Pine Top
- Feb 18
- 2 min read
One of the Historic Black communities of Montgomery, MD
The reason it was called Pine Top was because all you could see was pine – the tops of pine trees from Riffle Ford Road…. That's where I was born and raised right there I'm level Ford Road….So I've spent most of my life – in fact all of my life other than the four years I was away in the military – right here In Brownstown and in Germantown.
~ Jerry Green, 92 years old, Brownstown/Pine Top resident
The Pine Top community on Riffle Ford Rd. was linked to the Brownstown community in Germantown. The families would have attended Asbury Methodist Church on Black Rock Road, and attended the school there with children from the Brownstown community. Sadly, the Brownstown school building no longer stands. The original church and school were both built before 1878, according to the Maryland Historical Trust (Maryland Historical Trust 2007), but the new church is still attended weekly by its faithful cogregation.
Moses Levy Hoes (b. 1846) and his wife Harriet Hoes (b. 1853) and their families, Columbus Harper, born in 1846, and Henry Thomas, born in 1861 were part of Pine Top, living next to J. Gassaway in the 1880 U.S. Census. The Hoes also lived down the street from Jacob and Ann Noland, and Isaac and Bettie Noland and their families. (United States Census 1880, 34)
The original homes in Pine Top are gone, but there are still descendants living in the community in newer homes, and some still attend the Asbury U.M.C.
-----------------
References
Green, Jerry (Kenneth), Jamie Tolliver, and Gladys Lyons. 2025. Panel on Brownstown, Historic Black Community in Germantown, MD. Germantown, MD: Germantown Historical Society.
Maryland Historical Trust. 2007. Brownstown Historic District. Maryland: n.p. https://mcatlas.org/filetransfer/HistoricPreservation/Cemeteries/065_Asbury_UM_Germantown/MHT_M-18-29_Brownstown.pdf
United States Census. 1880. Schedule 1, Inhabitants of the 3rd District of Montgomery County, MD, Entry for Moses and Harriet Hoes. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MNQR-Z3J?lang=en
Comments