The fourth Freedmen’s Bureau school to be organized in Harford County opened at Fallston on January 1, 1866. Miss H. A. Hoskins led approximately 36 students during the school’s first few months of operation.^[1] Following this initial spring term, however, classes at Fallston were apparently suspended for two academic years. Although the Baltimore Association had financially supported the school upon its opening, the aid society did not include Fallston among its list of schools that received funding for the 1866-1867 school year.^[2] Freedmen’s Bureau reports also failed to name Fallston from 1866 until the spring of 1868. When the school did reopen on February 1, 1868, one teacher was appointed to manage Fallston’s 75 pupils. With no freedmen’s aid society to support the school’s reopening, the educator’s salary was likely covered by the students’ tuition payments.^[3] By the time Fallston closed for the summer in June, however, enrollment had dropped to 22 students, with an average attendance of 17.^[4]

The start of the 1868-1869 academic year appears to have brought a more stable environment to Fallston. When the school opened on October 12, it was once again receiving financial support from the Baltimore Association. Although Fallston’s teacher, Maggie J. Sorrell, managed a class of only 15, her first teacher report described public sentiment towards the school as being “very good.”^[5] Shortly after the beginning of the term, community members asked the Freedmen’s Bureau to contribute lumber towards the construction of a schoolhouse.^[6] This request was denied by Bureau officials who stated, “We are not now aiding to commence any school houses as they cannot be completed by the middle of December, the limit fixed for such completion by the Asst. Commissioner.”^[7] By December 1868, enrollment numbers had dropped once more at the school, from 15 to 12.^[8] Rev. John Kimball, the same Freedmen’s Bureau official who had denied the request for lumber, described the situation at the school as a “very bad show” and “hardly worth awhile to pay money where there is no more interest.”^[9] Consequently, in January 1869, Fallston once more closed its doors.^[10]

Unlike the school’s first closure, Fallston’s second hiatus lasted a mere three months. When the school reopened in April 1869, a new teacher managed a class of 27 students.^[11] Eliza M. Murry closed out the spring term with an average attendance of 16 pupils.^[12] Following the summer break, Fallston reopened alongside other county schools in October. The institute’s new teacher, Mary E. Grantum, referred to the school as “Henry Winter Davis,” in her first monthly report, and described public sentiment towards colored schools as “greatly in our favor.”^[13] The 1869-1870 session appears to have been a successful one for the school at Fallston: average attendance peaked at 48 pupils in February^[14] and Grantum remained at the school for the entire academic term.^[15]

Considering the strong performance of Henry Winter Davis during this time, it is something of a surprise that no additional references to the school appear in the Freedmen’s Bureau records following the completion of the 1869-1870 academic year. While this absence likely suggests that the school was shuttered for a third time, a report from the Maryland State Board of Education seems to indicate a third reopening in 1873 under the management of the Harford County School Board.^[16]

By Stephanie Martinez

^[1] Baltimore Association for the Moral and Educational Improvement of the Colored People, Second Annual Report of the Baltimore Association for the Moral and Educational Improvement of the Colored People, (Baltimore: MD, 1866): pp 15.

^[2] Baltimore Association for the Moral and Educational Improvement of the Colored People, Third Annual Report of the Baltimore Association for the Moral and Educational Improvement of the Colored People, (Baltimore: MD, 1866): pp 18.

^[3] William Howard Day, Freedmen’s Bureau, “Report of Schools, State of Maryland For February 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.

^[4] Freedmen’s Bureau, “District Superintendent’s Monthly School Report…for the month of June 1868, Maryland and Delaware District, State of Maryland,” 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.

^[5] Maggie J. Sorrell, “Teacher’s Monthly School 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.

^[6] Eden Hammond, “Register entry 11/27-68. | 63 Hammond, Eden E.B. Vol. 1-1868 No. 119,”  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] John Kimball, Freedmen’s Bureau, “Endorsement of Rev. John Kimball on a letter of Rev. Eden Hammond, November 30, 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.

^[8] Maggie J. Sorrell, “Teacher’s Monthly School Report for the Month of December 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.

^[9] John Kimball to John Core, January 28, 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.

^[10] John Core to John Kimball, February 18, 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.

^[11] Eliza M. Murry, “Teacher’s Monthly School Report for the month of April 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.

^[12] Eliza M. Murry, “Teacher’s Monthly School Report for the month of June 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.

^[13] Mary E. Grantum, “Teacher’s Monthly School Report for the Month of October 31, 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.

^[14]   Mary E. Grantum, “Teacher’s Monthly School Report for the Month of February 28, 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.

^[15]  Mary E. Grantum, “Teacher’s Monthly School Report for the Month of May 31, 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.

^[16]  Maryland State Board of Education, Annual Report of the State Board of Education Showing the Condition of the Public Schools of Maryland, For the year ending September 30th, 1873, (Annapolis, MD: William T. Iglehart & Co., 1874). https://archive.org/details/report00mary_7/page/182/mode/2up?q=Harford&view=theater.