The Maryland Society for promoting the abolition of slavery, and the relief of poor negroes and others unlawfully held in bondage

Elias Ellicott, one son of Ellicott City founder Andrew Ellicott, was a founding member and on the 'acting committee' of the Maryland Society was also a member of the Philadelphia Abolition Society (logo on left). The Maryland Society, founded 1789, was the sixth in the world after Phila, NY, London, Paris and Delaware.  Constitution, bylaws and founding members (by 1797 membership had increased to 231) from a book 90 years later...

Tom Randall and the Howard House

Tom Randall was the son of Julia Bacon, a slave who was the cook at Howard House.  The Howard House hotel, built in 1850 contained a bar and dining room in addition to the bedrooms.  Randall told his story in the WPA's Slave Narrative Project in 1936.

The Ellicott City Colored School House and Beulah Buckner

Beulah (Meacham) Buckner (1930-2005) saw the dilapidated building while searching for tombstones and other records for slaves and free African Americans.  She found out that it was the old "Ellicott City Colored School", the first publicly funded school for African Americans in Howard County, Maryland.  Tirelessly working to restore and fill the old building, Buckner saw that it became a museum.

Jail and Courthouse Underground Railroad markers

The stone section under the porch roof was the original jail built in 1851 and is behind the courthouse built in 1843.  The National Park Service Underground Railroad Network to Freedom website HERE