Article by Andre Nieto Jaime

The school appeared to have been operating well into the 20th century, with some newspapers claiming that activist Dr. Maulana Karenga (birth name Ronald Everett) attended this very school in his childhood, which would have been in the mid to late 1940s. References to the school in newspapers begin appearing consistently in the 1920s. Most of these come from The Daily Times, which published a handful of articles that mentioned Glass Hill and the school. At the time, nothing out of the ordinary would have stood out about these papers as they describe rather mundane day to day happenings and details such school reports, news, teacher rosters, and other aspects of schools. However, these old newspapers disclose several details relating to the schoolhouse.

First, these papers hint at the period in which the school was active. While the 1877 Atlas has revealed that the school existed by at least 1877, the time when the school closed is a little more obscure. The Maryland Historical Trust’s inventory form WI-496 makes no mention of when the school ceased to operate. The hint provided in this document is that the building was moved to Pittsville and restored in the 1980s, meaning that the schoolhouse was in its original location for over a century. However, the school ceased its operation before this relocation and restoration.
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References to the school in newspapers began to decline by the 1940s. One of the last mentions of the school in its active years was an update to the roster of teachers in 1941, owing to several male teachers leaving to serve in the army. Two years later, another article stated that the Wicomico Board of Education was receiving bids for three school properties, one of which was Glass Hill. This most likely was the single room school’s lot, but it is also possible that this was a lot that was purchased by the Wicomico Board of Education in 1929. Either way, the age of the school, its one room structure, and the beginnings of integration after Brown V. Board of Education in 1954 almost certainly rendered Glass Hill School obsolete by the 1950s. By 1969, the school was being referred to as “the former Glass Hill School,” seemingly confirming its closure sometime in the 1940s or 50s.

​Another element of Glass Hill, and segregated schools in general, that these newspapers reveal is how underfunded Black schools were. For example, the 1934 summary of school expenses shows that many White single teacher schools’ expenses were nearly double that of Black single teacher schools. Glass Hill’s total expenditure in this report was $607.46 while the expenses per pupil was $19.41. Meanwhile, the total expenditures of the single teacher White schools were all over $1,000 with expenses per pupil ranging from $29.49 to $54.13. Even when compared to Rosenwald Schools, which were relatively newer, but still often only had one to three teachers, had expenditures higher than these older single room schools. Sharptown School’s (San Domingo School) total expenditure was listed as $2,109.32 while South Quantico’s was $1,237.90. Yet, despite the funding disparities and older construction of the building in comparison to the other schools of Wicomico County, Glass Hill School continued providing early education for Black youth in the Pittsville-Parsonsburg area of Wicomico County well into the 20th century, a testament to the resourcefulness and strong will of the Glass Hill community.

​Glass Hill School not only offered opportunities for local students, but to educators as well by becoming a place where several teachers started their careers. Miss Dixie Kier began teaching at Glass Hill in 1917 and taught there for three years before moving on to Delmar and Salisbury. Her career lasted 43 years, with Kier retiring in 1958 and picking up work at a Sunday and Bible school. Likewise, Emerson C. Holloway, lauded as being Wicomico County’s first male teacher, began his 37 year long career at Glass Hill School. Here, he became fondly remembered by the community, evidenced by an anecdote given by a parent, Mrs. Esther Parker Wilson. In 1939 Holloway organized a Christmas performance in which every child pitched in to create decorations or other preparations. The performance itself involved school children describing what they wanted for Christmas, singing Christmas songs, and recreating the Nativity. Wilson, among other parents, was so moved by the celebration that she said that Christmas “was never rivaled by another in that school," showing that Holloway truly had an immense impact not only on the children at Glass Hill, but the community as well. By the end of his career as an educator, Holloway had become the vice-principal at West Side Intermediate School, retiring after becoming the first Black man elected to the County Council. Thus, little Glass Hill School, provided these educators a place to gain experience and start off their lengthy careers of sharing their knowledge with countless school children across the county.

​This old schoolhouse also provided services to the surrounding community by serving as the Seventh Tabernacle’s early home when the congregation first came to Glass Hill. This religious organization was founded by John Elzey Parker when he came to visit his sister, Jennie Parker, in 1921. After the visit, J.E. Parker decided to settle in Glass Hill, organizing the Seventh Tabernacle, and began using Glass Hill School alongside neighboring houses to hold their meetings until they secured a more permanent location in Salisbury where they remain to this day. Even Willie Allie Birckhead, the student from Pittsville, became a member of the Seventh Tabernacle.

​Seventh Tabernacle on Seminole Boulevard in Salisbury
Delmarva African American History
c. 2011

Glass Hill School continued to serve its community well into the 20th century. However, by the early 20th century, the Rosenwald School Building Program (which was discussed more extensively in a previous StoryWay) had begun its mission of building schoolhouses for Black school children throughout the South in underserved communities. These schoolhouses were by no means state of the art, but they did help supplement and replace many of the old schoolhouses that were aged, underfunded, and falling into disrepair. They boasted a larger size and while they were still, in most cases, single roomed, they could often be partitioned into separate rooms for different grades. This allowed for increased student capacity, more teachers, and for more flexibility when it came to the usage of space. One of these schools was set to be built in Parsonsburg and was budgeted in 1929-1930 during the last big wave of school building by the Rosenwald Fund.
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The mention of a Rosenwald School being budgeted in 1929/1930 lines up with a transaction and land survey conducted in August of 1929, where Sarah E. Parker turned over 1 acre of land on Old County Road to the Wicomico Board of Education. This record is named “Wicomico County School Lot Glass Hill” suggesting that this lot was meant to be used for the construction of the Glass Hill Rosenwald School that was budgeted around the same time. A newspaper publication also describes this exchange, noting that the Board of Education of Wicomico obtained one acre in the Pittsburg District for the consideration of $10 from Sarah Parker. Preparations were seemingly being made to begin construction of a new school in Glass Hill, yet there are few, if any, references to a Rosenwald School in Glass Hill beyond these few documents.

​Today, Old County Road in Parsonsburg is a dead end and barely extends off Esham Road. However, in the past it connected to Jones Hastings Road, suggesting that a new schoolhouse may have been built somewhere on this road, but then demolished when the road was abandoned and repurposed for farmland. Looking at a map from 1950 shows Old County Road heading west and connecting to Jones Hastings Road with two structures half way down the road on its north side. To the east, the road goes through Esham Road and Route 346 (Old Ocean City Road) where it connects to Glass Hill Road on the opposite side and cuts through the railway that no longer exists. Looking at a map today (Google Maps for example) shows that the western stretch of Old County Road now terminates in trees and farmland occupies where it once was. Its eastern half section no longer connects to Glass Hill Road, simply intersecting with and ending at Esham Road now.

​This eastern truncation can be explained by a newspaper publication from 1967 in which a public notice is given about the proposal to abandon a section of road in the Pittsburg district. This section of road is described as “beginning at Route 346 and extending to Esham Road a distance of approximately 500 feet,” which lines up with the small stretch of Old County Road that cut through Esham Road and Route 346 into Glass Hill Road. Considering this section no longer exists, it seems the proposal was accepted. At some point, the western part of Old County Road must have been abandoned in a similar manner and repurposed as farmland.

Another explanation for this Rosenwald School is that it never got built due to economic factors, namely the Great Depression. This economic upheaval may have gotten in the way of funding. The Rosenwald Fund found itself struggling to make payments in the 1930s and entered a decline. The State of Maryland and the Wicomico Board of Education also would have also struggled to put funding into building a new school and, like the Rosenwald Fund after 1931, likely preferred to maintain existing schools for the time being. Glass Hill residents also likely struggled to match the fund, with many leaving the area to look for employment elsewhere. A smaller community also could have meant that they did not see a need for a new Rosenwald School anymore and scrapped the idea all together.

Finally, there is also the possibility that the school was built, and it just does not exist anymore. However, this seems unlikely as there are barely any references to anything other than the small schoolhouse in newspapers and documents in government databases. It is more likely that the school was simply never completed due to economic issues and the Rosenwald Fund deciding to end their school building program in 1932. 

Whatever the fate of this Rosenwald School was, the fact remains that the 1870s Glass Hill School managed to provide a vital education for children in the rural Parsonsburg area for around 70 years. Had the school not existed, school children would have had to travel much farther or even moved to different towns with extended family to go to the nearest African American school assuming their families could afford the loss of an extra set of hands at home. According to census records from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many of these Black families’ occupations were farmers and homemakers; a lifestyle that relied on having every family member at home being involved in farm duties to be successful. While Glass Hill was a small school operating on a relatively small budget, it had a lasting impact on the community by giving Black school children greater access to education than their forefathers, a chance at social mobility through literacy, exposure to ideas such as equality, and by serving as a community hub alongside the Bishop Methodist Church. 

References:

​Primary:
“Answer to Today’s A Moment in Time.” The Daily Times, February 9, 1998.

“Annual Report of the Public Schools of Wicomico County.” The Daily Times, November 20, 1934.

Atlas of Wicomico, Somerset & Worcester Cos., Md. Philadelphia: Lake, Griffing & Stevenson, 1877.

“Building Shore History.” The Daily Times, March 27, 2004.

“Deeds Recorded.” The Daily Times, August 16, 1929.

Google. “Glass Hill.” Google Maps. Accessed January 30, 2024.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/ezM7zUzBANe4J75z5. 

“Holloway Plans to Leave Post.” The Daily Times, November 15, 1978.

“Miss Dixie Kier.” The Daily Times, July 10, 1969.

“New Teachers Are Appointed for Wicomico: Two Replace Men Now Serving in the U.S. Army.” The Daily Times, August 21, 1941.

“Notice.” The Daily Times, April 14, 1943.

Pittsville 1950. Sheet 5960 IV NW A.M.S. Series V833 U.S. Geological Survey. U.S. Geological Survey, Washington D.C. https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/ht-bin/tv_browse.pl?id=9560f698eb5fa32f5da2a4785097ccb3 

“Public Notice.” The Daily Times, August 7, 1967.

"United States Census, 1880." Entry for Isaac Smith and Martha E. Smith, 1880. FamilySearch, Annapolis, MD. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MN79-GH

Wicomico Co. School Lot Glass Hill. Land Records IDT 158, p. 585 MSA S1548-1062, Wicomico County Circuit Court, Salisbury, MD.
https://plats.msa.maryland.gov/pages/unit.aspx?cid=WI&qualifier=S&series=1548&unit=1062&page=adv1&id=1393454667. 

WI-503 Calvary M. E. Church Architectural Survey File, 29 August 2003. Maryland Historical Trust Maryland Inventory of Historic Property Form Inventory No. WI-503, Maryland Historical Trust, Crownsville, MD.
https://apps.mht.maryland.gov/medusa/PDF/Wicomico/WI-503.pdf. 

WI-496 Glass Hill School Architectural Survey File, 29 August 2003. Maryland Historical Trust Maryland Inventory of Historic Property Form Inventory No. WI-503, Maryland Historical Trust, Crownsville, MD.
https://apps.mht.maryland.gov/medusa/PDF/Wicomico/WI-496.pdf. 

Secondary Sources:
Ascoli, Peter M. Julius Rosenwald: The Man Who Built Sears, Roebuck and Advanced the Cause of Black Education in the American South. Bloomington: Indianna University Press, 2006.

Brooker, Russell G. “The Education Of Black Children In The Jim Crow South.” America’s Black Holocaust Museum. Accessed January 30, 2024. https://www.abhmuseum.org/education-for-blacks-in-the-jim-crow-south/’ 

​ “Clifton Alton Trader,” The Daily Times, January 19, 2003.

Duyer, Linda. “Wicomico County’s Seventh Tabernacle.” Delmarva African American History. Accessed January 2, 2024.
https://aahistorydelmarva.wordpress.com/2013/10/03/wicomico-countys-seventh-tabernacle/. 

Morris, Emily C., et.al. (eds). Recollections: Wicomico's One-Room Schools. Wicomico County Retired Teachers Association, 1977.

National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form “Rosenwald Schools of Maryland.” Maryland’s National Register Properties, Maryland Historical Trust, Crownsville, MD.
​https://apps.mht.maryland.gov/nr/NRMPSDetail.aspx?MPSId=25. 

“Remembering the One-Room Schoolhouse.” Shoreline, September 9, 2008.

​“Seeing Through Time in Glass Hill.” The Daily Times, May 14, 1996.

 “W. Allie Birckhead.” The Daily Times, November 9, 2003.

Charles Chipman Headshot
Undated
Nabb Research Center Linda Duyer African-American History Collection (2012.021)

Until recently, education for African-Americans on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and the Delmarva Peninsula had always been a bit precarious because it was dependent upon those in control of the power structure and of funding.  During the colonial and antebellum eras, it was against the law to teach slaves to read and to write. The laws also extended to free blacks; the Maryland Legislature also passed punitive laws to punish anyone, black or white, who attempted to teach blacks. However, upon the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln, even though it did not apply to the State of Maryland, the desire for an opportunity to learn to read and to write became one of the most cherished freedoms for all blacks, regardless of age, sex, or previous condition of servitude.

The desire for even the mere rudiments of an education was planted during the reconstruction period.  Despite the scanty, unequal funding and the dilapidated structures, the lack of text books and supplies, unequal salaries for the few qualified teachers that were willing to teach in the area, education for African Americans was initiated. The burning of churches which served as the earliest schools and the threat of death to the persons of those who attempted to assist in the new educational process was always apparent. However, those threats did not deter attempts to educate Blacks.  The establishment of Rosenwald Schools, such as the Germantown School in Berlin and the San Domingo School in San Domingo/Mardela, as well as the Sturgis One-Room Schoolhouse are examples of successful attempts at education. Locally, some individuals, such as Stephen Long from Pocomoke City, tried to satisfy the desire for an education in others and paid the supreme sacrifice of losing his life, simply because he encouraged young black boys to get an education. Fortunately, educators such as Charles Chipman, Kermit Cottman and Oscar J. Chapman continued in the footsteps of the late Stephen Long.
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Professor Charles Chipman (1888-1987), a native of Cold Springs, New Jersey, just outside of Cape May, came to Salisbury in 1915.   Mr. Chipman had previously been offered a position at Tuskegee Institute but upon the death of Booker T. Washington, chose to come to Salisbury instead.  He came to Salisbury as the Supervising Principal of the Industrial High School which later became known as Salisbury High School in 1930.  He arrived in Salisbury to find that the school was a rented structure and in desperate need of repair, so his first task was to convince the Wicomico County Board of Education of the need for a new building with adequate facilities to suit the needs of the students, faculty and community.  The condition of the school was appalling to Professor Chipman because he had received a superior education in Cape May, New Jersey and had graduated from Howard University in Washington, D.C., which was unusual for a black person in 1915.  

The Wicomico County Board of Education allocated approximately half of the necessary funds to construct the new school.  To raise the remainder of the funds, Professor Chipman organized a community committee to complete the funding for the other half of the proposed building.  The proposed building was designed to have 25 to 30 rooms and an auditorium.  Unfortunately, the cost of materials increased, so the money allocated by the Board of Education proved to be insufficient to complete the building despite the matching funds raised by the community committee, so more funds had to be raised by the community committee, but it was finally completed.

The completion of the building did not signal the end of Professor Chipman’s woes.  He also had to find funds for the furnishings of the school, books, supplies, and other materials that were necessary to keep the school running adequately. Certified teachers who were willing to come to the Eastern Shore were also necessary.   However, his greatest gift was to inspire his students to excel academically.  Despite their meager resources, his desire for his students was for them to have morals and good character.  As a result of his courageous attempts to provide for the educational needs of his students and to provide an outlet for their social needs as well as to prepare them for a life beyond Salisbury and Salisbury High School, Professor Chipman earned the respect of his students and the community.
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Charles Chipman at His Desk
Undated
Nabb Research Center ​Linda Duyer African-American History Collection (2012.021)

Salisbury High School Graduation Class
Undated
Nabb Research Center Linda Duyer African-American History Collection (2012.021)

Professor Chipman’s influence was felt beyond Salisbury High School as he served on many boards, councils, and commissions.  One noteworthy commission was the Salisbury-Wicomico County Commission on Interracial Problems or the Bi-Racial Commission. Professor Chipman and Dr. Elmer A. Purnell, the black members of the Commission, met with leaders of the Cambridge demonstrations and worked with Salisbury community leaders to avert riots in Salisbury that had plagued other communities. Chipman, Purnell, Attorney Hamilton Fox and other members of the Commission negotiated with and successfully opened public accommodations to all people regardless of race. In this way, educational and economic opportunities were provided for all people, training programs were established, and together, the Committee worked to minimize slum conditions and other problems in the county.  
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Chipman helped to preserve the Salisbury John Wesley Church, the structure that was to become Wesley Temple United Methodist Church by purchasing it and then deeding it to the trustees of the church.  Built in 1838, the structure was the oldest remaining African-American church on the Delmarva Peninsula and is now known as the Charles H. Chipman Cultural Center and serves as a community arts cultural center and museum. Chipman Elementary School on Lake Street is also named in his honor. Professor Chipman’s life is a testament to his attempts to improve the lives of his students, the community and all of the Eastern Shore. In short, he was a champion of all people.

The Front Exterior of the Chipman Center, sideview
1990s
Nabb Research Center Linda Duyer African-American History Collection (2012.021)

Charles H. Chipman Cultural Center

Similar to Professor Chipman, another educator, Dr. Kermit Atlee Cottman (September 6, 1910- April 3, 2007), gave his time and energy to educate the residents of the Eastern Shore. Born in Quantico, Maryland, to humble parents, Kermit Cottman became an educator and Supervisor of Public Schools in Somerset County for over forty years. As a youth, he became accustomed to adversity because of blatant racism and discrimination. From his youth he had been told of his great grandfather being taken to Princess Anne and sold by his master on the slave auction block where Metropolitan Church now stands. However, knowledge of slave ancestry did not deter him from desiring to succeed and acquiring an education even though there were no schools in close proximity to his home which was located between Hebron and Quantico.  At the age of ten, Kermit and several Cottman family members learned that A.I. DuPont had begun to build schools similar to the Rosenwald Schools and that one of those schools, the Paul Laurence Dunbar School, had been built in Laurel, Delaware. The Cottmans made the decision to move to Laurel and to send Kermit to school in Laurel in order for Kermit and his siblings to receive an adequate education.  At Laurel, Kermit excelled but there was no 12th grade, so he was sent to Delaware State College to complete his secondary education. He stayed there only two days, and transferred to Howard High School in Wilmington in an attempt to achieve his goal. Unfortunately, he remained there only a week because he became ill which required surgery and he lost a whole year of school. During that same year, Salisbury High School was opened, and once he recuperated from the surgery he walked from Laurel to Salisbury to attend school, a total of sixteen miles each way.  Someone would offer him a ride, but he often caught a ride to Salisbury on the back of a Perdue truck because he could not ride in the cab of the Perdue truck, supposedly for insurance purposes. When he began to attend school in Salisbury, Professor Chipman learned of Cottmsn’s determination to achieve his goal, he offered him the opportunity to live at his home throughout the week.  He respected Professor Chipman and was in awe of him, so he declined the offer and lived instead with his father’s relatives, the Howard Cornishes. During that trying year, Kermit’s father was disabled and Kermit wanted to quit school in order to help the family. However, his family would not allow him to do so.  He graduated from Salisbury High School and was encouraged by Professor Chipman to attend Hampton Institute because he recognized Cottman’s potential.

Professor Chipman began to personally prepare Kermit for Hampton Institute by making Kermit familiar with the ideals, beliefs and required readings that were so much a part of the discipline at Hampton.  Kermit was accepted at Hampton Institute, and upon his arrival on campus was assigned to work in the cafeteria because he was so skinny.  During the summers, he worked at the Hastings Hotel in Ocean City in order to obtain money to help defray his college tuition.  While at Hampton Institute, Kermit had the opportunity to meet and converse with many outstanding leaders, such as Mary McLeod Bethune.  He graduated from Hampton on June 2, 1936 and although he received numerous offers for jobs, he found that some of them had already been filled.  One of those offers was to work at Lincoln High School in Frederick, Maryland to coach sports, even though his degree was in Social Studies.  He accepted the job and due to his motivation and a good team, his team won the Maryland State (for Negroes) 1937-1938 basketball championship.   

While at Lincoln High School, in Frederick, Maryland, Kermit Cottman worked on a racial commission with Thurgood Marshall who later became the first African American United States Supreme Court Justice advocating higher salaries for African American teachers in Frederick. Marshall and Charles Hamilton Houston had begun the fight to equalize teacher salaries and due to Kermit’s team winning the championship, as well as the recognition of his knowledge and skills in working with students, Kermit was offered numerous other positions.  Among the positions he was offered were in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Towson, Maryland, and Richmond, Virginia.   Instead of accepting one of those positions, he chose to return to his home, the Eastern Shore, in order to help the youth of the area and the community he so dearly loved.  Another reason he chose to return to the Shore was that salaries had been equalized for black and white teachers as a result of the lawsuit won by Thurgood Marshall and Charles Hamilton Houston.  

In 1939 Kermit Cottman’s career as a school administrator began when he was named Principal of the Somerset County Greenwood Elementary School and High School in Princess Anne. On January 1, 1947 he became the first African American Supervisor of Colored Schools.  Once he became supervisor he forged a bond between the parents of Somerset County, the school and the Board of Education, and African American children in Somerset County began making scores equal to or better than African American children on the Western Shore.  He remained in that position until the schools were integrated in 1969.  From 1969 to 1978, he served as Somerset County Supervisor of Secondary Schools, but in order to continue in that position he had to also continue his studies.  In 1947 he earned a Masters of Arts degree in Education at Temple University. He also studied at Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania. In 1990, the University of Maryland awarded him an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. Kermit Cottman was Somerset County’s last Supervisor of Colored Schools.  In short, he was a life-long learner and he encouraged others to do the same. 

During his 31-year career as a top administrator in Somerset County Public Schools, he served on many panels, councils, state boards and commissions, including the Webb Commission which studied the future relationship between Salisbury University and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. His memberships, community concerns and appointments  included the following: appointed by Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew to the State Advisory Council on Vocational and Technical Education; Regional Chairmanship of the Maintaining Active Citizens (MAC) of Dorchester, Somerset, Wicomico, and Worcester Counties; Chairmanship of the Somerset County Health Planning Committee; the UMES Chancellor’s Advisory Committee: the Local Vocational Advisory Council for the Somerset County Board of Education; the AARP Maryland Legislative Committee; the Planning Committee at Peninsula Regional Medical Center and many others.   In each instance, Dr. Cottman’s goal was to teach and to enrich the lives of the students of Somerset County and of the region and to make life socially, economically and politically bearable for everyone.  

Dr. Kermit Atlee Cottman
Undated
Find a Grave Memorial 

People Outside of Hampton Institute
Undated
Nabb Research Center Linda Duyer African-American Historical Collection (2012.021)

Similar to Professor Chipman and Dr. Cottman, Dr. Oscar J. Chapman (       -1994), also a native of the Eastern Shore, devoted his life to education on all levels and to serving the needs of the community. Born in Stockton, Maryland, Dr. Chapman endured the same hardships as Dr. Cottman as he too attempted to acquire the rudiments of an education.  The only high school in the area that was available to him was Salisbury High School which was constructed during the principalship of Professor Chipman. Therefore, the only option for Oscar Chapman and others was to travel to Salisbury on a daily basis or to live with a family in Salisbury in order to graduate from high school. Fortunately, there were local educators with meager resources, but they had the desire to prepare black children for any possibilities, so they shared their homes throughout the week with black children eager to learn.   

Oscar J. Chapman’s fate was a bit different than most of his peers in Worcester County because his father had served for many years as a trustee of the public schools.  After attending the community schools for seven years, he enrolled at Hampton Institute, in Hampton, Virginia, and completed his secondary education. In 1932, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Lincoln University, Pennsylvania, and began teaching high school in Denton, Maryland.  The desire for an education was deeply embedded in his blood and in 1936 he received his Master of Arts degree in education and psychology from the University of Michigan, and in 1940 received the Ph.D. from Ohio State University. In 1940, he was named Professor and Chairman of the Department of Education at Arkansas AT&N College at Pine Bluff, Arkansas; served in the same capacity at N.C. State Teachers College, Elizabeth City State University (N.C.), Langston College in Oklahoma, and Tennessee A&T State University at Nashville, and as Professor of Education at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland.

In 1949 he moved into administration when he was named President of Delaware State College (now Delaware State University), until he was recalled to active duty as a Reserve Officer in the U.S. Air Force in 1951 during the Korean War. Even though he was an officer he did not neglect his educational background. He was assigned and responsible for the research programs at three bases located in New York, Illinois, and Colorado.  In 1957, after five years as an officer in the Air Force, Chapman was officially released from active duty with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.  His immediate response was to return to higher education in order to help im-prove the lives of others.   From 1957 to 1973 he served as Academic Dean and Chairman of the Graduate Council at Lincoln University, Jefferson City, Missouri, and from 1973 to 1988 he was a faculty member of the Department of Education at Salisbury State University, where he retired as Professor Emeritus in 1988.  

Prior to his retirement from Salisbury University, Dr. Chapman had also served as an official and unofficial advisor to his friend Dr. Norman Crawford, a former President of Salisbury University.  Dr. Chapman had numerous years of administrative experience and he utilized those years of expertise and skills to mentor others.   However, when he retired, it did not mean that he stopped helping others because he volunteered his talents and leaderships skills to co-advise, and eventually advise, the Salisbury University Black Student Union and Salisbury University’s student chapter of the NAACP. Through his numerous national contacts, he was responsible for bringing outstanding leaders and speakers to the Salisbury University cam-pus, such as, the political activist Dick Gregory, the poet Nikki Giovanni, the jazz musician Oscar Peterson, and a host of others.  He tirelessly worked to forge relations between Salisbury University and the University of Mary-land Eastern Shore, to improve relations between SU and the community, to provide leadership training for SU students, fraternal organizations, and especially for countless students who were wise enough to listen and learn.  Dr. Chapman also volunteered his efforts to help elementary and secondary schools in the area and made the effort to encourage college students to volunteer in after-school programs, both in the evenings and on weekends.   

His association with the Salisbury University campus did not limit his capacity to work within the Salisbury community and surrounding areas.  As a civic leader, Dr. Chapman was on the Board of Directors of Deers Head Medical Center in Salisbury, and as a member of the Board of Medical Examiners of Maryland. He served on many other boards and committees, but he never forgot his roots.  He always encouraged students, fraternal and civic organizations and citizens to work together in harmony and in love for the educational, political, social and economic enrichment of the lives of all people on the Shore. Those were his goals and his life’s work remained the same until his death in January of 1994.
​

President of Delaware State University Dr. Oscar J. Chapman
1950-1951
Delaware State University

The common factor for Chipman, Cottman and Chapman was Salisbury High School. Chipman was instrumental in the construction of Salisbury High School while Cottman and Chapman both attended the school in order to graduate from the twelfth grade. Even though each of these men served in a different capacity and sometimes at different levels of education, their goals were very similar. Each chose to educate themselves to the best of their abilities, to utilize the resources that were available to them, and then to share their knowledge and skills with their students and their communities at-large. Their entire lives were devoted to education and even upon retirement chose to remain involved in the life of the community and to serve it in some capacity as long as they were physically able. They were life-long learners and encouraged others to do so as well.  Those they helped educate were influenced and they in turn impacted others nationwide and beyond.  Therefore, Professor Charles Chipman, Dr. Kermit Cottman, and Dr. Oscar J. Chapman rightfully should be known as the 3 C’s of African-American Education on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. 


Clara L. Small, Ph.D.
Emerita Professor of History
Salisbury University
Salisbury, Maryland

Story by Andre Nieto Jaime

Pittsburg District in the 1877 Atlas of Somerset, Wicomico, and Worcester Counties
Internet Archive
1877

​Tucked in between Parsonsburg and Pittsville in Wicomico County is a small, nearly forgotten community that goes by the name of Glass Hill. When asked, most people likely do not know of its existence nor would they say anything stands out about Glass Hill, aside from the old church and cemetery. This small village is part of Parsonsburg and blends seamlessly into its surroundings. Consisting of a combination of mobile homes and family homes, no one would suspect that this branch of Old Ocean City Road was a Black community with ties going back to the 19th century, possibly even the late 18th century. However, despite emerging around the same time as, or perhaps predating, Derrickson’s Crossroads, Glass Hill and Black rural Wicomico County receive little representation in historical discussion. Yet, Black residents contributed to the history and development of rural towns, like Pittsville and Parsonsburg, which deserves recognition.

1877 Atlas of Somerset, Wicomico, and Worcester Counties Pittsburg District
Internet Archive
1877

​According to the few remaining residents of Glass Hill in a 1996 article of The Daily Times, Glass Hill’s history dates back as early as the late 18th century as a free Black community.  The village’s population continued to grow over the course of the 19th century and after the Civil War, in 1866, a church was built. However, according to the church’s history, it was not named until the 1890s.  This very church appears in the Wicomico, Somerset & Worcester Counties Atlas from 1877 as “Cold [Colored] Church” and was later named Bishop Methodist Church in honor of Civil War veteran Jacob Bishop from the community.  The Maryland Historical Trust Inventory of Historic Properties refers to the church as “Cavalry M.E. Church” and describes the building as having been built in 1909 because of the inscription on the church’s southeast corner. However, the east side of the corner stone also bears the inscription “Founded in 1872” suggesting that the church may have been remodeled after its initial construction. 

​M.E. Cavalry Church/ Bishop Methodist Church
Maryland Historical Trust WI-503

​Across from Bishop Methodist Church on the 1877 Atlas was a building labeled “Cold [Colored] School” which was the Glass Hill School, a single room schoolhouse for Black children.  According to the Maryland Historical Trust’s Inventory form on the school, it was built around 1870, not long after the construction of the community’s church, and had a lengthy career in educating the children of Glass Hill and surrounding area.  According to several articles, such as a 2008 edition of Shoreline, Glass Hill School was home to the first male teacher in Wicomico County, Emerson C. Holloway of Delmar.  Glass Hill School also allegedly was where activist Ronald Everett (Dr. Maulana Karenga) attended school.  However, a combination of factors go against this claim. References to the school as an active school began declining in the 1940s and the school itself was moved to and restored in Pittsville in the later part of the century.  Additionally, an article from 1943 mentions the sale of the Glass Hill School property by the Board of Education of Wicomico County.  Finally, the fact that Everett was born in 1941, makes this claim seem to be an extrapolation of the fact that he grew up in Parsonsburg and Glass Hill. 

Glass Hill School in Glass Hill
Delmarva African American History

​Class Photo
Maryland Historical Trust WI-496

​Glass Hill School Now in Pittsville
2023

​Glass Hill and the schoolhouse also served as the birthplace of the Seventh Tabernacle in Salisbury when its founder, John Elzey Parker, came to visit his sister, Jennie Parker, in 1921 and established his congregation in Glass Hill.  Both homes and the Glass Hill School were used to hold services until the congregation moved to Salisbury where it remains active. 
The construction of the Bishop Methodist Church and the Glass Hill School after the Civil War give the impression that this was a growing community at the end of the 19th century and into the early 20th century with the establishment of the Seventh Tabernacle. The community was even slated to get its own Rosenwald School in 1929. According to the United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form on Rosenwald Schools in Maryland from 2014, the final year of Rosenwald School construction was set to be in 1929-1930, with fifteen schools across Maryland being built in this final period of the Rosenwald School Building Program. Glass Hill was among the 15 schools listed in this Property Documentation Form. 
Searching through land records reveals that in August of 1929 one acre of land was given to the Wicomico Board of Education with the property being named “Wicomico County School Lot Glass Hill” suggesting that this lot was meant to be used for the construction of a Rosenwald School on Old County Road.  This transaction was also published in The Daily Times the same month, noting that the Board of Education of Wicomico obtained one acre in the Pittsburg District for the consideration of $10 from Sarah Parker.  However, as a future StoryWay will reveal, it is unlikely that this school ever managed to be built.

Wicomico County School Lot
Glass Hill
Wicomico County Circuit Court Plats Microfilm
1929​

​By the latter half of the 20th century, it seemed that Glass Hill was unfortunately beginning to decline. The 1996 interviews mention how the old homes of Glass Hill were gradually being replaced with mobile homes as the old residents passed on or moved away. Land sales also have contributed to the dwindling of the community. Bishop Methodist Church was not spared from this decline either, with its congregation shrinking to about 15 members by the end of the 20th century. The Great Depression is credited with causing the exodus out of Glass Hill according to the residents. 

​Lillie Mitchell and Margaret Kelsaw Pulling Grass from around Tombstone
Times photo by Brice Stump
c. 1996

​Today, not much remains to remind people that this was once a growing Black community, with only the church and cemetery serving as a reminder of this village’s history. Although, those too face the danger of being forgotten give their current states. Racial barriers not only physically separated Glass Hill from Pittsville and Parsonsburg but have also separated their history from these towns. To preserve the memory of this town and give its residents the recognition that they deserve, several StoryWays will be published delving into the history of Glass Hill as a way of solidifying Glass Hill as a community that grew alongside Pittsville.

References:

Primary Sources
“Answer to Today’s A Moment in Time.” The Daily Times, February 9, 1998.

Atlas of Wicomico, Somerset & Worcester Cos., Md. Philadelphia: Lake, Griffing & Stevenson, 1877.

“Building Shore History.” The Daily Times, March 27, 2004.

“Deeds Recorded.” The Daily Times, August 16, 1929.

“Notice.” The Daily Times, April 14, 1943.

Wicomico Co. School Lot Glass Hill. Land Records IDT 158, p. 585 MSA S1548-1062, Wicomico County Circuit Court, Salisbury, MD.
https://plats.msa.maryland.gov/pages/unit.aspx?cid=WI&qualifier=S&series=1548&unit=1062&page=adv1&id=1393454667. 

WI-503 Calvary M. E. Church Architectural Survey File, 29 August 2003. Maryland Historical Trust Maryland Inventory of Historic Property Form Inventory No. WI-503, Maryland Historical Trust, Crownsville, MD.
https://apps.mht.maryland.gov/medusa/PDF/Wicomico/WI-503.pdf. 

WI-496 Glass Hill School Architectural Survey File, 29 August 2003. Maryland Historical Trust Maryland Inventory of Historic Property Form Inventory No. WI-503, Maryland Historical Trust, Crownsville, MD.
https://apps.mht.maryland.gov/medusa/PDF/Wicomico/WI-496.pdf. 

Secondary Sources:

Duyer, Linda. “Wicomico County’s Seventh Tabernacle.” Delmarva African American History. Accessed January 2, 2024. https://aahistorydelmarva.wordpress.com/2013/10/03/wicomico-countys-seventh-tabernacle/. 

National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form “Rosenwald Schools of Maryland.” Maryland’s National Register Properties, Maryland Historical Trust, Crownsville, MD.
​https://apps.mht.maryland.gov/nr/NRMPSDetail.aspx?MPSId=25. ​

“Remembering the One-Room Schoolhouse.” Shoreline, September 9, 2008.

“Seeing Through Time in Glass Hill.” The Daily Times, May 14, 1996.

           Wilmore Brown Leonard was born December 30, 1916 to Katherine Brown Leonard and Howard E. Leonard, and was reared on Board Street, in Salisbury, Maryland.  He graduated from Salisbury Colored High School. After high school, he entered and graduated from Hampton Institute, now Hampton University, in Hampton, Virginia, in 1939 with a bachelor’s degree in science.  While at Hampton Institute, he was Captain of the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC).
         After graduating from Hampton Institute, Wilmore Leonard taught for two years at Accomack County High School in Parksley, Virginia.  By 1941, World War II had begun and Leonard volunteered for the United States Army Air Corps in the fall of 1941 and was accepted in January of 1942.  However, it was not easy for African American men to serve in the United States segregated military forces.
         At the time, they had to fight for the right to serve in other than menial jobs.  However, due to protests against racism and segregation led by the black civilian workforce, black women’s groups, black college students, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and an interracial coalition that resisted inequality in the fighting forces, blacks were reluctantly allowed to enlist in the newly created United States Air Force.  Despite opposition to the contrary, First Lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt took a flight with one of the black pilots who became known as the Tuskegee Airmen.  A combination of those groups and their protests combined with Mrs. Roosevelt’s bold stance helped to change some of the skepticism about the black pilots and their abilities to fly aircrafts.
          It was in January of 1941 that the United States War Department announced the formation of an all-black pursuit squadron of fighter planes and the creation of the training program at Tuskegee Army Air Field, Tuskegee, Alabama, for black pilots.  White officers questioned the physical and mental ability of black men to serve or pilot fighter air craft.  Unlike the rest of the Army, the 99th Squadron and the 332nd Group, which was made up of the 100th, 301st, and 302nd Squadrons had black officers.  The all-black Army Air Command consisted of 400 enlisted men, 33 pilots and 27 airplanes. Those men were America’s first black military airmen, and most of them were high school and college graduates. 
        Those Tuskegee Airmen performed well despite the racism and discrimination they experienced on a daily basis and gained an impressive record.   They flew over 15,500 sorties and completed 1,598 missions in Africa, France, Italy, Poland, and Russia, escorting 200 heavy bombers deep into Germany.  They accumulated 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses, a Legion of Merit, a Silver Star, 14 Bronze Stars, and 744 Air Medals.  It was not easy because at first many American white pilots refused to associate with them until the French and other foreign pilots asked the Tuskegee Airmen to escort and defend them on missions due to their outstanding battle records.
          Wilmore Leonard volunteered in 1941 and graduated from Tuskegee’s Army Airfield School’s Single Engine Section in Class SE-42-H on September 6, 1942.  On that date, he earned his wings, was commissioned a Second Lieutenant, and was the first African American from the Eastern Shore to do so.  He was a member of the 6th cadet graduation class and was one of the first 50 African American combat fighter pilots in American history.  His squadron was the first to join the 332nd Fighter Group.  Leonard also joined the 99th Squadron, a part of the 332nd Fighter Group, known as the “Red Tails,” flew bomber escort missions for the 15th Air Force, attacked enemy positions in support of ground forces, and engaged in air combat.      
          During his active military career, Wilmore Leonard was stationed at Tuskegee, Alabama; Oscoda, Michigan; Camp Kilmer, New Jersey; and Selfridge Field, Michigan.  He and other black officers were often discriminated against and were not given the same accommodations and privileges as White officers.   Leonard, the other Tuskegee Airmen, and African American soldiers fought the Double V:  fought for  victory in Europe during the war and also fought for democracy at home when they returned to the United States, even though they were treated better in Europe and Germany than at home.
           For his meritorious duty as a Tuskegee Airman, Wilmore B. Leonard was awarded seven Battle Stars.  In 1945, he acted as the head of the Department of Technical Inspection for the United States Army and retired from active military duty in 1946 with the rank of Captain.  However, after the war ended, Wilmore Leonard remained in the Army Reserves and obtained the rank of Major. 
         In 1947, Wilmore Leonard applied for and was provisionally admitted to the University of Maryland’s graduate school for a postgraduate course in chemistry. However, the university refused to admit Leonard, an ex-Army decorated officer, on the grounds that the formal notice in writing of his acceptance as a student had been “a mistake.”  An investigation revealed that in 1947 Leonard was offered provisional enrollment, supposedly due to poor grades compared to other applicants.  Further investigation also revealed that when all applications had been received, Wilmore Leonard and at least six other black candidates who sought admission to the graduate school were denied admission.
         The records revealed that the president of the university rejected Leonard’s application for admission, but it was Edgar F. Long, the head of admissions at the University of Maryland, who travelled to Leonard’s home in Salisbury, Maryland in an effort to force Leonard to turn over the printed card that granted him provisional admittance to the university.  Leonard refused to return the card, at which point Long told Leonard to keep it as a souvenir because his admission had been “a mistake.” Long then offered Leonard a scholarship for out-of-state study, possibly out of fear that Leonard would sue the university and/or seek media support for his cause.  A September 27, 1947 Chicago Defender newspaper article related Leonard’s case and the fact that the college cited dissatisfaction with his previous average grades as a ruse for having denied him admission instead of stating that it was possibly due to Leonard’s race.  The same scenario was also cited in a Baltimore Afro-American newspaper article, dated August 16, 1947.
          Upon rejection of his admission to the University of Maryland, in 1948 Wilmore Leonard enrolled in Howard University’s School of Dentistry and earned the Doctor of Dental Surgery in 1952.  He taught as a professor of dentistry for 25 years at Howard University (HU) until he retired in May of 1976.  During that period, he served as Howard University’s Associate Director of Clinics, and was also Secretary to the Faculty.   He taught oral diagnosis, endodontics, oral therapeutics, and pharmacology.  Howard University’s School of Dentistry awarded him the HU College of Dentistry Alumni Award for outstanding contributions to dental education.  He was a member of the American Dental Association, the National Dental Association, the Robert T. Freeman Dental Society and the District of Columbia Dental Society.  He also authored multiple journal articles on periodontology and endodontics.  He officially retired from dentistry in May of 1977.
          Local and family lore has stated that Dr. Wilmore B. Leonard used the money that was given to him by Edgar F. Long, the head of admissions at the University of Maryland, to open and establish Leonard’s dental office in Washington, D.C.  Dr. Leonard had a distinguished career as a dental surgeon and as one of the 1007 documented Tuskegee Airmen.  Dr. Wilmore Brown Leonard, a beloved dentist, professor, Tuskegee Airman and Eastern Shore and Salisbury, Maryland native died at the age of 61 from cancer on April 2, 1978 at Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C.
 
NOTE: There are at least eleven (11) other Tuskegee Airmen known to have been born, reared, worked and lived on Delmarva.

Dr. Clara Small
Professor Emeritus at Salisbury University 

​Education is something that many Americans take for granted today, but for some groups of people, especially Black Americans, education was much harder to come by. Black education throughout American history had been restricted in several ways, either by directly prohibiting it, as was the case before the Civil War and Reconstruction, or by finding ways to undermine it, such as through segregation during the Jim Crow Era. However, Black determination for an education led Black Americans to find ways around these restrictions. Rosenwald Schools were a product of this determination and helped facilitate Black education throughout the South, including on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. 

Colored Scholars Excluded from Schools
The John Hay Library, Brown University
1839

Prior to the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, many states had passed laws barring the enslaved from receiving an education. These laws became far more common following Nat Turner’s slave revolt in 1831 and even affected the education of free Black people. Education and literacy among the enslaved and free was deemed to be a threat to the institution of slavery. Literacy allowed slaves to question their standing in society, read abolitionist materials, and made it generally more difficult for slave owners to maintain control over the enslaved. In a way, literacy served as an avenue to freedom. Even after abolition and Reconstruction, Black education remained restricted through racial segregation to maintain the status quo of the racial hierarchy. Black schools were underfunded and too few to provide a solid education for Black children. However, one Black man’s ambitions for education soon changed this. 

​Wartime Education
American Antiquarian Society
1863

​Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) played a significant role in the world of Black education. Born as a slave on a Virginia plantation, Washington later worked in the salt industry in Malden, West Virginia, and then in the coal mines. In his autobiography Up From Slavery, he recalls an “intense longing to learn to read” as a child and made it his life goal to be able to read. Growing up, Washington found that opportunities for education were scarce and that the Black people that grew up in the coal mines tended to stagnate. Without an education and no knowledge of what life was like outside of the mines, they became trapped with no ambition to get out of the mines. Washington understood that receiving an education was the key to escaping this fate and left for the Hampton Normal School in 1872 with very few belongings and little money. Making the journey through a combination of hitch hiking and walking, Washington graduated from Hampton in 1875 and was greatly influenced by its principal Samuel Chapman Armstrong. Armstrong had advocated a particular kind of practical education: one that both elevates and installs character into African Americans. Washington applied this philosophy of self-help in the construction of Tuskegee Normal School after his appointment as principal by borrowing money to buy land and having students build the necessary materials. 

​Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)
Library of Congress
1905

​In the early 20th Century, the state of Black education in the South remained poor. There were very few public schools and the ones that did exist lacked adequate facilities, supplies, and staff. In the early 20th century, Booker T. Washington had begun using money from various philanthropists to construct single room schoolhouses in the South and reached out to Julius Rosenwald in 1912. Washington proposed to build six schoolhouses with $600 each and using community labor with local materials to save on costs. The idea intrigued Rosenwald who put up $2,800. 

Julius Rosenwald
Fisk University

Loachapoka School, Alabama, the First Rosenwald School
Sears Home Services Blog
1913

​These six schoolhouses were deemed a success and motivated Rosenwald to continue funding future schools, which in turn helped garner the interest of Southern states in supporting Black education. What had started as a small initiative in Alabama soon spread throughout the South. In 1920 the school building program’s management was transferred to the Rosenwald Fund under the leadership of S.L. Smith who sent out standardized plans to interested Black leaders. By the end of the 1920s, there was a shift away from building single room schools as demand declined. In 1931 the goal of 5,000 schools was surpassed and Edwin Embree, who had taken control of the Fund in the late 1920s, suggested a halt to the school building program. Embree wanted the concentration of the Fund moved to maintaining and improving the quality of education in the schools and Rosenwald consented. 

The Julius Rosenwald Fund Schoolhouse Construction Map
Fisk University
1932

​Maryland had benefited greatly from the Rosenwald Fund in terms of Black education. It was not until 1872 that Maryland’s constitution required school districts to provide an education to Black children and even then, public funding was still insufficient. The Rosenwald Fund helped solve this problem, but the Fund and success still relied on funding from the state and community. As with other Rosenwald Schools, those in Maryland derived funding from three sources: public funding (state and county), the community, and the Rosenwald Fund. In most cases, public and community funding had to at least match what the Rosenwald Fund was providing. Another aspect of these schools was that many of these communities helped provide the materials, labor, and in most (if not all cases) the land, for these schools. These factors helped ensure that communities were invested in the success of the schools. The estimated number of Rosenwald Schools built in Maryland was 156 according to the Maryland Historical Trust with around 50 still standing. On the Lower Eastern Shore there were a total of 27 built. 

​In Wicomico County there were nine Rosenwald Schools built. The San Domingo School continues standing as a unique example of a Rosenwald School in Mardela Springs. Originally called Sharptown Colored School, it was built in 1919 following a petition by San Domingo’s Black community for a school. However, their petition stood out from the others as they were willing to donate nearly all the necessary materials. Residents donated two acres of land, were willing to cut and deliver the lumber, willing to excavate the basement, and were willing to raise money for the materials. Seeing this offer, the Wicomico Board of Education decided to plan a four-room school, allocating $3,500 for the school. The community put up $800 while the Rosenwald Fund provided $500.

San Domingo School was unique in that it deviated from the typical Rosenwald design. Most schools were designed to be single-story with few corridors to maximize space and save on costs. Buildings also had to face east-west to efficiently make use of sunlight due to the lack of rural electricity. These guidelines were strictly enforced, and variations required approval by an administrator. San Domingo, on the other hand, was a two-story school, but still had an efficient plan. Folding doors gave the interior space flexibility, allowing rooms to be divided and combined as needed. Additionally, large windows, like with all Rosenwald Schools, provided natural lighting to the interior. 

​Community School Plans from a 1924 Rosenwald Fund Bulletin
The Journal of the American Institute of Architects
1924

​San Domingo School operated from 1919 until 1961 when it was sold by the Board of Education to the Trustees of the Sharptown Recreation and Lodge Center who remodeled the building as a lodge and community center. In the 2000s there was an effort led by Newell Quinton, a former student at the school, to restore the school using $200,000 raised through grants and community donations. By 2014, San Domingo was opened as a community center and recreation of the original school.

San Domingo Community and Cultural Center
Delmarva African American History
2014

Worcester County saw a total of eleven Rosenwald Schools built. In Berlin, the Germantown School follows a more traditional Rosenwald building plan. Germantown School is a single story two-room classroom with large windows on its east and west side to maximize the use of sunlight. Also, like other Rosenwald Schools, Germantown was built through community initiative. In 1922 Isaac B. Henry and Mary L. Henry sold two acres to the Board of Education for $10 to be used for the construction of a school. The community also raised the necessary funds to match those of the Rosenwald Fund and the county. Having the land, money, and labor at hand accelerated the approval process and allowed the school to be built and opened the following year. 

Original Germantown School
Germantown School Community Heritage Center
c.1920s-1950s

Germantown School Community Heritage Center
2023 

​Germantown School remained in service until the desegregation of schools in the 1950s at which point it was turned into a garage for Worcester County. However, in the 1990s, community interest led to a movement to reclaim the school from the County. Much like San Domingo, this effort was led by a former student, Joseph Purnell.  In the early 2000s the deed was restored and in 2005 it was estimated that $250,000 was needed for the restoration of Germantown School. A good amount of this budget was provided through grants, but like the original construction, much was provided by community donations and fundraising. In 2010 the Germantown School had its groundbreaking, marking the beginning of a three-year restoration process. The school now serves its original purpose again: bringing the community together through events, lectures, and exhibits. 

Germantown School Turned into a County Garage
Germantown School Community Heritage Center
c.1960-2000

Germantown School Classroom Recreation
Germantown School Community Heritage Center
2023

​In Somerset County there were seven Rosenwald Schools. These again were a product of Black investment and interest in education. As of the publishing of this article, no Rosenwald School has been restored as San Domingo or Germantown schools were. Most are in poor condition, but newspaper articles reflect the effort put in by Black communities to have these schools built. One 1930 edition of the Marylander and Herald mentions the building of the Greenwood School, a two-room Rosenwald School, as part of the Rosenwald Plan. According to this, the school was to be built next to the existing school and work was to begin immediately. Another edition of the Marylander and Herald, this time from 1951, describes maintenance done on Black schools, including Rosenwald Schools, and the amounts spent on each. Greenwood had running water installed as well along with two additional partitions. Superintendent C. Allen commented on these improvements, writing that parent teacher associations played a major role in these repairs by providing much of the labor and materials needed. This continued support of the schools by the community years after their construction reflects the dedication of Black communities to the education of their youth as well as the success of the Rosenwald program in keeping the community invested in the long-term success of these schools. 

Front View of the Former Dames Quarter School
Photo by Karen Prengaman
2023

​Interior of Abandoned Dames Quarter School
Photo by Karen Prengaman
​2023

While Rosenwald Schools were often criticized for their promotion of a practical or vocational education, they still contributed greatly to the education of Black Americans in the early 20th century not only by directly providing an education, but also by getting state governments to care about Black education. The initial success of the Rosenwald funded schools encouraged public funding to be used for Black education in Alabama and this pattern soon spread throughout the South. Additionally, until Brown V. Board of Education resulted in the beginning of the desegregation of schools, these Rosenwald Schools were often the only source of education for rural Black communities and provided an education that the students’ forebears did not have access to. This striving for an education also served as a form of Black resistance as it was a way for Black Americans to empower themselves and undermine the restrictions of the Jim Crow Era that were meant to keep the Black population suppressed.

Andre Nieto Jaime
​B.A. History

Patrick Henry was born in February of 1952 in Berlin, Maryland to Samuel Henry, Sr., a Navy veteran of World War II, and Marigold Kee Henry from Seaboard, North Carolina.  Reared on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Patrick’s primary and elementary education was at the Flower Street Elementary School in Berlin, and his freshman year of high school was at Worcester County High School.  In the fall of 1965, with the integration of the public schools, Patrick attended Stephen Decatur High School, from which he graduated in 1970.  

He did not attend college immediately following graduation from high school, but several months later he enrolled in Maryland State College, now the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES).  At UMES, he majored in art, something he developed an interest in at an early age, but he was basically self-taught.  He began painting by numbers when he was a student at Flower Street School.  His interest in oil painting and painting began about age 14 or 15.  His first painting was sold in 1968 while he was still in high school.  Most of his early subjects were of his environment, of servitude, and black leaders, such as Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Stokely Carmichael, H. Rapp Brown, and others of that era.  At UMES, his master professors were Ernie Satchell and Jimmie Mosely, his mentor and the art professor for whom the Mosely Gallery at UMES was named.   While studying at UMES, Patrick Henry was judged the Most Talented Student.  He graduated from UMES in 1975 and was the first in his family to graduate from college.  His graduation was a joyous occasion, but it was also a very sad time of his life because his father passed away about the same period. 

Upon graduation from college, Patrick’s first teaching job was teaching art at his alma mater, Stephen Decatur High School.   After two years of teaching, he made the decision to leave the teaching profession and to pursue his art on a permanent basis.  His goal was to attend Virginia Commonwealth University and obtain a master’s degree in Art Education.  Unfortunately, due to a family crisis, he was asked to return home.  He returned to Berlin, helped his brothers with masonry, construction and maintenance work, and pursued oil painting on a part-time basis.  However, by the 1980’s, he began to actively pursue his passion.
​
For thirty years, the environment of the Eastern Shore dominated his canvasses.  He referred to the Shore as...

...”a land of people: watermen, farmers, brick masons, teachers and day
laborers.  They live their lives intertwined-knowing each other and the 
land around them with a depth of knowledge that is not forgotten as the 
years go by and as the people and the land changed."

For Patrick Henry, art is his passion, and he has compared art to his heart beat.  For Patrick, art and his heart beat, are synonymous with his existence. They are as intertwined as the land and people of the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  Art was also a challenge for him, especially in a place where there is often no appreciation of art, often a lack of understanding of its value, or a need for financial assistance for it to survive or thrive.
​ 
By the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, Patrick Henry was solely involved in honing his craft and participated in numerous exhibitions throughout the Mid-Atlantic region and various galleries on and off of the Eastern Shore.  A show in Annapolis, Maryland exposed his work to collectors beyond the Eastern Shore. A major mural commission at Atlantic General Hospital highlighted his career in the 1990s and his pen and oil graphics were marketed through t-shirts, tote bags and other printed art products. In1996, Patrick was the recipient of the Berlin Award, presented annually to an individual who has by unselfish efforts and dedication, made outstanding contributions in service to the Town of Berlin and the immediate region.

Patrick Henry has presented numerous exhibits and as a result has been the recipient of various awards and accolades, including the following: 
• “Moments: In Color, Geometry, Texture and Light,” which premiered at the Ocean City Center on the Arts, July of 2015.
• ‘Ephemeral Moments,’ an exhibit held at the Academy Art Museum in Easton, Maryland, February 4-April 1, 2012.
• The “Amusement” series, a 27-piece collection which depicted some of Ocean City’s most memorable amusement and entertainment features was completed.  Some of the pieces were purchased as the fifth addition to the Artists of the Eastern Shore Collection established by Dr. Amy Stephens Meekins and family. (2011) The original oil painting ‘Trimper’s Luna Park, Ocean City, Maryland-circa 1925, is prominently displayed in the Teacher Education and Technology Center (TETC), now Conway Hall,  at Salisbury University, Salisbury.
• The Maryland Life Magazine selected Patrick Henry as the Lower Eastern Shore’s Finest Artist in 2011.
• Patrick’s paintings titled “Up! Up! And Away” and “Foggy Harbor-West Ocean City” were added to “Berlin Milling Company” (originally bought by the Reginald Lewis Museum in 2010) became a part of the Reginald Lewis Museum Permanent Art Collection, October 31, 2014.
• “Points of Juxtaposition:  A Gathering of Eight African-American Artists” was presented at the Mosley Gallery at UMES, February 1-26, 2010.
• “Maryland Artist Showcase: Works of Art by Patrick Henry” was presented at the Reginald Lewis Museum, in 2008.
• “Patrick Henry: Into the Light,” exhibit was held at the Reginald Lewis Museum of African American History and Culture in Baltimore, Maryland, 2007.
• Patrick Henry was named “Delmarva’s Best Local Artist” by Salisbury’s The Daily Times, Salisbury, Maryland, 2005.    

       Over the years, Patrick’s horizon has been broadened and included other subjects than the Eastern Shore.  He is also working in a special program to encourage young protégés.  The four facets of the program are visual, musical, performing arts, and literary arts.  The ultimate goal of the program is to inspire young people to appreciate art, to become great artists, to preserve art and to help it thrive.  Patrick also believes that if artists can conquer the seven deadly negative curses of doubt, fear, guilt, limiting beliefs, self-sabotage, jealousy, and addiction, and replace them with positive beliefs of courage, freedom, limitless possibilities, self-love, self-worth, and abstinence, they can succeed.  As such, Patrick hopes to mentor young artists, help them believe in their passions, and encourage them to succeed as artists and in life. 

       Even though Patrick’s paintings primarily focuses on rural life and the environment on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, his art inspires others to remember the past and scenes that are rapidly fading from the landscape and their collective memories.  Recently, Patrick has presented exhibits at the Germantown School Community Heritage Center in Berlin and the Ward Museum in Salisbury, among other venues.  The exhibits at those two locations, showed photographs of local individuals from the Berlin area that had been saved and originally stored in a never-used dishwasher.  The photographs included those of African American children at play, displays of vintage automobiles, and workers at a former mansion, among other subjects. 

        A September 2023 exhibit, the “Phillips Canning Factory Show,” is presently on display at the Germantown School Community Heritage Center.  The exhibit highlights the operations of the canning factories on the Eastern Shore and its impact on the area through photographs and memories of the people of the local area.  It also focuses on the often overlooked cultural impact upon the lives of the people who toiled there, especially many of the women.  The exhibit focuses on the canning industry, but it also captures the experiences and memories of many of those women who were employed there, as they worked to supplement their families’ income, to survive, and to care for their families. 
​
        Patrick Henry is a multi-faceted artist whose roots are deeply imbedded in the Eastern Shore.  His portraits and paintings of rural, environmental landscapes, and paintings of local individuals tells a thousand stories of strife and successes, while simultaneously depicting the lives of people who toiled so that future generations could survive and thrive.  Patrick’s works show that we are who we are because of the subjects he depicts and that the present generation is standing on their shoulders.  As such, it is our responsibility to remember those who paved the way for present and future generations.  Patrick Henry, a renowned artist, is also a historical artist, who preserves local Eastern Shore history and culture through his art.

Dr. Clara Small

Map of the West Coast of Africa from Sierra Leone to Cape Palmas, including the colony of Liberia
Library of Congress
1830​

In late 1816 the American Colonization Society (ACS) was founded to expatriate free Black Americans to Africa. Soon after, auxiliary branches of the ACS formed in several states, of which Maryland was a prominent branch. They all shared the goal of giving freed African Americans equality and freedom denied to them in American society. However, this came with a catch. To claim this promised liberty, African Americans had to leave the United States for the continent of their forefathers. Many decided to take the risk and emigrated to what would become Liberia. From 1820 until 1860 10,939 people of African descent took up the ACS on its offer and left for Liberia. However, most African Americans felt that the U.S. was their homeland and that emigrating to Africa was out of the question. Many abolitionists also condemned the idea of colonization for not actually addressing the issue of slavery. 

The concept of colonization to address the peculiar institution was nothing new. In the late 18th century during the American revolutionary period there were talks of emancipating and relocating the Black population elsewhere, with Thomas Jefferson himself proposing the idea in 1777. Jefferson even considered the idea of resettling African Americans to the British colony of Sierra Leone during his presidency. In the early 19th century politicians like Charles Fenton Mercer and even religious figures such as Reverend Robert S. Finley took an interest in the idea of colonization. By the end of 1816 the ACS was founded and six years later, in 1822 Liberia was established. By 1825 the colonization movement was widespread across the U.S. due to the increased racial tensions between White and free Black Americans.
​
The Maryland State Colonization Society (MSCS) was founded on the heels of the ACS in 1817. This organization was supported through taxes as well as fees that were paid to be used by the MSCS while registering slaves brought into the state. This is seen when in 1841 a man by the name of Henry P. Norris registered an enslaved girl named Eliza at the clerk’s office in Worcester County and paid a $15 fee for use in colonization.

The MSCS ultimately split from the ACS and acted on its own for the most part, but they both shared very similar goals and fears. Maryland saw its free Black population as a growing problem, as Maryland was the state with the largest free African American population in the United States. Nat Turner’s rebellion in 1831 sparked even greater concern about the free Black population, believing that they would incite similar rebellions if left unchecked. Colonization provided Maryland with a convenient solution to their troubles. In February of 1834 the MSCS established its own colony at Cape Palmas, creatively named Maryland in Liberia. By 1856 over one thousand African Americans had decided to leave Maryland for Africa. 
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​Receipts into the Treasury in the year ended 1st December, 1852, Report of the Comptroller, 1852, Volume 196, Page 37
Maryland State Archives 
1852

Cape Palmas
Library of Congress
1854​

​R. McGill, full-length portrait, seated in chair, facing front, with textile screen in background
Library of Congress
C. 1840-1860

Yet, most Black Americans remained unconvinced about colonization. They doubted the sincerity of the ACS and often saw it simply a ploy to strengthen slavery. William Watkins, a Black anti-colonial activist from Maryland, expressed this doubt in his 1827 letter to Freedom’s Journal. Watkins recognized that he should be enthusiastic about any attempts to improve the status and condition of the Black American. This idea was quickly dropped, and he began to criticize the “African Colonization Society” and their supposed benevolence and philanthropy. Watkins sees flaws with the society, saying, “It appears strange to me that those benevolent men should feel so much for the condition of the free coloured people, and at the same, cannot sympathize in the least degree, with those whose condition appeals so much louder to their humanity and benevolence.”  Watkins is suspicious of the sincerity of the ACS’ concern for the Black population, arguing that the ACS did not have the slightest idea about the free Black experience and that the society has ulterior motives. Without explicitly saying so, he calls out the Society for being led by the White elite that was set out to promote its own interests, not the interests of free Black people.
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Another reason that free African Americans from Maryland rejected colonization was that they adamantly held that Maryland was their home. In the same letter to Freedom’s Journal, William Watkins demanded answers to several very important questions. Watkins asks, “Why this strong aversion to being united to us?… Why this desire to be so remotely alienated from us?” Watkins insisted on knowing why the ACS was so dead set on removing free African Americans from the U.S and why there was no discussion about the potential for Black and White American unity. He finds it baffling that free Black Americans must leave the place they were born and consider to be their “veritable home” for their economic, political, and social standing to be improved. This sentiment was repeated time and again by Black Marylanders and Americans throughout the 19th century. 
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​Arrival of Freedmen and Their Families at Baltimore, Maryland - an Every Day Scene
Maryland Center for History and Culture
1865

Maryland’s legislature, seeing that free African Americans preferred Maryland over Liberia and terrified by Nat Turner’s Slave Rebellion in 1831, took measures to force the consideration of colonization. During the 1831-1832 session, an act was passed that created a board tasked with relocating the freed Black population, and any slaves emancipated in the future, to Liberia or elsewhere outside of the state. Additionally, the law required manumissions to be reported to this board along with, including the individual’s name and age. From the board, information regarding any newly emancipated slaves was required to be passed down to the ACS or the MSCS so that they could take action to send the manumitted person to Liberia. 
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The act was worded in a way to make it appear as if emigration to Liberia was voluntary, claiming that African Americans “may be willing to remove out of the state to the colony of Liberia… or to such other place or places, out of the limits of the state” and “shall consent to go,” but this was far from the case. If the individual refused the offer to leave the state then “it shall be the duty of the said board of managers to remove the said person or persons… beyond the limits of this state” according to the act. If there was resistance to leave Maryland, the board was to inform the local sheriff who was then to arrest the individual and forcibly take them out of Maryland.

This, of course, was quickly denounced. An 1833 issue of The Abolitionist contains a story titled “Patriotism and Benevolence of the Colonization Society” which was quick to point out the hypocrisy of the MSCS, bringing attention to what is to happen if an individual refuses removal. This policy was denounced as “cruel and tyrannical,” and as not giving slaves any real choice in regards to their freedom. The author reaffirmed their belief that every slave that is emancipated in Maryland has just as much of a right to live in Maryland as a White American does. 

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​​Horrid Massacre
University of Virginia Special Collections 
1831

Liberia declared independence in 1847 and Maryland in Liberia unanimously voted for independence in 1853. By the Civil War African American interest in leaving for Liberia peaked due to lost hope in their situation improving. Abraham Lincoln himself even considered colonization as an option to keep the border states from seceding during the Civil War. Abolition after the Civil War rekindled the hope of racial equality at home and put the final nail in the coffin for colonization. Despite being ostracized by White society, free African Americans throughout the 19th century adamantly rejected the idea of forging a new life in Liberia. Instead, they would fight for civil rights at home, even into the late 20th century, maintaining for over a century that the U.S. was their true home and that coexistence between White and Black Americans was possible.


Andre Nieto Jaime (B.A. History)
AmeriCorps Volunteer
September 9, 2023 
​

Crystal Dreda Bird was born June 27, 1894, in Princess Anne, Maryland, the
youngest of nine siblings to Benjamin Oliver Bird, the first principal of Princess
Anne Academy (now the University of Maryland Eastern Shore), and Portia E.
Lovett Bird. Upon the death of Benjamin Bird in April of 1897, Portia took over
the Academy’s leadership until her own death two years later in March of 1899.
Just over five years old when her mother died, Crystal was reared in Boston by her
maternal aunt, Lucy Groves and was educated in the integrated public schools of
Boston.

In 1914, Crystal received a degree from Boston Normal School, and taught
in the public schools for three years. In 1918, she began work as a supervisor with
the Young Women’s Christian Association (YMCA) and traveled the United States
of America, Cuba and Mexico as the YMCA’s representative on services for blacks.
She was also associated with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a
service organization affiliated with the Quakers.

After the relief effort in Europe ended in 1924, it was decided that better
interracial relations needed to be addressed in the United States. In 1925, an
Interracial Section was formed in the AFSC and Crystal Bird was offered a staff
position, and she began work with the group in 1927. Her goal with the organi-
zation was to “have people of other racial groups understand the humanness of
the Negro wherever he is found,” and to literally “lift the curtain of misunder-
standing that is so dividing us.” From September of 1927 to September of 1928,
she made 210 appearances before over more than 40,000 people (mostly whites)
for the AFSC. Her emphasis was to present the contributions of African Ameri-
cans to American life, which often included an analysis of prejudice because she
realized that many white Americans did not understand nor think of African
Americans as humans.

In 1931, Crystal Bird graduated from Teachers College Columbia University
with a Bachelor of Science degree and worked as a social worker and administrator of Negro Affairs for the YMCA in New York City and Philadelphia. While a student at Columbia University, Crystal was an accomplished singer and pianist, but she was also a social activist. She repeatedly gave a lecture entitled “Music in
the Life of America.” In 1931, she married Arthur Huff Fauset (1899-1983), a soci-
ologist, anthropologist, and political activist, a University of Pennsylvania
alumnus, and Principal of Philadelphia’s Singerly Public School. He was from a
well-established family and was the fourth known African American to have
received the doctorate in anthropology. Sadly, the marriage did not last over a
year and he divorced her in 1944.

In 1932, Crystal Bird Fauset established the Colored Women’s Activities
Club for the Democratic National Committee where she helped African American
women register to vote. The next year, she helped to establish and was named
executive secretary for the Institute of Race Relations at Swarthmore College,
where she documented incidents of job and housing discrimination in Pennsylvan-
ia. In 1935, she became director of the Negro Women’s activities for the Demo-
cratic National Committee, and in 1936 was appointed assistant personnel di-
rector in the Philadelphia Office of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

Crystal Bird Fauset was such a prominent and prolific figure in Philadelphia’s politics and was so active in getting people to vote, especially women, that in 1938, she was asked by Philadelphia’s local Democratic Party to run for a seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. She was elected on November 8,
1938 to the Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, as the first African
American woman ever elected to a state legislature. She won in a district where
two-thirds of the voters were White. In office, her focus was on slum clearance,
low-cost housing projects, public health, public relief, protection for women in the
workplace, and fair employment legislation which banned discrimination against
minorities.

In 1939, Pennsylvania’s Governor George Earle recognized Crystal Bird
Fauset’s efforts by giving her the Meritorious Service Medal. She kept her po-
siton in the legislature for only one year because she accepted an appointment in
November of 1939 to the Pennsylvania WPA as assistant director in charge of
education and recreational programs. She resigned her post in the Pennsylvania
State Legislature because she believed she was more effective helping people by
promoting equal justice and understanding between the races in her position with
the WPA. She was criticized for her decision to resign the positon, but it did not
deter her from her goal of helping others.

However, in 1941, with the assistance of her very close friend, First Lady
Eleanor Roosevelt, and New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, Crystal Bird
Fauset was appointed the special racial consultant on Negro Affairs in the Office
of Civilian Defense in Washington, D.C. As a result of those close connections to
major, powerful political figures, Crystal Bird Fauset was soon listed as a member
of President Roosevelt’s “Black Cabinet,” that promoted civil rights and fair en-
listment for Black Americans. Crystal Bird Fauset also helped to recruit Black
Americans for the military and the war effort.

During World War II, she disagreed with the formation of segregated Black
units within the military and its policy of racial discrimination. By 1944, she had
become disappointed with the Democratic Party and its mishandling of Black
Americans during the war. She did not care for its manner of excluding blacks
from combat missions, their assignment to menial jobs, their exclusion from USO
canteens, and other blatant discriminatory practices. After having expressed her
concerns with the Democratic Party and nothing seemed to have been done to
rectify those issues, Crystal Bird Fauset switched her political affiliation to the
Republican Party in 1944. She supported the Republican Party’s candidate,
Thomas E. Dewey, as she had the previous Democratic candidate, and eventually
became an advisor on Negro Affairs to the Republican National Committee.
Switching political parties did not further her political career, and it ended her
appointments to major national and local committees. Nonetheless, it did not
end her commitment or involvement in civic affairs and community activism.
Crystal Bird Fauset remained active in state and local politics. Other posit-
ions she held included the following:

•  Chair of the Philadelphia Negro Women’s Democratic League
• Member of the Board of Trustees, Cheyney State Teachers College
•  A Founder of the United Nations Council of Philadelphia, which became the World Affairs Council, (1945)
• Attended the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco, as an officer of the Philadelphia Council, (1950)
• Appointed to the Board of Directors of Philadelphia Small Business Opportunities Corporation, (1963).

For her work encouraging people to vote and participating in the political
process, her efforts to achieve international friendship and her leadership in the
American-Korean Foundation, Crystal Bird Fauset received her second Merito-
rious Service Medal from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It was presented
to her by Governor John S. Fine in 1955.
​
Crystal Bird Fauset did not retire from the political scene but continued to
help initiate political, social and economic change until she had a heart attack and
died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on March 27/28, 1965. Due to her commit-
ment to public service, a Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission Mar-
ker is located outside of her former home at 5402 Vine Street in Philadelphia.
Crystal Dreda Bird Fauset was born and spent her early years on the
campus of Princess Anne Academy (UMES), in Princess Anne Maryland, until she
was orphaned. She had the determination to succeed in spite of the odds against
her. She studied, learned, worked hard and became the first African American
woman to serve in a state legislature. She was a trailblazer, as she paved the way
for women to engage in politics and public service locally, nationally and interna-
tionally.