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.
BLADENSBURG African-American Historic and Cultural Resources
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