USA > Maryland > Caroline County > History of Caroline County, Maryland, from its beginning > Part 12
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I desire that my son shall receive but one shilling from my estate if he refuse to free all his slaves upon his becoming sixteen years of age.
I give and bequeath to my negro woman, named. Esther, her youngest child named Judy, to her forever.
I give unto my negro man Will a donation of five pounds cur- rent money per year.
I give unto my son William. old Bet, whose life is to be made comfortable.
CARL-The Last Slave.
"Gone are the days, when my heart was young and gay, Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away;
Gone from the earth, to a better land I know,
I hear their gentle voices calling Old Black Joe."
We found him sitting in the twilight, his eyes clear and bright for all his ninety years, yet filled with dreams of the past. We had met his grand children at the door, lastening to some entertainment and the room was filled with the happy confusion of their outgoing.
Cheerily he greeted us. Then by degrees we led him to talk of bygone days,-his days of bondage. Happily he spoke of them, of his home life, of his master, of to- bacco days in Maryland. Once when questioned he told
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of the fear of being sold to the cotton plantations in Georgia. Then his eyes blazed with the fire of youth and his voice took on a different tone.
Once more his mind turned to the happier vein of thought and told of driving old Massa to church in Greensboro, sitting outside under the rustling green trees, listening to the birds and bees until the service had ended. "Ah!" he said, "He was a good master."
Quietly his voice wandered on telling of plantation life in Caroline and as the light in the room dimmed slowly, his gray head sank forward and he sat silent, with his hands resting on his cane, dreaming of the past. We rose and passed out into the darkening night, leav- ing him there-the last representative of slavery days.
"I'm coming, coming, For my head is bending low,
I hear those gentle voices calling Old Black Joe."
Feb. 21, 1919.
LAURA COCHRANE.
After a visit to last slave in Greensboro.
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TAVERN OF JOE JOHNSON. The Son-in-Law of Patty Cannon.
SLAVE DEALERS.
Altho Maryland was a slave state, it is generally known that previous to the Civil War half of her people were opposed to slavery and public sentiment strong against the slave traffic, which, nevertheless, was car- ried on to some extent along the Maryland and Delaware peninsula. Chief among the dealers were Patty Can- non, Joe Johnson and Massy Fountain.
Patty Cannon and Joe Johnson, her son-in-law, kept a tavern at Johnson's Cross Roads, now Reliance. The location was ideal for their nefarious purpose, for the house was on the border of Sussex, Dorchester and Car- oline counties, twenty miles from a court house and ten from a town of any size. Under the strangely sloping roof of this hostelry was a concealed garret which served
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as a pen for captive slaves and free negroes who had been kidnapped to sell. Scattered about the counties, Patty Cannon had secret places where her agents col- lected victims. The poor negroes who were luckless enough to fall into her hands were sent to one of these hiding places until taken in charge by a southern trader, who to prevent any trouble arising during their deten- tion and journey handcuffed them together in what was known as a "coffle."
A force of men was employed to kidnap free negroes and indeed stories are told of the like disappearance of white people whose complexion resembled that of mulat- toes. "Aunt Patty," as she was commonly called, often assisted in this work and is credited with captur- ing men single handed, so great was her physical strength. She is still remembered by a few old people in the county as a short, thick-set woman with black hair and eyes, vivid coloring, and rather handsome in her cold, bold way.
Joe Johnson was a staunch ally in all Patty's schemes. After having been captured in Delaware and flogged at the whipping post for some unlawful business, he confined his activities to Maryland.
Not only were Patty Cannon and Joe Johnson ac- cused of illegal transactions in connection with the slave traffic, but other accusations such as robbing the mails, and killing travelers who stopped at the tavern and were suspected of having considerable money with them. Af- ter years of terrorizing the neighborhood, Patty Camion was delivered by the Maryland authorities to Delaware officials. Before the time for her trial, however, she died in Georgetown Jail. This was supposed to be a great relief to many prominent people throughout the state, as in the course of a court trial they would un- doubtedly have been exposed as accomplices in some of her questionable transactions. Joe Johnson made his escape and no definite information was ever found as to his whereabouts.
Massy Fountain, one of the prominent men in the Bridgetown community about 1820, was also a slave dealer. Tradition has it that he was one of Patty Can- non's crowd of kidnappers, but we find no proof of this and he was never accused of the other crimes of which she was instigator. Certain it is, however, that he bought and sold slaves. Maryland slave owners, feeling
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it a disgrace to deal openly for negroes, would secretly bring them to Fountain, who in turn would sell them to southern dealers. The cellar of the Fountain home was used as quarters for the darkies until convenient for the dealers to move'them south. This being "sold south in- to Georgia," as the slaves termed it, was the greatest terror of their lives.
Fountain was a man of considerable means and owned large tracts of land in the county. He was one of the most influential men in upper Caroline, and great- ly feared in political affairs, until his death in 1864. His grave may still be seen in the Bridgetown church yard, just over the boundary line in Queen Anne's county.
EARLY CORN SHELLER.
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AN OLD TIME MARYLAND SCHOOL (1838).
(The Original 'Possum Hollow School).
The school was but a quarter of a mile distant from home ; but to our childish fancies it was so far that moth- er gratified ns by putting up our dinners in a little bas- ket. Only big Sister Retta could be entrusted with that presious basket, and Emma and I cast many interested glances towards it as, hand in hand, and bearing the books, states, and inkstand, with goose quills to make pens, we proudly marched along the winding highway, under the leafless branches of the great white oaks which bordered the farther side.
At last with a gathering group of expectant child- ren, and youth of from five to twenty-one years of age, we stood before the open door of the new school-house. Not that the word new describes the house; very far from it; but the school was new. The school-master was a new arrival in the neighborhood, and the house was newly and for the first time used for so noble a purpose. Will the reader believe it? The house was really a de- sorted negro cabin, that stood by the highway side, near
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Townsend's Cross Roads, three miles from Denton, the county town. For an area of twenty-five square miles between that town and the Delaware line, this was the only school, and this was started by a private subscrip- tion managed by my father. The Maryland law, at that time, liberally provided that if the people of a neighbor- hood would subscribe for the tuition of twelve scholars at five dollars each, then the State would furnish a like amount for the education of the same number of "char- ity sccholars." There were no public provisions for school houses, and whether there was house or school, depended altogether upon the character of the popula- tion that, amid rural mutations, might happen to gather in any given neighborhood.
This new school and every school in that region for several years, was in a rented house. This particular house was built of logs, the interstices being filled with clay to keep ont wind and rain. It was eighteen or twenty feet square, and about eight feet to the eaves: with a door front and back, each opening ontwards. Mid- way between the doors and the north end where stood the chimney, at a convenient height, part of the log was sawed out, the aperture being filled with a three-light hanging window, which, as occasion required, could be propped up for ventilation.
Where the chimney stood was an aperture six feet wide and four feet high, into which the stone and mud walls of the fire-place were built to a height above where the blaze of the great log fire would usually reach ; and above that point the flue was made of logs and sticks, liberally daubed within of clay. At the south end of the house, in order to adapt it to its use as a literary insti- tution, almost an entire log had been removed. This aperture was covered by a wide board, fastened by hing- es to the log above, and secured to that below by staple and hook. Like the sash before mentioned, this board was propped up to admit needed light and fresh air. Just below this aperture was the writing desk, extending across the room against the wall. Here, alternately, the girls and boys made pot hooks and hangers with their goose quill pens, after the pattern set by the teacher; and finally graduated to the distinguished accomplish- ment of being able to draw a note of hand or receipt for ten dollars, good and lawful money of the United States of America, and to affix thereto their own real, written
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signatures. The teacher "set the copies" during the noon hour ; but made and mended pens at all hours, when they happened to be presented for that purpose. Hence the name still so commonly applied to the pocketknife. It was not unusual to see the teacher dividing his time and attention between a page of Comly's spelling-book, where some sweating pupil was painfully struggling with the problems of orthography, and the quill he was slit- ting and whittling, meanwhile stealing an occasional mo- ment for a furtive glance about the schoolroom, to see that there was no pinching, or pin-sticking, or snicker- ing behind books or slates going on among the unruly urchins.
In addition to the so-called writing-desk, the furni- ture of this schoolroom consisted of a desk and chair for the teacher, and three or four slab benches across the end of the room, next the writing-desk. In cold weather a bench was set near the great fire-place, and was occu- pied by alternate platoons of the shivering scholars to thaw themselves out. Three formidable hickory rods, of varying size and length, adapted to the sex and size of the culprits; and a pretty, little, red maple switch, suited to the esthetic tastes and tender sensibilities of the smaller urchins, completed the outfit. The entire curriculum of our school was covered by the three cab- alistic letters, R., R., R., understood to represent the three great sciences, Readin', Ritin' and 'Rithmetic. The three G's, Grammer, Geography and Geometry, had then scarcely been dreamed of as ever possible to be taught in a country school. It was not until several years af- ter-not indeed until the renowned Chinquapin school- house had been built, over a mile away, on the road to Punch Hall, that we ever heard of such a study as Eng- lish Grammar or Geography. The primer, or rather a primer-for it mattered not what it was, so long as there were A, B, C's in it-was the text-book most in demand at Mr. Marshall's log cabin school.
REV. ROBERT W. TODD, D. D.
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CAROLINE HIGH SCHOOL COUNTY ATHLETIC DAY.
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THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
I. Introduction.
An event that we can always recall as contempora- neous with the war for Commercial Independence is the establishment of our system of Free Education. Pre- vious to this time the various counties as well as the state had given much attention to the education of the young, the expense being provided by state appropria- tion plus private subscriptions. By this means learning had been disseminated extensively but the money was not sufficient nor the system efficient.
II. Free Schools.
The growing sentiment in every portion of the state favoring public education expressed itself through the General Assembly in 1812 by a feeble effort to raise enough money to establish at least one Free School in each county. The money for the support of these schools was to be raised by requiring the banks of the state to bind themselves to pay the sum of $20,000 on or before January 1, 1815. This sum to be paid annually was to be apportioned according to the capital stock actually paid in at the various banks. Other financial matters were in- volved in this act and the banks made a vigorous and temporarily successful fight against the whole measure.
In 1813 the school matter again came to the front, By the enactment of this year the state required, not the payment of a specified sum per annum for schools, but instead, an annual tax of 20 cents on every $100 of cap- ital stock actually paid in. Connected with this were some other conditions relative to the Cumberland Turn- pike. Any bank refusing to subscribe to the Act within six months forfeited their charter while those accepting guaranteed the renewal of their charter for a term of fifteen years. Denton promptly accepted and her Bank Charter was extended to 1835.
This means of raising money was so successful that by December, 1816 at the meeting of the Assembly the sum was found sufficient for distribution to counties. and nine sensible and discreet men called Commissioners of the School Find were appointed in each county. These men were to apply the apportionments in their respec-
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tive counties as their judgment deemed best. Caroline's commissioners were Col. Wm. Potter, Richard Hughlett, Elisha Dawson, Thomas Goldsborough, William Hard- castle, Elijah Satterfield, Willis Charles, Levi Dukes and Peter Willis.
The same session of Assembly also made provision to turn over to the counties their respective shares of school money-said money to be paid to authorized rep- resentatives of the commissioners. To increase the school fund it was decided to arrange if practicable to draw a lottery for $50,000 each year for five years.
When this commission of five had organized they were to give notice of an election to determine upon a site for a school-house and to decide whether it should be erected by voluntary contributions, or by a propor- tionate tax upon the assessable property of the section.
As soon as a suitable school was built in any section, the justices of the levy court were apprised, and they in return gave a certificate of its establishment, which cer- tificate entitled them to their share of the school fund, pledged by the Act of Assembly, 1813.
Notice was to be given of the opening of school, and all white children, especially orphans, were to be taught gratis in their respective districts, but not beyond the "Double Rule of Three" unless with the consent of the trustees. After the first year the trustees were to be elected annually by voters of the respective districts, at an election held the first Monday in May.
In 1821, five years after the opening of free schools. the Assembly took away all power and authority given to the Commissioners of School Fund by the Act of 1816, and vested it in the Justices of Orphans Court, ordering that all monies in the hands of Commissioners be turned over to the Justices. The Orphans Court was also em powered to appoint five Commissioners in each election District, who pointed out to the Court which schools in their respective distriets were entitled to a part of that school fund which was to be annually apportioned. One. third of the school money in each district was at the dis. position of the commissioners to be used directly for the education of orphans, or any children whose parents were unable to pay. In truth the prime idea in the estab- lishing of a state Free School Fund was to provide for this class of children and from this it later became known as the Charity or Free School Fund.
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HOME ECONOMICS EXHIBIT.
AGRICULTURAL DISPLAY.
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To still further aid such children the legislature in 1823 made it obligatory on every college, academy, etc., receiving "state aid" to give tuition to one charity scholar for each $100 received-giving both teaching and text books.
We might here make mention of one Act which nev- er became active in Caroline County. In 1825 the Assem- bly made an enactment providing a State Superintendent of Public Instruction, who had almost unlimited powers. This law became effective only in the counties which adopted it. But six counties, including Caroline, re- jected it.
III. Growth in Caroline.
For the first thirty years of their existence free schools did not progress very rapidly, neither was the increase in numbers great in this county. However about 1830 a "boom" came, which was somewhat at the expense of Academies. Previous to this the Academics at Hillsboro and Denton had been receiving largely from the state but this fund was now withdrawn and placed in the hands of the Orphan's Court to be distributed among located free schools. "At this time," it is said, "local interest in elementary education was at its zenith," and exemplifying this we find a number of free schools built from private means of large land owners. Again, in 1831 the Act relative to state donations to academies in- creased that fund in Caroline Co. to $800, the distribu- tion giving $250 to the Upper District, $300 to the Mid- dle District and $250 to the Lower District to be used entirely for Free Schools. At the same time a Com- mission was appointed to locate schools, particularly in sections without them. This Act was followed in 1832 by one providing that a sum not exceeding $100 be ap- propriated from the surplus in the hands of Orphan's Court for the erection of a comfortable school-house on each site certified by Commission appointed in 1831 to locate new schools.
The Constitutional Convention of 1851 might be de- scribed as a vigorous war of words, at the close of which the school question remained practically the same as at the beginning. However in 1852 the Legislature made progress and provided for the payment of several sums of money appropriated previously for the benefit of Free Schools.
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The adoption of the State School Law of 1865 did away with many troubles of the Caroline Legislators and seemed for a time to solve the problem of Education, by centralizing the administration. It gave a State Super- intendent of Public Instruction and Dr. Libertus Van Boklen was appointed to that office. Acting with him was a State Board of Education who jointly appointed one Commissioner for each of the four school districts of this County. Each Commissioner had entire control of the eight or nine schools in his district. He hired and discharged teachers at will, distributed the text books for which pupils must pay in advance, etc. In this school control the taxpayers were mere onlookers. though through no fault of our officials who were very intelli- gent and earnest men. To this Board, Mr. William Stev- ens, of Denton, recently deceased was Clerk and Treas- lirel'.
The law of 1868 wrought another radical change in the management of the schools. The power was taken from the state and once more put in the hands of the people, the office of State Superintendent being abolish- ed. At the General Election, voters of each District vot- ed for one School Commissioner for that District. They also elected two School-House District Trustees. The Commissioner of the District made the third member of the Board of Trustees. This election was held annually on the first Saturday of May. The elective features of this law were repealed after one election had been held, and the appointment of School Commissioners made one of the duties of the Judges of the Circuit Court. Af- terwards, as at present, the Governor of the State was given the appointing power. For several years minority party representation was made compulsory but the School Law of 1916 tended to eliminate politics entirely and dared not even suggest any term connected there- with.
The personnel of the County School Board in 1867 was as follows : Rev. Chas. B. Boynton, Dr. M. A. Booth, Mr. William S. Ridgely and Col. James E. Douglass. The new school law went into effect in 1868 and Col. James E. Douglass, Samuel I. Jarman and Robert H. Wilson became the new Board which in turn elected Rev. Geo. F. Beaven, Secretary and Examiner of the schools of the county, the first really provided by law. For several years Rev. Mr. Beaven, who was also rector
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of the Episcopal church at Hillsboro, faithfully and well discharged his duties until he retired in 1882 and was succeeded by Prof. James Swann of Ridgely. The Board at this time consisted of John F. Dawson, E. E. Goslin, and Dr. Enoch George. Prof. Swann continued as Ex- aminer until 1886 when he was succeeded by M. Bates Stephens, who remained in office till 1900, when he be- came State Superintendent of Public Schools, and was succeeded in the county position by Prof. W. S. Crouse, who had been principal of the Denton High School.
Until Dr. M. Bates Stephens became State Super- intendent in 1900, there had been no real head of the State School system since 1867. For a part of this time the principal of the State Normal School exercised some functions, though his authority was only nominal. At another time, S. E. Forman, State Institute Conductor, had some directing power.
Realizing the inadequacy of the various school en- actments prior to 1916 to meet the needs of the times, a well organized school law was that year passed, based upon a very careful and critical survey of our publie school system by representative men from our state and experienced educators without.
Caroline's early schools were of two classes, name- ly, small free schools promoted by private citizens of means, and Secondary schools or Academies which re- ceived State aid. Of the first class we will mention three : 1st-The Bloomery School-In 1798 James Wright, who was probably one of the Wright brothers elsewhere men- tioned, sold to several persons an aere of land and pro- vided a honse thereon to be used for a school, reserving unto himself and his heirs, one-twentieth of the rights of the school thereon established. The site of this school was near the present Bloomery Church. 2nd-Liden's School-From the traet of land along the road from Andersontown to Smithville a building site was given by Deed in 1827 by Shadrach Liden. Thereon was erect- ed a building to serve as a house of worship and a school for the community.
3rd-Chinquapin School-This building stood on the road between Denton and Burrsville, and was probably erected about 1840, as in the records of that time we find the deed of a site given by Gove Saulsbury.
4th-Whiteley's School-This school had been start- ed before 1825 by two men, Dr. William Whiteley and
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Edward Carter, who built it for the needs of the neigh- borhood. This school was afterwards discontinued, then reopened later by Benjamin Whitely as will be explain- ed more fully elsewhere.
Of the second class or Academies we have two, both so noted in their day as to be yet well known.
1st : The Old Hillsboro Academy. John Hardcastle, Jr. donated the land for a section called in the deed Hackett's Garding. The building was begun in 1797 and was originally intended only for a local school but with the passing of the School Act of 1798 it was incor- porated as a Secondary School.
The erection seems to have been entirely from local subscription and much generosity in the matter of money is credited Francis Sellers. Later aid was received from the state. The curriculum first included the elementary studies but later the classics were included, until 1844, when it was made a "Primary District."
2nd: Denton Academy. By Act of General Assem- bly, 1804, which supplemented Denton's Charter, one- fourth acre of land in the N. W. corner of the public square was set apart as a school site. Not until 1808 was there a centralized effort to build a school but at this time they were not successful in so doing. Legisla- tive annals show the frequent recurrence of Denton Academy legislation followed by a "donation." Finally some time between 1840 and 1845 the building was com- pleted largely from accumulated state donations.
IV. In Conclusion.
Quoting directly from Steele we might add,-Caro- line was among the foremost of the counties to establish a Secondary School a century ago; she was among the foremost in the effort to establish Free Primary Schools on a practical basis, anterior to the adoption of the State school system ; she has been for years, and is now, among the foremost in school enrollment according to popula- tion. She stands not very far from the ton in per cent. of pupils in and above sixth grade and she may be relied on to be in the vanguard of educational procession, and bearing her little part bravely if the time ever comes and it seems to be coming when all the States will be banded into an educational system or union with national supervision.
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