Lost History of Frederick Douglass in Cecil County, Maryland
Join local history enthusiasts and community leaders for a debut presentation detailing the largely unknown history of Frederick Douglass visiting Port Deposit and speaking at a local church in Rising Sun in late 1885. Nearly a half-century before traversing interior Cecil County via railway, as a young man escaping slavery out of Baltimore City in the fall of 1838 Frederick (Bailey) Douglass passed over the Susquehanna and through Perryville. Utilizing archival prints, maps, letters, newspapers and other resources, internationally known Douglassonian John Muller, who has previously presented on the lost and unknown history of visits Douglass made to Cambridge in Dorchester County, Denton in Caroline County and Centreville in Queen Anne's County, will present "Lost History of Frederick Douglass in Cecil County." Learn more about the friendship of Frederick Douglass and Port Deposit's John Creswell, an 1874 visit Anna Murray Douglass made to Elkton independent of her famous husband, as well as the extensive connections Douglass had with local Cecil County educational, political and theological leaders during the periods of Antebellum, Civil War and Reconstruction. Presentation will last 60 - 90 minutes, Q&A to follow. John Muller, author of Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C.: The Lion of Anacostia (2012) and Mark Twain in Washington, D.C.: The Adventures of a Capital Correspondent (2013) has been a local reporter in Old Anacostia and adjacent communities for the past decade for a variety of print and online publications. Muller has presented widely throughout the DC-Baltimore metropolitan area at venues including the Library of Congress, Newseum, Politics and Prose, American Library in Paris and local universities. He is currently working on a book about the lost history of Frederick Douglass on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. He has presented “The Lost History of Frederick Douglass in Western Maryland” at various venues such as the Washington County Central Library in Hagerstown, Ebenezer AME Church (Hagerstown) and Frostburg State University as well as presenting the “Lost History: Frederick (Bailey) Douglass in Baltimore” at the Enoch Pratt Central Library in Baltimore City. Muller has been featured on C-SPAN’s BookTV and C-SPAN’s American History TV, as well as in the pages of the Star Democrat and the airwaves of WDVM (Hagerstown) NBC4 (Washington), WPFW, WAMU, WYPR and Delmarva Pubic Radio.
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