Juneteenth and the Underground Railroad in Howard County

       Today is Juneteenth which is a celebration of freedom from slavery celebrated every June 19th. It officially recognizes the freeing of slaves in Texas in 1865.  According to Wikapedia:

"   On June 19, 1865, legend has it while standing on the balcony of Galveston’s Ashton Villa, Union General Gordon Granger read the contents of “General Order No. 3”: The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere."

       From a close friendship with lifelong Howard County resident Leola Dorsey a few years ago I learned a great deal about the history of African Americans in Howard County and its segregated past.  Today being Junetenth, the celebration of the end of slavery, I thought I would relate some of the stories I learned.

    In the 1950's and 1960's Howard County reflected its southern heritage and remained segregated in many ways.  Leola related how she and Bob Kittleman (father of present day Howard County Senator Allan Kittleman) traveled along Route 40 in the 1960's to test out the new Public Accommodation laws that were being passed.  Leola was the first woman president of the Howard County chapter of the NAACP and Bob was the first white to serve as president of the Howard County NAACP. Some of the merchants still refused service to minorities.  I always found it unusual that Leola, a civil rights champion in the County, was a lifelong Republican when it seemed as if the party had long since become a party of the conservative South.  She often reminded me that she thought of the party as the party of Lincoln.

    One of the stories that Leola told was about how Harriet Tubman was thought to have led runaway slaves through Simpsonville following the Patapsco and Patuxent rivers.  The rivers were used because of their access to Baltimore and Ellicott City and the B&O railroad.

The Orchard Street Church in Baltimore above was a stop on the Underground Railroad in Baltimore that was used to hide slaves to be transported by boat to Philadelphia or train to points north.  The tunnel in the basement of the Church shown below was used to hide runaway slaves.

Another supposed route for runaway slaves was alone Route 144 called the Baltimore-Frederick Pike and its many ways to get to Pennsylvania.  Many of the runaway slaves were trying to get to Philadelphia.

 There is even one story that Tubman spent a night in the cemetery of  the Locust United Methodist Church shown above.

 A cave in the bank of the Middle Patuxent Creek is said to be a hiding place for runaway slaves.

    Simpsonville was a logical community for runaway slaves because the slaveholder Nicholas Worthington freed his 17 slaves and gave them each land in this community.  It was called Freetown because of this act.  Freetown Road in this community still exists.  Another factor in the County being used by runaway slaves was the population of Quakers that lived in the County.

     The Quakers were actively involved in the Underground Railroad and there still exists a Quaker safe house pictured above in the Simpsonville area. There are still many descendents of these freed slaves living in the County and the names of these descendents are familiar to many of us---Dorsey, Gaither, Brooks, Holland, Henson and Warfield.

     Like most of Maryland in the 19th century Howard County was a community of both slaveholders and abolitionists. In the 1860 Census 21% of the population of Howard County was listed as slave and another 10% as free blacks.  That is double the percentage of the rest of Maryland. Originally brought to Maryland to work in the tobacco fields the discovery of iron ore in the County caused Caleb Dorsey to use slaves in his ironworks in the quarry off of Route 32. Below is a poster for the capture of a runaway slave in Elkridge.

          Caught between the South and the North there were many politicians in the Maryland Legislature that wanted Maryland to join with the Confederacy and secede from the Union. Lincoln stationed many Union troops in Maryland and held Maryland under military rule during the Civil War to insure that Maryland didn't join the Confederacy and force the move of the Capitol from Washington.  There was a major upheaval in Baltimore in April 1861 between Union forces and pro Confederate sympathizers. It wasn't until 1864 that Maryland outlawed slavery.