Existing comment:
Barry Farm:
Charged with assisting the ex-slaves in Washington after the end of the Civil War, General Oliver Otis Howard, the head of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (the Freedman's Bureau), purchased 375 acres from the Barry family, long-time land owners in Far Southeast. General Howard divided the land into one-acre plots and made them available to black families in 1867 for prices ranging from $125 to $300 an acre. Each purchaser was also provided with $76 worth of lumber and was obligated to construct a house on the property. Payments averaged $10 a month, and most of the homes constructed were modest A-frames. Free black families also purchased lots. Those with means bought additional lots and extra lumber and built larger homes.
The Freedmen's Bureau opened schools in Far Southeast to serve the growing black population. The Bureau opened a school in Good Hope in 1865 and Howard School in Barry Farm in 1867. In 1871, Hillsdale School opened, the first public school for African Americans across the Eastern Branch.
By the 1890s Barry Farm was a thriving community of black homeowners, attracting skilled craftsmen, truck farmers, businessmen, and professional. Just as in Uniontown, an active community association, the Hillsdale Civic Association, quickly formed and began to put pressure on city officials to improve conditions in the new community. |