Free Black Men and Women Build a Community

Free Black Men and Women Build a Community. . , Before the Civil War, about 1000 free Black people lived in Frederick County, and in the 1850s several bought property and built homes here, on the west side of Double Church Road. Jefferson Jenkins and his brother Enoch, George Fletcher, Clara Banks, Dennis Johnston, and Susan Coleman founded this community they called Crossroads. White people called it Freetown. It was one of the earliest free Black communities in the county, and it lasted into the twentieth century., This marker was created as a collaboration between Winchester-Frederick County Tourism and the Newtown History Center., (captions) , Susan Fletcher, widow of Abner Fletcher, raised six children in this house in the 1870s and 1880s. It was one of Crossroads' original log structures. The photograph is from the 1990s, long after the house was abandoned as families moved away to find new work opportunities or join relatives in the North., Jedediah Hotchkiss’s Civil War map of the 1862 labels the Homer along Double Church Road “cabins.” This is the first map to record Crossroads., Cornelia Barbour Turner Avery (1867-1943) grew up in Crossroads and was a matriarch of the Black community here, twice widowed, she raised eight children. Her first husband, Reverend Robert Turner, was minister at Orrick Chapel in Stephens city, and she was active in the church all her lie, supervising Sunday School and organizing programs for children and adults. She worked as a midwife for African American women and a housekeeper and laundress for local white families. As a member of the Loving Charity Lodge, she helped improve the lives of African Americans., After the Civil War, Charles and Emily Barbour built this house (now gone) on the east side of Double Church Road, and it was where their daughter Cornelia grew up. The photograph is from the 1990s., Lake's Atlas 1885 map of Frederick County shows the homes of Crossroads on both sides of Double Church Road and names their owners. The Fletchers, Dankses, and Colemans are still here, together with new families such as the Barbours, Robinsons, and Washington’s., Images courtesy of the Library of Congress and the Stewart Bell Jr. Archives of the Handley Regional Library and the Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society. Photos of houses are by Maral Kalbian.