The LaGrange school was located near Rocks, in northern Harford County, and is not very well attested in the Freedmen’s Bureau documents. The earliest document located that refers to LaGrange is a schedule of schools supported by the Baltimore Association during the fourth quarter of 1869. On this schedule, filled out at the end of December, Rachel Ann Smith is indicated to have been teaching at LaGrange for two months, with an average class size of 38 students.

Smith continued to teach at LaGrange for the duration of the spring 1870 term, submitting monthly reports from January through May. Attendance that term started at 40 students, but dwindled to 15 in April and only 11 in May. It is unknown whether the school was closed for a time after this, but by 1874 LaGrange appears among the schools administered by the Harford County School Board, which had assumed control of colored schools in February, 1871. The schoolhouse was remodeled in 1875 and teaching continued at LaGrange until 1939.^[1] 

By James Schruefer

^[1] Doug Washburn, “The Colored Schools of Harford County: Separate and Equal? Part 1," Harford Historical Bulletin 101 (Summer/Fall 2005): 17, 39.