A Look through the Gate House Museum Collection
Sykesville's Black History
From 2024 to 2026, the Gate House Museum and its volunteers took a deeper look at Black residents and their experiences in Sykesville. This research used map data to cross-index records to identify statistics that represent town residents themselves, rather than Freedom District as a whole, creating a more even comparison of populations over time.
The Sykesville area had been comparatively diverse leading up to the Town's incorporation (1904). By World War I, minority populations faced prejudice around the town as well as nationally. Black populations in particular found themselves excluded from most town activity.
Early Black History in Sykesville
Prior to the arrival of town namesake, James Sykes (1823), and the B&O Railway (1831), although patents of ownership were filed, there was very little actual settlement in the Sykesville area. In 1836, the colonial areas originally associated with a portion of Frederick and Baltimore counties became the Freedom District of Carroll County.
With that said, early settlers, such as Phillip Hammond (owner of an early tract in 1731 called "Hammonds Fine Soil Forest," seen on the map at right), who held property in what is today the Eldersburg area. Other early settlers in the area included John Hammond, several Bennetts, several Browns, and the Shipleys of Maryland. Although not all of these landholders worked or settled on these early tracts, slaves were the most readily available labor used to clear land, plant crops, and build housing. As an example, Phillip Hammond enslaved 107 persons throughout his substantial land holdings in the state at the time of his death in 1760. While we cannot definitively say any of these persons were present on his holdings near Sykesville/Eldersburg, it is possible.
As with most areas around Baltimore, plantation owners held the largest share of enslaved persons, but also housed the largest numbers of free blacks. An exception to this was "The Row" of Howard County--a mill community over the Patapsco River just outside of Sykesville which housed both white and black individuals who worked in the mill and mining communities of the Sykesville area. This community was itinerant, and ceased to exist in the 1910s after community opposition had these structures torn down.
Town namesake, James Sykes, was a farmer and miller who used both free and enslaved laborers in his millworks in various places in Maryland. In Sykesville, his millworks was known as the Howard Cotton Factory--a structure that was completely destroyed in the flood of 1868. Despite Sykes' early practices, while serving as a representative during the 1864 Maryland Constitutional Convention, he firmly stated that Maryland supported emancipation. Also, within the Gate House collections, James Sykes is cited in two different wills, indicating that Sykes persuaded others to free their slaves before state and federal changes to these laws.
James Tyson, a very wealthy businessman, owned Elba Furnace, and several quarries around Sykesville, arriving in the 1820s--around the same time as James Sykes. His family (especially his grandfather, Elisha Tyson, who was instrumental in the establishment of the Underground Railroad) is especially well known nationally for their Quaker sentiments regarding emancipation and abolition. Further research is needed to determine if Tyson may have influenced Sykes or others in Sykesville to free locally enslaved persons.
Free blacks were not uncommon in mid-19th century Sykesville and the surrounding area. The 1860 census shows 179 free persons of color who can be identified as living within Freedom District.
Image: Excerpt from untitled map of Carroll County, 1756, by Grace Tracey, showing roads, Indian trails, waterways, and land patents before this date. Note that land patents do not always indicate any structures or persons living at the site. Full map can be accessed through the Maryland State Archives found here: https://speccol.msa.maryland.gov/pages/speccol/unit.aspx?speccol=6166&serno=2&item=1&subitem=-1
Image: James Sykes, Courtesy of the Historical Society of Carroll County
Segregation
Individuals of color were largely restricted to housing along Oklahoma Road, where some families remained for generations. One of these residents, Warren Dorsey (1920-2022), stated in an oral history with writer, Jack White,
The standard regarded by the white community and its sensibility toward people of color, where the question of rights and privileges was concerned, was that your concerns are no concern of ours...There were no 'whites only' signs around town. You could go into any store in Sykesville, I think. You just had to know your place.
Between 1930 and 1940, Sykesville's white population grew more than five times faster than in previous decades, as our black community showed no proportional growth. By 1940, Black residents occupied only seventeen households in Sykesville.
Employment During Segregation
Employers of the early 1900s limited opportunities for work for people of color. In Sykesville, by 1900, Springfield Hospital Center employed roughly a quarter of the town, including a handful of persons of color. State law forbid persons of color from serving in most visible positions at state institutions, including segregated institutions. Even nearby Henryton Tuberculosis Sanatorium--a segregated facility for black patients--had exclusively white doctors, nurses, and custodians. The only individuals listed as working at Henryton between its opening in ___ and the end of this study in 1950 were Robert B. Tyler--a pipe fitter working at the institution in 1930, and
In 1900, George E. Collings and William T. Perkins, two persons of color living in the white household of William Barnett, worked as cooks for Springfield Hospital Center. In 1930, Milton Bond, William Frey, and Clarence Thomas also worked as cooks for Springfield Hospital Center.
Alvinia Rhubottom, a person of color living in the white household of Henry Rhubottom in 1900, worked as a washerwoman at the hospital, though she could read but not write.
The first census record which includes a person of color in a front-facing position--or any white-collar career other than ministry or teaching--is 1950, where Naomi I. Washington is listed as a Nurse's Aid. It is unfortunately unclear in whether she may have worked at Henryton (more likely) or Springfield. Washington lived on Oklahoma Road at the time, in the historically segregated neighborhood at the top of the hill above Sykesville's Main Street.
The Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad also regularly employed persons of color, having been formed by Quakers who officially incorporated contemporarily progressive measures into their hiring. In Sykesville, this included both steam and the later electric railroad servicemen of color, general laborers, and firemen.
A handful of teachers of color--all women--are also recorded in early census data for Freedom District. These included Mary E. Logan and Virgniea Price. At the Gate House, we have so far been unable to identify their schools of record. By 1904, Maryland Schools required that black students be taught by qualified black teachers. While pay was roughly half of their white counterparts, and retention was fairly low, compared to neighboring counties, Carroll County was generous in its compensation of teachers. However, schools for students at the turn of the century were drastically under resourced, and turnover throughout the state was extremely high.
Black children were also not uncommonly employed in Freedom District. This included Olivia Ryan, who in 1900 at age 12 was living and working in the white household of William Bennett as a domestic servant. Tyler Geneva, in 1910 at the age of 13 lived with the family of Sykesville's first Mayor (1904-1907), Edwin M. Mellor where the boy was listed on the census as a "server." Most Black children only attended rural schoolhouses to attain roughly a fifth grade education. Both white and black children commonly repeated first and second grade several times to achieve required mastery, and often missed school during seasons where agricultural needs meant extra money for their household for a day's work. The first state laws mandating attendance did not apply to employed students, and later required only half the attendance of unemployed students. Carroll County notoriously lacked enforcement for truancy and publicly touted the need for additional agricultural labor versus mandatory schooling.
By the 1920s, the only black persons living on Main Street were clergymen and their families. The Gate House is still working to formally identify the parsonage location of these groups associated with ministry in the Sykesville area.
Still, just as Main Street's white small businesses owners flourished, our small black community had its own entrepreneurs. James E. Prettyman was a tailor who lived on Springfield Avenue in 1920. James Huston, who lived on Church Street in 1930, was the only black merchant in Sykesville enumerated as living in the Town at the time.
Clippings of the Sykesville Herald Newspaper and in the Museum Collection
Most of the objects contained on this page are excerpts clipped directly from the Sykesville Herald (from 1923-1940s, known as the Herald Messenger, under the same publishers) newspaper, published in Sykesville, Maryland from 1913 until the 1980s.
For additional information regarding ongoing Black History research in conjunction with the Downtown Sykesville Connection, check out their landing page here.
Work is underway to continue to document important happenings by topic for better access of the public. If there is a topic in which you are interested but do not see posted on our website, contact us to see if it is in our digital system, but not yet online!
