James Fisher

1952 – 2024

James Fisher, the face of racial justice efforts in Chevy Chase DC, has died at his home in Colmar Manor, MD, his family announced on Jan. 22. He was 72.

James had spent the last decade of his life advocating for Americans to reckon with the residual harms from Black land loss like that his family endured a century ago when the community of Chevy Chase DC removed them from Broad Branch Road to build a whites-only school.

James, who retired from the federal government, was an eighth generation direct descendant of Capt. George Pointer, who was born enslaved yet attained professional achievements rare in the 18th and 19th centuries for African Americans. It did not take long for history to forget Pointer, and subsequent generations lost track of their lineage until historians rediscovered Pointer’s role in building George Washington’s canal on the Potomac River. 

James served as an HCCDC board member, and was a powerful advocate for making history relevant, whether his audience was Lafayette Elementary School students or D.C. Councilmembers. He succeeded in getting the National Park Service to honor Pointer’s legacy, and his testimony before ANC 3-4 G galvanized support to acknowledge the displacement of Pointer descendants and other Black Broad Branch families that led to the renaming of the park to Lafayette-Pointer Park. James also spoke frequently in various civic and professional settings about racial displacement and the specific history of Dry Meadows, the previous name of his family’s acreage on Broad Branch Road.

The post In Memoriam appeared first on Historic Chevy Chase DC.

HCCDC President Carl Lankowski was host of the evening with moderator Chas Cadwell. It was the third in a series about Black land loss as Chevy Chase DC grapples with its own history of pushing out a long-established enclave of African American landowners nearly a century ago, when Blacks were not welcome in the newly formed community of Chevy Chase.

Dr. Mann provided an overview that covered the historical journey the idea of reparations has taken since the days of 40 acres and a mule were falsely promised to formerly enslaved people. Her organization, the AARN, is a consortium formed by Howard and Columbia universities and works with communities and individuals who seek to find appropriate repair for past harms. Explore their website here.

The focus on reparations nationally has been prompted by several seminal works, including the New York Times “1619 Project” and Isabel Wilkerson’s recent book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, which traces the effects of American slavery and the post-Civil War system of racial discrimination. 

It has prompted communities to examine long-buried or ignored racist actions taken decades ago, such as the 1928-31 eviction of landowners in a small Black enclave of Chevy Chase DC so their land could be used to build a school for white children.

Dr.  Mann provided an overview of the current landscape of initiatives around the United States to define and implement strategies of acknowledgment, compensation, and education as part of a broader effort to come to terms with this legacy. This topic is especially timely in that the DC Council is considering a formal organization that will take up this task.

This event is part of Historic Chevy Chase DC’s Black Broad Branch series. It is meant to complement a June 7 webinar featuring descendants of displaced Broad Branch Road families discussing the multi-generational effects of Black land loss. The event was co-sponsored by ANC 3/4G and its Committee on Racial and Social Equity. It also ties into a Jan. 18, 2023, webinar with Barbara Boyle Torrey and Clara Myrick Green, authors of a biography of George Pointer, whose descendants lived on Broad Branch Road. The book is called Between Freedom and Equality: The History of an African American Family in Washington, DC.

J. Mann is the co-founder of the African American Redress Network (AARN), a collaboration between Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), Columbia University, Institute for the Study of Human Right (ISHR), and Howard University, Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center. She currently has an appointment at SIPA. Her research and practice focus on the intersection of U.S. history, human rights, and reparations. Mann previously served as the executive director for the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project at Northeastern University’s School of Law and VP of Research for the Georgetown Memory Project, where she founded and directed the GU272 Descendant Oral History Initiative. Mann is a seasoned educator with more than 10 years of postgraduate teaching experience and 10 years as a public school history educator. Mann started her career as a conflict resolution specialist and has decades of experience as a political, grassroots organizer.

The post What Does Repair Look Like? Webinar Recording Now Posted appeared first on Historic Chevy Chase DC.

Read about Bill 25-0152: The Reparations Foundation Fund and Task Force Establishment Act of 2023.

The post DC Council Holds June 15 Hearing on Creating a Reparations Task Force appeared first on Historic Chevy Chase DC.

Listen to the June 7 webinar here.

Carl Lankowski, who hosted the event with ANC Commissioner Lisa Gore and the Committee on Race and Social Equity, the descendants were clear that the harms inflicted decades ago still affect them today. How to address this will be the subject of a June 21 virtual conversation Lankowski will hold with Linda Mann of the African American Redress Network, entitled, “What Repair Looks Like.” Register here for the June 21 7 p.m. webinar.

“The descendants of our former neighbors — the Harrises, Motens, Shorters, Johnsons, Hysons, Brooks, among others — were unequivocal when they told us that the loss of land denied them an opportunity to build generational wealth and eroded strong family ties as their community scattered,” Lankowski said. “That discussion was difficult for them and painful for listeners.”

Chevy Chase DC is indeed in the arc of American history with its connection to systemic racism, a reality that is no less important because those individuals who caused the harm are long dead. As Shirley Fisher Turner, a direct descendant of the landowners, noted during the June 7 event, it is hard to argue that current residents are not beneficiaries of those long-ago actions. They are free to enjoy Lafayette-Pointer Park and school, and homeowners financially benefit from the ever-increasing affluence of Chevy Chase DC. Meanwhile, she noted, descendants of those evicted landowners are living the multigenerational effects the land loss inflicted. The harms are both tangible — loss of financial opportunity — and spiritual — loss of family cohesion and the residual effects of being targeted as racially unworthy.

Read the vignettes of seven of the Broad Branch descendants

This nationwide focus on reparations has been prompted by several seminal works, including the New York Times “1619 Project” and Isabel Wilkerson’s recent book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, which traces the effects of American slavery and the post-Civil War system of racial discrimination.

It has prompted communities to examine long-buried or ignored racist actions taken decades ago, such as our situation, when Blacks on Broad Branch Road were evicted between 1928-1931 so their land could be used to build a school for white children.

The June 21 webinar is part of  Historic Chevy Chase DC’s Black Broad Branch series. It is meant to complement the June 7 virtual conversation co-sponsored by ANC 3/4G and its Committee on Racial and Social Equity. It also ties into a Jan. 18, 2023, webinar with Barbara Boyle Torrey and Clara Myrick Green, authors of a biography of George Pointer, whose descendants lived on Broad Branch Road. The book is called Between Freedom and Equality: The History of an African American Family in Washington, DC

The HCCDC Broad Branch Road Project Team that assembled the virtual event June 7 included Lankowski, Charles Cadwell, Cate Atkinson, and videographer Nadia Afrin.

The post Recording Now Available: A Conversation with Descendants of a Displaced Black Community appeared first on Historic Chevy Chase DC.

The histories, to be documented on this website, are the first phase of a two-part program UDC has launched to delve into racial displacement of this small community that had thrived for more than a century on land we now know at Lafayette Park. Those landowners — many descendants of enslaved people — were forced off the land in 1928 so Chevy Chase could build Lafayette Elementary School, then for white children only.

The second phase of the UDC program, to start in June, will include 15 District high school students who will join the UDC students to examine this legacy of Black land loss, an all-too-familiar family history for African Americans in Washington, DC, and elsewhere across the nation.

UDC professor Amanda Huron, who created the UDC program from a matching $30,000 HumanitiesDC grant awarded last fall, said the summer program will be a formative experience for the teenagers and a national model for community-academic partnerships. Some students will be paid by the DC Summer Youth Employment Program, others will received college credit, and a few others will receive social service credits. She is still accepting applications from teens who wish to be on a wait list for the summer. Dr. Huron can be reached at amanda.huron@udc.edu.

The program evolved from a three-year effort by HCCDC to bring recognition to this nearly forgotten slice of local history. Racially restricted development by the Chevy Chase Land Company starting in 1907 eventually encroached on the small Black community made up of farmers and laborers, and a community-orchestrated campaign led city leaders removed them by eminent domain.

The HCCDC effort to acknowledge this stain of racial history started with an appeal to the DC Department of Parks and Recreation to pay for historic signage as part of the new rec center construction at Lafayette — a building just being completed this spring. It evolved into a petition drive that resulted in 500 signatories asking the DC City Council to change the name of the part to reflect this history. Components of the story are documented on the HCCDC website here.

Last fall the DC City Council voted to officially change the name to Lafayette-Pointer Park, reflecting the legacy of a formerly enslaved man named George Pointer.  Pointer had worked for George Washington on his canal project as a teenager and was able to buy his freedom at age 19. It was his granddaughter, Mary Ann Plummer Harris, who settled along Broad Branch in the 1840s, joining a community of free people of color who had owned land there since around 1800.

Final edits have just been completed for the two historic signs this month that HCCDC created to tell the story of the Black community with deep roots on this much-beloved community asset, a history that many regular users of the park are surprised to learn.

One of the signs, featuring artwork by local artist Richard Swartz depicting Pointer’s granddaughter, 8-year-old Mary Ann Plummer Harris, piloting a U.S. president down the Potomac canal, will be placed on Broad Branch Road near that actual site of her old home. Landscaping will be done in cooperation with the Friends of Lafayette Park, and the sign will be at a height so children on their way to school can easily see it. A second, larger sign telling the complete story will be near the newly constructed recreation center.

High school students lined up for the summer program are ages 14 through 19 and are coming from Wilson, Burke, Washington International School and St. Albans, Dr. Huron said. They will be engaged in part of what the UDC students have been busy with this semester. Along with being trained in the method of oral history, the UDC students have studied the history of race in America from the perspective of a range of academicians, researchers, and victims of land loss. More than a dozen guest lecturers have conducted symposium-style conversations during class, allowing the students to delve deep into the systemic racial issues that have created the disparities of wealth, education, and societal status that persist today. Several of those lecturers will return this summer to engage the high school students.

The summer program will involve research, discussion, and community outreach, with the goal of presenting recommendations to the Chevy Chase D.C. community about  how to reckon with this loss. Students will gain hands-on experience researching racially restrictive covenants and working with the oral histories conducted by the UDC students, as well as with the oral historians themselves.  All products will be archived on the HCCDC website at historicchevychasedc.org.

The summer program will run from June 28 through Aug. 6, meeting four hours a day, four days a week. As of now, the plan is to run the classes virtually.

The post UDC Black Land Loss Program Gears Up for Summer appeared first on Historic Chevy Chase DC.

Offshoot Projects Take Root in Time of Heightened Racial Reckoning

Dr. Amanda Huron, associate professor of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences at the University of the District of Columbia, has been awarded a full $30,000 Humanities DC grant to involve DC youth – at both college and high school levels — in an oral histories project that focuses on the experience of Black families evicted from Chevy Chase DC in 1928.

The project, titled “Black Land Loss in Washington: Memories of the Past, Hopes for the Future,” grew from important research and grass-roots activism initiated by Historic Chevy Chase DC that was based on work by historians Barbara Boyle Torrey and Clara Myrick Green.

It revolves around the family of George Pointer, a man born enslaved in 1773 who bought his freedom at 19 and became supervisory engineer for George Washington’s canal company. By the 1840s, his granddaughter settled in a small community of Black landowners along Broad Branch Road. In the 1850s, she bought a 2.3 acre farm there, and her family and other African Americans continued to thrive there for the next 80 years until evicted to make way for Lafayette, a whites-only school.

Torrey and Green’s research evolved from the discovery of an 11-page letter in the National Archives written by Pointer in 1829, in which he humbly tells of his amazing accomplishments. Their work expanded into a book to be published by Georgetown University Press in spring 2021 called, “Between Freedom and Equality: The History of an American Family in Washington, DC.” Torrey and Green have awarded the royalties to HCCDC to create awareness of this and other types of racial injustice in DC.

HCCDC has been focused on the Pointer story since Torrey and Green first published their research in 2015 in Washington History, the quarterly publication of the Historical Society of Washington, DC. In March 2016, HCCDC President Carl Lankowski recorded an oral history of Pointer’s eighth-generation direct descendant James Fisher and the Pointer family genealogist Tanya Hardy (both of whom joined the HCCDC board this past spring).

In 2017-2018, HCCDC board member Tim Hannapel suggested petitioning the DC Parks department to included historic signage in the Lafayette Recreation Center renovation contract. The goal of this effort was to recognize that the history of Chevy Chase DC also includes racial injustices that should be acknowledged and not repeated. He along with board member Charles Cadwell attended numerous community meetings to advocate for this official recognition.

The work of Hannapel and Cadwell grew to propose a new name for the park that would honor these Black landowners. So they organized a petition to rename the park “Lafayette-Pointer Park,” and the HCCDC board collected more than 500 names in favor of that proposal. The HCCDC board won ANC support in the summer of 2019 and the bill was put before the DC City Council. The first of two DC City Council votes was taken Dec. 1 with resounding approval. A final vote is expected in mid-December.

Meanwhile, the District has agreed to fund two historic signs for the park, the content of which is being generated by HCCDC. Editorial review of those signs is underway now. Unveiling is expected by this coming spring.

UDC took up the Pointer project when approached by HCCDC board member Cate Atkinson to engage young people in Pointer-related research. Huron, whose expertise includes housing justice issues, has created a project with even more depth. See an article about the grant here.

The Historic Chevy Chase DC website has a projects page that captures all the various components of this story. You can reach it here.

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Free Black People of Washington County, D.C. George Pointer and His Descendants

BARBARA BOYLE TORREY and CLARA MYRICK GREEN
Washington History, Vol. 28, No. 1 (SPRING 2016), pp. 16-31
Published by: Historical Society of Washington, D.C.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43799315
Page Count: 16

Recent scholarship has brought to light the history of the community of free black residents who lived along Broad Branch Road NW from at least the 1840s until 1928. That year, their homes were taken by eminent domain to build Lafayette Elementary School and Park for white children. Among them were families who directly descended from Captain George Pointer.

Their story is told by historians Barbara Boyle Torrey and Clare Myrick Green in the Spring 2016 edition of Washington History published by the Historical Society of Washington, DC. The article can be read on JSTOR. Their book on the topic has been accepted by Georgetown University, scheduled for publication in Spring 2021.

The post Scholarly Research Supports Lafayette-Pointer Project appeared first on Historic Chevy Chase DC.

Proposed Interpretive History Signage at Lafayette School/Park

The purpose of this note is to raise support for the installation of a historical marker or sign in Lafayette Playground to note the long-time African-American residents who were displaced when the land was seized in 1928.

1. Historic Chevy Chase DC’s mission (www.historicchevychasedc.org)  “is to promote the architecture and history of Chevy Chase DC by doing research and educating our neighbors about our community’s past.”  HCCDC has been committed to exploring the neighborhood’s racial history, as well, including through its growing library of oral histories of long-time residents.  One such interview was conducted with James Fisher and Tanya Hardy, concerning the history of James’ ancestor, Captain George Pointer (born enslaved in 1773), and the family’s home for 4 generations on Broad Branch Road N.W. until its dispossession by eminent domain in 1928 to make way for Lafayette school and park. The interview can be read here: https://www.historicchevychasedc.org/oral-histories/#/james-fisher-tanya-hardy/

• Pointer Descendants/Broad Branch Road Settlement   The history of George Pointer, his purchase of his own freedom at age 19, and his 40-year plus employment, including as a supervising engineer, by George Washington’s Patowmack Canal Company, and his descendants’ settlement in the 1840’s on Broad Branch Road, has been the subject of considerable recent scholarship.  See Barbara Boyle Torrey and Clara Myrick Green, “Free Black People of Washington County: George Pointer and His Descendants,” Washington History (Spring 2016).  Attached hereto.  Torrey and Green also tell the remarkable tale of the Pointer Descendants and their lives on Broad Branch Road, including their service to the Union Army during the Civil War, their education (including at the Reno School), and their struggles as African-Americans in the face of broad, daily-enforced racial strictures.  All of that ended in 1928, however, with the forced evacuation and destruction of their small community, resulting from the same legislation that authorized the taking of homes in the nearby (and much larger) black community of Reno City, to build Alice Deal Junior High.

• Pointer Descendants 2015 Family Reunion   This lost history became more visible after a remarkable organizing effort by James Fisher and Tanya Hardy (with historical assistance by Torrey and Green), the Pointer Descendants returned to Lafayette Park in August 2015 for an extended “family reunion.”  See Pointer Descendants First Family Reunion Picnic Program (August 2015).  Attached hereto.

• Recent Scholarship/Opportunity for Education   The 80-year history of the black community on Broad Brand Road is not widely known.  Torrey and Green’s comprehensive article provides the opportunity to change that.  After reading that article, the compelling need to tell the story more broadly was recently recognized by one long-time member of the Lafayette community, James Zogby, in a Black History Month Essay.  Mr. Zogby wrote “[a]s profoundly disturbing as this history is, even more troubling is that it is largely unknown.”  See “Recognizing Black Contributions and Atoning for Our Past,”  http://www.aaiusa.org/black_history_month_recognizing_black_contributions_and_atoning_for_our_past

• HCCDC Working Group   Historic Chevy Chase DC has formed a working group to explore the feasibility of erecting interpretive history signage at Lafayette School/Park to tell the story of the dispossessed black community.  We are currently reaching out to other likely interested stakeholders, including the Lafayette Elementary Home and School Association, the Friends of Lafayette Park, and the Chevy Chase Citizens’ Association.  We have been in contact with James Fisher and Tanya Hardy, on behalf of the Pointer Descendants, and they are very much in favor of our efforts.  Our focus will be to build community support for interpretive signage to be designed and erected as part of the extensive renovation of the Lafayette Recreation Center that is currently in its design phase.

• Lafayette Rec Center Renovation   There are plans to renovate the Lafayette Rec Center, in the process of being approved now.   See https://dgs.dc.gov/event/lafayette-recreation-center-modernization   This presents a very timely opportunity to assure that future users of the playground can appreciate its full history.  The project is still in design stage (through June 2018); construction not scheduled to start until October 2018. The budget for the rec center renovation is reported to be $4.6m.

• Reno School Example/Tenleytown Historical Society   We are seeking to follow a pathway similar to that used in Reno School’s recent renovation. In that instance, the Tenleytown Historical Society advocated for historical signage to tell the story of the large black community at Reno City, and the history of Reno School.  Councilmember Cheh was instrumental in obtaining support from the school system and the general contractor to include the extensive historical signage now on display in the renovated school and adjoining Alice Deal.  See http://www.keanedesign.com/installations.html

• Request:  We are requesting support to include historical signage to tell the story of the dispossessed black community on Broad Branch Road NW as part of the pending renovation of the Lafayette Recreation Center. Action on this will benefit from the support of the DC Parks and Recreation Department, the Lafayette HSA, the contractor and architect, and/or the ANC and DC Council.

The post The Argument for Historical Signage to Tell the Story appeared first on Historic Chevy Chase DC.

Resolution Supporting
Adding the Name of Captain George Pointer to
Lafayette Park and Lafayette Recreation Center

1. The purpose of this resolution is to request that the D.C. Council enact legislation to add the name of Captain George Pointer to Lafayette Park and Lafayette Recreation Center so that they will be named “Lafayette-Pointer Park” and “Lafayette-Pointer Recreation Center,” in order to acknowledge the history and dispossession of the black community on Broad Branch Road, NW.
2. Considerable recent scholarship has brought to light the history of the community of free black residents who lived on Broad Branch Road, N.W. from at least the 1830s until 1928, when their homes (comprising a total of approximately six acres) were taken by eminent domain to build Lafayette Elementary School and Park. One of the affected families, the Moten/Harris family, was descended from Captain George Pointer.
3. Much is known about Captain George Pointer from his 11-page petition, dated September 5, 1829, to the Board of Directors of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, in which he recounts his own history of being born enslaved in 1773 on a plantation near Rockville, his purchase of his own freedom at the age of 19, and his 40 plus-year employment, including as Supervising Engineer, by George Washington’s Patowmack Company. In March 2019, the National Park Service (at its Great Falls Virginia Visitor Center), erected signage to acknowledge Captain Pointer’s history, that included a depiction of the 1829 letter, and stated:

Who was George Pointer? Captain George Pointer is directly quoted in this audio exhibit, unlike the other characterizations displayed here. He was one of the first enslaved laborers rented to the Patowmack Company at age 13. He purchased his freedom at age 19, and continued work on the canals for 40 years. He was mostly self-educated, and was the last superintendent of the Patowmack Company before its charter was transferred to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.

Great Falls Park staff is currently working with seventh generation descendants of George Pointer to reconcile this untold story. Ask a ranger to learn more about this ongoing project.

4. The history of Captain George Pointer’s granddaughter, Mary Harris, and her settlement with her family on Broad Branch Road in the 1840’s, was retold in considerable scholarly detail by Barbara Boyle Torrey and Clara Myrick Green, “Free Black People of Washington County: George Pointer and His Descendants,” Washington History (Spring 2016). Torrey and Green also explain the history of the Pointer Descendants and their lives on Broad Branch Road, including their service to the Union Army during the Civil War, their education (including at the Reno School), and their struggles as African-Americans in the face of broad, daily-enforced racial strictures. All of that ended in 1928, however, with the forced evacuation and destruction of their small community, resulting from the same legislation that authorized the taking of homes in the nearby (and much larger) black community of Reno City, to build Alice Deal Junior High. The homes and property of the black residents comprised approximately 6 acres out of the 12-1/2 acre total footprint that is now Lafayette Elementary School and Park.
5. Considerable additional research and scholarship about the Broad Branch Road black community was also recently published by historian David S. Rotenstein, in his report “The River Road Moses Cemetery: A Historic Preservation Evaluation,” September 2018 (see especially pp. 30-35), available at the Historic Chevy Chase D.C. website.
6. Seventh-generation Pointer Descendant James Fisher and his partner, Tanya Hardy, are committed to educating the public about their ancestor and the Broad Branch Road community. They have worked with the National Park Service on the Great Falls Virginia exhibit, as well as with Historic Chevy Chase D.C., to sponsor this resolution and its underlying grassroots education campaign. They also organized (with historical assistance by Torrey and Green) more than 50 Pointer Descendants to come together at Lafayette Park in August 2015 for an extended “family reunion.”
7. The D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) is currently planning to renovate the Lafayette Recreation Center. This presents a very timely opportunity to ensure that future users of the park and recreation center can appreciate its full history. In June 2018, as part of DPR’s community engagement proceedings, Historic Chevy Chase DC submitted a proposal to DPR to include historical signage that would acknowledge the history and dispossession of the black community on Broad Branch Road, N.W. Through this resolution, ANC 3/4G also supports the inclusion of historical signage as part of the recreation center renovation.
8. To more substantially acknowledge the history and dispossession of the Broad Branch Road black community, it has been proposed that ANC 3/4G consider and recommend to the D.C. Council that Captain George Pointer’s name be added to the park and recreation center, so that the new names would be “Lafayette-Pointer Park” and “Lafayette-Pointer Recreation Center.” It has been submitted that this combination would both honor the long-established presence of “Lafayette Park” in the minds and memories of the community, while at the same time acknowledging the contribution and history of the displaced black community on Broad Branch Road, N.W.
9. Historic Chevy Chase D.C. led a three-month grassroots education campaign and a petition drive in support of this resolution, and has submitted to ANC 3/4G more than 550 handwritten petition signatures of residents of Chevy Chase, D.C. In addition, letters supporting the new name have been submitted by the Friends of Lafayette Park, and by the Chevy Chase Citizens Association.
10. Based on the foregoing, ANC 3/4G urges the D.C. Council to enact legislation to add the name of Captain George Pointer to Lafayette Park and Lafayette Recreation Center so that they will be named “Lafayette-Pointer Park” and “Lafayette-Pointer Recreation Center,” in order to acknowledge the history and dispossession of the black community on Broad Branch Road, N.W.

The post The Argument for a Name Change: HCCDC’s Proposed Resolution to ANC 3/4G appeared first on Historic Chevy Chase DC.

This article was excerpted from the 2015 Pointer Descendants Family Reunion booklet:

Mary Ann Plummer Harris was the daughter of Mary Pointer Plummer and granddaughter of George Pointer. She was born free in 1820 because her mother and grandmother were free women. Mary Pointer married a man named Plummer and for a time they lived along the canal with George and his wife. It’s not known what happened to Mary Pointer Plummer and her husband but by 1830 their child, Mary Ann, was living with her grandparents, George and Elizabeth Pointer.

In 1838 Mary Ann Plummer applied for and obtained a certificate of freedom, a document required by law of all free blacks as proof of their freedom. She did this because she had married a man named Thomas Harris and was pregnant with their first child. By law, slavery was a condition that was inherited through the mother, so for a child to be born free the mother needed an official certificate of freedom. Mary Ann wanted to be sure that her family was free.

By 1840 Mary Ann and Thomas Harris were living along Broad Branch Road in the District of Columbia and raising a family. They had eight children, five boys and three girls. In the 1850 Census there is an entry for Thomas and his family living “West of 7th Street Turnpike, Washington, District of Columbia”. The 7th Street Turnpike was the name of what is now Georgia Avenue. This address indicates that Thomas, his wife Mary Ann, and their children were living on the Broad Branch Road property at that time. In 1870 the US Census lists the family as living in the Tenleytown area, the “West Part, Washington, District of Columbia”. Thomas’ real estate was valued at $600 indicating that he owned his home and it also states that he cannot read or write. His occupation according to this census is “Gardener”. In the 1880 Census Thomas is listed as a tenant at a residence listed as “back of P Street NW”. Thomas’ occupation is listed as “huckster” on this census record which means he probably stayed at this residence while he sold his vegetables and other farm goods in the open air markets of Georgetown.

Thomas and Mary Ann’s sons grew up in the shadow of the Civil War. Their sentiment against the secession of the south and the question of slavery must have been strong. Historic records of the period give evidence of John, Joseph and Lewis enlisting in and serving the Union during the War Between the States. John Harris first enlisted between June and July of 1863. The enlistment record states the following: “John Harris, black, age 20, single, a waiter, born in Maryland”. A U.S. Colored Troops enlistment document gives more detailed information about the newly enlisted John Harris as follows: “

John Harris, enlisted on July 10, 1863 at 21 years of age, 5’11” in height, complexion black with black eyes and black hair, and a scar on the right shin, from Georgetown where his occupation was laborer. He enlisted on Mason’s Island by Col. Holman for a 3-year term. He was mustered out Sept. 29, 1865.”

On July 10, 1863, son Joseph, 17 years of age, enlisted in the Union army also. His occupation is listed on his enlistment document as “saloon waiter” so it’s quite possible that the brothers were working at the same establishment. Joseph is described as a 5’3” “bright mulatto with grey eyes and brown hair with a scar on the right arm below the elbow.” He also enlisted at Mason’s Island on the same date as his brother, John. Joseph mustered out of the military on June 24, 1865.

Of their eight children, Thomas and Mary Ann had four who survived into the 20th century: Joseph, Louis (Lewis), Lorenzo and the youngest daughter, also named Mary Ann who was born in 1858. She married a shoemaker named Armsted Morton (Moten) of Virginia who practiced his trade in the Tenleytown area. Armsted and Mary had four children: John Armsted B. 1878, Minnie b. 1880, Rosetta b. 1886 and Theodore b. 1887. John married Annie Taylor and stayed at the Broad Branch property until its sale around 1929. He was a laborer and gardener. William married a woman named Rose, moved to the Ft. Reno area and had four children: Dorothy (1912), Theodore (1913) and Thomas (1915). Will was an undertaker for residents in the Ft. Reno area. Nothing much is known about Minnie. Rosetta married a man named Randolph Harris. They lived on the Broad Branch property during the first few years of their marriage and later moved to the Ft. Reno area in NW Washington, DC. They had 8 children: Randolph Jr., Rose, Julia, Lewis Edward (Uncle Pete), Martha (Kitty), John T., Dorothy, Theodore and John Thomas (Uncle Bunny). Julia died young, at the age of 10. The cause of her death is not known

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