THE NEGROES OF SANDY SPRING, MARYLAND: A SOCIAL STUDY.

BY WILLIAM TAYLOR THOM, PH. D.

The present study was made under the direction of the United States Commissioner of Labor as one "of a series of investigations of small well-defined groups of Negroes (a) in various parts of the country," as set forth in Bulletin No. 14 of the Department of Labor, January, 1898. (b)

The Sandy Spring community lies in Montgomery County, Md., due north of Washington City. It extends back for several miles from the Patuxent River on the east, and lies chiefly along the somewhat sandy ridge which constitutes the watershed between the small affluents of the Patuxent on the east and of Rock Creek and the Eastern Branch of the Potomac on the west and south. The nearness to the national capital is of great economic importance to the inhabitants of the neighborhood, the southern corner of which is about 8 miles in an air line north of the northern angle of the District of Columbia.

Here within a stone's throw, as it were, of the seat of government is a thriving agricultural community, among whom live still the descendants of Negro families which have been free for a century and a quarter. It is this exceptional fact of a long-continued free existence in the midst of surrounding slavery which seems to warrant the special investigation of the Negroes of Sandy Spring in order to see what are the social and economic results to them of their opportunities during several generations as freemen. The better to understand the local conditions, a brief sketch of both county and neighborhood i- desirable.

MONTGOMERY COUNTY. ()

Montgomery County is bounded on the south by the District of Columbia; on the southwest by Virginia and the Potomac River, along which is the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal; on the northwest by Frederick County; on the northeast by Howard County, from which it is separated by the Patuxent River, and on the southeast by Prince

In accordance with the correct usage of the leaders of their race, the term "Negroes" instead of "colored people" is used in this paper.

See also Bulletin No. 10, May, 1897.

eCf. T. H. S. Boyd's History of Montgomery County, Md., second ed., Clarksburg, Md., also histories of Maryland passim.

George County. The country is rolling, rising gradually toward the foothills of the Blue Ridge in the northwest. The soil, thin in the lower end of the county, improves toward the upper country, but much of it seems not to have recovered from the exhausting tobacco culture of former days.

There are valuable quarries for building stone and roofing slate in the county, as may be seen in the Smithsonian Institution and in Georgetown College, District of Columbia; some gold mining has been carried on in former years and has been recently renewed; ⚫ chrome ore is found also, and there are a number of flour and grist mills; but the main business of the county has been and is agriculture, and the chief products are wheat, corn, oats, hay, potatoes, and the products of the dairy and of the poultry yard.

Montgomery County contains 267,933 acres, of which 193,937 acres are improved and 73,996 acres, chiefly woodland, are unimproved. The process of breaking up large tracts of land into smaller holdings. has been going on for many years, and in 1890 the census showed the following division of the land into farms:

NUMBER AND PER CENT OF FARMS IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY, BY SIZE, IN 1890.

The average size of farms was 137 acres.

The following table from the census of 1890 shows whether these farms were cultivated by their owners, were rented for money, or were rented on shares:

With the exception of Calvert County, which had 1,001 farms and a percentage of 88.21, Montgomery had, in 1890, the highest percentage of owner cultivators of any county in the State, only 16.23 per

cent of the farms being subject to actual or constructive absenteeism. Although this percentage was then below the average of the thickly settled New England farms, it was fully equal to the percentage for New York and Pennsylvania farms; it was above the average for New Jersey and Ohio farms; a little above the percentage (82.94) for the smaller and somewhat similarly situated county of Fairfax, in Virginia, which contained 186,455 acres, 1,776 farms, and 1,473 owner cultivators; considerably above the percentage (71.29) for Loudoun County, Va., which also, like upper Montgomery, lies along the Potomae near Washington, and contained, in 1890, 26,963 more acres and 141 less farms, or 294,896 acres, 1,818 farms, and 1,296 owner cultivators; and also considerably above the percentage (70.71) for Prince Edward County, Va., in which Farmville is situated and which contained 184,637 acres (83,378 improved and 101,259 unimproved), 1,096 farms, and 775 owner cultivators. (a)

Montgomery County is evidently ready for the township system of local self-government, and should adopt it.

These 1,959 farms, with their buildings and improvements, were valued in 1890 at $11,634,460 and the machinery and implements for their cultivation at $381.760.

The farms produced in 1890, on an outlay for fertilizers of $207,946, crops as follows, estimated at $1,531,760:

At the same time the Montgomery County farmers and their households had the care of the following live stock and poultry:

a For other details of Prince Edward County, ef. Bulletin of Department of Labor,

No. 14. January, 1898.

From 8,524 cows.

e From 9,455 sheep.

7996-No. 32-01

The total valuation of the real estate and the live stock at the census of 1890 was $12,884,250. This does not include personal securities, stocks and bonds, and personal property other than live stock.

The basis for the tax levy for 1898-99 was $12, 443, 795, which included real estate, private securities, and stocks and bonds of foreign corporations-a loss of valuation as compared with 1890 of about a million dollars. This basis yielded, at a rate of $1.06 per $100 of valuation (except foreign stocks and bonds, on which the county rate is 30 cents per $100), the sum of $129,385, which was increased from other sources to $167,299. Of this amount $3,026 was disbursed for the almshouse, $4,535 for bridges, $3.174 for elections, $3,427 for the indigent insane, $30,000 for public schools, $4,839 for pensions, $21,633 for roads, $21,384 for State tax, and $9,334 on the construction of a turnpike connecting the county seat with the District of Columbia, for which $25,000 of county bonds had been sold. The county has a small debt.

The basis for the levy of 1899-1900, at the rate of $1.02 per $100 of valuation, was: Real estate, $10,242,150, a loss of more than a million and a quarter as compared with 1890; private securities, $553.785; personal property (including live stock and excluding farming implements up to $300 in value), $1,354,105, to which must be added $330,660 of stocks and bonds of foreign corporations, on which the rate is 30 cents per $100, making in all a total of $12,480,700. The amount levied for the support of public schools for 1899-1900 was $30.200.

In 1898-99 the county had 114 public schools() which were open for 9 months. Of these 81 were white schools, with 100 teachers (33 males and 67 females), 82 of the buildings, valued at $51,375, being owned by the county, and 33 were colored schools, with 40 teachers (9 males and 31 females), 25 of the buildings, valued at $9,615, being owned by the county. The average yearly salary of the teachers was $328.90. For these schools the county received from the State school tax $16,181.30; from the free-school fund, $2.154.35; from State appropriation for colored schools, $7,477.44. The county levy, as already stated, was $30,000, and the receipts from all sources, including balance on hand, were $59,546.60.

a From report of State board of education, 1899, and from office of county commissioners.

The receipts of the free-book fund from all sources amounted to $6.784.55, of which $4,599.36 was expended.

For the colored schools the receipts in 1898-99 were: From the State, $7,477.44; from the county school board, $1,107.74:(a) from miscellaneous sources, $3.33; a total of $8,588.51. This amount was disbursed as follows: For teachers' salaries, $7,513.20; for incidental expenses, repairs, furniture, fuel, rent, insurance, and balance due treasurer, $1,075.31.

Of the State free-book fund noted above, the sum of $1.155.34 was appropriated for colored schools.

The cost to the county for the school year (exclusive of the free-book fund and of the interest on the amount invested in the school buildings) of each Negro child was $5.74, basing the calculation on the average attendance of 1,496.

It would be both interesting and valuable to compare the taxes paid by the whites and by the Negroes which go to make up the amount of this county levy for schools, $30,000. But there is no provision made in the office of the county commissioners or of the county clerk by which property can be identified as held by white or by Negro owners. In consequence no record can be kept, either of the acquisition or of the loss of property by either class of citizens, nor can any just estimate be made of the absolute or relative condition and progress of the Negroes as a whole, as shown in their economic success or failure as a body of citizens and voters.

The same lack of distinctive record, combined with the condition of the law on the subject previous to 1897, renders futile any attempt to get accurately at the incumbrances on the real estate of the county, though a competent authority estimates it, exclusive of the crop liens, as being about $3,000,000.

Upon the agricultural history of the county, the record of its population offers a very interesting commentary.

The United States census gives the following figures for the population of the county, 1790 to 1890:

POPULATION OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, 1790 TO 1890.

a This amount is believed to be approximately the county tax paid by the Negroes.

b Including 1 Indian.