Bethel A.M.E. Church Relocation Groundbreaking
On Saturday morning, June 25, 2022 over one-hundred people attended the official groundbreaking for the Bethel African American Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church that will soon be relocated to a site in Mountain Lake Park, Maryland.
Boonsboro church pays tribute to former slaves
All eight founding members of St. Mark's Episcopal Church on Lappans Road were slaveholders, and members of the church in the 1800s profited from slave labor. And it is believed that slaves might have helped construct the church.
Smooth, spirit-filled harmonies of rhythmic gospel music sailed from the stage at Bridge of Life Church Saturday as the Friends of the Doleman Black Heritage Museum hosted the fifth annual Doleman Black Heritage Museum Celebration of Black History.
The theme of the celebration was honoring the churches of the historically black neighborhood of Jonathan Street in Hagerstown.
Reggie Turner, interim president of the museum, said the churches represent the community.
Waldon United Methodist Church
Colored Church Being Razed
The abandoned colored church, near the Oakland cemetery, is being razed by Simon Swartzentruber, of Gortner. The lumber will be used to erect a repair shop at his farm home. The property was recently purchased by Mrs. Nellie Maffett in an arrangement with the town so that Fifth street, north of Green street, might be straightened so as to run parallel the entire length of the street. At the present time, should the street be widened, it would cut off the front yard of the Maffett property, adjoining the Episcopal Church.
Samuel Middleton Semmes, 1811-1867
Samuel Semmes was born in Charles County, Maryland, educated at Georgetown College, and admitted to the Cumberland bar in 1833. He was an extremely successful Allegany County attorney and was appointed Judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals in 1844. He represented Allegany County as a State Senator in the Maryland General Assembly from 1855 to 1860. His brother was Raphael Semmes, an Admiral of the Confederate Navy during the Civil War.
Samuel Semmes was a slave-owner.
The Oakland, Maryland A.M.E. Church
John W. Wormack, Sr.
1905-1993
John Wormack was a retired Baltimore and Ohio Railroad employee who for many years had been active in a variety of civic and community service organizations. He is also the first African-American to seek political office in the City of Cumberland and as such was elected and served as Commissioner of Streets and Public Property for a four-year term from 1974 to 1978. John also served as a member and Chairman of the Community Relations Commission for the City of Cumberland for a period of over eleven years.
Honoring the memory of Presiding Elder Goodwind Douglas
1938-8-11 - 2016-8-20
Pastors Alfred and Carrie Deas
On May 21, 2016 Pastors Alfred and Carrie Elizabeth Deas were honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Allegany County, Maryland NAACP Branch 7007. The following biography appeared in the ceremony program: