George M. McComas writes to education superintendent John Kimball, enclosing the deed for the school property at Hendon Hill. In response to Kimball's questions regarding bench manufacture in his letter of Jan. 26, McComas reports that he can have "Soper benches" delivered to Hendon Hill for about $4 each. The school will also need about 20 desks and a table. Asks how much money Kimball can provide. McComas also refers to enclosing a newspaper clipping (not in the file) by the editor of the Harford Democrat, Col. Webster., that was apparently critical of his efforts. McComas asks Kimball when he might be able to visit Harford County so that the two of them can make a tour of schools together. He hopes the editor and his reporter might attend these gatherings and "be a little enlightened on the subject of education and the principles of humanity and Christianity."
George M. McComas writes to education superintendent John Kimball regarding his recent visit to Hendon Hill, where he found the people despondent over their inability to finish building the school due to the debt they had accrued. To cheer them, McComas suggested that the Bureau would provide desks and other furniture, as well as $100 to help pay off their debt. He is concerned that he has made promises that cannot be kept. McComas reports that the schoolhouse is 40 x 24 feet and plainly finished. He hopes Kimball will supply the furniture and money, and asks him to write concerning the matter. He also reports that the deed for the property will be executed within the week and that he will send a copy to Kimball. In an endorsement of Jan. 20, 1869, Kimball forwarded the letter to Maj. D. G. Swaim, the bureau's Assistant Commissioner for D.C. The endorsement states that the Freedmen's Bureau has already spent $200 to build the Hendon Hill school, and recommends giving them $100 more.
George M. McComas writes to education superintendent John Kimball informing him that he has received a communication from the trustees of the Hendon Hill school. It states that they have made arrangements to commence the school if they can get a teacher on the terms Kimball has proposed. McComas asks Kimball to respond to him, telling him when he might send the teacher and what the prospects are of obtaining school furniture. He further states that the people at Hendon Hill propose to have a meeting there on August 14, and would like Kimball to attend. McComas expresses his enthusiasm for getting this school started and hopes that Kimball will share it. He tells Kimball that Mt. Zion/McComas Institute would employ a teacher for the summer on the same terms.
George M. McComas informs education superintendent John Kimball that he has forwarded Kimball's letter to Hendon Hill, and that he will write to Kimball the next Monday about a procuring a teacher. He hopes the people at Hendon Hill will accept the teacher chosen. McComas asks when the $100 previously discussed will come. He states that after the harvest they would like to have a meeting at Hendon Hill, and he would like Kimball to attend. McComas will be pleased to host him at his house in Harford County.
George M. McComas writes to Supt. Kimball enclosing bills for the schoolhouse at Hendon Hill. He also discusses Fairview, saying that it is three miles from Hendon Hill, and has about 30 students in a "damp sort of cellar arrangement." He requests materials to build a schoolhouse there.
George M. McComas writes to Supt. Kimball acknowledging receipt of Kimball's letter of the 23rd. He states that the material for desks has not been purchased. He has sent a bill for materials, including plastering. McComas asks if he should find out the cost for desks, as the people are "anxious to commence the school."
States that the school fair at Bel Air occurred without addresses being delivered, but that Capt. Duval gave some words of encouragement. At the fair, the community asked when Rev. Kimball would visit and if there would be any aid given by the Bureau. The Bureau has contracted someone to do the plastering for the school, and the freedmen are waiting on the payment. McComas requests that Kimball visit Fallston and McComas schools. Writes that prejudice will go away with the new Republican administration elected that day, and they will receive more aid. He will ask the Baltimore Association about a teacher for Bel Air.
States that Mr. Duvall received letter from Supt. of Education, and requests him to write that the lot is paid for and deeded to George Dougherty and others for religious and educational purposes. Notes that Dougherty paid $100. States they are to have a fair on the 24th and want the Supt. of Education to address them or send speakers. The Bureau has furnished the frame and part of the shingles, and they now need plastering, seats, etc.. Requests an immediate answer as to who will come to address them: States the people will send to meet them at Bel-Air.
George Washington writes to education superintendent Maj. W. L. Van Derlip in relation to dissolution of the Baltimore Association and the Freedmen's Bureau's assumption of managing the school. He requests a teacher be sent, preferably Henrietta Gilmore. The freedmen would acquire desks themselves.
According to an annual report by the Baltimore Association, the school at Gravel Hill opened on January 18, 1866. Gravel Hill appears to have been in operation from January 1866 - June 1866, likely taking a summer break that same year. The school then reopened in November and continued through June 1867. One of the last statistical reports that could be located for Gravel Hill was for May 1867 and stated an enrollment of 17 pupils, with an average attendance of 12. The school is not included in any reports for the 1867-1868 school year, suggesting that Gravel Hill's funders (the Baltimore Association and the New York Association) decided against continued support due to low attendance. The school could not be located in any other documentation until the 1881 annual report of the State Board of Education for Maryland, where it appears the school finally reopened for the spring term in 1881, under Harford County control.
Hannah Highgate was an African American woman from Syracuse, N.Y., born around 1820. She and her husband Charles were active in the abolition movement and prepared their six children to be active in advancing the cause of their race.
In April, 1864, with the Civil War still unresolved, Hannah wrote to the American Missionary Association regarding her desire to teach in the liberated areas of the South. Her eldest daughter Edmonia was already engaged in this field. “I have long desired,” she wrote, “to do something for my people who have been less fortunate than myself.” She offered her services to the A.M.A. as a matron or assistant teacher. It was only in April, 1865, that Hannah Highgate arrived to teach at Darlington, replacing her daughter Edmonia, who had resigned after starting the school a month earlier in favor of seeking a posting farther south. On July 5, 1865, she reported that the school was “progressing finely.” In August, she was compelled to close the school for a few weeks to allow for the berry picking season. Around the end of that month, Hannah left the school. Although the trustees had wished to remain, she informed the A.M.A. that she was not willing to manage the fall term on her own. This suggests that she may have had previously had the help of her daughter Willella, who is known to have taught at Darlington at some point in 1865.
In 1872, the A.M.A. gifted a portrait bust to Hannah Highgate, presumably in recognition of her service. She was unable to come to Philadelphia to collect it in person, and requested it be sent to her current residence in Albany, N.Y.
Hannah Highgate writes from Darlington, Md., to N. Noyes. She requests one dozen primers. The school is progressing finely but attendance is irregular. She asks Noyes when and for how long vacation is to be, and when he plans to visit the school.
Hannah Highgate writes to the A.M.A. from Syracuse, N.Y., offering her services. She wishes to be an assistant teacher. She believes her age and experience raising a family should help qualify her for the work. Her daughter Edmonia is already engaged in teaching. She asks that if her services are accepted she be informed immediately, as she will need to make arrangements to leave her family.
Hannah Highgate writes to the A.M.A. from Darlington, Md. She has received no reply to a previous letter she sent. She asks when she will receive compensation for her services, as she will need the money to travel home. The school was recently closed for the berrying season but she has reopened it for two weeks to make up for the time lost to gathering berries. A notation on the letter indicates that she was subsequently sent pay for her last four months of work.
Hannah Highgate writes from Darlington, Md., explaining that she delayed sending a recent letter due to the burial of her son. She did not think that she would be expected to go through a formal process of examination and acceptance as a teacher, because her daughters were already A.M.A. teachers. She assures the A.M.A. that any violation of the rules was not intentional on her part.
Hannah Highgate writes to the A.M.A. from Philadelphia, Pa. She explains that the trustees at Darlington wanted her to return for the fall term but she is not interested in taking sole charge of the school. She hopes the A.M.A. will furnish them with a suitable teacher.
Hannah Highgate writes to the A.M.A. from Syracuse, NY, reporting that she is ready to take charge of her daughter's school at Darlington, Md. The letter is undated but must be from the year 1865.
Hannah Highgate writes to the A.M.A. from Albany, NY. She is unable to come to Philadelphia to collect the bust she has been gifted by the association, and asks that it be sent to her at Albany.
On May 23, 1865, the Baltimore Association opened a school at Havre de Grace under the leadership of Miss Mary J.C. Anderson. During that first year, Anderson managed up to 70 students entirely on her own, suggesting that the town’s children were hungry to learn after a prolonged drought of educational opportunities. By October of that same year, although attendance had “sadly decreased,” Anderson reported that the students “still manifest[ed] quite a decided interest in the school.” The children’s parents, too, seemed “pleased and satisfied, and [did] all they [could] to aid the [school’s] Trustees.” Even so, Anderson stated, the community “had abandoned the idea of building [a schoolhouse], at least for the present.” Records show that, as early as 1867, Anderson and her students instead rented a room from the local African Methodist Episcopal Church, Mt. Zion.
Taught at Hopewell/Green Spring. Listed as living with Hopewell trustee George Washington in 1870 census. In February 1870, Gilmore had to close her school at Cross Keys in Baltimore County and wrote to the Freedmen's Bureau seeking a new assignment. On March 15 of that same year, Gilmore began teaching at Hopewell, continuing through the end of May.
Henrietta Gilmore writes to Supt. Van Derlip at the recommendation of actuary John Core of the Baltimore Association. Core had informed Gilmore that the Baltimore Association had no teaching positions to offer as they were no longer opening new schools. Gilmore states that she had taught at Cross Keys, in Baltimore County, for three years, but has had to close the school due to lack of students.
According to an annual report by the Baltimore Association, the school at Hopewell Crossroads opened on October 10, 1865. According to the 1876 annual report of the State Board of Education for Maryland, Elizabeth V. Dixon was the Hopewell teacher for the fall 1875 term. The Hopewell/Greenspring school house appears to have burned down in February 1926.
Ida S. Marshall was a free-born African American woman, originally from Massachusetts. Marshall first contacted the Freedmen’s Bureau about a teaching position in March, 1867, writing directly to Commissioner Oliver O. Howard. Her husband, Thomas Marshall, had been General Howard’s personal servant during military operations in South Carolina in 1861. Now Thomas was in ill health, and the couple were living in Baltimore with few friends. General Howard passed her letter to the Bureau’s education superintendent, Rev. John W. Alvord. He responded to Marshall, explaining that the Bureau was not directly involved in the hiring of teachers. He advised her of several aid societies that she might contact for an appointment. She must have had success with the Baltimore Association, because it was that organization that would support the Churchville school from its establishment until April of 1870.
Marshall corresponded frequently with the Freedmen’s Bureau, and worked energetically with local white supporters of black education to host public meetings and examinations of her school. In June, 1869, she wrote to Superintendent John Kimball, asking him to support her (unsuccessful) bid to become the U.S. Postmaster at Churchville. By July, 1870, the months of overcrowded classrooms and exposure to inclement weather had taken their toll on Marshall, and she wrote to the superintendent requesting a posting in a state further south, “even Louisiana.” Apparently receiving no response, she traveled north during the summer break to Newport, Rhode Island, where on August 9, 1870, she penned a letter to Rev. John W. Alvord, Freedmen’s Bureau education superintendent and the man who had advised her back in 1867. In that letter, she cited declining salary, exposure, and “other difficulties,” as her reasons for wanting to wanting to teach somewhere other than Maryland, and repeated her desire to relocate to somewhere in the deeper South to continue her work. She was unsuccessful in her efforts, however, and was still teaching at Churchville in early 1871.
In April, 1870, support of the school at Churchville transferred from the Baltimore Association (which was ceasing its operations) to the New England Freedmen’s Aid Society. Ida S. Marshall left the school permanently soon after February, 1871. That month, her final monthly report stated that thenceforward the school would be “supported by the county, with a county teacher.” Marshall continued her teaching career elsewhere until at least the mid-1870s at schools in Maryland and South Carolina.
Ida S. Marshall writes to Freedmen's Bureau commissioner Oliver O. Howard, hoping that General Howard will help her due to her husband's service to him as a personal servant in South Carolina during the Civil War. Howard did not respond but forwarded her letter to Superintendent of Education John W. Alvord, who wrote to her.