Brownstown Then and Now

Historic Black communities of Montgomery County, MD

Asbury United Methodist Church, Brownstown. Photo by Neile Whitney

I've got a lot of information of my family. Not only just the Browns, but you mentioned the Campbells. I'm a Brown, I'm a Campbell…. Jackson, Johnson, Warren….I'm part of the Prather family, Stewarts, all of it…. What blew me away was my desire—and it was a strong desire—to find out who I was. ~ Jamie Tolliver, descendant of Brown & Campbell (*William Brown was his great-great-grandfather.)

William Brown founded the Brownstown community in 1868, when he bought ten acres there. He had been enslaved by James Gassaway on Riffle Ford Road, but was freed before the Civil War. William Brown can be found in the 1870 Census in the 3rd district at 42 years old (born in approximately 1828) with his wife, Clarissa Brown, 28 years old.

At this point they’re listed as not owning property. (Did the census taker not ask? Not write it down?) They live with Henry and Charity Lee, John (9 years old), James A. Y. (7), Harriet (5), and William T. (2). Their household lives next to the families of Jonathan and Maria Robertson, William and Mary Bowman, and Thomas and Laura Jenkins. (United States Census 1870)

On the right side (of Black Rock Rd.) it was all Black because it was the Campbells, the Browns…it was all Black on that side…all the way from 118. It used to be called Germantown Road....Brownstown actually started just below Riffle Ford Road, because the first person below Riffle Ford Road was a lady named Eliza Jackson. ~ Jerry Green, Brownstown resident and Pine Top descendant

William Brown property, 1879 Hoskinson Atlas.

In the late 1800s, some of the families here worked as farm laborers and at the Black Rock Grist and Saw Mill, which had opened in 1815. Some may have worked on the railroad. There was also a dairy farm:

My father was the first Black dairy farmer here in Montgomery County…In Germantown..... We had 250 acres. It was like heaven to us. ~ Gladys Lyons, Brownstown descendant

Brownstown School, built c. 1860. Archival photo courtesy of The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC)

The children here were fortunate to have a school in the community:

The Germantown African-American community of Brownstown, at the northern end of Black Rock Road, was named for William Brown, who bought land there in 1868; public schooling at an unknown location began by 1880 when a teacher was appointed; in 1883 the county authorized $160 for the purchase of land from Brown for a schoolhouse, but one was not built; instead school was held in Francis Asbury Methodist Church from when its original structure was built in 1885 (with the school board paying monthly rent of only $2 in 1901); an abandoned white school, built ca. 1860, was then used until 1910 when a new four-room school for Germantown’s white children opened nearer the B&O railroad station (to which the center of town gravitated) and a second abandoned white school, about a mile away, became the Black school; in 1939 this one-room building had 59 students enrolled; it was used until 1950 when the students were transferred to Longview. (Buglass and Duffin 2023, p. 21)

The church shown at the top of this page is Asbury United Methodist, established in 1885. Until that time, William Brown had offered his home to the community for Sunday services. The original frame church was built by the community and wasn't finished when Mr. Brown passed. It served the congregation until 1950, when an electrical fire caused the church to burn down. The community was able to raise money to build a new church which was consecrated in 1962. It still serves the community today.

In 1979 William Brown’s original home was moved to the Lathrop Smith Environmental Center in Rockville. However, descendants of the founders have built other newer homes in the neighborhood, and younger generations still raise their families there. Today, through hard work and perseverance, these descendants have gone on to become doctors, lawyers, and small business owners, among other professions. Brownstown remains a quiet, rural community, surrounded by farmland, but encroached on by development from the center of Germantown. 

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References

Buglass, Ralph D., and Sharon R. Duffin. 2023. “The Segregated Black Schools of Montgomery County, MD.” Montgomery History.

Clarke, Nina H. 1983. History of the 19th Century, Black Churches in Maryland and Washington, D.C. New York, NY: Vintage Press.

Hopkins, Jr., Griffith M. 1894. “Atlas of fifteen miles around Washington, including the county of Montgomery, Maryland 1894.” Library of Congress.

Maryland Historical Trust. 2007. Brownstown Historic District. Maryland: n.p.

United States Census. 1870. Schedule 1, Inhabitants of the 3rd District of Montgomery County, MD, Entry for William and Clarissa Brown.

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