Millard never received those benefits, she said.
Years later, her dream is to preserve the past She is consumed with anxiety about securing her family’s future. The process she began ultimately prevented her from making any other choices regarding the whole thing. The 1.52-acre site was determined by county officials to be of potential archaeological significance and decided to include it in the designation, records show.
“I’m not putting the blame on myself,” Millard said of the predicament in a recent interview. She just wanted to save the house and build one for herself.
But she is concerned because the building her great-grandfather built in 1940 has now been demolished, allowing her family to build elsewhere on the land in question. About what happens next.
Although county historic designations are rarely lifted (a Calvert spokesperson said one other property has had that designation lifted), Millard would like to see the designation revoked. The years-long effort is scheduled to culminate Wednesday with a public hearing before the Calvert Historic District Commission.
The family believes the results will help the county serve its dwindling black population, whose ancestors’ labor on tobacco farms, oyster boats, canneries and shipyards has supported Calvert’s economy for generations. We see this as a test of our efforts.
Millard, now 65, recently sat on the gray foundation bricks of his old home. He and his older brother Demone (50) exchanged memories of childhood summers spent in Lusby. There are stories of peaches and pears fresh off the tree, of families boasting about fresh fish caught in the nearby Patuxent River, and of rustbees that have faded over time.
If the historic designation is maintained, the land will remain vacant, leaving only room for their reminiscences.
The original house was built by Harrison Kent. To my parents who were born just after that October day in the early 1890s. Slavery was abolished in Maryland.
The brothers’ great-grandfather, who worked as an oysterman around Solomon Island, traces the trajectory of many black county residents descended from enslaved laborers who sought as little autonomy and freedom as possible in an era of overt racism. followed.
Thanks to his labor, Kent and his wife, Daisy, were able to build a nearly 500-square-foot home on a small hill with a gravel path leading up to the property. The house had no indoor plumbing, so it remained occupied by the Millards’ great-grandmother until her death in the late 1970s.
The Calvert County Commission approved the historic designation of the home in 2018, stating that “continuing family ownership, changes in the size of the home, and potential information contained in the archaeological record about the site make this home It has become an important and scarce resource.” According to the document provided by Calvert County Historical Society.
The body noted that the Millard family was part of the area’s historic African-American community, and that the original home was “one of the few remaining original residences along the road.”
The commission said in 2018 that the property’s grounds had been “virtually undisturbed” since it was first purchased.
That reasoning no longer holds true after Harriet Millard demolished the house her great-grandfather built in 2020. She said her home was in a dilapidated condition and “posed a significant threat to public health, safety and welfare.”
She said experts she hired herself had not found any examples of archaeological significance on the property.
Starting Wednesday, the matter will be referred to a joint public hearing made up of the county commission and county planning commission.
If the designation is upheld at that hearing, the family can appeal the decision to court.
Lifting the historic designation would allow Millard to proceed with construction of new modern homes without historic preservation restrictions.
calvert county code status Historic designations may be removed if the property no longer meets the criteria for which it was originally designated.
Calvert County Public Affairs Program Manager Sarah Ehman said the county will not impose a historic district overlay without an application from property owners and a recommendation from the Historic District Commission.
Even if historic recognition is stripped, it does not erase the Millard family’s ties to the county.
Kent died in 1946 in a tragedy that would last for generations.
According to the Cumberland Evening Times, he was dating another man, Oscar Martin, in January of that year when a torpedo, believed to have been fired by a Navy ship, hit a small boat on the Patuxent River near Point Patience. was. At the time, the government said the men’s boat was in a restricted area and that both men had signed a document assuming injury. This claim would later be challenged in a lawsuit filed by the widows against the government.
The brothers said their father, then a teenager serving in the military overseas, was troubled by Kent’s death and Lusby’s limitations. When it came time to settle down, he chose Baltimore.
Brothers and neighbors along the street where Millard’s property is located say many black residents have left or died since the house was built.
“Most of the people died in that little pocket,” Domone said, pointing to the neighborhood. “It was a small community of black families, and everyone helped each other. … No one ever went hungry in that area.”
At the end of the Civil War, blacks made up approximately 60 percent of the county’s population. They are now about 13 percent, according to census data.
Rodel McCall, an 85-year-old black man who has lived in Lusby since 1961, can see the changes mapped out from his garden.
“It used to be black people there, and the people next to me used to be black,” he said, pointing to the area he handed over to the children from atop his John Deere riding lawn mower. . “Black people owned things back then.”
The hum of cars coming from Kent Millard’s property is still a bit of an odd sound for the brothers trying to find their place in the new Lusby.
Documents show that Harriet Millard’s family encountered a series of rules and obstacles as they tried to access the land.
Her late father’s desire to build a house on the land inspired her to consider building a townhouse in the early 1990s. on the property, but she said past officials told her they didn’t want the area to become more like a town center.
In the late 1990s, when he tried to demolish the house his great-grandfather had built in order to build a new house, he was told that the land needed to be subdivided, and his application was rejected.
Today, the nearby town center has risen, complete with a Starbucks and a Giant supermarket.
Developers are targeting the area, said Florence Buck, 71, who bought her home through a Department of Housing and Urban Development program in the early 1990s and has lived on the Millers’ street her entire life.
“They’re trying to make it more commercial,” said Buck, who has noticed an increase in letters from developers and real estate agents over the past decade. “Mainly white people are taking over.” [land]. Our young black people don’t want to go back like this. ”
Over time, the county commissioned road widening on the family’s land. On another occasion, their father and aunt allowed the county to acquire more land to build Patuxent High School, with the condition that the heirs would have an access point to the land in perpetuity. Next to their Lusby property is a cell phone tower that was installed there after the cousins sold the land to the county.
Harriet Millard now wants a house on the property to call her own.
Laws governing land use have historically disadvantaged black communities, leading families like Millard’s ancestors to avoid formal inheritance systems and instead leave their homes. property to heirs.
Historically, the practice of deceased family members passing on ownership to their descendants without a deed or will was left the rights of black families vulnerableSaid sherry mansia law professor who teaches classes on racism, capitalism, and property at Georgetown Law School.
Harriet Millard said the Millard family’s property was inherited until her grandparents acquired it.
She says land speculators sometimes take advantage of a family’s economic status and offer attractive amounts of land, leaving one less Black landowner.
“That’s interesting [Harriett] We’re trying to take advantage of the legal protections that are available to us,” Munshi said, noting that such laws have a track record of benefiting white landowners. “Historic preservation is a terrible irony.”
For Demone Millard, not having real rights to the land would be an insult to the future her father had envisioned for his children.
“We stand on the shoulders of our ancestors,” he said. “I so miss the trials and tribulations that we’re going through. We’re still fighting this historic battle.”
