In 1822, a free African American man named Cupid Peaco (or Paca) purchased 50 acres of land north of the village of Darlington, in Harford County, Maryland. In 1868 his son Joseph, with his wife Sarah, sold ¼ acre of the land he had inherited to a group of trustees determined to build a school for the African American children of the area. Once constructed, this school would become known as the Hosanna, or Berkley, School. But the process of making this school into a reality would prove an arduous one.
