Excursus: Maryland, My Maryland: Oakland's Bethel A.M.E. Church (Part I)

Some time back, I wrote about our explorations in Garrett County, MD, starting here, and continuing here, here, and here.

I mentioned in Part III of those posts my discovery in the 1900 census the name of an African-American minister living in Oakland (MD): Rev. William Walker.

Oakland's African-American community grew: the 1900 census for East Oakland shows a black minister, the Rev. William H. Walker, living in East Oakland with his wife, Virginia, and his mother-in-law. Because the 1880 census didn't show a minister, the presumption is that by 1900, there were enough African-Americans to have formed at least one congregation.

And the on-line archives of the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper confirm that there was indeed an A.M.E. church in Oakland around this time: Bethel A.M.E., part of the Baltimore District, along with Frostburg and Westernport. Preliminary indications are that Bethel A.M.E. was located near the corner of 5th and E. High Streets in Oakland. 

Since then, my agenda for my next trip to Garrett County has included trying to track down the fate of Bethel A.M.E. church, as it is no longer there and apparently has not been for many years.

Of course, there was also the matter of the annual Tristate Relief Sale to benefit the Mennonite Central Committee, which is held at the Garrett County Fairground overlooking Deep Creek Lake. More particularly, it is the matter of the quilts being auctioned off as part of the sale. So when Friday, July 17, rolled around, I suspect that Jane was packed and ready to go even before I was. I don't think it would be unfair to say that she'd been ready to go for months.

A feature of these trips has been a stop-over at the North Branch of the Potomac near Barnum (WV) for a bit of trout fishing, and this one was no exception. Unfortunately, the combination of sweltering heat and humidity and a bad lunch nearly did me in. Perhaps had I caught a fish, I might have felt better, but, as it was, I had only one rainbow trout so much as follow a lure—a deep-diving Rapala—that I was working along the edge of one of the North Branch's countless rapids. No strike, so by definition, no catch.

I finally felt so woozy that I needed to recover for a bit in the air-conditioned comfort of our vehicle—and considering that I had already fished a few of my favorite spots that had seldom failed me in the past, the picture was coming clear that the fishing gods were likely taking shelter from the heat and humidity themselves. So I called it a day and we headed on up the hill toward the Friday evening session of the Relief Sale.

Although the quilts weren't scheduled to be auctioned off until Saturday, the Relief Sale staff had made an interesting marketing decision: they had priced some of the quilts for immediate sale. As the representative later explained to us, they wanted to give one-time visitors a chance to buy a quilt rather than obliging them to wait around until the auction the next day.

Of course Jane was pleased to see that the quilt that caught her eye was one of those marked for immediate sale. Bingo: we had another quilt.

"Foundling" quilt donated by Kauffman Mennonite Church. (July, 2015)
Neither the colors nor the pattern seem typical for an Amish quilt.
The colors in the photo are lighter than is true: the border is much closer to navy blue.

A "foundling" is of course an abandoned infant—one which has been left somewhere in hopes that others will provide what the mother/parents weren't able to. A woman from Kauffman Mennonite—alas, I forgot to get her name—told us the story: an unknown donor had left the nearly-finished quilt top in a bag on the front doorstep of the church in apparent hope that it might been seen through to its proper end. Perhaps the original quilter had passed away and there was no one left to finish it?

And so it was: the quilting circle from Kauffman finished it and donated it to the Relief Sale and now the foundling quilt belongs to us.

One mission accomplished; we called it a day—although of course Jane wanted to return to the auction on Saturday.

I had, as they say, other fish to fry.