The school at Perrymansville (or Perryman) in southeastern Harford County began in December 1865. Because a dedicated schoolhouse did not exist at this location prior to 1869, classes were conducted within a local church. The school first appears in Freedmen’s Bureau records on a report of Maryland schools for November 1866. There were 29 students on the roll that month.

In September 1868, school trustee James A. Pitt wrote to the Freedmen’s Bureau education superintendent, Rev. John Kimball. Pitt informed Kimball that he and the other trustees had purchased one quarter acre of land from the church trustees on which to build a schoolhouse. Assuming the Freedmen’s Bureau had a set plan for schools, he requested a set of plans and a pre-made deed form. Pitt and the other trustees had ambitious plans for the new building, hoping to construct a two-story building that would accommodate the meetings of literary societies and other activities “for the Elevatian of our Race.”

The trustees must have subsequently provided the Freedmen’s Bureau with evidence of their deed to the land, because the Bureau sent them some building materials. That November, Pitt wrote again to Kimball, stating that the schoolhouse would not be finished by mid-December as had perhaps been expected by the Bureau. He expressed his disappointment at the inadequate amount of lumber that had been supplied.

While the construction of the new schoolhouse languished, teaching continued. J. F. Pierpont Dickson’s first monthly report to the Freedmen’s Bureau was submitted in October 1868. From then until the end of her time at Perrymansville in June 1869, she reported that she had no schoolhouse and taught in a church. Dickson was employed by the New England Freedmen’s Aid Society, a Boston based organization.

After the summer break of 1869, Dickson was replaced for the new school year by Samantha Green, who was supported by the Baltimore Association. Finally, it seems that the new schoolhouse was in operation, as Green’s monthly reports, starting with her first in October 1869, do not report that the school is in a church but in a school building owned by the people. Samantha Green taught for the entirety of the 1869-1870 school year, which ended in June 1870. After this, the school disappears from Bureau records. In early 1871, the Harford County School Board assumed control of the county’s colored schools. Samantha Green would actually return to teach at Perrymansville to teach from 1879 to 1881. Eventually the original schoolhouse was replaced by another structure, which remained in operation until 1952.^[1]

By James Schruefer

^[1] Doug Washburn, “The Colored Schools of Harford County: Separate but Equal? Part 1,” Harford Historical Bulletin 101 (Summer/Fall 2005): 36.