Lincoln Park's Social Institutions

Three churches have served Lincoln Park since its founding. Two church congregations, Jerusalem United Methodist and Clinton A.M.E. Zion, date from the 1802.

The small Gothic Revival structure which houses the Jerusalem United Methodist Church congregation has side buttresses and a front corner tower. The original wood-shingled octagonal steeple was removed. The tower now terminates in a square profile with crenellated corners. The bare brick walls were stuccoed over. Originally Jerusalem United Methodist had a mixed-race congregation, but it split over slavery during the Civil War. White congregants built what is now the Rockville United Methodist Church on West Montgomery Avenue.

The Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church originally stood in downtown Rockville. The present building is post-modern in style, combining the simple forms and surfaces of modern architecture with references to architecture of past periods. At Clinton A.M.E. Zion, the steep roof and round window recall medieval Gothic and 19th-century Gothic Revival architecture, while the entrance porch, with its simple columns, suggests classical antiquity. The columns support a gable or pediment, which is playfully echoed by the gable shape rising from the flat roof behind the porch.

The First Montgomery Colored Baptist Church was founded around 1900. Its original building on Horner's Lane was finished by 1902. Since 1910, it has been known as Mount Calvary Baptist Church. The original church was a one-room frame building. James Davis built the present building in the 1950's and early 1960's. He is said to have based the simple Gothic Revival design on a church in Bethesda.

Two gabled buildings run alongside each other, the north building housing the sanctuary. Both are onstructed of buff-colored brick. A rose window adorns the peak of the sanctuary gable. A heavy molded brick surround frames the sharply pointed front door and is flanked by two simple doors. Buttresses divide the front wall into three bays and are also positioned along the sides. To the south, the building has a plain façade with a simple round window in the gable. The north side steps back, creating an interesting jagged outline with a sense of depth.

The Crusader Baptist Church was founded in 1985 by Reverend Rodney T. Davis. It is now housed in the old Lincoln High School building.

Schools

Public schooling was available for black children in the metropolitan area from 1872. However, students could attend county schools, such as Rockville Colored Elementary School on North Washington Street, only up to seventh grade. Then, if they could afford to do so, students went on to high school in the District of Columbia. They had to ride the trolley or live with relatives in Washington during the week. The resources of black schools were inferior to those of white schools. Black students learned from outdated books and attended a shorter school year.

One of the most important educational landmarks in Montgomery County is Lincoln High School. It was the first junior high school for blacks in the county and is the oldest high school built for black students still standing.

An abandoned building from Takoma Park was moved to the site, covered with brick, given an Art Deco door surround, and opened as Lincoln High School in 1935. The first principal, Dr. Parlett Moore, headed a staff of five teachers, who taught a general curriculum, with agricultural, vocational, and home economics courses. The school provided an opportunity for young people from all over the County to meet.

In the late 1940's, Lincoln High bought surplus quonset huts from the Navy. Over the years, they served as a gymnasium, an auditorium, and for other purposes. In 1950, Carver High School on Hungerford Drive replaced Lincoln, which then became the only junior high in the county for black students.

Lodges and Benefit Societies

Nineteenth-century African-American communities started their own organizations to handle the expenses of illness and death and to care for widows and orphans. Lodges were usually associated with the church.

The Order of the Galilean Fishermen was a statewide organization founded in 1856. The local chapter, Eureka Tabernacle #29, was established in 1912. Members paid into the treasury and were given $4 weekly in the event of illness or injury and funeral expenses up to $100.

The Galilean Fishermen established Fishermen's Cemetery at the corner of Frederick Avenue and Horners Lane in 1917. It is now known as the Mt. Calvary Baptist Cemetery. Earlier there were several family burial plots, such as the Martin family's on North Horner's Lane, as well as a small community burial plot on Frederick Avenue. When a house was erected on the Frederick Avenue property in the 1960's, the bodies were reinterred in Fishermen's Cemetery.

The Oddfellows Lodge was also in the same area. Across the street stood the famous Mr. T. Johnson store and pool hall on North Washington Street. The Oddfellows organized a field day for school children, a major annual event.

Businesses

Johnny's Market has been a Lincoln Park fixture for decades. Johnny's had a pool room and piano in the back and was a gathering place for teenagers. In earlier years, the market was known as the Claggett and Waters Market, for its then proprietors, Robert and Marilyn (Shelton) Claggett and Harry and Annie (Shelton) Waters. At one time, there had been four separate small markets in different sections of Lincoln Park.

At 311 Lincoln Avenue is the Harris House & Hicks Barber Shop. The original 1940 house is a tiny building, originally one room. For more than forty years, until it closed in 1985, this was the barbershop for Lincoln Park.

The area where the Magruder's shopping center on North Washington Street is now located was all owned by black families such as the Duffins, the Reddicks, and the Johnsons. There were five or six houses and the Rockville Colored Elementary School, which was located where the CVS drugstore now stands. The original Zion A.M.E. church was nearby. Lincoln Park residents shopped at the A&P, the Sanitary grocery store that later became the Safeway, Mr. Day's meat market, and the Piggly Wiggly.

Recreation

In the summer, Lincoln Park residents swam at Sparrow's Beach near Annapolis. Most also attended camp meetings at Emory Grove. Camp meetings ran for four consecutive Sundays. Famous preachers spoke in the morning, followed in the afternoon by picnics, bake sales, and baseball games. The black community held its own horse show in both Norbeck and Sandy Spring. In Rockville, there were the Memorial Day parade and homecoming picnics.

The Howard Theater in Washington was one of a circuit of East Coast theaters for African-American entertainers. Others stops on the circuit were the Regal in Baltimore and the Apollo in New York City's Harlem. Percie Brown recalled many trips to the Howard, where she and her friends heard such performers as Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, and Pearl Bailey.

The Red Barn on Frederick Avenue, built in 1930, contained a movie house. It was converted into apartments in 1951. Now a single family home, built in 1990 and 1991, occupies the lot.

A dance hall, located on Frederick Avenue where the Rocklin apartments stand, provided facilities for dance classes. Mrs. Fraley, a teacher at Dunbar High School in Washington, taught classes several times a year.

The Lincoln Park Community Center now stands on land once owned by the Johnson family and provides classes and recreation.