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OAKLEY_160508_07.JPG: Freedmen during Reconstruction in Montgomery County
Post-1865
With the shackles of slavery removed following the end of the Civil War, freed blacks in Montgomery County made strides to achieve successful lives for their families. During Reconstruction (1865 – 1877), African Americans established churches, created schools and formed social organizations and clubs that nourished their fledgling communities. With wages earned from their labor, African Americans invested in homes, farms and businesses to sustain these new networks.
At the heart of any freedmen settlement was the church. In Montgomery County, African American churches were predominantly Protestant denominations, particularly Methodist and Baptist, and there was at least one Catholic Church located in Mt. Zion.
Growing African American communities devoted funds towards the creation of schools for its children. Initial classrooms were held in local churches and community lodges. Public schools for African American children were not founded in Montgomery County until 1872, at which time each electoral district was allotted one public facility. Regardless of property taxes to fund operations, African Americans found their county schools deficient, with outdated and cast-off textbooks from the white schools.
Despite achievements accomplished after the Civil War, African Americans still confronted racism and increased segregation in Maryland. Many whites watched the growth of the freedmen community with contempt and fear.
"Hostilities towards local blacks were recorded in Montgomery County by the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (Freedman's Bureau). Philip Brown recalled on March 22, 1866 being assaulted by a white man. Brown was "shot at and wounded in the head... while riding quietly along the public highway..." This attack may have also exacerbated by Brown's wartime affiliation. When he was shot, he heard his assailant's companion say, "... he's nothing but a Union Soldier."
-- Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1869, National Archives & Records Administration.
OAKLEY_160508_09.JPG: 1879 Hopkins map of Oakley Cabin. The cable that stands today was one of three dwellings that were once occupied by African American families.
OAKLEY_160508_11.JPG: Illustration showing an African American soldier at his wedding in Vicksburg, Mississippi, 1866.
OAKLEY_160508_14.JPG: Prior to Maryland's abolition of slavery in 1864, slave marriages were illegal. Former slave Frank Dorsey, of Montgomery County, took pride in his wedding vows to his bride in 1893.
OAKLEY_160508_16.JPG: The portrait of these unidentified children with an open book illustrated new educational opportunities available for African Americans after 1865. c 1865-1870
OAKLEY_160508_19.JPG: This 1879 Harper's Weekly image depicts several significant changes during Reconstruction: increased literacy among former slaves, involvement in local governmental affairs, and the ability to acquire material goods through wages earned on the open market.
OAKLEY_160508_26.JPG: "The Result of the 15th Amendment and the First Vote." With the 1870 ratification of the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution, African American men gained the right to vote.
OAKLEY_160508_31.JPG: Museum & Park
Oakley Cabin is a museum furnished to depict the various periods of its history and development. The ground floor room represents communal life at the cabin, centering around the open hearth. In the small adjoining room are displayed the 19th century tools and artifacts excavated in archeological digs at the cabin. Archaeologists are currently piecing together the evidence to try and date the construction of the cabin. The oak and chestnut log cabin is a reflection of vernacular architecture and excellent craftsmanship through its dove-tailed notching and artful pegging. The rafters on the roof are "bird-mouthed" over the top log that serves as a plate. The floor of the first level sits on a double sill with a notch in the foundation to allow two logs – one for the floor and one for the wall.
The cabin sits on a two-acre tract that is part of a larger park running along Reddy Branch. The mill pond for Newlin's Mill was located in the low area behind the cabin. A trail, partially laid inside the old millrace, leads from the cabin to the site of the mill at the intersection of Brookeville Road and Georgia Avenue. Numerous wild plants can be seen, many of which are edible or medicinal and were used by local people. Hawks, foxes, deer, raccoons and other wildlife can often be seen from the cabin or trail. The trail also passes stone quarries used to dig local stone.
OAKLEY_160508_38.JPG: Oakley Cabin
This log structure, acquired as part of Reddy Branch Stream Valley Park, was once part of Oakley Farm. Built before or just after emancipation, the cabin is representative of slave or tenant housing and is a rare surviving example. Reddy Branch, which flows through the parkland to the rear of the cabin, once provided water power for a mill in nearby Brookeville. The mill race, a trench engineered to carry water to the mill, still flows the contour of Brookeville Road.
Description of Subject Matter: Built in the early 1820s, the Oakley Cabin was part of Oakley Farm, which occupied part of Colonel Richard Brooke’s large land tract known as “Addition to Brooke Grove.” Brooke, a Revolutionary War hero was known as “the Fighting Quaker.” He built the “big house” called Oakley in 1764, which was destroyed in the 1970s.
Brooke, who died in 1788, willed all his property to his only child, Ann, who later married William Hammond Dorsey. They had five children. Like her father, Ann and William never lived on the Oakley Farm. Instead William built their home, Dumbarton Oaks in Georgetown. When Ann died in 1802, William sold all of his Georgetown property and moved to Oakley. William died in 1818. The Dorseys’ son, Richard B. Dorsey, transformed Oakley into a farm, on which his 23 slaves worked. It was during this time when the Oakley Cabin was built around 1820.
The 1½-story Oakley Cabin has a stone chimney with brick stack. Oak and chestnut logs are joined with dovetail joints and chinked with stones, now largely covered with cement. There are two rooms divided by a bead board partition wall. A boxed staircase leads to the upper loft.
Dr. William Bowie Margruder bought Oakley farm in 1836. A local doctor to both white and black families, Margruder owned 19 slaves to help farm the land. Between 1820 and 1878, two more cabins were built. Oakley Cabin is the only remaining one. After Dr. Margruder died in 1873, Josiah J. Hutton purchased the farm.
According to census records from 1880 to 1920, between 22 to 37 people lived in the three cabins. The residents were black and white, slaves and free citizens with jobs ranging from farm laborers and carpenters to blacksmiths and laundresses. The cabins formed a small roadside community that likely shared household tasks and sold produce and hand-made articles to travelers on the Brookeville Road. It represented a cross-section of cultures that make up the unique Black American folk experience.
Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.)
I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com
and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
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