See The Sites
African American
Fort Frederick State Park
11100 Fort Frederick Road BigPool, MD 21711 (301)842-2155 http://dnr.maryland.gov/publiclands/western/fortfrederick.aspThis French and Indian War-era stone fort was used during the Civil War as a picket outpost and was the scene of a Christmas Day skirmish in 1861.
FortFrederickwas built byMaryland’s colonial government in 1756 to provide protection to frontier settlers from Indian raids. Named for the last Lord Baltimore, distinctive quadrangle bastions were constructed at each corner of the fort. During the Revolutionary War it housed British prisoners. Just prior to the Civil War, Nathan Williams, a free black man, bought and farmed the property. In order to provide protection to the nearby Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, Union pickets were stationed in and near the fort. In December 1861, during Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s three raids again Dam Number 5, the First Maryland Infantry, commanded by Col. John Kenly, was ordered to the area and established pickets between Four Locks and Cherry Run, including Company H posted atFortFrederick. OnDecember 25, 1861, this company engaged in a skirmish with Confederates on theVirginiaside of the river. The fort was also used as a picket outpost at other times during the war.
After the war, Nathan Williams continued to farm the property, demolishing portions of the fort. After his death in 1884, the property passed into the hands of his family who sold it in 1911. In 1922 the state ofMarylandacquired the property. In the 1930s, the walls of the fort were rebuilt and restored with the assistance of the Civilian Conservation Corps, a Great Depression-era agency created to alleviate national unemployment. Fort Frederick became Maryland’s first state park.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
http://dnr.maryland.gov/publiclands/western/fortfrederick.asp
Allan Powell, Fort Frederick: Potomac Outpost, 1988.
Chas. Camper and J. W. Kirkley, Historical Record of the First Regiment Maryland Infantry, 1871.
National Historical Landmarks summary:
http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=1338&ResourceType=Structure
National Register of Historic Places summary:
http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Photos/73000939.pdf
http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Text/73000939.pdf
Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey:
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/hh/item/md0835.photos.084992p/
MarylandInventory of Historic Properties: http://www.mdihp.net/ (Select “Search by Property” tab, and enter WA-V-205 in search box to right of “Site No.”)
Civil War Trails markers:
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=821
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=5571
Other markers:
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=681
Harpers Ferry National Historic Park
171 Shoreline Drive Harpers Ferry, WV 25425 Contact: (304) 535-6029 http://www.nps.gov/hafeThe site of John Brown’s raid in 1859, Harpers Ferry was also strategically important during the war years, and changed hands several times.
Harpers Ferry played a significant role in the Civil War, from John Brown’s raid before the war, to the U.S. Arsenal located in town, and to the numerous times the town changed hands during the course of the war. Harpers Ferry was strategically important because of the Arsenal and the town’s railroad, highway, and canal transportation links. John Brown chose Harpers Ferry as his first objective in his infamous 1859 raid because of its stores of weapons and its location near the mountains; his plan was to establish a sheltered base from which to free slaves and attack slaveholders. Brown launched his raid on October 16th, 1859. However, he did not draw the support he expected from local slaves, and he was pinned down by the local militia until U.S. Marines under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee arrived, capturing or killing Brown and his men. Brown was taken to nearby Charles Town, where he was tried and executed.
Brown’s raid is widely credited with helping fan the flames of the impending conflict. The Civil War reached Harpers Ferry on April 18th, 1861, when Union forces burned the arsenals located there to deny access to the “strong and hostile Virginia State forces” reported to be approaching. The Confederates in their turn burned more buildings and looted others in June 1861. Harpers Ferry was regained and occupied by Federal forces from February-September 1862, but their defenses were weak. Confederates under the command of Stonewall Jackson were able to take the town in an astonishingly short amount of time as part of Lee’s Maryland campaign, on September 15th, 1862, taking 12,000 Union prisoners in the process.
Union forces once again won back Harpers Ferry in October, and immediately began strengthening its defenses, building fortifications until June 1863. In 1864, the rifle trench along Bolivar Heights was extended so that the town was virtually impregnable, provided the defenders also held Loudoun Heights and Maryland Heights (site of Federal campgrounds from 1862-1865 and seven fortifications, only one of which is still intact today). From August 1864 to February 1865, Harpers Ferry was the main base of operations for Union General Philip Sheridan’s army while they destroyed Confederate General Jubal Early’s forces and took control of the Shenandoah Valley. In 1864, Federal forces destroyed several more buildings around the area, this time to clear the way for a U.S. Military railroad to help supply Sheridan’s army.
After the Civil War, Harpers Ferry was the site of Storer College, one of the earliest institutions for black education after Emancipation.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
National Register of Historic Places summary: http://www.marylandhistoricaltrust.net/NR/NRDBDetail.aspx?HDID=18
Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties: http://www.mdihp.net/ (Select “Search by Property” tab, and enter WA-III-072 in search box to right of “Site No.”)
Jefferson County Courthouse
100 E. Washington Street Charles Town WV 25414 (304)728-3215 http://jeffersoncountyclerkwv.com/index.htmlThe Jefferson County Courthouse hosted the trial of John Brown following his failed raid on the U.S. Armory at Harpers Ferry, and it was damaged during the Civil War.
The first Jefferson County courthouse was built in Charles Town, Virginia (now West Virginia) in 1803. It was a two-story structure that included a tower. In 1836 the building was torn down to make way for a bigger courthouse. The new building consisted of a first floor that served as one large courtroom and it featured a belltower. This building still stands today.
In 1859 the Jefferson County Courthouse hosted the trial of John Brown and his conspirators, which followed their failed October 16–18, 1859 raid on the U.S. Armory at Harpers Ferry. Brown’s trial took place October 26–31, 1859 and resulted in his conviction for treason against Virginia, inciting a slave insurrection, and murder. Six other conspirators were subsequently tried and convicted at the same courthouse. All were hanged.
During the Civil War, Charles Town changed hands a number of times. On October 18, 1863, Confederate troops under John Imboden surrounded the courthouse, which was occupied by Union troops. The building was damaged in the short fight that followed. During the war the courthouse was also used as a stable and its metal roof was removed and used to make ammunition. By the end of the war, the county seat had been moved to Shepherdstown, West Virginia, where a new building served as county courthouse.
In 1872 the county seat was returned to Charles Town, and the courthouse was repaired and improved. The renovations included a new second floor courtroom and an enlarged belltower that housed a clock. From 1873 to 1912 the courthouse was home to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. Today the Jefferson County Courthouse still serves as a working courthouse.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
http://jeffersoncountyclerkwv.com/index.html
http://abc.eznettools.net/D300003/X380798/court_house.html
Millard Kessler Bushong, A History of Jefferson County, West Virginia, 1719–1940, 1941; reprint, 2007.
John Brown’s Raid, National Park Service History Series, 2009.
Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey:
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.wv0045
Other markers:
http://www.hmdb.org/Marker.asp?Marker=21767
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=1742
John Brown’s Fort
Harpers Ferry National Historical Park Harpers Ferry, WV 25425 http://www.nps.gov/hafe/historyculture/john-brown-fort.htmThe U.S. Armory’s fire engine and guard house was used by John Brown and his conspirators as a final refuge in their October 16–18, 1859 ill-fated raid on the facility.
The U.S. Armory’s fire engine and guard house was built at Harpers Ferry in 1848. During John Brown’s October 16–18, 1859 raid against the facility, which was intended in incite a slave insurrection, Brown and his followers took refuge in the brick structure to escape the gunfire of local citizens and militias. On the last day of the standoff, U.S. Marines under the command of Col. Robert E. Lee stormed the building, killing two of Brown’s party and badly wounding the mastermind. All of the raiders, including Brown and those captured later, were subsequently tried, convicted, and hanged.
During the Civil War, John Brown’s Fort, as it became known, was the only armory building that was not destroyed. It was used as a guardhouse and prison by both sides. Due to it notoriety, soldiers stationed at Harpers Ferry scavenged pieces of the building as souvenirs. In 1891 the fort was sold, dismantled and shipped to Chicago for display at the Columbian Exposition. Attracting scant visitors, the exhibit was closed and the building was dismantled again. In 1894 the fort was returned to Harpers Ferry and was rebuilt on a privately owned farm three miles from town. In 1909, on the fiftieth anniversary of the raid, Storer College bought John Brown’s Fort and moved it to Camp Hill on their campus at Harpers Ferry. In 1960 the National Park Service acquired the building, and in 1968 moved it back to the lower town, one hundred and fifty feet east of its original location, where it remains today.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
http://www.nps.gov/hafe/historyculture/john-brown-fort.htm
http://home.nps.gov/hafe/photosmultimedia/John-Brown-Fort.htm
http://www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh19-1.html
John Brown’s Raid, National Park Service History Series, 2009.
Tony Horwitz, Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War, 2012.
Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey:
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/wv0084/
Other markers:
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=2940
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=4420
Lockwood House
Fillmore Street Harpers Ferry WV 25425 http://www.nps.gov/resources/place.htm?id=101During the Civil War the Lockwood House served as headquarters for Union generals, and after the war it was the site of a school for African Americans and became part of Storer College.
Located on Camp Hill in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, the Lockwood House was built in 1847 as the residence for the U.S. Armory paymaster. During the Civil War, Union generals Henry H. Lockwood and Philip H. Sheridan used the building as headquarters. In November 1863 Union forces held a Thanksgiving ball in the house, and at other times the building was used as a hospital and a prison
After the war, in 1865 Rev. Nathan Cook Brackett, of the Freewill Baptist Home Mission Society in New England, established a Freewill Baptist primary school for African Americans, many freed slaves, in the building. The school taught reading, writing, and arithmetic to its students, using missionary teachers. By 1867 sixteen teachers were responsible for teaching over two thousand students. To increase the number of teachers, Brackett determined that he needed to train African Americans to become teachers.
Inspired by Brackett’s efforts, Maine philanthropist John Storer offered the Freewill Baptists $10,000 for a school if it would admit students without regard to race, sex or religion; if it would eventually became a degree-granting institution; and if it would match the grant within a year. After the money was raised, on October 2, 1867, Storer Normal School opened its doors. In December 1869 the U.S. government formerly conveyed the Lockwood House and three other buildings on Camp Hill to the school. The school became Storer College and served thousands of African American students until it closed in 1955. In 1960 the Lockwood House, along with the rest of the Storer College campus, was incorporated in the Harpers Ferry National Historical Monument. The house has been restored to its Civil War-era appearance, with two rooms furnished from the early period when the building was used as a school.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
http://www.nps.gov/resources/place.htm?id=101
http://www.nps.gov/hafe/historyculture/storer-college.htm
http://www.nps.gov/hafe/historyculture/upload/Storer%20College.pdf
Dawne Raines Burke, An American Phoenix: A History of Storer College from Slavery to Desegregation, 1865–1955, 2006.
National Register of Historic Places summary:
http://www.wvculture.org/shpo/nr/pdf/jefferson/01000781.pdf
Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey:
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/wv0161/
Other markers:
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=10180
Otto Farm
Burnside Bridge Road Sharpsburg, MD 21782During the Battle of Antietam, the Otto farm was occupied by both armies at different times, and after the battle it was used as a Union hospital.
On September 16, 1862 Confederate Brig. Gen. Robert Toombs’ division, which consisted of less than 500 Georgian riflemen, camped on the Otto property near the Lower or Rohrbach Bridge. The next day at the Battle of Antietam, after a three hour assault, Union Maj. Gen Ambrose Burnside succeeded in carrying the bridge that now bears his name. When Burnside advanced against the Confederate right flank, he was met by Confederate Maj. Gen. A.P. Hill’s Light Division, which had just arrived from Harpers Ferry. Hill checked Burnside’s advance. Union Brig Gen. Isaac Rodman’s division retreated to the Otto property after the repulse. Following the battle, the house and barn were used as Union hospitals.
The Otto Farm is also significant because of Hilleary Watson, a slave on the farm until 1864. Many years after the Battle of Antietam, Watson recounted to a writer the events leading up to the battle, including his encounter with a Confederate soldier trying to loot the house. Later, Watson was drafted to serve in the Union Army, but his owner, John Otto, paid a fee to keep Watson out of the service. Watson also became one of the trustees of the local African American church built after the war, Tolson’s Chapel.
The Otto farm remained in the family until the twentieth century. It was eventually acquired by the National Park Service and is now a part of Antietam National Battlefield.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
http://www.nps.gov/anti/forteachers/upload/Contradictions-and-Divided-Loyalties.pdf
http://www.hscl.cr.nps.gov/insidenps/report.asp?STATE=&PARK=&STRUCTURE=&SORT=&RECORDNO=466
Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey:
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.md1094
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/md1269/
Other markers:
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=6444
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=6445
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=6408
Kennedy Farmhouse
2406 Chestnut Grove Road Sharpsburg, MD 21782 (202) 537-8900 http://www.johnbrown.org/toc.htmThe Kennedy Farmhouse was used by John Brown and his followers as a staging area for hisOctober 17, 1859raid on the nearby U.S. Arsenal atHarpers Ferry,Virginia.
In July 1859, John Brown, using the pseudonym Isaac Smith, rented the Kennedy farmhouse from the heirs of Dr. Robert Kennedy. Located in southernWashington County,Maryland, Brown used the farmhouse to store arms and supplies, to shelter his followers and to plan his raid on the U.S. Arsenal atHarpers Ferry, which was only about five miles away. In addition to Brown, at one time twenty-two people occupied the house, including a daughter, a daughter-in-law, two sons, and eighteen other men, five of whom were African Americans. The raid was launched late onOctober 16, 1859and was put down two days later when U.S. Marines stormed the firehouse into which Brown and his raiding party had taken refuge with their hostages. After the raid, a search of the Kennedy Farmhouse uncovered additional arms, maps and letters that revealed the extent of Brown’s plans and the identity of some of his supporters in the North.
After passing through the hands of many owners, in 1950 the National Negro Elks purchased the Kennedy Farmhouse, hoping to restore it and open a museum in the house. Unable to raise the necessary funds, the property was sold in 1966. In 1972 South T. Lynn leased the property for a year, and then he and three others bought it. Over the years that followed, Lynn and the late Harold Keshishian bought out the interest of the other two owners. The property was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1974, which provided opportunity to acquire funding to restore the building. Utilizing funds from a number of sources, the farmhouse was fully restored under the direction of the Maryland Historical Trust.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
http://www.johnbrown.org/toc.htm
John Brown’s Raid, National Park Service History Series, 2009.
Tony Horwitz, Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War, 2012.
National Historical Landmarks summary:
http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=1339&ResourceType=Building
Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey:
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.md0587
MarylandInventory of Historic Properties: http://www.mdihp.net/ (Select “Search by Property” tab, and enter WA-III-030 in search box to right of “Site No.”)
Civil War Trails marker:
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=20735&Result=1
Other markers:
http://www.hmdb.org/Marker.asp?Marker=1988
Roger Brooke Taney House
121 South Bentz Street Frederick, MD 21701 Contact: Historical Society of Frederick County http://www.hsfcinfo.org/taney/index.htm 301-663-1188This house was owned by Roger Brooke Taney, future Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, from 1815 to 1823.
Roger Brooke Taney began his career as a lawyer in Frederick, MD, and practiced law there between 1801 and 1823. He owned this house from 1815 to 1823. Taney later became Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and was the chief author of the infamous Dred Scott case in 1857, in which Taney “affirmed” that African Americans “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” The Dred Scott case was one of the catalysts of the Civil War. Taney and Abraham Lincoln also clashed in 1861 over the arrest of John Merryman in Baltimore by military authorities. Taney claimed the military had no right to hold Merryman without a judicial inquiry, but Lincoln claimed the Constitution gave the President extra-legal authority in times of war. The Roger Brooke Taney House is now operated by the Historical Society of Frederick County as a museum featuring items of interest from the lives of both Taney and his brother-in-law Francis Scott Key. Taney is buried in Frederick, in St. John’s Catholic Church Cemetery.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
Historic American Buildings Survey / Historic American Engineering Record (HABS/HAER) documentation: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.md0338
Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties: http://www.mdihp.net/ (Select “Search by Property” tab, and enter FHD-1008 in search box to right of “Site No.”)
Charles S. Adams, The Civil War in Frederick County, Maryland – A Guide to 49 Historic Points of Interest (Shepherdstown, WV: The Author, 1995), 7
Susan Cooke Soderberg, A Guide to Civil War Sites in Maryland – Blue and Gray in a Border State(Shippensburg, PA: White Mane Books, 1998), 90.
Sharpsburg Town Square
Main and Mechanic Streets Sharpsburg, MD 21782 http://sharpsburgmd.com/ 301-432-4428The United States government authorized the enlistment of African Americans for the Union Army in 1863, but it was the Spring of 1864 before active recruitment began. A company of the 19th Regiment of the USCT (United States Colored Troops), created with Maryland soldiers, was dispatched on a recruiting mission to western Maryland in April 1864. In Sharpsburg, the soldiers headquartered in the Methodist Church. According to a complaint by townspeople sent to the Union military commander for the region, the USCT did not bother to differentiate between free or enslaved African Americans in their recruitment efforts. One local farmer, Henry Piper, complained that one of his slaves, Jeremiah Summers, only 16 years old and therefore underage, had been kidnapped by the USCT recruiters. When he tried to retrieve Jeremiah, he was roughed up and arrested by the soldiers in the main square in town. Piper and his fellow townspeople claimed that they were all very loyal to the Union, proven in part by the fact that they had voted 329 to 2 in favor of Maryland’s effort to emancipate slaves in the state, and that the citizens of Sharpsburg felt “aggrieved and outraged” by the behavior of the USCT recruiting party. Jeremiah Summers was eventually returned to Piper. Summers’s view of the recruiting episode has been lost to history.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
Letter, John Miller, Sharpsburg, to Major General L. Wallace, Baltimore, April 13, 1864, in Maryland Manuscripts, University of Maryland Libraries, Archives and Manuscripts Department, Series 15.5, Box 1, Folder 1, Items 2381 and 2382, in the collection of the Catoctin Center for Regional Studies, Frederick, MD.
Storer College
Fillmore Street Harpers Ferry WV 25425 http://www.nps.gov/hafe/historyculture/storer-college.htmStorer College was founded after the Civil War when a philanthropist donated $10,000 for the establishment of a school without regard to a student’s race, sex, or religion.
In 1865 Rev. Nathan Cook Brackett founded the Freewill Baptist School at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. The School was located in the Lockwood House, formerly the U.S. Armory Paymaster’s home on Camp Hill. Brackett’s efforts inspired philanthropist John Storer, who lived in Sanford, Maine, to donate $10,000 for the establishment of a school in the South without regard to a student’s race, sex, or religion. Additionally, the donation had to be matched within a year and the school had to become a degree-granting college. The money was raised, and on October 2, 1867, Storer Normal School was opened at Harpers Ferry. Two years later the U.S. government transferred the Lockwood House and three other buildings on Camp Hill to the school. Frederick Douglass was an early trustee of the College.
Many local residents opposed the school, however, and over the years teachers and students were occasionally taunted or assaulted. The college primarily trained students to become teachers, but courses in higher education and industrial training were eventually added. In 1906 the campus was the location of the second conference of W.E.B. DuBois’s Niagara Movement, the predecessor of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1954 legal segregation ended with the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision, Brown v. Board of Education. The decision also ended federal and state funding for the school, however, and it closed in 1955. In 1960 the campus of Storer College was incorporated into Harpers Ferry National Monument. Today the National Park Service owns the former Storer College property and uses Anthony Hall as the Stephen T. Mather Training Center.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
http://www.nps.gov/hafe/historyculture/storer-college.htm
http://www.nps.gov/hafe/historyculture/upload/Storer%20College.pdf
Dawne Raines Burke, An American Phoenix: A History of Storer College from Slavery to Desegregation, 1865–1955, 2006.
National Register of Historic Places summary:
http://www.wvculture.org/shpo/nr/pdf/jefferson/01000781.pdf
Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey:
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.wv0367
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.wv0368
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.wv0369
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.wv0370
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.wv0371
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.wv0372
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.wv0403
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.wv0162
Other markers:
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=2937
http://www.hmdb.org/Marker.asp?Marker=10180
Gibson – Todd House (Site of John Brown Hanging)
515 S. Samuel Street Charles Town, WV 25414The Gibson-Todd House was the site where John Brown was hanged for his failed raid against the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry.
The Gibson-Todd House in Charles Town, West Virginia, was the location where John Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859 for his failed raid against the U.S. Arsenal in Harpers Ferry. Brown’s six fellow conspirators were also hanged at the same place, four on December 16, 1859 and the last two on March 16, 1860. At the time of the raid, Col. John T. Gibson commanded the Jefferson Guards, which was the first Virginia militia company to arrive at Harpers Ferry. At the hanging, Gibson commanded about 800 troops who were on duty to keep order and prevent any attempt to rescue Brown. The site was then part of a farm owned by Rebecca Hunter.
During the Civil War Gibson served as an officer in the Confederate army. After the war, he returned to Jefferson County and in 1892 built the Gibson-Todd House. The gallows stood just north of the house.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
http://www.historiccharlestownwv.com/landmarks.htm
Millard K. Bushong, Historic Jefferson County, 1973.
National Register of Historic Places summary:
http://www.wvculture.org/shpo/nr/pdf/jefferson/83003238.pdf
Civil War Trails marker:
http://www.hmdb.org/Marker.asp?Marker=41650
Other markers:
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=12603
Tolson’s Chapel
111 East High Street Sharpsburg, MD 21782 http://www.tolsonschapel.org E-mail: tolsonschapel@gmail.comTolson’s Chapel was an African American church and Freedmen’s Bureau school in the years after the Civil War.
In September of 1862, residents of Sharpsburg witnessed the bloodiest single day of the Civil War, the Battle of Antietam. The Union Army could claim only a partial victory that day, but it was enough to give President Abraham Lincoln the opportunity he had awaited to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. For many Americans thereafter, especially for the almost four million held in bondage, the war was about freedom.
After the war, and practically on the battlefield that spurred Lincoln’s call for emancipation, the small African American community of Sharpsburg began work on a church. Many in this community had been enslaved until 1864, when a new Maryland state constitution abolished slavery. Two years later, in October 1866, the cornerstone of Tolson’s Chapel was laid. This tiny church on a back street in Sharpsburg became the spiritual and educational center of a vibrant community of African American families, and a symbol of their struggles and triumphs.
Tolson’s Chapel was built on land donated by Samuel Craig and his wife, both of whom had been free African Americans before the war. The church was built of logs, one story in height, and had an adjoining cemetery. The structure was dedicated in October 1867 as a Methodist church, and named for John Tolson, the first minister.
By 1868, Tolson’s Chapel also served as a schoolhouse for local African American children. Responding to the lack of educational facilities for African American children after the war, the federal Freedmen’s Bureau helped local communities throughout the South and in the former border states hire teachers and build schools. The Freedmen’s Bureau helped start at least nineteen schools in Washington and Frederick Counties between 1866 and 1870. In April of 1868, teacher Ezra Johnson opened the “American Union” school in Tolson’s Chapel with eighteen children. In addition to the day school for children, Johnson also began a night school for adults, a Sabbath school, and a temperance organization.
The “American Union” school continued until 1870, when Congress began dismantling the Freedmen’s Bureau. By 1871, the state of Maryland began oversight of African American education, and Tolson’s Chapel continued to serve double duty as a school until 1899, when Sharpsburg’s first African American schoolhouse was built nearby at the end of High Street. The last member of Tolson’s Chapel passed away in the 1990s, and the building and cemetery are now under the care of Friends of Tolson’s Chapel. The chapel is open by appointment.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
Friends of Tolson’s Chapel website: www.tolsonschapel.org
Historic American Buildings Survey / Historic American Engineering Record (HABS/HAER) documentation: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.md1676
Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties: http://www.mdihp.net/ (Select “Search by Property” tab, and enter WA-II-0702 in search box to right of “Site No.”)
Bowen’s Chapel and School
4070 Bark Hill Road Union Bridge, MD, 21791The Bowens Chapel and School structure was an important part of the African-American community in the general Union Bridge Area.
A group of nine trustees who had split from the all-black Mt. Olivet congregation purchased the lot for the chapel in 1867. The deed for the lot notes that the intended purpose for the lot was to provide a school for the “colored part of the population of Uniontown District” with the assistance of the Freedmen’s Bureau. Though the building was soon completed with the aid of a few local citizens and the Bureau, and was officially listed as a school in Bureau records, it served much more early on as a meeting place and house of worship than as a school. This reflects the critical importance of a religious meeting place for African-American Union Bridge citizens, an importance that trumped even that of education. Bowen’s Chapel initially associated itself with the African Union Methodist Protestant Church, the first fully independent African American denomination.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties: http://www.mdihp.net/ (Select “Search by Property” tab, and enter CARR-1092 in search box to right of “Site No.”) (Note: entry may not yet be up on Maryland Inventory website)
Union Street Methodist Episcopal Church
22 Union Street Westminster, MD 21157 410-861-5822 http://www.gbgm-umc.org/unionstreet/The Union Street Methodist Episcopal Church was an African-American church founded by Reverend John Baptist Snowden in 1867.
Reverend John Baptist Snowden was born a slave in Westminster in 1801. He began to preach locally at the age of twenty-one and bought his freedom shortly thereafter. He helped found the Washington Conference in 1864, an organization of African American Methodists in Maryland and Washington, D.C. Part of his duties included overseeing the Western Chapel Charge in Carroll County, and he was approached by a delegate from Westminster in 1866 about building a Methodist Episcopal Church in that town. The church on Union Street was built in 1867 on land donated by Amos and Rebecca Bell, with Snowden as one of the five original trustees. After the Civil War, the church sponsored a Freedman’s Bureau school. Classes began by January 1868 and were held in the church until the completion of the schoolhouse in November 1869.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
Historic American Buildings Survey / Historic American Engineering Record (HABS/HAER) documentation: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.md1000 (Union Street district)
Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties: http://www.mdihp.net/ (Select “Search by Property” tab, and enter CARR-503 in search box to right of “Site No.”) (Note: entry may not yet be up on Maryland Inventory website)
Fairview Methodist Episcopal Church and Cemetery
Liberty Road and Roop Road Taylorsville, MD 21776The Fairview Methodist Episcopal Church is an African-American church with several United States Colored Troops veterans buried in its cemetery.
The Fairview Church was established in 1851. The cemetery holds several United States Colored Troops (USCT) veterans, as well as noted African-American stone carver Sebastian “Boss” Hammond and his wife.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties: http://www.mdihp.net/ (Select “Search by Property” tab, and enter CARR-57 in search box to right of “Site No.”) (Note: entry may not yet be up on Maryland Inventory website)
Simon Murdock House
2824 Wakefield Valley Road New Windsor, MD 21776Simon Murdock was a Civil War veteran and an important member of the New Windsor African-American community following the war.
Simon Murdock, a farmer in the New Windsor area, enlisted in Company F of the 4th Regiment United States Colored Troops on August 4, 1863, at the age of twenty-six. He was struck on the forehead by a shell on June 15, 1864, near Petersburg, Virginia and sent to Summit House General Hospital in Philadelphia. He was honorably discharged from the hospital on May 5, 1865, with a Certificate of Disability. Though he never fully recovered from his wound, Murdock was still very active in the New Windsor community. He was a member, and also president, of the local New Windsor veterans’ organization for African-American Civil War soldiers, the Thaddeus Stevens Post of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). He married Cecilia Murdock in 1870 and lived in New Windsor as a farm laborer. He and Cecilia saw seven children live to adulthood and took in many of their grandchildren. Murdock died in April 1933, well into his nineties.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties: http://www.mdihp.net/ (Select “Search by Property” tab, and enter CARR-1716 in search box to right of “Site No.”) (Note: entry may not yet be up on Maryland Inventory website)
Ellsworth Cemetery
Leidy Road Westminster, MD 21157The Ellsworth Cemetery was one of the main burial sites for African-Americans in Carroll County.
The Ellsworth Cemetery Company was incorporated in 1876 in order to “purchase and hold a Lot of Land in the vicinity of Westminster for a Cemetery for Burying therein of the Dead of the Colored People.” Several of the founders were Civil War veterans, and several veterans are buried there, including Daniel P. Warfield of the 29th Regiment United States Colored Troops (USCT), and Stephen H. Lytle of the 4th Regiment USCT. The one-acre site was not officially purchased by the Company until 1894, when it was sold for one dollar by the last will and testament of Elias Yingling, though it was used as an African-American cemetery before the official incorporation. The last burial in the cemetery was made in the early 1980s.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties: http://www.mdihp.net/ (Select “Search by Property” tab, and enter CARR-767 in search box to right of “Site No.”) (Note: entry may not yet be up on Maryland Inventory website)
Pine Grove Chapel
S. Main Street Mount Airy, MD, 21771Pine Grove Chapel was occupied by the Northern army as a barracks for troops guarding the railroad.
Pine Grove Chapel (formerly Ridge Presbyterian Church) was founded in 1846 on land donated by Henry and Eliza Bussard, one of the first families in Mount Airy. The church was constructed by slaves owned by Bussard and two other men. It offered not only church services but also a private school, located in the basement, to the Mount Airy community. Both services were halted during the Civil War when the Northern army took control of the church as a barracks for Company K of the 14th New Jersey Infantry. Company K guarded both the B & O Railroad, a major link in the North’s supply chain, as well as the crossroads in Ridgeville (now incorporated into modern-day Mount Airy). While the officers and men slept on pews in the church building, a mess tent was erected behind the church, in what is now the cemetery. Reportedly, “a sick and delirious soldier who wandered into Ridgeville and died” was the first person to be buried behind the church. Following the war, the church resumed services, though the basement school was then public.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
“Roads to Gettysburg” Pamphlet: http://www.carrollcountytourism.org/PDFs/Civil-War-Driving-Tour-2.pdf
Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties: http://www.mdihp.net/ (Select “Search by Property” tab, and enter CARR-964 in search box to right of “Site No.” Info is on pages 2, 5 and 7.)
Historical Marker Database: http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=12493
White Rock United Methodist Church
6300 White Rock Road Sykesville, MD, 21784 410-795-1110White Rock Church was built in 1868, probably by newly-freed black citizens.
The White Rock Church was built in 1868, barely four years after Maryland’s emancipation of her slaves. Its founding members were probably former slaves, to whom a church was a symbol of freedom and independence. The church’s cemetery contains members of black families that are still prominent in the Sykesville area.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties: http://www.mdihp.net/ (Select “Search by Property” tab, and enter CARR-1011 in search box to right of “Site No.”)
John Brown House
225 E. King Street Chambersburg, PA 17201 (717) 264-1667 http://johnbrownhouse.tripod.com/index.htmlJohn Brown rented a room in this house while preparing for his raid on Harpers Ferry.
Home of the famous abolitionist John Brown from June until mid-October 1859. Working under the pseudonym “”Dr. Issac Smith”" as an iron mine developer and Sunday school teacher, he formulated plans and secured weapons for his ill-fated 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry. Visitors to Brown’s residence included co-conspirators Frederick Douglass, Shields Green, J. Henry Kagi (also operating under the pseudonym of John Henry), and other abolitionist leaders.
The oldest section of this building probably dates to 1820-1840. In 1849, it was purchased by Abram Ritner; following his death in 1851, his widow Mary expanded the building and opened it as a boarding house. Her most famous boarder rented an upstairs bedroom from June to mid-October, 1859. John Brown lived in this house under the alias Dr. Isaac Smith, claiming he was a developer of iron mines. While here, he bought tools from a local business, Lemnos Edge Iron Works, and stored them, along with the weapons he was concurrently stockpiling, in a local warehouse. These were later sent to the Kennedy Farm in Washington County, MD. Brown was visited in Chambersburg by Frederick Douglas, Shields Green, and John Henry Kagi (the latter two members of his raid), as well as other abolitionist leaders. After the failed insurrection at Harpers Ferry, several raiders returned to Chambersburg, asking Mary Ritner to help them. She hid them in a nearby grove, allowing them to escape successfully.
The house evaded damage during the Confederate destruction of Chambersburg, being just outside the downtown area that was torched. Today, the John Brown House is open to the public for tours.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
http://johnbrownhouse.tripod.com/index.html
http://www.nps.gov/history/NR/travel/underground/pa2.htm
Historical Marker Database: http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=8103;
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=18531
Second Street School
15611 Second Street Waterford, VA 20197 Waterford Foundation: (540) 882 3018After the Civil War, Waterford Quaker Reuben Schooley sold property on Second Street to be used by the “colored people of Waterford and vicinity.” With assistance from the Freedmen’s Bureau, the local Quaker meeting, and Waterford’s African American community, a school for African American children was built on the property in 1867. This was the first school for African Americans in Waterford. The Waterford Foundation now offers educational programs about the Second Street School.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
http://www.waterfordhistory.org/history/second-street-school.htm
Goose Creek Meeting House Complex
18204 Lincoln Road Lincoln, VA, 20160 540-751-0323The Goose Creek Meeting began the area’s first school for black children, just after the Civil War.
The Goose Creek Meeting House Complex is made up of three structures: the original stone meeting house, built in 1765; the brick meeting house, built in 1817 to replace the older, smaller building and still in use today; and the Oak Dale School, built in 1815, the first public school in the county. The Goose Creek Meeting also established the first school in the area for the education of black children, just after the Civil War.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
Goose Creek Friends Website: http://goosecreekfriends.pbworks.com/
Historical Marker Database:
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=3930; http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=3950; http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=3949;
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=3948
Loudoun County Emancipation Association Grounds
South 20th Street (State Route 611) and A Street Purcellville, VirginiaSite of Emancipation Day celebrations.
The association was organized by African Americans in nearby Hamilton in 1890 to commemorate the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln on 22 Sept. 1862 and “to cultivate good fellowship, to work for the betterment of the race, educationally, morally and materially.” Emancipation Day, or “Day of Freedom,” was celebrated throughout the nation on different days. In 1910, the association incorporated and purchased ten acres of land in Purcellville. More than 1,000 people attended the annual Emancipation Day activities held here until 1967. The site served as a black religious, social, civic, and recreational center. The property was sold in 1971. [Text from historical marker http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=1793]
See these sources and websites for additional information:
“African American Communities of Loudoun County” website: http://www.balchfriends.org/bhmap.htm#
Historical Marker Database: http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=1793
Laboring Sons Cemetery and Memorial Grounds
Chapel Alley and 5th Street Frederick, MD 21701The Laboring Sons Cemetery and Memorial Grounds in Frederick is the final resting place for six Civil War veterans who served in the United States Colored Troops.
Established in 1851 by the Beneficial Society of the Laboring Sons of Frederick City, the cemetery was created to provide a final resting place for African Americans. Six Civil War veterans of United State Colored Troops regiments are interred in the cemetery. The city of Frederick acquired the property in 1950 and established a playground on the site. Beginning in 1999, protests about the use of the property resulted in the removal of the playground, and in 2003 the site was dedicated as a cemetery and memorial ground.
See these sources and websites for additional information:
African American Heritage Sites of Frederick County: http://www.frederickhsc.org/pdf/hsc_aahsbro.pdf
Historical Marker Database: http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=14024
Zion Union Cemetery
Zion Union Lane Mercersburg, PA 17236
The Zion Union Cemetery is an African-American cemetery holding at least thirty-eight veterans of the United States Colored Troops (USCT).
Mercersburg had the largest population of free African-Americans in central Pennsylvania before the outbreak of the Civil War, a remarkable percentage of whom volunteered for the Union Army when it began accepting African-American troops in 1863. Of these men, forty-four enlisted in either the 54thor 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, and another forty-four enlisted in a variety of regiments within the USCT. Mercersburg was second only to Philadelphia in supplying troops for these regiments. At least thirty-eight veterans are buried in the Zion Union Cemetery, including thirteen members of the 54th Massachusetts, which constitutes the largest known burial site of 54th troops in a private cemetery. The 54th Massachusetts became famous for its valor and helped spur African-American recruiting by the Union Army in the remaining years of the war.
See these sites and sources for additional information:
Dickinson College Civil War research engine: http://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/33004
Pennsylvania Civil War Trails: http://www.pacivilwartrails.com/stories/tales/zion-union-cemetery
Historical Marker Database: http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=44650&Result=1
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=44651
Lincoln Cemetery
Long Lane and Lincoln Lane Gettysburg, PA 717-334-5533At least 30 veterans of the USCT are buried in this cemetery for African Americans in Gettysburg.
Following the Civil War, African American veterans were denied the right to be buried in the U.S. national cemeteries for Civil War soldiers. Gettysburg’s African American veterans were buried in Lincoln Cemetery, the African American cemetery in town. At least 30 members of the USCT are buried here.
See these sites and sources for additional information:
Deborah A. Lee, Honoring Their Paths: African Americans Contributions Along the Journey Through Hallowed Ground, 2009, 34-36.
Historical Marker Database: http://www.hmdb.org/Marker.asp?Marker=31242
