[Chat] Fwd: Save the Date! Saturday, March 17, 2012

[Stephen J Gewirtz]

Here is a really important piece of Charles Village history.

Steve

On 1/25/2012 1:46 PM, JOSEPH STEWART wrote:
> Thanks to a grant from the 32nd Street Farmers Market to Waverly Main
> Street, School 115 and Roberta B. Sheridan will be recognized on
> historic Merryman Lane. Save the date! Saturday March 17, 2012.
>
> A new historic marker will be unveiled along Merryman Lane at a brief
> ceremony on Merryman Lane Green Space at a time to be announced that is
> during market hours on that very green St. Patrick's Day!
>
> > From Maryland State Archives:
>
> http://www.msa.md.gov/msa/stagser/s1259/121/6050/html/1238500.html
>
> Roberta Sheridan
>
> Roberta Sheridan was the first African American teacher in Baltimore
> City, and indeed in the State of Maryland. In a time when most women
> were expected to stay meekly at home and keep house, Sheridan was an
> independent career woman. She was not afraid to challenge the status
> quo. She took risks and made her own decisions, sometimes suffering
> because of them.
>
> White teachers completely dominated black education after the Civil
> War. When African Americans applied for positions as teachers, they were
> told that they were not qualified. Leaders in the African American
> community were outraged, and waged an ultimately successful campaign to
> install African American teachers in the black public schools. The fight
> was led by prominent community leaders, including Frederick Douglass,
> John Locks, and Reverend J. W. Beckett, pastor of the Bethel African
> Methodist Episcopal Church. They achieved success in 1888, with the
> appointment of Roberta B. Sheridan.
>
> Sheridan began her public teaching career at the Waverly School on
> Merryman's Lane, near York Road. She was instrumental in bridging the
> color gap in public education and ending the domination of black
> education by white teachers. Her appointment was the culmination of a
> long and arduous struggle to gain admittance for African Americans as
> public school teachers.
>
> Roberta Sheridan was a professional woman; she worked as a teacher most
> of her life and was dedicated to public education. Although she was a
> working woman, ties to her family remained very strong. She lived with
> her parents throughout her life, even when she was married. After her
> marriage ended, Roberta, her parents, and her daughter continued to live
> in one household until Roberta's death in 1918, bringing three
> generations together under one roof.
>
> Few permanent records document Sheridan's life. The available
> information is often incomplete and contradictory. She was part of the
> African American community, an understudied population for which few
> records exist. For the most part, this community did not have money or
> influence, the two factors which guarantee that records will be
> maintained about a group. Secondarily, Sheridan was female. Information
> was almost always recorded under men's names, so any documentation of a
> marriage, a divorce, or a child's birth was registered by the husband's
> name. This can cause difficulty if a woman's married name is not known.
>
>
> An example of the scarcity of information available is illustrated by
> Sheridan's birth date. There is no definitive information concerning her
> date of birth. She was probably born between the years of 1864 and 1872,
> but various original sources suggest different dates. Her marriage
> license in 1892 lists her age as 28, which would place her date of birth
> in 1864. In the 1910 Census, however, Sheridan gives her age as 38,
> which would put her birth date in 1872. Perhaps the most accurate, but
> still unconfirmed, birth date is the one recorded on her death
> certificate: 20 March 1873. Unfortunately, Baltimore City did not keep
> birth records until 1875, so there is no way to determine her exact date
> of birth because the necessary records do not exist.
>
> Roberta Sheridan was the only surviving child of Daniel and Arietta
> Sheridan. Daniel was a laborer for much of his life, and Arietta kept
> house. Her parents were lifelong residents of Baltimore City, and
> Roberta grew up on Chestnut Street, which is now known as Colvin Street.
> In 1890, her family moved to Pine Street, where they lived for over
> twenty years.
>
> Sheridan was able to attend school as a child and was "a graduate of
> the colored high and grammar school, and colored normal school."  Her
> education served her well. In 1888, she became the first African
> American to become a teacher in Baltimore City.
>
> Many aspects of Sheridan's personal life revolved around her
> involvement in education. For example, her husband, George W. Biddle,
> was the principal of No. 9 Primary School (colored) on Carrolton and
> Riggs Avenues. Sheridan was a teacher at this school when it was built
> in 1889. They married on 26 July 1892 and lived with Daniel and Arietta
> Sheridan after their marriage. They had one daughter, Hester Maud, born
> 24 June 1893. Roberta and George's marriage was very short-lived. They
> separated almost exactly two years after they met; Roberta asked George
> to leave in June of 1894. She claimed he abused her, and sued for
> divorce twice. She was denied both times. Finally, George sued, claiming
> she deserted him, and was granted the divorce in 1903.
>
> Daniel Sheridan did not live to see the finalization of George and
> Roberta's divorce. He died of heart disease in 1899, and was buried in
> Laurel Cemetary on Christmas Day, 1899.
>
> Religion played a large role in Roberta Sheridan's life. She was
> married in the Sharpe Street African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church by
> the Reverend E. W. S. Peck. She and her parents were members of the
> Bethel AME Church, where Roberta taught Sunday School. After a
> falling-out with the leaders at the Bethel Church in the late 1890s, she
> left and began teaching Sunday School at St. John's, another AME church.
> She became very active in Sunday School at St. John's, and was elected
> Superintendent of the Juvenile Department in 1902.
>
> Sheridan was offered the position of assistant superintendent of Sunday
> School at the Bethel Church in the late 1890s. She declined immediately
> because her immediate supervisor fought with a former pastor, who was a
> very good friend of hers. Consequently, she was not reappointed as a
> Sunday School teacher "on the grounds that if her affections for the
> former pastor were so deep . . . she could not serve under a brother who
> had fought him in one capacity, she could not consistently be expected
> to serve under the same brother even though in a different capacity."
> Soon thereafter, she began teaching at St. John's. This was one of her
> many decisions in which she asserted her independence. The Bethel Church
> leaders were offended by her choice, and charged her with violating the
> Discipline, or the rules of the Methodist Episcopal Church. She appeared
> before a committee of church leaders, but "walked away without further
> ceremony" after a heated disagreement with the chairman of the
> committee.
>
> Roberta Sheridan continued to live with her mother after the death of
> her father and divorce from her husband. In 1914, Roberta, her mother
> Arietta, and her daughter Hester moved into a house at 1441 North Carey
> Street.
>
> Sheridan was living at this address when she died on 24 June 1918. She
> died of "Natural Insufficiency" and "Shock" and was only forty-five
> years old. She was buried in Laurel Cemetary, the same place her father
> was buried almost twenty years earlier. Her obituary ran in the
> Afro-American and described her as "one of the first colored teachers in
> the local public schools."
>
> Roberta Sheridan played an incredibly pivotal role in Maryland
> education. In 1888, she became the first African American to teach in
> the Baltimore City School System; she taught at the Waverly School on
> Merryman's Lane. Despite this monumental achievement, little is known
> about her career. According to her obituary, she taught at Public School
> No. 9 on Carrolton and Riggs Avenues and at School No. 108 on South
> Caroline St. There is no evidence that suggests what grade she taught,
> how long she taught at each school, or what subjects she taught.
>
> The information that does exist about her professional career is not
> very detailed. She is listed as "teacher" in the 1890 Baltimore City
> Directory. In her 1903 divorce case, she gave her occupation as a
> teacher in the county. The 1910 Census cites her occupation as a teacher
> in a public school. Finally, she is recorded as a public school teacher
> on her death certificate in 1918.
>
> Many influential black citizens, including Frederick Douglass,
> campaigned for African American teachers in public schools. In the early
> 1880s, a committee formed to present the school board with a petition
> demanding that African Americans be allowed to teach in black schools.
> This committee had many distinguished members, including Reverend J. W.
> Beckett, the pastor of the Bethel AME Church, where Sheridan and her
> family were members. Indeed, Beckett may have known Sheridan through her
> capacities as a Sunday School teacher and eventually recommended her to
> the city's public school system. Finally, the years of petitioning ended
> in 1888, when the City made the historic decision to let African
> Americans teach in black public schools. Roberta Sheridan was selected
> to be the first African American to teach in a city public school.
>
> Sheridan was already an experienced teacher. She taught Sunday School
> at the Bethel AME Church. Well after she established her career as a
> public school teacher, she left the Bethel AME Sunday School and taught
> at the Saint John's AME Sunday School.
>
> The Waverly School  (School 115)
>
> The Waverly School, or Annex School No. 1, was located on Merryman's
> Lane, near York Road. This location was not yet in Baltimore City when
> the school was prepared in 1888. The school was, however, in the
> Baltimore City School System because the city annexed the schools before
> the annexing the land surrounding them. Baltimore City expanded its
> borders in 1918, encompassing the land on which the Waverly School
> stood. The land between the old and new borders of the city was known as
> the Belt.
>
> The Sanborn map (1945) shows a school occupying the block formed by
> Merryman's Lane, Greenmount Avenue (York Road), 32nd Street, and
> Brentwood Avenue. Unfortunately, this block is now a parking lot.
> Baltimore City has lost forever a landmark that once stood as a reminder
> of the struggle for education by African Americans.
>
> Merryman Lane
>
> Merryman Lane gets its name from a 1688 land grant by Lord Baltimore to
> Charles Merryman, whose son John built a house and started a farm on an
> estate called Clover Hill, near today's Episcopal Cathedral.
>
> According to a Baltimore Sun account by William Stump dated October 23,
> 1949:
>
> Merryman's lane, running past the house (Clover Hill), came into being
> in 1801 or 1802 when Joseph Merryman sold part of his land to Charles
> Carroll of Carrollton, who built Homewood as a wedding present for his
> son. The lane was cut through, another family letter explains, in order
> to give the Carrolls access to their new property.
>
> Today a single block remains as Merryman Lane while the rest of that
> old road is now called University Parkway.
>
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