Guide Page
Parkers Creek Heritage Trail
Black History Resources
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Black History Resources Included in the Parkers Creek Heritage Trail Website and on Hiking Trail Signs
The Parkers Creek Heritage Trail interprets the history of the Parkers Creek area on this website and on signs on the American Chestnut Land Trust's 26 miles of public hiking trails. Although the project explores multiple aspects of local history, it emphasizes the importance of African American contributions to the area.
The summaries below outline the content of various items and list the names of Black families that are featured (main topic) and of others that are mentioned (little information provided). The following represents the current offering. More items will be added as time passes.
Black History Webpages and Trail Signs
Benefit Societies Organized by Black Residents Near Parkers Creek
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Benefit societies, sometimes called mutual aid societies, are voluntary associations that provide members with aid or relief from ill health, loss of income, or other difficulties. The Parkers Creek area was home to three benefit societies that served Black residents: the Grand United Order of Galilean Fishermen, the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, and the Household of Ruth. Lots near Parkers Creek were sold to the local chapters when they planned to build meeting halls, although there is no evidence that these halls were ever constructed.
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Black family names mentioned: Murray, Scales, Sewell, Brooks, Harris, Wallace, McCormick, Harrod, Bell, Kelson, Wall
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Webpage and trail sign
Convention badge for the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows and the Grand Household of Ruth, Washington DC, 1916.​ Theda Skocpol collection, Harvard University.
William H. and Suddie Commodore: A Parkers Creek Family
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William H. Commodore's mother was an enslaved woman and his father was a member of the enslaving family. Commodore was born in 1860 (died 1938), and his other mid-19th century relatives included a U.S. Colored Troops soldier who died while in Civil War service in 1864. Between 1894 and 1925, William H. and Suddie Commodore bought a total of 220 acres. They farmed the land, cut timber, and some of their sons worked in the pound net fishery at the mouth of Parkers Creek.
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Black family names featured: Commodore, Wallace
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Black family names mentioned: Boom (Boome), Parker, Bell, Boots
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Webpage and trail sign
Land use on part of the Commodore property, 1938.
James L. and Ella Parker: landowning farmers
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Jimmy Parker (b 1874-1877, d 1944) was the son of David and Susan Parker. He was married to Ella (b 1882 or 1883, d after 1950) and the couple had eight children. Several descendants still live in the vicinity. The documentation of Jimmy Parker's land ownership depended upon "exceptions" stated in deeds that transferred neighboring land to other buyers in 1919 and 1926. From 1937 to 1941, state and county taxes on Parker's land went unpaid and he lost the property. His granddaughter Cleo Parker tells about the family's continued access to the land after Jimmy's death.
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Black family names featured: Parker
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Black family names mentioned: Simms
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Webpage and trail sign
Cleo Parker, 2018
John W. Scales Jr., Parkers Creek farmer active in community life
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John Walter Scales Jr. (1871-1944) and his wife Sarah Gross Scales (b ca 1877, d after 1946) owned a 200-acre tract on the north side of the creek. Scales bought the land in 1916, and his heirs sold it two years after his death. News clippings from 1907 to 1914 offer a glimpse into John Scales' public life. For example, he was called to jury duty by the Circuit Court, served as an alternate delegate Maryland State Republican Congressional Conventions, and was active in Calvert County's Negro Business League and United Republican Club for Black voters. The ruined remains of the Scales' home are still visible. The house predates the Scales family, and one part is of log construction.
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Black family names featured: Scales, Scayles
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Black family names mentioned: Gross, Hardman, Sewell, Miller
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Webpage and trail sign
Former Scales dwelling, interior of log section , 2001
Joseph and Arabella Wallace: Civil War Soldier and Land-owning Farmer
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Joseph Wallace was born south of Parkers Creek in the late 1830s. During the Civil War, as a Free Black, he enlisted in the U.S. Colored Troops. In July 1864, Wallace was wounded during a battle in Virginia. After the war, he married Arabella Watts, formerly enslaved. In the 1890s, Joseph acquired nearly 300 acres of farm and forest land. He was active in the Grand United Order of Galilean Fishermen, a national benefit society organized by and for African Americans. After Joseph's death, his widow sold a small lot to the local chapter of the Galilean Fishermen for a hall, which was never constructed.
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Black family names featured: Wallace, Watts, Parker
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Black family names mentioned: Simms, Brooks
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Webpage and trail sign
Battle of the Crater, Petersburg VA,
20 July 1864, Harpers Magazine
Daniel Wallace, Farmer Who Lost All During the Great Depression
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Daniel Wallace (1877-1936) was one of eight children in the family of the Civil War veteran Joseph Wallace. At the end of Joseph's life and guided by his heirs in the decade that followed, about half of his 300 acres of land were sold to other African Americans. Meanwhile, Daniel farmed the remaining half. As the Depression neared, however, taxes were not paid and, in 1934, the land was lost to foreclosure. Daniel became a tenant farmer to the new owner but passed away two years later. Daniel's widow moved to Prince George's County to live with a daughter and died in the 1940s.
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Black family names featured: Wallace
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Black family names mentioned: Brooks, Parker, Chew, Boots, McCormick, Simms, Gross
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Webpage and trail sign
Detail from newspaper announcement that Wallace property will be sold for non-payment of taxes,
Calvert Journal, January 1934
Lemuel & Annie Wallace: Farm, House, & Family
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Lemuel Wallace was born in the early 1850s. He and his wife, Annie Boots, had 11 children between 1873 and 1894. In 1909, Lemuel purchased a 100-acre farm about a mile and a half from the creek, and in 1910, he bought an additional 7 acres about three-quarters of a mile to the west. Tobacco was the cash crop on the Wallace farm. Over time, some of the Wallace children and grandchildren were provided housing by successive occupation of the house on the larger tract–still standing today–while others acquired lots subdivided from the smaller tract by Lemuel before his death in 1934. Taxes on Lemuel’s land went unpaid from 1931 to 1934, which forced the sale of the larger property.
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Black family names featured: Wallace
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Black family names mentioned: Dorsey, Boots, Carr, Parker
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Webpage and trail sign
Woodrow Wallace at the house once owned by his grandfather Lemuel Wallace, November 1989
Woodrow Wallace's Tobacco Operation, 1987-2001 parts 1 and 2
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Woodrow Wilson Wallace (1914-2002) lived in Port Republic for his entire life. In that neighborhood, he is best known as a skilled house carpenter. He also farmed land and did a brief stint oystering on the Chesapeake Bay. The trail sign and webpages feature photographs and written descriptions of the Wallace family tobacco operation on ACLT land from 1987 to 2001.
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Black family names featured: Wallace
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Black family names mentioned: Weems, Parker, Evans, Brooks, Mason, Waul, Holland, Commodore, Harrod, White
August 1988: Woodrow Wallace, grandnephew Derrick Parker, and grandson Johnny Weems cultivate the crop.
Black History Webpages (no trail signs)
Alonzo Bell, landowning farmer
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In the 1890s, Alonzo and Dina Bell acquired two properties south of the creek where they farmed and harvested timber. The couple were active in the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows and the Household of Ruth and, in 1915, Dina Bell sold a lot to those organizations for a planned building, which may not have been built.
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Black family names featured: Bell
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Black family names mentioned: Commodore, Wallace, Boots, Brooks
Calvert Gazette, 24 June 1898
David and Susan J. Parker: Civil War veteran and farm family
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David Parker (ca. 1830 - ca. 1895) was a farmer and Civil War veteran who was married to Susan J. Parker (ca. 1843 - 1927). A family history written by a descendant reports that Parker had been enslaved before the Civil War. During the war, he served in the 9th Infantry Regiment of the United States Colored Troops and in 1871, Parker acquired a 40-acre tract of land. After his death, some family members brought a legal action to sell the property and divide the proceeds.
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Black family names featured: Parker
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Black family names mentioned: Kelly, Wallace, Chew, Height
Susan J. Parker, date unk. Collection of Mervin Parker, one of Susan Parker’s great-grandchildren.Courtesy Randi Parker Niles.
Oral History: Sisters Delois Harrod Johnson and Phyllis Harrod Dawkins
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Sisters Delois Harrod Johnson, 72, and Phyllis Harrod Dawkins, 70, tell about their childhood at the farm of their grandparents John Cephas Wallace and grandmother Hattie Commodore Wallace. Highlights include descriptions of farming, growing fruits and vegetables for the table, wading and swimming in the Bay, preparing meals, attending services at Brown's Methodist Church and the later move to the Greater Bible Way Church.
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Includes video clip
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Black family names featured: Wallace, Commodore, Harrod, Johnson, Dawkins
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Black family names mentioned: Brown, Hutchins, Gross, Parker
Kirsti Uunila and Darlene Harrod interview Phyllis Dawkins and Delois Johnson
Oral History: Selected Segments (Harrod, Harrod, Wills)
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Selections from 3 interviews. Shawn Harrod, a businessman and pastor, comments on family recollections of ancestor Jake Broome, who had been enslaved and whose writings are included in the records of the Freedman's Bureau. Ruth "Becky" Parker Harrod was interviewed shortly before her passing in 2023 at the age of 88. "I went to Parkers Creek School," she says, "and Brooks High School," when Calvert County's school system was still segregated. Yvonne Janice Mason Wills was interviewed in 2021, at the age of 90. Her stepmother worshiped at Brown's United Methodist Church, where Will's husband Leroy and other relatives are buried. "We could have buried them in other places," she says, "but we wanted the family to be together."
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Includes video clip
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Black family names featured: Harrod, Parker, Mason, Wills
Shawn Harrod
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Ruth "Becky" Parker Harrod
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Yvonne Janice Mason Wills
Webpages with Black history as secondary topic
William Parker, 1604-1673: Parker's Clifts & Parkers Creek
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William Parker was born in England in about 1604 and emigrated to the Virginia colony in the 1620s, settling in Maryland in about 1650. One of his land grants straddled the mouth of the creek that was named for him. Before his death in 1673, he returned to England. In his will he left the land to his son. The 1673 will also includes the earliest mention of enslaved individuals near Parkers Creek that Heritage Trail researchers have found: Parker bequeathed two "Negro women" to his widow and daughter.
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Webpage and sign
Hance-Chesley Cemetery
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Burial ground for two related White farm families. The Heritage Trail description includes Federal census information about the number of individuals enslaved by one family in 1850 and 1860.
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Webpage and sign
George W. and Hannah Brooke Dorsey: landowners, farm family, and physician
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Description of the Dorsey farm including the invention of a flue-curing system for tobacco; Federal census records provide the number of enslaved workers in 1850 and 1860.
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Webpage and sign
Sawmills and Railroad Ties, Early 20th Century
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Includes a description of the White sawmill operator George Turner's 1907 contracts with nearby African American landowners, Alonzo Bell, Joseph Wallace, Everett Wall, Lucretia Parran, and William H. Commodore. The contracts granted Turner the right to cut timber, set up sawmills, and establish roads to haul the lumber.
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Black family names mentioned: Bell, Wallace, Wall, Parran, Commodore, Harrod, Boone, Howe
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Webpage and sign
Booklet (PDF file, published 2022)
In 2022, the Parkers Creek Heritage Trail (PCHT) project summarized its research findings pertaining to Black families, schools, and churches for this booklet. Since that publication, as demonstrated by the webpages listed on this page, the PCHT team has learned more about these families and related topics. And we know that there is even more to discover. Nevertheless, we continue to provide access to the booklet as a helpful introduction to the community and its history.
African American Community of Parkers Creek, circa 1800-1960 (2022 edition)
Download a PDF version of the booklet (Note: file size is 35 MB)
Let us hear from you
The PCHT team looks forward to hearing from interested persons with information that should be added to the webpages and booklet. We would also like to know if there are people still living who might consent to share their stories, photographs, or documents relating to the experience of residents of the area around Parkers Creek. In addition, if you spot any errors or omissions, please let us know. We are eager to make corrections.
Contact:
Kirsti Uunila (k.uunila20@gmail.com)
Darlene Harrod (DMHarrod@verizon.net)
Carl Fleischhauer (cfle@comcast.net)