The Williams and Claggett Families in Ashton / Lineage of Greenberry Howard Family

The Williams and Claggett Families in Ashton, also, Lineage of Greenberry Howard Family. Sandy Spring African American Heritage Trail. , The Williams and Claggett Families in Ashton , James Claggett is Mattie's husband and father of Earl. Mattie was an ardent supporter and Trustee of the Sharp Street Church., Earl Claggett attended Hill Top elementary school in Sandy Spring and was bussed to Lincoln High School in Rockville. He attended Hampton University and Paul Polytechnic Institute in Lawrenceville, VA. where he studied diesel mechanic before being drafted into the U S Army where he served in France. He retired as an automobile mechanic at the National Park Service after 20 years of service. While at Hampton he met and later married Geneva, the love of his life, who was a student at the Dixie Nursing School., After his first retirement he became a Teacher in the Cedar Program and then he retired a second time. He retired a third time as Supervisor at Ride-on-Busses. This 87-year old 3 time-retiree, with his better half Geneva at his side, was a model citizen from Sandy Spring and Ashton. Like his mother, Earl, Geneva and the Claggett were dedicated parishioners at the Sharp Street Church., Lineage of Greenberry Howard Family as Told by His Niece Sister Constance Murphy and Granddaughter Mabel Howard Lawson , Very few people knew more about Greenbury and Rebecca Howard, than John H. Murphy and Greenberry's niece Sister Constance Murphy whose memoirs is titled Other Little Ships., Martha E. Howard and John H. Murphy were the paternal grandparents of Sister Constance, born February 2, 1904. She grew up in Baltimore and summered at Uncle Greenberry's house on Howard Chapel Road, Unity. She was highly educated and at 32 made the decision to join the order in Toronto where she devoted her life to serving the elderly. She was Head Mistress of Qu'Appelle Diocesan School in Regina, Saskatchewan), and returned to the East in the 1950's to become Head of the Home for the Aged. Sister Constance's book titled, Other Little Ships, memoirs of Sister Constance (The Postmos Press, Canada, 1977) provides salient details of the Howard, Murphy and Hughes families., Greenberry, the fourth of Jack and Polly's Howard's children, was born in 1825. Charles Holland manumitted him in 1850. His descendants included the many members of the Scott and Hill families who resided in the Sandy Spring and Surrounds for many years. Below right is a copy of Greenberry Howard's manumission recorded provided through the courtesy of Mabel Thomas, Holly Grove., In a letter dated 2000 to her family Mabel Howard Lawson described the architectural characteristics of the Howard House and relationships of her father Daniel H. Howard and grandfather Greenberry Howard. (below right), Photographs of Mabel Howard Lawson and James Lawson, along with wall hangings from the Lawson homestead at Boyds, Maryland were donated to Mabel Thomas and the Slave Museum for safe keeping. Some of the Lawson descendants still reside in Illinois. Included in the collection are photographs of two children, a boy named James Lawson and a girl, presumably his sister. WE are yet to determine if these are the children of Mabel and James Lawson, or of James Lawson himself as a child. (above)