Sustaining a Family

Sustaining a Family. . , Newmantown was named after the Newman family, and the collective members of the family all worked together to sustain the community. The family raised hogs and chickens and grew vegetables for their own use. They also tended their own fruit orchards, which was taken to market in Washington, D.C. After the death of his father, Morton Newman became the patriarch of Newmantown at the turn of the century. He was a notable orchardist in Montgomery County, whose expertise with fruit trees , especially apple, pear, peach, and sour cherry , was sought after by many other growers in the region., Family Traditions , Off the farm, the Newman family's life centered around faith and education. On Sundays, the family worshipped at the nearby Mt. Zion Church where the children also attended school. For the family, this was the community they associated with most closely and the familiar three mile path. A horse and wagon was used to go to church on Sundays, which made the trip seem far quicker than the same journey the children took daily to get to school, on foot. Each day, they would stop at the Duley Farm, about half the way to school, and help the family with their chores. The Griffith School only went to the 8th grade. Many of the Newman children went on to attend schools in Washington, D.C., where they would go on to pursue work in a variety of fields such as education, military, computer science, government and aeronautics., [Captions:] , Morton Newman, Agnes Palmer Newman, Maude Newman (Taylor), John Newman (to the right of Maude), Logan Newman (behind Morton and Agnes) standing next to the Morton Newman House"., Mrs. Maude Taylor, daughter of Mr. M.M. Newman, resided in Rockville. Her husband, Edward Taylor, was the first "Superintendant of Colored Schools" in Montgomery County.