggs, Janice, 187 Diocese of Washington, 186, 187, 210 Disabilities Bill of 1865, 10 disco, 165 Dock, Arthur J., 83 Dodson, John, 49, 50, 214 Doggett, Bill, 164 Dolan, Michael, 254 Domino, Fats, 252 Donelson, Anne, 153 Dorsey-Bush House, 157 Dorsey Chapel, 97, 100, 257 Dorsey Chapel Cemetery, 100 Dorsey family, 113 Dorsey, Alice R., 138 Dorsey, Charles M., 154 Dorsey, the Reverend A. B., 97 Doswell Brooks House, 147 Douglas, Richard, 193 Douglass, Frederick, 13, 203 Downing family, 247 Dove, (British ship) 8, 19 Drexel Institute, 137 Drifters, The, 64 D.S.S. Goodloe House, 36, 123 DuBois, W. E. B., 26 Duckett family, 113, 218 Duckett, Baruch, 45 Duckett, Charles, 244, 245, 256 Duckett, Richard, 42, 43 282 INDEX African American Historic and Cultural Resources

Duckettsville, 27, 28, 30, 57, 58, 100, 111, 113, 114 Duckettsville Rosenwald School, 27, 114 Dunbar High School, 96 Dunbar, Paul, 203 duplex house form, 247 Dupont Heights, 28, 30 Duvall, John, 47 Duvall, Mark, 53, 56 Dwight, Ed, 209 Dyson, Mary Eliza, 124 Eagle Harbor, 15, 31, 33, 38, 192, 196, 198, 199, 201, 203 Eagle Harbor Citizens Association, 199 Edelen family, 175, 178 Edith Randall Mason House, 75 Edmunds, James Easley, 209 Edward T. Gross House Site, 60-61 Edwards family, 60, 207 Edwards, Henry, 59 Ellerslie plantation, 49 Ellicott family, 11 Ellington, Duke, 82, 164, 252 emancipation, 9, 10, 11, 15, 22, 30, 39, 45, 51, 185, 191, 245 Emancipation Proclamation, 10 Embry African Methodist Episcopal Church, 62, 65 Embry, Bishop J. C., 65 England, 10, 39 Episcopal Church, 26, 28, 185, 191 Episcopal Diocese of Washington, 186, 187 Episcopalians, black, 186, 192, 195 Euclid Street Park, 34 Evangelical United Brethren Church, 5 Evans, Clarence, 162, 164 Evans, Pearl, 162 Evans Grill, 162, 163, 164, 165, 252, 254 Exposition des Nègres d’Amerique, 94 Exposition Universelle of 1889, 106 Exum, Nathaniel, 17 Fairfax, John Contee, 241 Fairmont Heights High School, 13, 154, 155, 226 Fairmount Heights, 13, 14, 21, 26, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 101, 132, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 157, 243, 257 Fairmount Heights Citizen’s Association, 37 Fairmount Heights Elementary School, 37, 135, 139

Fairmount Heights Methodist Episcopal Church, 140, 142 Fairmount Heights Municipal Center, 14, 150 Fairmount Heights Mutual Improvement Company, 32, 34, 132, 137, 148 Fairmount Heights, Town Council of, 141, 147 Fairmount Lodge 92, 132 Fairview, 45, 46, 47, 49, 150 Fairwood subdivision, 45 Federal Direct Tax of 1798, 45 Federal Emergency Relief Administration, 28, 194 Ferndale Farm, 248 Fife Enlarged tract, 243 Firemen’s Hall, 77 First Baptist Church of North Brentwood, 78 First Methodist Church, 119 First National Bank of Southern Maryland, 68 First Presbyterian Church of Fairmount Heights, 146 Fisher, Rebecca, 251 Fisk University, 106 Fitzgerald, Ella, 252 Fleet family, 111 Fleet, Samuel, 220 Fleming, Frank, 130 Fletcher family, 111, 115 Fletcher, Gabriel, 111, 113, 114 Fletchertown, 28, 30, 31, 50, 57, 58, 100, 111, 113, 114, 115, 179 Fletchertown Rosenwald School, 113, 114 Fletcher, Wilber, 164 Fonville, Cornelius, 146 Forbes, James, 171 Forestville, 25, 28, 30, 162, 164, 215 Fort Foote, 175 Fort Washington, 175, 177, 179, 181, 183 Four Bars, The, 164 Foursquare style, 73, 78, 106, 108, 110, 115, 123, 138, 145, 146 Foursquares on Webster Street, 78 Fowler, Samuel, 154 Fowler, W.E., 227 Frankland tract, 175 Franklin Atlas of 1940, 93 Franklin Pierce House, 237 Frederick Douglass High School, 167, 170 Free Colored School Society, 172 Freedmen, 10, 12, 13 Freedmen’s Bureau, 5, 12, 13, 19, 21, 24, 25, 27, 30, 37, 87, 167, 172, 175, 177, 178, 179, 191, 193, 194, 213, 214, 215, 222, 223, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232

Freedmen’s Bureau Schools, 21, 25, 27, 30, 37, 175, 232 freestanding row houses, 72, 73 French provincial style, 128 Gallahan family, 175 Garcia, Jerry, 253 Garland-Palmer House, 80, 81 Garland, Squire W. and Rosa B., 80 Garnett, Henry, 203 General Education Board, 27 George Palmer Highway, 158 Germany, 117, 152 Gholson, G. James, 13, 155 Gibbons, James H. S., 220 Gibson, Edward and Julia, 110 Gill, Dr. C. M., 250, 251 Gladys Knight and the Pips, 252 Glenarden, 14, 15, 16, 17, 28, 30, 31, 33, 34, 37, 101, 157, 158, 159, 256 Glenarden Ardmore Boys and Girls Club, 16 Glenarden Braves, 15 Glenarden Civic Association, 37, 157 Glenarden Heights, 157 Glenarden Town Hall, 37 Glenarden Track Club, 16 Glenarden Woods, 157, 158 Glenarden Woods Elementary School, 158 Glenn Dale, 97, 99, 100 Glenn Dale Colored School, 99 Glenn Dale Station, 14 Glenn Dale United Methodist Church, 97 Glennville, 97 Globe Poster Printing Corporation, 254 go-go music, 162, 165, 253 Goodloe, Don S. S., 121, 123 Good Luck School, 99 Gordon family, 143 Gordon, Hester, 143 Gordon, the Reverend Samuel R., 248 Gothic Revival style, 77, 97, 119, 140, 178, 206, 210, 217, 223 Government Printing Office, 33, 70, 79 Grace Methodist Episcopal Church Site and Cemetery, 178 Grace United Methodist Church, 140 Gray, James, 193 Gray, Mildred Ridgley, 18, 27, 124, 125 128 Gray, Robert, 13 Gray, William, 128, 129 INDEX African American Historic and Cultural Resources

283

Great Flood of 1933, 70 Green, Constance, 20 Greene, Jr., John W., 250, 251 Green, Jane, 110 Green, John, 220 Greenleaf, Henson and Nicholas, 172 Green(e), Linda, 110 Gregory Station, 132 Grimes family, 252 Grimes Farm, 253 Gross, Edward T., 58, 61 Gross, Georgianna, 245 Gross, Juliet Blake, 245 Gross, Lewis, 245 Gross, Norris, 248 Grusholt, Willy, 162 Guidelines for Archeological Review, 39 Gunnell, Mrs. Z. Ella M., 202 Gwynn, William H., 229 Haines, Elizabeth, 134 Hall family, 113 Hamilton, Roy, 252 Hampton Institute, 25, 167, 250 Hannold, Elizabeth, 168, 169 Hargrove, Earl W., 136 Hargrove, Samuel, 36, 136 Harmoneon Cemetery, 208 Harmony Hall, 41 Harmony Memorial Park, 6, 208 Harrison, Elias, 99, 100 Hartman, the Reverend Richard D., 187 Hatton family, 33, 35, 36, 103, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 175, 177, 180, 183 Hatton farm, 175 Hatton, Isaiah T., 33, 35, 36, 103, 105, 106, 107, 108, 110 Hatton-Robey family, 175, 180 Hawkins, Dale, 16 Hawkins, Emma Florence, 71, 76 Hawkins, Gasaway, 75 Hawkins, George, 100 Hawkins, Henry, 236 Hawkins, J. Allen and Charity, 231, 232, 233 Hawkins, Jeremiah, 37, 71, 80, 82 Hawkins, Lawrence, 113 Hawkins, Lawrence and Benedict, 114 284 INDEX African American Historic and Cultural Resources

Hawkins, Maggie, 75 Hawley, Mrs. Mary, 202 Hebron Hall, 206 Hebron, James, 206 Henderson, Eddie, 252 Henry Newton House Site, 68, 78 Henry Pinckney House, 145 Henry, Rachel A., 189 Henson family, 50, 77, 172 Henson, Aquilla, 50 Henson, Lucy, 50 Highland Beach, 15, 37, 199 Highland Park, 28, 30, 31 Highland Park Rosenwald School, 28-30, 226 Hilleary family, 89 Hill, Robert H., 128, 129 Hills Bridge, 167 Historic American Buildings Survey, 240 Historic Preservation Ordinance, 3 Historic Sites and Districts Plan, 3, 4 Hoffman family, 237 Hog and Hominy, 163 Holladay Land and Improvement Company, 68 Holland, Benjamin, 36 Holland, Frank, 36, 103, 108, 109, 110 Holland-Green House Site, 110 Hollomand, Mary, 67 Hollow Building Block Company, 36 Holly Grove community, 28 Holly Grove Rosenwald School, 13, 28-30 Hollywood subdivision, 63 Holmes, Virginia, 85 Holy Family Mission, 210 Holy Family Roman Catholic Church, 21, 210, 225 Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, 44 Homestead Grays, 15 Hopkins Atlas of 1878, 91, 125, 160, 216 Horn, General John Watts, 216 Horsehead, 232 Horsepen Hill, 111, 113, 120, 239 horse racing, 15 House of Delegates, 45, 243 House of Reformation and Instruction for Coloured Children, 51, 216 Howard County, 124 Howard Theater, 164 Howard University, 20, 30, 32, 92, 95, 103, 106, 139, 141

Howlin’ Wolf, 254 Hunster, Thomas, 94, 95 Huntington/Bowie, 117, 118 Hyattsville, 63, 68, 74, 76, 78, 91 Hyattsville Building Association, 76 Icycle Productions, 254 I-House, 56, 75, 79, 92, 113, 114, 237 Immanuel Methodist Church at Baden, 220 Independent Savings and Building Association, 56 Independent Steamboat and Barge Company, 51 Indian Creek, 62, 63, 66 Industrial Bank Building, 108 Industrial Education, 25, 26, 27 industrial room, 27, 28, 128 integration, 88, 190, 194, 228 Isaac Brown House, 143 Jackson Methodist Church, 215 Jackson, the Reverend Chesterfield, 77 Jackson, John W., 55 Jackson, William, 100 James A. Campbell House, 147 James and Virginia Holmes House, 77, 85 James F. Armstrong House, 139 James Fowler family, 243 Jamestown Tercentennial Exposition of 1907, 94, 106, 138 Jasper, the Reverend James L., 69, 80, 81 Jeanes Foundation, 27 Jefferson, Lewis, 51 Jenkins family, 206 Jenks, John and Anna, 96 Jensen, Eloise Constance, 187 Jensen, the Reverend August, 26, 186, 187 Jeremiah Hawkins House Site, 71 Jesse B. Mason, 17 Jesuits, 210 Jim Crow laws/era, 15, 22, 163 John C. Johnson Elementary School. SEE: Lakeland Rosenwald School John Dodson House Site, 49 John F. Slater Fund, 27 John Henry Quander House, 24, 173 John M. and Sara R. Walton Foundation, 235 John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church Site and Cemetery, 191-193, 223 Johns, Anthony, 158 Johns, Bonnie, 17

John S. Johnson House, 144 Johnson, Anthony, 216 Johnson, John Calvary, 62, 66 Johnson, John S., 144 Johnson, Knotley, 56, 60 John Wesley School, 193, 194 Jones, Jr., Herbert H., 251 Jones, M., 196 Jones, Williams, 216 Josephites, 210 Judah (enslaved girl of Dr. John Bayne), 45 Jug Bay, 245 Juliet Hill House, 144 Kagle family, 237 Kemp, Ezra and Florence, 144 Kentucky Derby, 15 Key, Ferdinand, 60 King, Arthur A., 17 King, B.B., 164, 252 King, Henry, 237 King, Hester V., 16 Knights of St. John Hall, 120 Knights of St. John’s Commandery 373, 194 Ladies’ Aid Society, 125 Lake Arbor subdivision, 240 Lake Artemesia, 62, 63, 66 Lakeland community, 14, 15, 30, 32, 62, 63, 65, 66, 67, 120, 127, 230 Lakeland Rosenwald School, 27, 28-30, 66 Lakeland Grocery, 63 Lakeland White Sox, 15 Lancaster, Arthur, 182 Lancaster, Augustus, 229 Lancaster, Dominic, 229 Lancaster House, 35, 182 Landon dairy farm, 209 Langston, John, 203 Larkins, George W., 212 Latimer, Ann R., 233 Latimer, Dr. Mathias, 231, 232, 233 Laurel, 28, 30, 36, 53, 55, 60, 63, 66, 120, 127, 206, Laurel Charge of the Methodist Conference, 206 Laurel Colored School, 206 Laurel Mills, 206 Levi, George, 36, 206 INDEX African American Historic and Cultural Resources

285

Levitt Corporation, 118 Levitt, William J., 17 Lewis, Richard, 41 Lewis, Thomas, 41 Lewis, John, 254 Lightbown, Charles, 78 Lincoln community, 14, 15, 27, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 Lincoln, President Abraham, 228 Lincoln Citizens Association, 103 Lincoln Land and Improvement Company, Inc., 101 Lincoln Memorial, 6 Lincoln Memorial Cemetery, 209 Lincoln Rosenwald School, 107, 109, 110 Linthicum and Linthicum, 28, 66, 67, 120, 127, 128, 226, 230 Little Harlem supper club, 252 Little Washington, Maryland 160, 162 “Little White Tops”, 137 London, England, 9 Long Quarters, 175, 183 Louis Brown House, 142 Lynwood subdivision, 88 Mack Brown House Site, 73 Magruder, Jr., Fielder, 235, 236 Magruder’s Ferry, 231 Malcolm X, 243 Mansfield, Albert, 78 Mansfield Farm, 222 Marbury, Francis, 42 Marbury Site, 42, 43 Marlboro Circuit, 211, 215 Marlboro Gazette, 47 Marlboro High School, 13, 28, 167 Marlboro Seminary, 25 Marshall, Robert, 236 Martenet’s Map of 1861, 91, 160, 239 Martin Luther King, Jr. Highway, 157, 158 Maryland General Assembly, 17, 87 Maryland Historical Trust (MHT), 42, 61, 120, 235 Maryland House of Delegates, 243 Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), 254 Maryland Inter-Racial Commission, 106 Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, The (M-NCPPC), 2, 3, 4, 8, 34, 97, 98, 128, 168, 206, 207, 240, 244, 250, 251 Maryland Normal and Industrial School at Bowie, 23, 30, 36, 121, 123, 239 Maryland’s Provincial Legislature, 9 286 INDEX African American Historic and Cultural Resources

Massachusetts, 188, 212 Matthews, Thomas, 56, 60 McCollough, Bishop W., 209 McDaniel, George, 169 McKendree Chapel, 211 McKenzie-Bullock House Site, 76 McKenzie Bullock, Ora, 76 McKenzie, George W., 36, 76 Meadows community, 25, 28, 30, 211, 215 Meadows Freedmen’s Bureau School, 25 Meadows Rosenwald School, 28 Mecutcheon, Cornelius D., 82 Melford, 245 Methodist denomination, 5, 191 Methodist Episcopal Church, 5, 11, 12, 19, 21, 28, 36, 65, 87, 97, 103, 104, 125, 126, 127, 140, 142, 170, 172, 178, 185, 191, 192, 193, 203, 206, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 217, 218, 220, 222, 223, 228, 232 Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Clinton, 214 “Middle Temperament”, 19 Midnight Basketball, 16 midwifery, 50, 235 Mildred Ridgley Gray Charitable Trust, Inc., 128 Mills family, 12 Mills, Samuel J., 68, 82 Mills, Henry T., 214 Minnix, William, 59 Missouri Acres subdivision, 50 Mitchell, Benjamin and Clara, 21, 243 Mitchell, Russell, 28, 227 Mitchell, Thomas, 91 Mitchellville, 15, 22, 28, 30, 172, 210, 211, 256 Mitchellville Store, 22 M-NCPPC. SEE Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, The Modern Movement style, 128, 162 Mohammed, Elijah, 243 Molly Berry Road, 47 Molly Berry Slave Cabin, 47, 48 Montgomery, Joseph, 22 Montpelier mansion, 6, 53, 60, 206 Moore Architectural Company, 123 Moore family, 218 Moore, John A., 123 Moore, Joseph, 12 Moore, Ken, 254 Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, 20

Morgan Boulevard Metrorail, 13 Mount Hope African Methodist Episcopal Church Site and Cemetery, 50, 214, 219, 227 Mount Hope plantation, 235 Mount Hope Slave Quarter Ruin, 235 Mount Nebo African Methodist Episcopal Church, 11, 19, 212 Mount Oak Methodist Church, 211 Mount Pleasant Ferry, 173, 174 Mount Rainier, 78 Mount Wiessner, 134, 147 Mount Zion Apostolic Faith Church, 135 Mount Calvert plantation, 49 Muirkirk community, 28, 30, 63 Muirkirk Iron Furnace, 53, 57, 60, 206 Muirkirk Ironworks and ironworkers, 11, 14 Muirkirk Road, 53, 56, 57, 59 Muirkirk Rosenwald School, 28-30, 55-57 Murray Palace Casino, 108 Murray, Pauli, 187 Muslim faith, 21, 243 Myers, the Reverend Frederick, 222 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 16, 155 National Harbor, 41 National Intelligence, 47 National Register of Historic Places, 3, 4, 49, 55, 68, 70, 106, 123, 126, 127, 132, 134, 171, 242 National Trade and Professional School for Women and Girls, 85 Naylor, 185 Negro Building at the Tercentennial Exposition at Jamestown, Virginia, 94, 138 Negro Development Company, 106 Negro National League, 15 Nelson, Alberta, 76 Nelson, John, 76 Nelson-Queen House Site, 76 Nettie Brown House Site, 114 New Deal Coalition, 33 Newman, Clara Artemesia, 62 Newman, Edwin, 14 Newman, Edwin A., 62, 63, 66 New Orleans, Louisiana, 89, 165 Newport News, Virginia 108 Newton, Henry D., 78 New York State, 105, 188

Nichols, Robert S., 149 Niles Chapel/Church at Meadows, 172, 211, 215 Niles, William, 215 Noble Strother House, 115 Norfolk, Virginia 108 Northam Acres subdivision, 50 Northampton plantation, 240, 241 North Brentwood, 14, 21, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 63, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 101, 143, 157, 258 North Carolina, 28, 67, 105, 127, 136, 226 North Forestville, 162 North Kenilworth, 34 Notley Hall Amusement Park/Washington Park, 14, 51 Nottingham, 25, 172, 185, 211, 220, 222, 244, 246, 247, 257 Nottingham-Myers Methodist Episcopal Church and Cemetery, 222 Oak Springs, 63 Old Fort Road, 35 Old Town College Park. SEE College Park, Maryland Old Towne Village, 162 O’Meara, J.D., 134 Opie, Frederick Douglass, 163 Orbison, Roy, 165 Order of Elks Lodge 1003, 232 Orme, George, 223 Orr, Robert, 72 Osborne, Marjorie, 143 Owens family, 48 Owings Houses, 34, 74 Owings, Irvin, 74 Owsley, Dr. Douglas, 48 Oxon Hill community, 21, 25, 28, 30, 41, 42, 177, 213, 242 Oxon Hill Freedmen’s Bureau School, 25 Oxon Hill Manor, 21, 41, 42 Oxon Hill Rosenwald School, 28-30 Page’s Chapel, 185 Paint Branch Creek, 62, 63 Palestine, 105 Palmer, Harmon, 36 Palmer, Una, 80 Patti La Belle and the Blue Bells, 252 Patuxent River, 31, 37, 47, 49, 167, 173, 185, 187, 191, 196, 201, 220, 244, 245, 246, 251 Payne, Daniel, 203 Peaches & Herb, 110 INDEX African American Historic and Cultural Resources

287

Pennsylvania, 14, 33, 34, 91, 105, 117, 157, 188 Pennsylvania Railroad, 33, 34, 91, 117, 157 Perkins Chapel, 97 Perry, the Reverend Josiah, 195 Perry, Stephen, 171 Peter Randall House, 79 Phelps Vocational High School, 250 Philadelphia, 87, 103, 108, 137 Piles, Leonard, 49 Pinckney, Henry, 134, 145, 146 Pinckney, Kevin Clay, 146 Pinckney, Lenora, 146 Pinckney, Roswell, 145, 146 Pinkney, Catherine (Kitty) A. Tomes, 190 Pinkney family, 218 Pinkney, George Wilmer, 190 Pinkney, Myrtle, 187 Pinkney, William, 220 Piscataway, 25, 175, 177, 180, 183, 228, 229 Pittman, Portia Washington, 33, 137, 243 Pittman, William Sidney, 33, 34, 37, 103, 132, 135, 137, 148 Pittsburgh Crawfords, 15 plantations, 11, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 69, 100, 168, 173, 175, 180, 207, 232, 235, 236, 240, 241, 243, 244, 245 Plater House, 247 Pleasant Grove community, 113 Pleasant View (Hatton family farmland), 175, 180 Plummer family, 207, 212 Cupid Plummer, 10 Plummer, Sarah Miranda, 11, 88, 89 Plummer, Mordecai, 173, 174 Pongee family, 241 Popes Creek, 117, 119 Poplar Hill, 24, 28 Poplar Hill/St. Thomas School, 25 Poplar Hill on His Lordship’s Kindness, 235 Poplar Hill School, 231, 232 Poplar Ridge, 173, 212 Potomac Landing, 248 Potomac River, 41, 117, 177 Pratt, Enoch, 216 Presbyterian congregation of Bladensburg, 89 Presley, Elvis, 165 Primrose, the Reverend, 77 Prince, (music artist) 254 Prince Albert Washington House, 152-153 288 INDEX African American Historic and Cultural Resources

Prince George’s County Board of Education, 5, 13, 28, 37, 63, 66, 88, 100, 103, 113, 120, 127, 128, 130, 134, 147, 155, 190, 194, 215, 225, 226, 227, 228, 230, 231, 233 Prince George’s County Board of School Commissioners, 5, 58, 66, 99, 107, 135, 179, 193, 194, 214, 227, 229, 230, 231, 232 Prince George’s County Colored Schools, 25, 26 134, 139 Prince George’s County Council, 39 Prince George’s County Courthouse, 167 Prince George’s County Historical and Cultural Trust, 226 Prince George’s County Planning Board, 39 Quade, William C., 51 Quakers, 11, 87 Quander-Dock House, 83 Quander, Dominic, 171 Quander, Gabriel, 174 Quander, John Henry, 24, 173, 174 Quander, Richard I. and Maude E., 83 Quander, William Dominic, 174 Queen Anne community, 11, 111, 212 Queen, Sarah, 76 Queen’s Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church Site and Cemetery, 11, 53, 55, 56, 58, 59, 60, 206 Queen, Thomas. SEE Quinn, Thomas Quince family, 207 Quinn, Thomas, 60 Railroads, 10, 13, 14, 31 Raleigh, North Carolina, 28, 67, 127, 226 Randall, Augustus A., 75 Randall, Henry, 68, 75, 79 Randall, Peter, 79 Randall, Sophie, 78 Randall, Thomas F., 82 Randalltown, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 75, 77, 79 Randolph Village Elementary School, 124, 130 Rastafarian events, 253 Rattley, Evelyn Quander, 23, 174 rhythm and blues music, 162 Rebecca Lodge 6, 11, 53, 55 Reconstruction period, 10, 19, 22, 49, 53, 171, 173, 180 Redding, Otis, 252 Reeder, David, 214 Regiment of the United States Colored Troops, 245 Regional District Act, 3, 206 Reithmeyer, Charles, 162

Republican Party, 33, 71 Republican State Central Committee, 71, 212 “Reunited”, 110 Reverend Price Andrew Scott House, The, 101 Revolutionary War, 8, 9, 10 Rice House, 150 Richard Allen Street, 202 Richard Duckett Site, 42 Rich Hill, 181 Richmond, Virginia, 108 Ridgeley Rosenwald School, 28, 29, 30, 120, 124, 125, 127, 128 Ridgely Methodist Episcopal Church, 28, 125-127, 223 Ridgley family, 12, 129, 130, 131 Ridgley, Arthur, 124, 125, 127, 130 Ridgley, Arthur and Mary, 128, 129 Ridgley, DeAtley, 129, 130 Ridgley, Jr., Arthur, 130 Ridgley, Lewis, 124 Ridgley, Louis, 20 Ridgley, Mary Eliza Dyson, 125, 127 Ridgley, Mattie, 28 Ridgley Manor subdivision, 129, 130 Riggs, George W., 241 Ritchie, Albert, 80 Riversdale plantation, 6, 11, 12, 89, 207 Riverside Field, 251 Robert Holland Farmstead, 51 Robert Orr House, 72 Robert S. Nichols House, 149 Robinson, Frank A., 248 rock ’n’ roll, 165 Roman Catholic Church, 21, 33, 111, 117, 120, 157, 167, 171, 174, 175, 194, 210, 225, 239 Romanesque Revival style, 89 Roosevelt, President Franklin D., 33 Roosevelt, President Theodore, 134, 145 Roosevelt, Quentin, 145 Rosenwald Fund, 13, 27, 28 Rosenwald, Julius, 25, 27 Rosenwald period, 6 Rosenwald school program, 5, 27, 28, 30 Ross, Augustus, 53 Ross, Harry, 58 Ross Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church and Parsonage, 119, 223 Ross, Nathan, 119 Rossville, 5, 11, 14, 53, 55, 56, 58, 59, 61, 258

Royálity Hair Salon, 159 Russell, Diz, 164 Russell, Millie, 164 Ryon family, 247 Sacred Heart Church, 210 Sadat, Anwar, 243 Saint Mary’s County, 187 Salubria, 6, 45 Samuel Hargrove House, 136 Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, 34 Sanders, Jacob, 108 Sandy P. Baker House, 80, 81 Sasscer, Dr. Frederick, 172 Satterlee, Bishop Henry Yates, 186 Savoy family, 247, 248 Savoy, Eliza and John Henry, 248 Savoy, Joseph, 248 Savoy, Joseph and Clovinia, 248 Savoy, Mary Emily, 248 Savoy, William Henry, 248 Scott, Nathaniel, 220 Seaburn, Annie, 74 Seaburn, John, 74 Seaburn House Site, 74 seamstresses, 247 Sears, Roebuck, and Company, 27, 36, 150, 152, 201, 202 Bellhaven kit home, 201 Magnolia kit home, 201, 202 Westly kit home, 36, 152 Whitehall kit home, 201 Seaton Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church, 104, 110 Seaton, the Reverend Daniel P., 103, 104, 105 Seat Pleasant, 32, 132, 227 Secret City, 20 “separate but equal” doctrine, 26 Sewall family, 235 Sexton’s House, 185 Shadd, Furman, 92 “Shake Your Groove Thing,” 110 Skakur, Tupac, 254 Sharpersville School in Accokeek, 24, 229 Sharp family, 218 Shaw, Alfred, 34 Shaw neighborhood, Washington, D.C., 38, 137 Sheriff, Dionysius, 236 INDEX African American Historic and Cultural Resources

289

Shorter, Albert Owen, 175, 177, 180, 182 Shorter family, 178, 180, 182 Shorter, Marguerite, 180, 182 Silence family, 134 Simmons, Matthias, 171 Simms, Maggie, 136 Sis’ Tavern, 82, 264, 268 Skinner, Daniel, 233 Skinner, John H., 222 slave, slaves, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 15, 21, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 89, 168, 169, 235, 236, 240, 241, 245 Slave Quarters at Northampton Site, 240 Slave quarter at Oxon Hill Manor, 21 slavery, slave trade, 6, 9, 10, 12, 13, 19, 22, 33 Slaves’ Infirmary, 235 Small, John H., 209 Small, the Reverend John E. G., 187 Smith family, 241, 247 Smith, Manerva, 83 Smith, Raymond, 158 Smith, Royette, 158, 159 Smith’s Barber Shop, 158, 159 Smithsonian Institute Traveling Exhibition Service, 146 Smithsonian Institution, 48 Smith, Walter L., 96 Smith, William R., 33, 157 Smokey and the Miracles, 252 Snowden, Mrs. Beatrice, 100 “Sojourn”, Cedar Haven house, 202 Sojourner Truth School, 177 Songs in a Weary Throat: An American Pilgrimage, 187 South Carolina, 138, 145, 152 Southerland, Debra Bellows, 84 Southern Aid Society/Dunbar Theatre, 35,108 Southern Education Board, 27 Southwest Branch, 43 Sparrow’s Beach, Annapolis, 15 Spencer, Frances, 187 Spencer, Gloria, 187 Sprigg, Osborn, 240 Sprigg, Samuel, 240 Spriggs family, 111 Sprigg, Thomas, 240 Sprigg, Violetta, 241 Standifer, G. Van, 16 State Highway Administration, 127 290 INDEX African American Historic and Cultural Resources

St. Barnabas’ Church, 240 Stewart, Samuel, 65 St. John’s Auxiliary, 120 St. Joseph’s Catholic mission, 157 St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church, 33, 157 St. Luke’s Methodist Episcopal Church Site and Cemetery, 215 St. Mark’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Laurel, 36, 206 St. Mary’s Beneficial Society/Hall, 167, 171, 174 St. Mary’s Catholic Church, 167, 171 St. Mary’s, Charlotte Hall, 186 St. Mary’s County, 186 St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, 195 St. Mary’s Methodist Episcopal Church Site and Cemetery, 185, 220 St. Michael’s Catholic Church, 195 St. Paul’s. Baden, 195 St. Paul’s Baptist Church, 11, 88 St. Paul’s Methodist Episcopal Church, 213 St. Paul’s Parish, 185, 195 St. Phillip’s Episcopal Church, 186, 192, 195 strawberries, 45, 125 streetcars, 13 Strother, Noble, 115 St. Simon’s Episcopal Church Site and Cemetery, 6, 26, 186, 187, 188, 195, 189 St. Thomas’ Church, 135, 185, 186, 188, 190 St. Thomas’ Church Rectory, 185, 248 St. Thomas’ Episcopal Parish and Church, 11, 26, 135, 185-186, 188, 190, 195, 248 St. Thomas Methodist Episcopal Church and Cemetery, 18, 193, 223 St. Thomas Freedmen’s Bureau School, 232 Sugar Hill, 167 Sunnyside, 63 Supervisor of Colored Schools, 13, 33, 84, 139, 147 Supreme Court, 13, 21 Surratt, Mary, 228 Survey of Colored Public Schools, 1924, 58, 179 Swampoodle, 53 Swann, W. H., 37 Swanson’s Creek, 191 Sylvan Vista, 134, 151 Temptations, The, 252 Taylor, Circuit Court Judge James H., 141 Taylor, William L., 251 Tayman, Leon E., 160, 162, 163 T.B. community, 66

T.B. Rosenwald School, 28-30, 230 Texas, 138, 149, 252 Land of Promise, The, 105 Thomas Clagett Plantation, 43 Thomas family, 111 Thomas Hunster House, 94, 95 Thomas Matthews House, 56 Thomas, Walter, 193 Thomas, William H., 73 Thompson, Mr. and Mrs. William H., 202 Thorne family, 175, 181 Thorne, Jr., William T., 181 Three Sisters plantation, 89 Tilghman, Henrietta, 173 tobacco crop, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 39, 46, 50, 87, 124, 125, 130, 141, 191, 196, 236, 240, 244, 252, 253 Tolliver, William, 58 Towles-Brooks House, 141 Towles, Samuel, 141 Town Hall Club, 37 Townshend, William, 230 Trammell, John and Martha, 140 Trammell-Taylor House, 140, 141 Tricentennial celebration, 2 Tri-State League, 16 Trotter, Decatur, 17 Trueman, Henry B.B., 244 Trueman Point, 37, 191, 201 Tudor Revival style, 142 Tubman, Harriet, 9 Turner Arena, 164 Turner, Ike and Tina, 164 Turner, John L., 231 Turner, Wilson, 212 Turton, Richard, 246 Turton-Smith House, 246, 247, 257 Tuskegee Institute, 26, 33, 137, 139, 243 Tyler, Lillian, 130 Tyler, the Reverend Edward E., 65 Tyler, William, 41 Underground Railroad, 9 Union (Civil War federal government), 10, 19 Union Army, 45, 245 Union Chapel, 170, 172, 211 Union Institute, 25

Union Methodist Episcopal Chapel Site and Cemetery, 172 Union-Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, 214, 218 Union (United) Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church, 21, 170, 172 United Citizens Associations of Fairmount Heights, 144 United Methodist Church, 5 United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing, 33, 81 United States Capitol, 109 United States Census Records, 6 United States Congress, 243 United States Court of Appeals, 155 United States Department of Agriculture, 146 United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, 136, 158 United States Department of the Interior, 152, 239 United States Department of the Treasury, 75, 141, 144 United States Navy, 158, 245, 251 United States Post Office, 239 United States Pension Office, 149 United States Manuscript Census, 21 University of Maryland, 14, 17, 62, 63, 122 Upman & Adams, 194 Upper Marlboro, 9, 13, 16, 21, 24, 25, 28, 30, 45, 49, 67, 71, 160, 167, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 179, 199, 211, 212, 215, 226, 251, 258 Upton, Dell, 169 Urban Renewal, 63 Van Horn, Alethea and Archibald, 243 Van Horn-Mitchell House, 21, 243 Vansville, 53, 61 Vaughns, Sylvester, 155 Vaughns v. Board of Education of Prince George’s County, 155 Victorian style , 72, 73, 97, 139, 141, 210, 221 Virginia, Commonwealth of, 9, 24, 85, 94, 111, 136, 138, 181, 209, 237, 250 Vista community, 30, 103, 107, 109, 151 voting rights, 3 Walking, Calvin C., 51 Walking, Lillie May, 51 Wall family, 12 Walls, Henrietta Quander, 174 Walls, Marie (“Sis”), 82 Walter and Elsie Smith House, 91, 96 W and J Flying Service, 251 War of 1812, 10 Warr, Jesse, 155 Washington, Baltimore, and Annapolis Electric Railway, 14, 32, 33, 101, 109, 132, 157 INDEX African American Historic and Cultural Resources

291

Washington Bee, 32, 33, 35, 37, 117, 146 Washington Black Sox, 15 Washington, Booker T., 25, 26, 33, 132, 137, 188, 203 Washington City Paper, 254 Washington, D.C., 10, 13, 15, 17, 20, 25, 26, 31, 34, 37, 51, 62, 68, 69, 70, 76, 85, 91, 92, 93, 96, 101, 103, 105, 106, 108, 117, 132, 137, 141, 144, 145, 157, 164, 165, 177, 194, 196, 199, 201, 208, 209, 236, 250, 252, 254 Washington Colored Methodist Conference, 172 Washington, D.C., colored schools/black public school system, 32, 34, 94-96 Washington, D.C., Child Welfare Department, 26 Washington, Dewitt L., 247 Washington-Marlborough Turnpike, 170, 215 Washington metropolitan area, 164, 196, 209 Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), 131 Washington Post, The, 34, 62, 83, 91, 163 Washington, President George, 87 Washington, Prince Albert, 36 Waterford subdivision, Fairmount Heights, 132 Waterford subdivision, Mitchellville, 42 Waterside subdivision, 51 Watkins, William Lane, 212 Watters, Mary, 124 Weeks, Cornelius B. and Lillian R., 136 Weeks Realty Company, 134 Weems, George, 196 Weems Steamboat Company, 196, 201 West African religions, 41 Western Branch, 167, 170, 172 western-ranch style, 128 Western Star Lodge, 97, 100 West Fairmount Heights, 134, 152 West Indies, 39 Westphalia community, 160, 215 Westphalia United Methodist Church, 215 Westwood community, 28, 30, 66 Wheatley, Phyllis, 203 “White Cedars” house in Cedar Haven, 202 White, Guy, 48 White House, The, 33, 134, 145, 146 White House Historical Association, 146 Whitelaw Hotel, 35, 108 Whitemarsh, 120, 210 White Marsh Catholic Church, 239 White, Robinson, 33, 36, 132, 134, 140, 141, 143, 150, 154 292 INDEX African American Historic and Cultural Resources

whooping cough, 187 Wiessner family, 134 Wigginton-Brown-Bellows House, 84 Wigginton, Mahalath F., 84 Willes, Katharine, 26, 186, 188 Willes, the Reverend Francis P., 26, 186 Willes, Lilly (Elizabeth), 188 Willes, Suzanne, 26, 186, 188, 189, 190 William and Mildred Ridgley Gray Residence, 128 William B. Coles House, 144 William H. Thomas House, 73 Williams family, 111 William Sidney Pittman and Portia Washington Pittman House, 137 Williams, Jane P., 218 Williams, John, 155 Williams, Jr., Alexander, 17 Williams, Jr., Thomas, 100 Williams, the Reverend Edward S., 140 Willow Grove plantation, 43, 44, 45, 49 Willow Grove Archeological Site, 43, 44 Wilmer, Arthur, 252 Wilmer’s Park, 6, 163, 252, 253, 254, 258 Wilson, Jackie, 252 Wilson, Josiah, 49, 212 Winnepeg Street, 66 Wise, Jr., Dr. Henry A., 17 Wiseman, Elizabeth Caroline, 247 Wiseman family, 247 Wonder, Stevie, 252 Wood, Basil, 46, 47 Wood, Lizzie, 46, 47 Wood, George W., 111 Wood, Isaac, 210 Woodmore, 21, 42, 210, 225, 256 Woodmore Road, 42 Wood, Richard, 212 Woods, Sr., Sylvania W., 17 Woodville/Aquasco, 9, 25, 28, 37, 186, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 223, 231, 232, 244, 245 Woodville School, 25, 28, 191, 192, 194, 232 World War I, 150, 152, 175 World War II, 16, 70, 129, 130, 142-143, 162, 190, 251 World War ll Monument, Fairmount Heights, 142-143 Wormley Hotel, 91 Wormley, James, 91, 92 Wormley family, 92, 93, 96

Wormley, William Stanton, 34, 38, 91, 92, 94 Wren, Charles E., 251 Wright, John H., 214 Wyoming (historic site), 42 Wyvill, Joseph, 170 Yost, John, 91 Young, Albert L., 251 Young, Charles, 203 Young, James E., 214

INDEX African American Historic and Cultural Resources

293

294 INDEX African American Historic and Cultural Resources