Alabama

A historic Black community in Montgomery County, MD

Farmland on W. Willard Road, Poolesville, MD. Photo by Neile Whitney

The Alabama community in Poolesville is a mystery. We believe it existed somewhere on W. Willard Rd. A few different accounts tell us that the Summerville family (shown below) lived there.

It may have been a kinship community made up only of Summervilles. Memories from the elders tell us that a man named Bill Summerville was a bellringer and handyman for Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church, around the corner. However, the two different sketches we have show slightly different locations. And the Summervilles may not have been part of Alabama.

Summerville family in front of their home. before 1927. Handdrawn map of W. Willard Rd. by Jim Poole.

There are also stories of a juke joint being part of Alabama, but it is unlikely it would have been so close to town. We have not been able to confirm where this would have been.

This community existed somewhere on West Willard Road or on Hughes Road. Only fields and woods can be found today. If anyone knows more information about this small kinship community, please let us know!

This image shows a different perspective of where the Summervilles may have lived. Courtesy of Jim Poole.

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This article is part of MoCoLMP's project mapping our historic Black communities and their relationship to sites of enslavement during the Civil War. The map also shows the locations of the three known lynchings in 19th century Montgomery County, MD.

References

This article was written with the help of Ralph Buglass, Jeff Sypeck, and Jim Poole, all avid local historians, and Skip Etheridge, historian and descendant of the nearby Sugarland historic Black community.