In 1898, the Havre de Grace Republican published an article bemoaning the need for a new building in which local African American children could meet for school. Chronicling the history of Black education in the town, the paper wrote:

There was originally, probably fifty years ago, a small school house built by the colored people themselves, in which in a small way, the education of colored children was attempted, during the times of slavery. This building was destroyed by fire about 1860.^[1]

This account about the burning of the antebellum schoolhouse is further supported by William Howard Day, who was serving as the Freedmen’s Bureau Superintendent of Schools for Maryland and Delaware in 1868 when he authored the following report:

At Havre-de-Grace, Harford County, where, a while since, a one-story church used as a school-house was burned down by Rebels, the Government has furnished lumber for a fine two-story building; and with the Assistant Commissioner, I went to assist in dedicating it.^[2]

Unfortunately, beyond these two sources, little else is known about the first school for Black children that existed in Havre de Grace. Were the “Rebels” who were responsible for the fire locals or troublemakers from further south? Who taught at the Havre de Grace school while it was in operation? Perhaps most significantly – what options for education did African American children have after their school was destryoed? While these questions remain unanswered, it is known that by 1865, Black education had returned to Havre de Grace with the help of the Freedmen’s Bureau and the Baltimore Association for the Moral and Educational Improvement of the Colored People.

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.^[3] 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.”^[4] Records show that, as early as 1867, Anderson and her students instead rented a room from the local African Methodist Episcopal Church, Mt. Zion.^[5]

That same year, the lot which had previously held the one-story church/schoolhouse was deeded to the trustees of the Anderson Institute by the Mt. Zion trustees.^[6] By March 1, 1867, supplies were being assembled by the Freedmen’s Bureau and the Baltimore Association, with lumber for the building shipped to the town sometime in April.^[7]  Construction on the building continued through the summer; on August 3, the school’s building committee was authorized to hire carpenter William Potts at $2.45 per day.^[8] Records show that, at some point that month, one of the school’s trustees, Isaiah DeCoursey, wrote the Freedmen’s Bureau requesting additional supplies beyond the building’s initial allotment.^[9] In response, the Bureau’s Disbursing Office, Captain Samuel J. Wright, wrote: “We cannot furnish flooring for a third upper floor nor lumber for another flight of stairs, as the house was to be only two stories high.”^[10]

In October, the Havre de Grace building committee received 36 school desks, 1 teacher’s desk, and 4 seats from the Freedmen’s Bureau.^[11] (No records could be located indicating additional seats or desks were sent to the school at a later date.) In late November, DeCoursey once more requested additional materials from the Bureau, including labor and supplies to have the new schoolhouse painted.^[12] Wright responded by reassuring DeCoursey that “General Gregory will fulfill his promise to have the schoolhouse painted when you have satisfied us that all bills against the schoolhouse have been paid.”^[13] By the end of 1867, according to William Howard Day, the community had raised $175 “to help pay the debt upon the building.” Although the amount raised was a significant number, Day reported that “the people are making great effort to wholly remove the debt, which is still of considerable amount.”^[14] It is unlikely that the Bureau ever sent additional paint supplies to Havre de Grace; in a letter from the Disbursing Officer that succeeded Captain Wright, Edward H. Monteith notified DeCoursey that supplies sent to the school in the summer of 1867 were “sufficient to give [the] building two coats.”^[15]

When the Harford County Circuit Court recorded the deed for the school on December 3, 1867, the clerk referred to the school by its new name: the Anderson Institute.^[16] Although Mary J.C. Anderson had been in Havre de Grace for at least three years by the time the schoolhouse was dedicated, Anderson taught in the building for only seven months.^[17] Following Anderson’s departure from the town, Elizabeth V. Dixon arrived in the fall of 1868 to serve as the school’s second teacher.^[18] One full year later, Dixon was replaced by Sarah A. Usher, who also remained in Havre de Grace for only one academic term.^[19]

When Usher submitted her final monthly teacher’s report in May of 1870, the relationship between the Anderson Institute and the Freedmen’s Bureau appears to have concluded.^[20] By February 1871, control of the school was ceded to the county, likely meaning that teachers were no longer provided to the school by the Bureau or aid societies, such as the Baltimore Association or the New England Freedmen’s Aid Society.^[21] Interestingly, by the fall of 1884, it appears the Anderson Institute saw the return of a familiar face. Elizabeth Fraser (maiden name likely Dixon), appears to have returned to the school alongside Samantha Green – another educator who had taught in Harford during the years of the Freedmen’s Bureau.^[22] Elizabeth V. Frazier (as she was also styled) taught off and on at the Anderson Institute until at least 1898.^[23]

While the school’s final years are not entirely known, it is clear that by 1907, the two-story building was experiencing major disrepair.^[24] In April 1913, the Board of School Commissioners for Harford County, along with Anderson Institute trustees, sold off their interests in the school’s land. The next month, the church that had originally donated the land for the school, St. James AME (originally Mt. Zion), also sold off their remaining interest. It is unclear whether the original Anderson Institute was demolished once it passed into private hands or whether the building was renovated and continues to stand to this day.^[25] It is certain, however, that for nearly 50 years, the two-story schoolhouse was a place of community and education for Black children in Havre de Grace.

By Stephanie Martinez

^[1] Doug Washburn, “The Colored Schoolhouses of Harford County: Separate and Equal? Part 1,” Harford Historical Bulletin, no. 101 (2005), pp 41.

^[2] William Howard Day, “Report of Schools in the District of Maryland and Delaware for Quarter Ending December 31, 1867,” Records of the Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872, U. S. National Archives and Records Administration, FamilySearch International, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

^[3] Baltimore Association for the Moral and Educational Improvement of the Colored People, First Annual Report of the Baltimore Association for the Moral and Educational Improvement of the Colored People, (Baltimore: MD, 1865): pp 6-7.

^[4] Mary J.C. Anderson to John T. Graham, October 31, 1865, in First Annual Report of the Baltimore Association for the Moral and Educational Improvement of the Colored People, (Baltimore: MD, 1865), 26-27.

^[5] Samuel J. Wright to Mary J.C. Anderson, February 18, 1867, Records of the Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872, U. S. National Archives and Records Administration, FamilySearch International, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. In this letter, Wright instructs Anderson to use the money to pay a “Mr. White,” one of the trustees for Mt. Zion, as named in the 1867 deed mentioned in the following footnote.

^[6] Harford County Circuit Court Clerk’s Office, “Deed between Mt. Zion AME Church Trustees and Trustees of the Anderson Institute,” December 3, 1867, Records of the Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872, U. S. National Archives and Records Administration, FamilySearch International, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

^[7] Superintendent of Education, Freedmen’s Bureau, “Account of Materials Used for Havre de Grace, MD Schoolhouse,” 1867, Records of the Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872, U. S. National Archives and Records Administration, FamilySearch International, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

^[8] Samuel J. Wright to Isaiah DeCoursey, August 3, 1867, Records of the Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872, U. S. National Archives and Records Administration, FamilySearch International, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

^[9] Isaiah DeCoursey to Samuel J. Wright, August 22, 1867, Records of the Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872, U. S. National Archives and Records Administration, FamilySearch International, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.  

^[10] Wright to DeCoursey, August 22, 1867, Records of the Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872, U. S. National Archives and Records Administration, FamilySearch International, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

^[11] DeCoursey to Wright, October 15, 1867, Records of the Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872, U. S. National Archives and Records Administration, FamilySearch International, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

^[12] DeCoursey to Wright, November 23, 1867, Records of the Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872, U. S. National Archives and Records Administration, FamilySearch International, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

^[13] Wright to DeCoursey, November 27, 1867, Records of the Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872, U. S. National Archives and Records Administration, FamilySearch International, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

^[14] Day, “Report of Schools in the District of Maryland and Delaware for Quarter Ending December 31, 1867.”

^[15] Edward H. Monteith to Isaiah DeCoursey, August 1868, Records of the Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872, U. S. National Archives and Records Administration, FamilySearch International, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

^[16] Harford County Circuit Court Clerk’s Office, “Deed between Mt. Zion AME Church Trustees and Trustees of the Anderson Institute.”

^[17] Superintendent of Education for the District of Maryland and Delaware, Freedmen’s Bureau, “Report of Schools for the States of Maryland and Delaware for the Month of July 1868,” Records of the Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872, U. S. National Archives and Records Administration, FamilySearch International, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

^[18] Elizabeth V. Dixon, “Teacher’s Monthly Report for the Month of October 1868,”  Records of the Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872, U. S. National Archives and Records Administration, FamilySearch International, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

^[19] Sarah A. Usher, “Teacher’s Monthly School Report for the Month of October 1869,” Records of the Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872, U. S. National Archives and Records Administration, FamilySearch International, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

^[20] Sarah A. Usher, “Teacher’s Monthly School Report for the Month of May 1870,” Records of the Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872, U. S. National Archives and Records Administration, FamilySearch International, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

^[21] Washburn, 13.

^[22] Maryland State Board of Education, Nineteenth Annual Report of the State Board of Education Showing the Condition of the Public Schools of Maryland, For the year ending September 30th, 1885, (Annapolis, MD: Geo. T. Melvin, 1886). https://archive.org/details/nineteenthannual1886mary/page/262/mode/2up?q=Harford&view=theater.

^[23] See the following Annual Reports of the State Board of Education Showing the Condition of the Public Schools of Maryland: 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th, 29th, 30th, 31st, and 32nd.

^[24] 1953 Harford County Directory, (Maryland: State Directories Publishing Company, 1953), 390.

^[25] “633-635 Linden Lane, c. 1847, The Anderson Institute, demolished; rebuilt,” Historic Havre de Grace Street by Street, https://www.historichavredegrace.com/newpage/rec7VkmPYRscsGmFc.