Black History
The Early African Americans of St. Bartholomew’s Church
Our African Heritage
In the nineteenth century, when St. Bartholomew’s Parish was founded, both the nature of the economy in northern Montgomery County and the origin of the people who lived and worked there were quite different from what they are today. The First, or Cracklin, District of Montgomery County, near the center of which St. Bartholomew’s Church was situated, was an agricultural region with a population that lived mainly in the countryside. About four of every ten residents in the district could trace their ancestry to Africa, from whence they or their forebears had been brought to America involuntarily to labor for owners of European background who held them as property under Maryland law. Only about one in four of these Africans and their descendants gained their liberty before the Civil War.
The 1850 census showed a population in the district that was 59 percent white, 30 percent enslaved, and 11 percent free persons of color. The 863 slaves in the district were, or in the case of infants would become, the laborers of the 156 white individuals who owned them. Thus the district had an average of 5.5 enslaved per owner. The members of St. Bartholomew’s vestry in 1850 held larger than average groups in bondage. All but one of them had between 8 and 14 bondsmen. The wealthy and politically prominent vestryman Allen Bowie Davis stood out by holding a total of 27 enslaved black and mulatto workers in the district. The productive and creative capacity of these bondsmen was highly regarded.
Thomas Allen, the Baptizer
Some ministers in the Anglican Church had taken a serious interest in the spiritual lives of Marylanders of African origin in the colonial period, and the Episcopal Church expanded this concern after independence. The first rector of St. Bartholomew’s to baptize black residents of the parish seems to have been the Rev. Thomas G. Allen, who came to the parish in 1820, just seven years after its organization. Allen was a careful record-keeper, and he inscribed the names of eighty black children in the parish’s baptismal register
Thomas Allen had been born in Hudson, New York, in 1794, and he turned 26 in the year he came to officiate at St. Bartholomew’s Church. His older brother Benjamin had been studying for the Presbyterian ministry in 1814 when the newly elected Episcopal bishop of Virginia, Richard Channing Moore, who was also a New Yorker, invited the two young men to come to Virginia and become candidates for the Episcopal ministry there. Both accepted the invitation and were soon ordained. Benjamin would die in 1829 after becoming rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.
Writing his brother’s biography, Thomas Allen quoted a letter Benjamin had sent him from Virginia describing his ministerial work among the enslaved blacks in his parishes near Charles Town and Shepherdstown. “I am very much engaged preaching to the poor blacks. I go from plantation to plantation, and preach to them in the morning after breakfast or after dark, under the eye and guidance of their masters. They promise good effects from it already. Many true Christians have I found among them. . . . I know you will be zealous and active, and I trust, you will not neglect the poor slaves.” The substantial number of enslaved African Americans Thomas baptized suggests that he fully agreed with his brother’s statements about the importance of evangelizing among African Americans.
Thomas Allen left St. Bartholomew’s Church in 1828 and moved to Philadelphia to become director of missions and interim minister for his brother, who soon left on a trip to England. After Benjamin succumbed to a pulmonary illness on the return voyage, Thomas became a missionary to Philadelphia’s poor, hospitalized, and imprisoned, a calling to which he would devote his energies for more than thirty years. In 1856, when the new Republican Party entered the national political scene, Thomas Allen took a public stand in favor of the party’s antislavery presidential candidate and vehemently opposed the spread of slavery to new territories in the West. Evidently, his concern for African Americans long survived his service to St. Bartholomew’s Parish.
The Ministries of Levin Gilliss and Orlando Hutton
The Revs. Levin Gilliss and Orlando Hutton served successively as rectors of St. Bartholomew’s Parish from 1829 to 1844 and 1844 to 1866, and both continued Allen’s practice of baptizing enslaved African Americans. Neither of the men were as faithful as Allen had been at recording their baptisms in the parish register, however, so the identities of most of those they baptized is unknown. Gilliss recorded the baptism of eight African Americans in 1831 and 1832 before ceasing to inscribe the names of those to whom he administered the sacrament, except for one white individual whom he baptized in 1842. Hutton never entered in the parish register the names of the individuals he baptized.
Both ministers, however, reported the number of baptisms they performed in their annual parochial reports. While a few of these reports are also missing, we know from the many that were published in the diocesan convention journals that over 180 additional baptisms were performed in the parish between 1833 and 1866. Five of Hutton’s parochial reports specified the race of the infants he baptized, and in those years his figures showed that he baptized 24 whites and 21 African Americans. If similar proportions held during the years for which no breakdown was given, a total of some 80 to 90 of the 182 recipients of the sacrament of baptism in these years would have been African American.
Recalling near the end of his life conditions in the antebellum Episcopal Church in Maryland, Hutton observed that blacks were assigned separate seating in these churches, either in the gallery or near the doors, and invited to attend, but that most did not or could not respond. Episcopal masters very largely treated their servants well, Hutton wrote, but they only made religious instruction available to those who worked in the household, and regrettably did not enable ministers to instruct those who did agricultural work. Infant baptism may have been a rare religious ritual offered to these workers.
Participation in a New Time of Freedom
After emancipation, many African Americans worshipped in separate congregations they formed. Some, however, continued to worship at St. Bartholomew’s, as evidenced by the dozen blacks baptized there by Rev. William Laird between 1877 and 1892, the ten African American couples married in the church in the same period, and the black youth baptized in her parents’ home by Rev. Henry Marsden in 1913. Several substantial black families seem to have belonged to the parish in the late nineteenth century. Laird baptized four children of Remus Walker, a farm laborer who lived near Brookeville, and his wife Helen between 1879 and 1883, and he presided at the marriage of Thomas Walker in 1882. The rector also baptized three black members of the Gittings family at a single service in 1879. Census records indicate that Martha Simpson, the mother of Henrietta Simpson, the last black child Laird baptized, was the resident cook for the family of Laytonsville merchant, George W. Mobley.
As American industry came to offer better opportunities to black workers than did the farms of Montgomery County, many African Americans migrated to urban areas. We have not been able to trace the lives of the individual African Americans baptized in St. Bartholomew’s Parish, and we do not know whether they maintained a connection to the Episcopal Church. While we can only hope that the spiritual seeds planted at St. Bartholomew’s bore fruit in their lives, we can be confident that the true worth of these hard-working individuals will reap the ultimate reward of God’s blessing.
The African Americans Listed in
the Original Register of Baptisms at
St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church
| Name | Relation | Baptism | Date | |
| Elizabeth | daughter of Susan BaDate | August | 6 | ,1820 |
| Rachel Ann | daughter of Fanny | August | 6 | ,1820 |
| Reuben Matthews | August | 6 | ,1820 | |
| Mary Ann Matthews | August | 6 | ,1820 | |
| Jane | daughter of Flora | August | 6 | ,1820 |
| Mary Jane | daughter of Arche and Lettice | August | 6 | ,1820 |
| Caroline Swirles | daughter of Holmer | August | 6 | ,1820 |
| John Richard | son of Hannah | August | 21 | ,1820 |
| Benjamin | son of Fanny | September | 3 | ,1820 |
| George Washington | son of Hagar | September | 3 | ,1820 |
| Sally | daughter of Milly | September | 17 | ,1820 |
| Kitty Ann | daughter of Priscilla | September | 17 | ,1820 |
| Henry | son of Milly | September | 17 | ,1820 |
| Simon | a boy of four and a half | December | 29 | ,1820 |
| Samuel | son of Kitty | April | 25 | ,1821 |
| Otho | son of Peggy | July | 23 | ,1821 |
| Isaac | son of Milly | July | 23 | ,1821 |
| Edward | son of Nelly | July | 23 | ,1821 |
| Ann Maria | daughter of Phillis | August | 19 | ,1821 |
| Levi | son of Rachel | December | 24 | ,1821 |
| Kitty Cooke | daughter of Fanny | June | 23 | ,1822 |
| Richard Campbell | son of Rachel | June | 23 | ,1822 |
| Rachel Matilda Mitchell | daughter of Lettice | June | 23 | ,1822 |
| William Henry | son of Harriet | July | 7 | ,1822 |
| Abraham Jackson | son of Perry | August | 18 | ,1822 |
| Isaac | son of Matilda | August | 18 | ,1822 |
| Jacob | son of Cloe | August | 18 | ,1822 |
| Martha Ann Bowie | August | 18 | ,1822 | |
| Alfred | son of Milly | September | 15 | ,1822 |
| John Wesley | son of Jenny | October | 28 | ,1822 |
| Allen | son of Mary | November | 10 | ,1822 |
| Harriet | daughter of Rachel | March | 16 | ,1823 |
| Kitty | daughter of Harriet | May | 11 | ,1823 |
| John Philemon | son of Sophey | June | 8 | ,1823 |
| Mary Green | daughter of Charlotte | June | 8 | ,1823 |
| Phil Key | son of Charity | June | 22 | ,1823 |
| George Washington | son of Lucy | June | 22 | ,1823 |
| Caroline | daughter of Fanny | July | 20 | ,1823 |
| Emely | daughter of Mary Ann | September | 14 | ,1823 |
| George | son of Rachel | November | 9 | ,1823 |
| Sarah | daughter of Linny | April | 25 | ,1824 |
| Robert Henry | son of Priscilla | July | 4 | ,1824 |
| William Henry Evins | August | 1 | ,1824 | |
| Basil | son of Milly | August | 1 | ,1824 |
| John Wesley Johnson | August | 1 | ,1824 | |
| Artimus Johnson | August | 1 | ,1824 | |
| Eliza Ann Clemans | August | 1 | ,1824 | |
| Mary Ann | daughter of Charlotte | August | 1 | ,1824 |
| Orsey | son of Matilda | August | 1 | ,1824 |
| Charlotte Ellen | daughter of Rachel | September | 26 | ,1824 |
| Elizabeth Eliza | daughter of Cloe | October | 10 | ,1824 |
| Marion | daughter of Hagar | October | 24 | ,1824 |
| John Wesley | son of Rachel | December | 19 | ,1824 |
| John Wesley | son of Milly | December | 27 | ,1824 |
| Punch Cola | son of Elizabeth | May | 8 | ,1825 |
| Lucy Ann Thomas | June | 5 | ,1825 | |
| Ana Maria Thomas | June | 5 | ,1825 | |
| William Hamilton | son of Susanna | June | 19 | ,1825 |
| George Anna | daughter of Harriet | June | 19 | ,1825 |
| Alexander | son of Matilda | July | 17 | ,1825 |
| George Washington | son of Priscilla | August | 14 | ,1825 |
| Emily | daughter of Margaret Ann | October | 9 | ,1825 |
| Louisa | daughter of Hannah | October | 23 | ,1825 |
| Eliza | daughter of Rachel | November | 20 | ,1825 |
| George | son of Jinny | January | 15 | ,1826 |
| Rosetta | daughter of Charlotte | February | 22 | ,1826 |
| Eveline | daughter of Linney | March | 26 | ,1826 |
| William Henry | son of Milly | July | 16 | ,1826 |
| George Washington | son of Milly | July | 16 | ,1826 |
| Horace | son of Celey | October | 8 | ,1826 |
| Charlotte | daughter of Charity | July | 15 | ,1827 |
| Mary Ellen | daughter of Priscilla | July | 15 | ,1827 |
| Columbus | son of Hagar | July | 29 | ,1827 |
| Isaac | son of Fanny | July | 29 | ,1827 |
| John | son of Milly | August | 12 | ,1827 |
| Fanny | daughter of Sucky | August | 12 | ,1827 |
| Sam | son of Sucky | August | 12 | ,1827 |
| William Washington | October | 7 | ,1827 | |
| Hamilton Slater | December | 4 | ,1827 | |
| Mary Jane | daughter of Eliza | February | 10 | ,1828 |
| Eliza | daughter of Milly | July | 11 | ,1831 |
| Hesse Ann | daughter of Charity | October | 16 | ,1831 |
| Horace Willson | son of Lucy | October | 16 | ,1831 |
| Sarah Ann | daughter of Chartoot | May | 27 | ,1832 |
| Otho William | son of Ann | May | 27 | ,1832 |
| Albert Jefferson | son of Rachael | June | 10 | ,1832 |
| Harriet Ann | daughter of Mary | June | 10 | ,1832 |
| Ariana Smith | daughter of Harriet | June | 24 | ,1832 |
| Franklin Henderson Gittings | August | 29 | ,1878 | |
| William Henry Gittings | August | 29 | ,1878 | |
| Mary Eliza Gittings | August | 29 | ,1878 | |
| Alice Lavenia Walker | April | 27 | ,1879 | |
| James Alfred Walker | April | 27 | ,1879 | |
| John Edward Williams | April | 12 | ,1880 | |
| William Henry Knox | March | 23 | ,1881 | |
| Amelia Ann Walker | April | 24 | ,1881 | |
| Maggie Lee Ella Walker | January | 4 | ,1883 | |
| Louis Dudey Locke | September | 13 | ,1883 | |
| John Jefferson Johnson | November | 25 | ,1884 | |
| Henrietta Simpson | February | 21 | ,1890 | |
| Agnes Marie Tyler | 1913 |