Preservation Month in Howard County has nearly slipped by. The 2024 theme is “People Saving Places” according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Sometimes preservation looks like a structure, and sometimes it looks like the preservation of stories and history.
Sometimes, they are BOTH.
Howard County has what may be THE OLDEST surviving log structure built by an African American who was born free (the Sarah Jane Powell one was said to have been built in 1859), and thanks to the preservation work done more than forty years ago and more recently, it still stands today. In 2023, the accurate history of the log house was uncovered to reveal that its likely builder was a Mulatto man named Levi Gillis who bought the land from a Black man and his wife… Thomas and Ellen Fisher on May 30, 1851 for $100. This was right before Howard County became a county. He later sold it to Thomas Isaac in the year 1860, who lived with his wife elsewhere in the county.
Come celebrate the anniversary of the Gillis purchase and a new narrative about Ellicott City that incorporates what research has (so far) revealed about life for Black and Mulatto people in mid 1800s Ellicott’s Mills. To be clear, this will incorporate research found in our latest book AND new content found in primary source archival documents since that publication. Historic structures continue to disappear in the county and are being replaced. This one still stands, moved to where the original courthouse used to be located (which has now disappeared due to a flood that wiped it out).
The log house will be open from 4:30-6pm on Thursday May 30, and the public is invited to stop by anytime between those hours to see the new narrative about it contained inside. It is usually only open on weekends from 1-4pm, so it’s a treat to have had Recreation and Parks make this available on this special occassion. A private walking tour will start at 4:30 at the site, and will continue through various spots in Ellicott City and will end back at the log house. The walking tour is by REGISTRATION ONLY as there is limited capacity, which can be done by sending an email to marlena@hocoltr.org Send an email if you’d like to be notified of future similar programming, if you can’t make this one.
The original courthouse will also be discussed, and a soft introduction to our nonprofit’s newest upcoming county history book which will be about liberation from enslavement, free Blacks and cases/activity that happened in the original court house and the second one that is currently being made into something new by the county.
Closest parking (free) in the lot behind the log house (corner of Main Street and Ellicotts Mills Drive). This will be the second tour test run being given to test run-of-show in advance of upcoming programming for tourism season. This is in conjunction with a Maryland Heritage Areas Authority grant.
Photo from similar event on Jan 1, 2024
