Announcing FY2023 African American Historic Preservation Program Grant Recipients!

By Ivy Weeks, Capital Programs Administrator

We are pleased to announce this year’s African American Heritage Preservation Program (AAHPP) grant recipients! Jointly administered by The Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture and the Maryland Historical Trust, the AAHPP promotes the preservation of Maryland’s African American heritage by funding construction projects at significant sites throughout the state. This year’s projects include museums, cemeteries, an interpretive memorial, a historic lodge, community centers, and a historic school. Read more about our newly funded AAHPP grant projects below.

Mount Auburn Cemetery – Baltimore City ($100,000) | Sponsor: Mount Auburn Cemetery Company

Dedicated in 1872 and originally known as “The City of the Dead for Colored People,” Mount Auburn Cemetery was one of the first—and now only remaining—cemetery owned and operated by African Americans in Baltimore. It is a unique representation of the values and burial traditions of this community from the late 19th century to the present. Grant funds will support repairs to damaged decorative and security fencing, as well as resurfacing inner roadways.

Hoppy Adams House – Annapolis, Anne Arundel County ($100,000) | Sponsor: Charles W. “Hoppy” Adams Jr. Foundation, Inc.

Celebrated African American radio broadcaster for WANN Annapolis, Charles “Hoppy” Adams Jr was widely known for spreading soul and R&B music to Black and white audiences. Adams hosted popular concerts at Carr’s Beach, an important venue on the “Chitlin Circuit” during segregation. This project will rehabilitate the home Adams built for himself in 1964, which was left to the elements when he passed in 2005. Future phases of work will convert the space into a museum and event space to celebrate the life of Hoppy Adams and the unifying effect of R&B music during this divisive era.

Mt. Calvary United Methodist Church – Arnold, Anne Arundel County ($86,000) | Sponsor: Mount Calvary United Methodist Church

Mt. Calvary United Methodist Church began gathering on this site between 1832- 1842, making it the oldest African American congregation in Arnold. Grant funds will support the replacement of the 40-year-old roof and repairing the deteriorating handicap ramp that is currently causing moisture intrusion for the church, as well as adding a second ramp.

Eastport Elementary School, 3rd Street – Annapolis, Anne Arundel County ($100,000) | Sponsor: The Seafarers Yacht Club, Inc.

Originally built in 1918 as Eastport’s school for African American children, Eastport Elementary School closed when Anne Arundel School finally integrated, nearly a decade after Brown v Board of Education. Today, the building is owned by the Seafarers Yacht Club, Inc., formed in 1959 by a group of Black men with a shared interest in boating. They purchased the vacant building in 1967 after they were inspired to form their own club in response to marinas that routinely refused Black boaters to dock at their piers, as well as yacht clubs that denied membership to Black captains. This grant project will fund interior and exterior repairs and security improvements.

The club officers in dress whites, honoring a recently deceased member. Courtesy: Seafarers Yacht Club

Old Wallville School – Prince Frederick, Calvert County ($27,000) | Sponsor: Friends of the Old Wallville School, Inc.

A representation of the segregated educational facilities of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Old Wallville School is a one-room wooden schoolhouse that was used to educate African American students in the unincorporated village from 1880-1934. In 2006, the building was moved and placed adjacent to Calvert Elementary School. Now restored to its appearance in the early 1930s, it is used as a popular heritage tourism destination. This grant project will fund rot and roof repairs, structural signage replacement, and painting to protect the building from the elements and heavy use.

Parren J Mitchell House and Cultural Center – Baltimore City ($100,000) | Sponsor: Upton Planning Committee, Inc.

Originally built 1880, this rowhome is probably best known for its resident Parren Mitchell, the Black Congressmen to represent Maryland. This renovation project will return the long-vacant building to its historic role as a center of political and social life for the community and region as the new Parren Mitchell Center, which will serve as an events and retreat center. Grant funds will support exterior masonry restoration and repointing, window restoration, and accessibility improvements.

Boyds Negro School – Boyds, Montgomery County ($50,000) | Sponsor: Boyds Clarksburg Historical Society, Inc.

Built in 1895, Boyds Negro School is Montgomery County’s only remaining one-room schoolhouse for African American children that is regularly open to the public. This project will focus on engineering and site work to protect the building and grounds from flooding. It will also add a handicap ramp to make the building ADA accessible.

Richard Potter House – Denton, Caroline County ($50,000) | Sponsor: Fiber Arts Center of the Eastern Shore Inc.

Richard Potter published a book in 1866 – The Narrative of the Experience, Adventures and Escape of Richard Potter – documenting his experiences from when he was kidnapped in Greensboro, Maryland, enslaved in Delaware, and eventual escape and return to Caroline County to what is now known as the Richard Potter House (c.1810). The site is included as part of the National Park Service’s Network to Freedom. This project will restore the first floor of the home to its 1855 interior, using it as a museum and classroom space.

Mt. Zion Memorial Church– Princess Anne, Somerset County ($86,000) | Sponsor: Somerset County Historical Trust, Inc.

Mt. Zion Memorial Church survives as one of the few late-19th century African American churches in Somerset County and its intact condition enhances its architectural significance. Inside, one of the most distinctive features of the building — the early-20th century bead board ceiling – is at risk due to a leaking roof. While Mt. Zion is no longer used to hold regular church services, it does reflect the lasting influence of Methodism on the African American community in Somerset County. Grant funds will repair severe water damage.

New Bethel Methodist Episcopal Church – Berlin, Worcester County ($67,000) | Sponsor: New Bethel United Methodist Church, Inc.

Founded in 1855, New Bethel is the oldest African American Methodist congregation in Worcester County. Known as the Godfather of gospel music, Rev. Charles Albert Tindley was a member of the church in boyhood, and attended when he would visit from Philadelphia as an adult. The grant project will fund roof replacement and carpentry repairs.

Ridgley Methodist Church – Landover, Prince George’s County ($50,000) | Sponsor: Mildred Ridgley Gray Charitable Trust, Inc.

Built in 1921, the Ridgley Methodist Episcopal Church is in its original form and features memorial stained-glass windows with pointed frames. The building was relocated by the State Highway Commission in 1990. The cemetery, which dates to 1892, occupies the west end of the property. There are a number of unmarked graves, and about 20 gravestones dating from the 1910s to the 1940s. Most of the stones are hand-carved and many feature a carved flower and vine motif. The grant project will fund exterior repairs to the church and conservation of the cemetery.

Information in this section has been updated since publication.

St. James African Union First Colored Methodist Protestant Church – Towson, Baltimore County ($30,000) | Sponsor: St. James African Union Methodist Protestant Church, Inc

In 1881, the St. James African Union First Colored Methodist Protestant Church was built on property believed to be the first documented African American landholding in Towson. The church began as a one-story wood-frame building and was raised to two stories in 1906 to accommodate the congregation’s growth. This project will fund structural repairs to the roof framing and chimney, as well as full roof replacement.

Buffalo Soldier Park – Eden, Wicomico County ($74,000) | Sponsor: Greater Washington Dc Chapter Of The Ninth And Tenth (Horse) Cavalry Association, Inc.

Named “Buffalo Soldier House” for his time in the United States 9th Cavalry Regiment Company C, Thomas Polk, Sr. built a two-story home on his property sometime in the late 1920s and rebuilt it in 1962-63 after it was destroyed in a fire. This project will focus on the pre-development and renovations needed to convert his home into the Buffalo Soldier Living History Site, which will include a visitors’ center and exhibit space.

Adams Methodist Episcopal Church and Cemetery – Lothian, Anne Arundel County ($80,000) | Sponsor: Adams U.M. Church

Adams Methodist Episcopal Church site contains two church buildings: the original 1883 church, a simple weatherboard-sided late-Victorian structure; and a more modern brick church, completed in 1968. Work for this project will focus on the brick church and on the graveyard on site.

If you are planning to apply for funding for an AAHPP project, the FY2024  grant round will begin in the spring of 2023, with workshops in April and applications due July 1. For more information about AAHPP, please visit our website or contact Ivy Weeks, Capital Programs Administrator, at ivy.weeks@maryland.gov.

Architectural Survey on Smith Island

by Allison Luthern, Architectural Survey Administrator

Historical architectural survey describes the process of locating, identifying, and recording historic places. It is the important initial step of all historic preservation activities – we need to start by understanding what exists where. The Maryland Historical Trust has supported architectural survey since our founding in the 1960s. The results of our architectural surveys are contained within the Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties (MIHP).

MHT’s Historic Preservation Non-Capital Grant Program recently funded survey work by architectural historian Paul Touart in Somerset County, including properties on Smith Island. Smith Island is the last surviving inhabited island off the shores of Maryland in the Chesapeake Bay. Early in its history, the island was occupied by the Pocomoke and Assateague peoples, Native American tribes who also lived along the Eastern Shore streams. The first English landowner was Henry Smith (the island’s namesake) in the middle of the 17^th century. Anglo-Americans continued to inhabit Smith Island through the 17^th, 18^th, and 19^th centuries.  

Smith’s Island, Lake, Griffing & Stevenson Map, 1877.

The recent survey project documented one of the oldest surviving buildings on Smith Island, known as Black Walnut Point. Its inventory number in the MIHP is S-536-6. The architectural survey provides a physical description of the house: It has a two-story, three-bay side hall/parlor plan main block supported on a stuccoed masonry foundation with an exterior sheathed in beaded weatherboards. The gable roof is covered with wood shingles. Attached to the back of the main block is a two-story, two-part service wing that dates from the third quarter of the 19^th century, around 1860-70.

Black Walnut Point, photo by Paul B. Touart

The survey also details the property’s history through its ownership by two prominent Smith Island families, the Tylers and Marshalls. Today, it is the Smith Island Education Center.

Black Walnut Point, photo by Paul B. Touart

Beginning in the second half of the 19^th century through the early 20^th century, the Lower Shore region experienced growth and economic prosperity associated with new railway lines, agriculture, and the seafood industry – the latter being particularly important for Smith Island. During this time period, each of the three Smith Island communities (Tylerton, Ewell, and Rhodes Point) built a new Methodist church building. These three churches were also surveyed in our recent project.

Ewell United Methodist Church (S-536-1) is a single-story, gable front building on a raised, rusticated block foundation. It has a symmetrical façade and is topped by a square belfry. It was built in 1939-40 on a site that has long been associated with the practice of Methodism. Adjacent to the church is a parsonage, a tabernacle, and a cemetery.

Ewell United Methodist Church, photo by Paul B. Touart

Calvary Methodist Episcopal Church (S-536-4) is located in the center of Rhodes Point. It is a single-story, L-shaped building with a marble date stone that reads: “1921 / Calvary M.E. Church / Reverend J.L. Derrickson.” It is also surrounded by a large cemetery with both in-ground and above ground vaulted burial plots.

Calvary Methodist Episcopal Church, photo by Paul B. Touart

The third church, Union Methodist Episcopal Church (S-536-8), is in Tylerton. It was built around 1920-1930, using salvaged materials from an earlier 1896 church. It is a rectangular shaped church on a raised, rusticated block foundation with a large columned projecting pavilion flanked by towers. Like many historic Methodist churches, the sanctuary inside is on the upper level.

Union Methodist Episcopal Church, photo by Paul B. Touart

If you want to learn more, you can view all MIHP survey records, including more properties on Smith Island, on our website, https://mht.maryland.gov/secure/medusa/.

A Summer Exploring Maryland’s History by Land and Sea

By Stephanie Soder, 2019 Summer Intern in Maryland Archeology

Having recently graduated with a Master’s degree in Maritime Studies (Archeology), I was excited when I was chosen as the Maryland Historical Trust’s summer intern. I grew up just over the Mason-Dixon border in Pennsylvania and spent about half of my life in Maryland, so I was happy to be back in the state I considered “home”. The MHT Archeology staff wasted no time in throwing me into the chaos of gearing up for the annual Tyler Bastian Field Session that was taking place at Billingsley House in Prince George’s County.

The Author examining a prehistoric pit feature exposed during the 2019 Field Session
(Drone imagery courtesy of Ryan Craun, M-NCPPC).

Though the Billingsley House dates to the 18th century, this 11-day field session focused on finding two 17th-century Native American villages. I was charged with keeping the field lab running smoothly and the site forms organized. Water buckets and toothbrushes came out every day for artifact washing, allowing volunteers to take a break from digging in the heat. Every tenth bucket coming from each unit was water screened through a ⅛” mesh, hoping to reveal small trade beads (and creating quite the mess). By the end of the session, 12 units had been opened, resulting in artifacts ranging from pre-colonial lithics and ceramics to nails, faunal remains, and fire-cracked rock. Thanks to the hard efforts of the lab volunteers, almost all of the artifacts were washed and weighed by the end of the last day.

The remaining time of my internship was split between a variety of projects. I was able to work on projects that met my interests, and though I love to be out in the field, I challenged myself by taking on tasks that I was not as familiar with: Section 106 review and compliance, artifact identification, and remote sensing.

A Late Archaic projectile point recovered at Billingsley (Photo by the author).

Compliance archeology focuses on ensuring that federal and state funded projects limit impacts to the historical integrity of sites around Maryland. Dixie Henry and Beth Cole shared their expectations for compliance reports and gave me federal and state standards for archeology and architectural studies to read. They then allowed to me to review some compliance reports and tag along on a consultation meeting with the National Park Service to mitigate impacts to historic sites while building their new C & O Canal Headquarters. The time I spent learning about compliance has reinforced my appreciation for the work that goes into protecting our historical resources.

My graduate research focused largely on Pacific Islander culture and modern conflict, so getting familiar with artifacts found throughout Maryland was a necessity. I spent much of the second half of my internship in the lab cleaning, identifying, and photographing artifacts from previously completed fieldwork in Janes Island State Park (Somerset County). I then began working on site forms and compiled a report that highlighted research on each type of artifact find. There’s no better way to learn how to complete a task than getting to do it first-hand, and I feel that my time working with the artifacts helped familiarize me with examples found around Maryland and the resources available for identification.

Most of my previous work involved excavation or evaluation with very little training in remote sensing. Under the tutelage of Matt McKnight and Charlie Hall, I learned how to run a magnetic susceptibility meter and a fluxgate gradiometer. Putting what I had learned to the test, we set out for a new site that may be associated with an ordinary dating from the origins of Caroline County. I assisted with using the gradiometer and practiced with the magnetic susceptibility meter. The collected data will help with future work on the site by the Caroline County Historical Society. Out on Janes Island, Troy Nowak put me to work completing a side-scan sonar and bathymetric survey in Maryland waters. With a steady hand and concentration, I learned to follow transect lines while driving a boat in order to collect data consistently. The rest of the week was spent surveying the shoreline and tracking how it has changed over time in order to evaluate potential impacts on historical sites.

The author collecting marine remote sensing data off of Janes Island (Photo by Troy Nowak).

My summer at MHT came to an end far too quickly, but it has been an extremely rewarding experience. It has helped prepare me for a career in Maryland, and I’d like to thank the entire staff at MHT for their guidance, patience, and for providing me this amazing opportunity.

Introducing Map-Based Medusa: Viewing Maryland’s Historic Places in Real Time

By Gregory Brown, Cultural Resource Information Manager

To kick off Preservation Month this May, the Maryland Historical Trust is pleased to announce a new interactive map-based tool, “map-based Medusa,” to explore the state’s inventory of historic places and archeological sites.  Taking advantage of new web-based mapping technology, map-based Medusa offers the opportunity to view Maryland’s extensive geographic database of historic and cultural properties and to access the records linked to these resources, all within an easily accessible user friendly interface.

The new system allows both in-house and remote access to the documentation of over 60,000 architectural and archeological resources in a variety of ways. Consultants and staff can view a proposed project area and see all known cultural resources, with links to Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties forms, National Register nominations, determinations of eligibility, and other detailed documents. Map-based Medusa also allows you to look up a property by name, address or inventory number, and view that property on a map along with associated forms and photos.

Most architectural information is freely available in Medusa. Archeological site location is restricted to qualified archeological professionals as mandated in the state’s Access to Site Location Policy. Any qualified professional can apply for a Medusa account to get access. For assistance using map-based Medusa, tutorials and FAQs are available online. We will introduce webinars and introductory videos in the coming months.

The new map-based Medusa application was created with the technical assistance of the Applications Development team of the Maryland Department of Planning, the Maryland Historical Trust’s parent agency. We are grateful for the efforts of Information Services Manager Ted Cozmo, Doug Lyford, Greg Schuster, and Debbie Czerwinski, building on earlier database development work of Maureen Kavanagh, Carmen Swann and Jennifer Falkinburg. The online version of Medusa was supported in part through a Preserve America grant administered by the National Park Service, Department of Interior, and by funding from the Maryland State Highway Administration through its Transportation Enhancement Program.

To start using map-based Medusa, go to https://mht.maryland.gov/secure/medusa/.

For more information, please contact Gregory Brown, Cultural Resource Information Manager, at gregory.brown@maryland.gov.

My Summer in Maryland Archeology

By Justin Warrenfeltz

As the 2016 Summer Archeology Intern with the Maryland Historical Trust (MHT), I have worked on a wide variety of projects, each more interesting than the last. In June, I assisted with the planning and implementation of the Archeological Society of Maryland annual Tyler Bastian Field Session in Maryland Archeology. As a former archeological crew chief, this was a perfect opportunity for me to contribute substantially to MHT’s work at the River Farm site. Under the guidance of archeologists with the Lost Towns Project, I assisted with excavation and site management.

The author at Janes Island State Park in Crisfield

After the Field Session, State Terrestrial Archeologist Dr. Charles Hall asked me to plan and implement a research method for oyster shell analysis of artifacts recovered from the Willin Site in Dorchester County, most recently excavated by MHT archeologists in 2009.

Smith Island Looks to Its Future

By Jen Sparenberg, Hazard Mitigation Program Officer

Most Marylanders know Smith Island cake is Maryland’s official state dessert, but a few things about Smith Island folks likely don’t know are: it’s only accessible by water; it’s one of the oldest continually occupied colonial settlements; its isolation has preserved the culture and language patterns of its earliest colonists; the Island and surrounding bay marshes have been periodically inhabited since 10,800 BC, and that Smith Island is actually comprised of three different communities:  Ewell, Rhodes Point, and Tylerton.