Situated between Bel Air and Jarrettsville, the school at Forest Hill was in operation for at least two years before the Freedmen’s Bureau agreed to provide the community with support.^[1] While it is not known what year the school was established, by 1866 approximately 30 students were meeting together with their African American teacher in a private room.^[2] Described as the only “school of [its] kind within six miles,” Forest Hill presented Black children in the Marshall and Bel Air districts of the county with the opportunity for education.^[3] Interest in the school appears to have surged in 1867. In a letter to a Freedmen’s Bureau official, community member Solomon Wetherill described the school’s meeting place as “unsuitable” and portrayed its enrollment situation as unmanageable. Requesting that the Bureau send materials for the construction of a new building, Wetherill assured General Edgar M. Gregory that the school had been offered a plot of land and that the community would be “fully able to get [a schoolhouse] put up.”^[4] By the spring of 1869, Forest Hill appears to have been operating in a new building, financed in part by the Freedmen’s Bureau and the Baltimore Association.^[5]

When John Camper submitted his first teacher’s report in February 1869, he referred to the new schoolhouse as the “Presbury House,” likely named in honor of one of the school’s trustees, David Presbury.^[6] Enrollment during that spring term remained steady. By June, however, average attendance had dipped to only 16 pupils.^[7] When Presbury reopened for the 1869-1870 academic year in October, interest in the school reignited. 38 children enrolled in the Forest Hill program that first month, most of whom remained regular students through the end of the term.^[8] By the time Camper submitted his final report in May 1870, 39 students were enlisted at Presbury, with an average daily attendance of 35.^[9] As no other reports have been uncovered, further information about the school at Forest Hill remains unknown. 

By Stephanie Martinez

^[1] Joseph Parry to Edgar M. Gregory, November 26, 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.

^[2] Solomon Wetherill to Edgar M. Gregory, December 6, 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] Parry to Gregory.

^[4] Wetherill to Gregory.

^[5] John Kimball, “Monthly Report of Schools, Teachers, Societies, Pupils, and Buildings…Month of February 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.

^[6] John H. Camper, “Teacher’s Monthly School Report for the Month of February, 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.

^[7] John H. Camper, “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.

^[8] John H. Camper, “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.

^[9] John H. Camper, “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.