All Our Stories
Historic black schools since 1870. Eight are still standing.
This month, we complete our four-year survey of historic schools in Caroline County, 1820-1960.
#blackhistorymatters
We re-discovered 23 segregated black schools built since the 1870s.
Eight black schools are still there.
#blackhistorymatters
Leverton the Quaker and Hubbard the free Black were neighbors. And secret agents.
Find out how Hubbard and Leverton with worked with Harriet Tubman and others to move freedom seekers through Caroline County to safety.
#blackhistorymatters
The Death of 2LT Louise Hollister “Somewhere in the Pacific”
Louise Hollister, Maryland School of Nursing, Class of 1939. Native of Hillsboro.
2LT Louise A. Hollister, RN, Army Nurse Corps, 1942-1943, was Maryland’s only Army Nurse casualty in WWII.
So Long, Southern States
Setting Sail from Denton
I know your name but can’t recall where we met.
“Tuckahoe” by Robert Durwood Madison
In observance of Black History Month, we’re publishing Tuckahoe, a cycle of poems which beckon us to learn more about Frederick Douglass’s life and times – and to Stand in the Place.
#blackhistorymatters
The town that sprawls across 3 counties, 2 states, and 3 centuries
It’s a bit of a stretch to call Reliance a town. Officially, it’s an unincorporated community. It’s a place that straddles two states and three counties – Caroline and Dorchester counties in Maryland, and Sussex county in Delaware.
But in its heyday, Reliance was a place to be reckoned with — a hub of local commerce that served local farms and towns by storing and shipping goods between city and farm. Known as Johnson’s Crossroads, it was the starting point for the boundary that carved the new county of Caroline out of Dorchester County in 1774. And it was still making headlines a hundred years later.
Why was Johnson’s Crossroads (Reliance) so important in 1774? A contemporary map of Maryland (1794) offers clues.
1670 map of the Choptank – How good was it?
I knew Flora Price when she lived in Denton. But where is she now?
Where the Dead Rise Up
You might not see them from the road. You have to stop and get out. Walk around for a closer look. Crypts floating to the surface.
This is St. Paul AME Church. It’s one of dozens of segregated black churches that organized in Caroline County and throughout the Eastern Shore of Maryland after 1865.
#blackhistorymatters
Haunted by the Heroes of 1776
Caroline County sent six regimental, militia, and staff colonels to war against British imperial troops during 1776-1783:
Col. Peter Adams
Col. Matthew Driver
Col. Philip Feddiman
Col. Benson Stainton
Col. William Richardson
Col. William Whiteley
We know where they fought. But we know nearly nothing about the civilian life and final resting place of most of them – Adams, Feddiman, Driver, and Stainton.
The tombs of Richardson and Whiteley are in forgotten places. The rest are lost.