African-American Education in Rockville (Part 2)

Researched and Written by Sharyn Duffin (Part 1 available here)

In Part 2 of African-American Education in Rockville, courtesy of Peerless Rockville, Sharyn Duffin looks at the desire for education and the establishment of black schools in Rockville and Montgomery County.

Desire for Education: Schools in Rockville

Congress enlarged the mission of the Freedmen’s Bureau in July 1866 to encourage and help finance efforts of freedmen, philanthropists, and states to engage in the education of blacks. The freedmen knew education was the path to economic and political independence that gave real meaning to their newfound freedom. Rutherford’s reports document advancements and challenges in establishing black schools in Rockville and Montgomery County. There was a school in Rockville as early as 1866. The Washington Evening Star reported on June 25 of that year that the teacher “was obliged to close the school on the 22nd owing to the inability of people to support it.”

The following month, Daniel Brogden and Solomon Williams appealed to the Freedmen’s Bureau for assistance in recovering from John Mortimer Kilgour funds they had collected and entrusted to him in 1858. The men argued that the money was “much needed by the Colored people to assist in securing a church and school.”

In October 1866, Rutherford reported a large school in operation at Sandy Spring, and “efforts are being made, with good prospects of success, for the establishment of a school in Rockville.”

To bolster these prospects, in February and March of 1867, twenty Rockville black men pledged to support a school by taking responsibility for money “as may be necessary to pay the board and washing [laundry] of the teacher and to provide fuel and lights for the Schoolhouse.”

Between the February 1867 petition and June 1867, a school operated in Rockville in the basement of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Rutherford noted that a Mr. Janney of the Baltimore Association for Moral and Educational Improvement of Colored People, who furnished the teacher, made “great objection” to it because it was “damp and ill suited to the purpose.” The church was the only large building accessible to the black community; hence the only place to house the school short of constructing one. Rutherford promised the Bureau’s assistance if the community decided to build one.

In July 1867, the Freedmen’s Bureau tracked down Kilgour, who had moved out of state. Some of the money, $18.50 (modern value about $300) was recovered and returned to the black community. The receipt for the return of the money was signed by Henson Norris and Hillary Carroll of the Rockville Colored School Board and witnessed by Daniel Brogdon and Solomon Williams.

To be continued.