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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.
SCHOOLS African-American Historic and Cultural Resources
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