a square brick building with trees in the background. The building has a central door with windows on either side.

A Not-So Cinderella Story

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The Life of Cinderella Brogden of Belvoir

In 1848, Cinderella Brogden was “about 22 to 24 years old, pleasant when spoken to, of a light yellow complexion, and about 4’6″ tall.” She lived at Belvoir Plantation in Crownsville, Maryland, in a comfortable, well-appointed stone dwelling house with a central fireplace, brick floors and four rooms, with her mother Lydia, and her siblings Basil, John Henry, Lucinda, and Eliza. She had recently married Abraham Brogden, a well-respected laborer whose family had lived in Anne Arundel County for generations. Abraham grew up in the Millersville area, near the head of the Severn River and was likely familiar with Cinderella and her family living on a nearby farm. In 1848, he was 27 years old, employed by  Mr. James Curly at his farm in the north of Anne Arundel County, and lived in Ward 10 of Baltimore City. 

But here is where the fairytale stops.

George F. Worthington, an ordained protestant priest, inherited the Belvoir Plantation along present day Generals Highway, from his father in 1837. He also inherited 13 enslaved workers, including Lydia and her children, Basil, Cinderella, John Henry, Lucinda, and Eliza. Cinderella was likely born at Belvoir, and for her 24 years, had at least enjoyed a family structure and the support network of her siblings. Despite her enslaved status, she was allowed to marry, and wed a well-respected freedman named Abraham Brogden. 

Shortly before Christmas of 1848, Cinderella received word that she “was about to be sold [out of state] under execution for her masters debts,” a reality that struck fear and dread, and promised to tear apart her life and family. On the evening of Thursday December 21st, Cinderella gathered a few of her personal belongings and clothes, bid her family goodbye, and fled to Baltimore City with the support of her husband Abraham. 

While Worthington was not living at Belvoir, his Overseer Edward H Brown wasted no time in posting a runaway slave advertisement to the Baltimore Sun offerring $75 for her arrest or $100 if taken out of State. This is a chilling caveat to the ad, as Brown’s acknowledgement that she may escape “out of the state” suggests that Cinderella knew the gravity of her fate, and was trying to get as far away as possible to gain her freedom.

This advertisement was posted in the Baltimore Sun on December 23rd 1848, though by the time it was published, she and her husband Abraham had already been apprehended by the authorities. Admitted to a Baltimore jail on Dec 22nd, Cinderella remained incarcerated for 8 days, until ultimately being returned to her ‘owner’, Mr. Worthington. As she and her family had feared, upon her return to Worthington’s custody, she was quickly sold out of state.

 

For Abraham’s effort to save his wife, he was tried and found guilty of “enticing his wife away” by the Anne Arundel County Court on April 19, 1849, and sentenced to four years in a Maryland Penitentiary.  While the law responded blindly, seeing Cinderella as nothing more than property that had been stolen by Abraham, more than 115 citizens petitioned the Governor, pleading for leniency. Sadly, their pleas did not extend so far as to bringing Cinderella back to Maryland.

Long time family friend Thomas D. Marriott wrote Governor Enoch Louis Lowe multiple times, pleading Brogden’s case and asking for his sentence to be reduced.  On March 20 1851 he wrote, “Few can be found who do not look upon his attempt to save his wife from a sale to some far distant parts as an offense not deserving of the full penalty of the law.”  A few months later he further pleaded that, “It should be borne in mind, that she was about to be sold, when Brogden ran off with her…The crime was in endeavoring to set his wife at liberty! Not that instigated by fanaticism, but one produced by feelings entirely different from those by which fanatics and political abolitionists are amazed.”

The appeals eventually brought the Governor to grant Abraham Brogden a pardon on May 23, 1851, and he was released from the Maryland penitentiary the very next day. They were sadly though never to be reunited, as Cinderella had died during his imprisonment. 

Contributed by C. Jane Cox, Administrator, Anne Arundel County Cultural Resources Section

Links to Learn More:

Archaeological Research at Belvoir

See an interactive 3-d reconstruction of the Belvoir Slave Barracks here

DNA Traces local citizens roots back to those enslaved at Belvoir

References

  • Cinderella Brogden, MSA SC 5496-287  (Biographical Series)
  • Abraham Brogden MSA SC 5496-003367 (Biographical Series)
  • George F. Worthington MSA SC 5496-00640 (Biographical Series)
  • “One Hundred Dollars Reward.” Baltimore Sun 23 December 1848. 
  • R.S. Fisher. Gazetteer of the State of Maryland (Baltimore, MD: James S. Waters, 1852) 58.  
  • Anne Arundel County District 2, Simon J. Martenet, Map of Anne Arundel County, 1860, Library of Congress, MSA SC 1213-1-117. 
  • SECRETARY OF STATE (Pardon Papers) MSA S1031, Abraham Brogden, Box 48, Folder 28, 1851, [MSA S1031-10]. 
  • “One Hundred Dollars Reward.” Baltimore Sun 23 December 1848. 
  • BALTIMORE CITY AND COUNTY JAIL (Runaway Docket) [MSA C 2064-2]. Cinderella Brogden, #1268. SECRETARY OF STATE (Pardon Papers) MSA S1031, Abraham Brogden, Box 48, Folder 28, 1851, [MSA S1031-10].  
  • MARYLAND PENITENTIARY (Prisoners Record) MSA S275, Abraham Brogden, #4241, MSA S 275-2, MdHR 5656.
  • U.S. CENSUS BUREAU (Census Record, MD), Abram Brigton, 1840, Baltimore City, Ward 10, Page 3, Line 4 [MSA SM61-100, SCM 4714].
  •  Ethan Allen, Clergy in Maryland of the Protestant Episcopal Church since the independence (Baltimore, MD: James S. Waters, 1860) 60.
  • 1850 Census Record (D.C.) for George F. Worthington, Washington City, Ward 1, Page 56, Line 31. Ancestry.com.
  • Maryland Inventory of Historic Places Scott’s Plantation/ Belvoir AA-183

1860 Martenets Map: Excerpt of Round Bay/Crownsville/ Millersville Area. 

(Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Geraldine Whittington: Woman in the White House

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Geraldine Whittington (1931-1993), known to most as Gerri, is a notable woman of the Civil Rights Era. She left her mark on history as the first African American secretary to a U.S. President in the White House.

Gerri was born in Lothian, a historically important African American enclave in southern Anne Arundel County. As a child, she went to Lothian Elementary School, a Rosenwald school built in 1931, the year Gerri was born, to serve African American children during the period of segregation. In the 1940s, she attended Wiley H. Bates High School (now listed on the National Register of Historic Places), the only public high school available to black students in Anne Arundel County at the time. From there, Gerri went on to Virginia State College (now known as Virginia State University), historically renowned as one of the earliest, public colleges for both African American men and women in the southern United States.

Gerri left Virginia State College in 1950, where she pursued a bachelor’s degree in business administration, and promptly entered federal service with the Agency for International Development (AID) in the State Department, where she worked with Ralph Dungan. When Ralph Dungan became appointments secretary to President John F. Kennedy, Dungan invited Gerri to work with him in the White House, which she began starting in July of 1961. After JFK’s assassination in 1963, she continued to work in the White House at start of the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, at first for Walter Jenkins and William Moyers, LBJ’s closest assistants. Very quickly, they referred her secretarial services to the President.

Gerri thought it was a prank when President Johnson called her to reassign her as her secretary to the White House. How do we know? LBJ taped this conversation (as he did every conversation in the White House) and we can listen to it today. She began working as LBJ’s personal secretary on Christmas of 1963. Her reassignment started on Air Force One, where she accompanied LBJ on his flight to Texas for the holiday.

On January 18, 1964, Geraldine Whittington stands in conversation in the White House with four prominent civil rights leaders: James Farmer, Roy Wilkins, Whitney M. Young, and Martin Luther King.

Right at the start of Gerri’s tenure as LBJ’s personal secretary, she found herself walking into an all-white country club in Texas on the President’s arm, a calculated move on LBJ’s part to signal the end of segregation.  In that moment, she became a prominent face of the Civil Rights Movement. The setting, at the very end of 1963, was a New Year’s Eve party at the Forty Acres Club, a faculty club for the University of Texas. The previous year, the faculty club had signaled its refusal to integrate by infamously turning away an African American official of the Peace Corps, which spurred boycotting and faculty resignations in protest. It was a calculated move on LBJ’s part to signal his support of Civil Rights and effectively ended segregation at the club.[1]

Geraldine Whittington’s introduction to the nation as the first African American secretary to a US President was an unconventional one. On January 19, 1964, she made a guest appearance on episode #696 of the television show, What’s My Line?The game show consisted of a panel of celebrity judges that had to figure out the occupation of invited guests by deducting from the guest’s answers to 10 questions. You can actually watch Geraldine Whittington’s debut for yourself here.

Ms. Whittington was at the heart of an administration that oversaw the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, shortly followed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, important turning points in the history of the United States. In the photograph above, you can see her chatting with Civil Rights leaders at the forefront of the movement, including Martin Luther King. Geraldine stated that the proudest moment of her career was when she was the first to learn of the appointment of the first black Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall. She would have been the first to shake his hand.[2] Gerri continued to work in the White House as LBJ’s personal secretary until the end of his term in 1969. Gerri was featured regularly in Jet and Sepia magazines as one of the success stories of the Civil Rights movement. She knew her position enabled her to represent and inspire African American women to break barriers.[3]

In February of 1969, Geraldine had to leave civil service after suffering a stroke at the young age of 38 due to cerebral thrombosis. Fighting for recovery from partial paralysis and some speech impediment, she was honored a year later at a party at the U.S. Capitol, where she was toasted by friends for her courage and for the mark she left on the White House.[4]

Geraldine Whittington continued on as a Civil Rights icon throughout her life. In 1993, at the age of 61, she lost a battle to cancer and is buried at home in southern Anne Arundel County with her mother in the cemetery of historic Mt. Zion U.M. Church in Lothian, a church that was an important epicenter of the African American congregation since the late 19th century.  Gerri passed away on January 24, 1993, the same day as Thurgood Marshall.

Contributed by Stacy Poulos, Archaeological Sites Planner, Anne Arundel County Cultural Resources Section

[1] https://deadpresidents.tumblr.com/post/53207381610/lbjs-historic-night-out

[2] Feb 15, 1993.  “LBJ’s Exec Secretary Dies: She was first to learn he named Marshall a Justice.” Jet, v. 83 (16): 56.  (Source)

[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jerylbrunner/2019/11/05/the-women-who-helped-shape-lbjs-administration/?sh=31599a64d1a1

[4] May 1, 1971. “A Little Help From Friends.” The Washington Post, page E2.

County Executive Announces Oral History Virtual Tour of Civil Rights Era in Anne Arundel County

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New site features more than 50 oral history interviews with residents documenting Civil Rights Era

Annapolis, MD (February 8, 2022) Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman announced the launch of an oral history virtual tour of the Civil Rights Era in Anne Arundel County. The virtual tour, completed by Anne Arundel County’s Cultural Resources Section in partnership with local historians, can be found at www.aacounty.org/civil-rights-era.“Having stayed up way too late the other night watching the interviews on this site, I can tell you that they are captivating, inspiring, and uplifting,” County Executive Steuart Pittman said. “I am so grateful to the men and women who shared their history and the historians who are bringing it to the public and to our students. This is the kind of honest, direct presentation of history that makes us a better community.”

The new site features more than 50 oral history interviews collected from residents across the County, and is presented as a tour of local places, people, and everyday experiences during a time of segregation. It documents spaces of leisure and recreation, where people of color could gather and enjoy solidarity and empowerment; places like stores, ballfields, beaches, juke joints, movie theaters, beauty salons, and barber shops.

“Historic preservation is not only about saving grand old buildings, but about preserving the stories of the people and the places that have profoundly influenced County history,” said C. Jane Cox, Administrator of the County’s Cultural Resources Section in the Office of Planning and Zoning. “Documenting this chapter of local history from the not so distant past helps our Office in its mission to preserve diverse aspects of local history for future generations.”

The project began in 2017 with funding from the National Park Service’s Civil Rights Grants Program. A team of historians from Anne Arundel County in partnership with the non-profit Lost Towns Project, Inc worked with citizens who generously shared memories of what life was like during segregation, and uncovered their compelling stories of injustice, resistance, and sacrifice, perseverance and triumph. Lyndra Marshall (née Pratt) was the lead historian on the project, supported by Dr. John Kille.

“What I love about the Civil Rights Oral History Project: it connects people with their memories and with the way life was during the Civil Rights Era,” lead historian Lyndra Marshall (née Pratt) said. “These stories give a glimpse into the many ways residents engaged in recreation and leisure during segregation. They found creative ways to have fun times with family and friends in spite of being blocked from public spaces or they became owners of social spaces.”

Map of locations highlighted in the virtual tour

The project has also resulted in a ground-breaking partnership between Anne Arundel County and the Maryland State Archives. The Archives has established a dedicated Special Collection where the full length oral history footage and transcriptions are to be housed in perpetuity, and can be found here.

Katara West from the Office of Equity & Accelerated Student Achievement and the Social Studies Office at Anne Arundel County Public Schools lauded the tour as a “valuable resource for learners of all ages. The AACPS Local History Initiative plans to utilize this site to educate students and staff about the stories of perseverance, triumph, and strong community bond of African Americans in Anne Arundel County during the Civil Rights Era and beyond! This site will serve as another valuable tool in building social studies and other curriculum that is inclusive of Anne Arundel County history.”

To view the virtual tour and experience local history through the eyes and stories of those who lived it, visit www.aacounty.org/Civil-Rights-Era.

Lost Towns Project Receives Grant to Study Black Housing

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The Lost Towns is grateful to have been selected as a recipient of an FY 2022 Historic Preservation Non-Capital Grant Awards from the Maryland Historical Trust. Titled “Slavery, Resistance, and Freedom: Recording Anne Arundel County’s Past,” the goal of this project is to create a more inclusive history by researching, documenting, and sharing the diversity of Black households in nineteenth-century Anne Arundel County, including sites inhabited by both enslaved and free African-Americans, before and after emancipation.

This project will undertake a detailed archival and literature review of nineteenth-century Black housing in the Chesapeake. The investigators will create a database of approximately 100 such sites, conduct field visits to approximately 20 sites to assess their condition, create or update Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties site data, and write a summary report to disseminate the findings. Through this study, the project aims to broaden public support for the protection and preservation of Black historical spaces.  

This is a multidisciplinary project that may employ documentation techniques such as remote sensing. In this photo, Lost Towns uses ground penetrating radar to investigate the slave cemetery at Whitehall.