Alonzo Bell, landowning farmer on Parkers Creek
Table of Contents
Alonzo Bell and his land
Alonzo Bell (ca 1850-ca 1915) was an African American farmer, active in the Parkers Creek community in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. In written records, his name is sometimes spelled Alonza. The documentary evidence we have found tells us only a little about him and his family. The 1880 census lists him as the 30-year-old husband of 27-year-old Francis (Frances?) in a household with two foster sons, James King, age 10, and Frank Stephens, age 6. The family rented their home and land. The 1910 census lists a household of two: 59-year-old Alonzo and (presumably) his second wife, 61-year-old Dina (in some other records Dinah). In this latter census, the family own their farm, and Alonzo is described as able to read and write. Dina is listed as having had one child, no longer living.
Deeds for Bell’s acquisition of two properties march in step with the census. The 1890 deed for his first acquisition defines a 30-acre property, the survey for which includes the phrase “[running] with said Parker’s Creek stream up to what is called the ‘Old Mill Bridge'” (JS 2/345). The sellers were Thomas A. and Annie E. Hardesty. Alonzo and Dina’s dwelling was on this tract; Bell’s 1907 agreement for the sale of timber rights to George D. Turner describes this property as “the land on which I reside” (GWD 7/134).
The 1899 deed for Bell’s second acquisition defines a 60-acre tract, although our 2022 mapping of the survey indicates an extent of about 90 acres (GWD 1/153). The sellers were the heirs to Walter W. Dorsey. In the land records we have found, however, the boundaries of this and adjacent properties are confusing and may have changed over time. Our mapping is probably an oversimplification, but we believe it offers a reasonable sense of Bell’s holdings.

Map of the Bell properties and nearby points of interest. The green dashed lines are today’s ACLT hiking trails.
The confusion about the boundaries of the 60-acre property was brought home when we analyzed the disposition of the land. We found sales deeds dated in 1911 and 1915 (the latter by Dina Bell, after her husband’s death) that account for about 35 acres of the 60 but no more (GWD 12/13, GWD 16/133, and GWD 16/250).
SIDEBAR: Land records pertaining to Brown's Church
In parallel with our uncertainty about the boundaries for Alonzo Bell’s 60-acre tract is confusion about the establishment and boundaries of the land occupied by Brown’s Methodist Episcopal Church (United Methodist Church after a denominational merger). We have chosen to map the church lot as enclosed by Bell’s land. However, neither that mapping nor a mapping in which the Brown’s Church property would be shown as separate are supported in a clear way by the historical information we have found. Here are our relevant land-record findings to date. Incidentally, these records show the close connection between the early activities of the church and the establishment of a nearby one-room school for African American children, also shown on the map:
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- 1867: A deed for one acre for the Parkers Creek School was made by Samuel B. Wilson to school trustees who were later determined not to have been properly established. (DBMD 02/456; from Mary B. Rockefeller, Early Schools of Calvert County Maryland; 2019, p. 303.)
- 1884: A replacement deed for the school lot was made by Samuel B. Wilson to the “trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States of America for Parkers Creek Church.” This deed also includes this wording: “the said premises shall be used, kept and maintained and disposed of as a place of divine worship for the use of the ministry and membership of the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States of America.” However, as reported by Mary Rockefeller, a close student of the history of the county’s schools, “no church was built on the lot and the school continued in that same location under the jurisdiction of the Calvert County Board of School Commissioners.” (SS 06/335; from Rockefeller, Early Schools, op. cit.)
- 1908: Thomas and Sarah Hardesty sell one acre to the Prince Frederick Circuit of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The survey references the church lot as a pre-existing entity, possibly alluding to the school lot as described in the preceding bullet: “Beginning at the north corner of the church lot, thence running north with the public road seventy-one yards to a boundary chestnut tree on the lands owned by or in the possession of Beniah Bowen; thence running East seventy yards with said line to the land now owned by or in the possession of Alonzo Bell; thence running South to the corner of said church lot . . . .” We presume that this deed’s statement that the land is in the Second Election District (north of Parkers Creek) is mistaken (GWD 08/402).
- 1911 to 1956: Regarding the Bell land, there were several sales of segments and several intervening owners.
- 1956 to 1972: By 1956, Louis Goldstein was in possession of the former Bell land, as well as several nearby or adjacent parcels (AWR 28/244, tract 3; AWR 28/245). Goldstein was then the Maryland Comptroller and, in private life, an active investor in land. When Goldstein decided to divest himself of this tract, he (or a land-record analyst) construed the Bell-derived property as containing (or possibly containing) 2.5 acres that were considered to belong to the church. To honor this fact, the two deeds under which Goldstein transferred the land in 1971 and 1972 included wording to protect the church’s ownership (JLB 137/393 and JLB 151/367). The first states that “new lines of division” established “the outline of the Browns Methodist Church property,” while the second conveyed this land as a gift to “Browns Methodist Church of the Prince Frederick Circuit of the United Methodist Church of the Baltimore-Washington Conference.”
- 1972: Goldstein made a gift of about 97 acres of his holdings in this area to the Southern Maryland Tri-County Community Action Committee for an affordable housing project (JLB 151/367). Meanwhile, in that same year, Brown’s Church ceased operations and its ties to the United Methodist denomination ended (Baltimore Conference United Methodist Church 1972 annual meeting minutes).
- 2019: The Baltimore-Washington Conference the United Methodist Church deeded the 2.5-acre former church property to Gladys Jones, who plans to restore the building as a community center (KPS 5361/0039).
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Alonzo Bell and community activities
Alonzo Bell’s name turns up in a handful of documents that highlight aspects of his role in the community. Two instances concern pension applications by relatives of soldiers who served in the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War, as reported in pension records held by the U.S. National Archives. In 1892, Bell testified in support of Ellen Commodore’s application. She was the widowed mother of the soldier William Commodore, missing in action and presumed dead in 1864. Bell testified that Ellen’s husband, also named William Commodore, had died in 1881 leaving Ellen with no means of support. (She got the pension.)
In another pension application documented in 1910, Bell’s name is invoked as a potential witness by the widow Arabella Wallace. Arabella needed to verify the fact of her 1877 marriage to the now-deceased soldier Joseph Wallace. “In Parkers Creek church more than thirty years ago,” Arabella testified, “I married Joseph H. Wallace . . . . Among those present at my wedding were Jerry Boots, Alonzo Bell, and Mary E. Brooks.” (Arabella Wallace also got a pension.)
Meanwhile, Alonzo Bell played a role in supporting the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows and its associated women’s organization, the Household of Ruth. Like many other American groups defined by region or ethnic heritage, African Americans established and benefited from fraternal and sororal mutual-benefit organizations, with local chapters often connected with schools and churches. In addition to the United Order of Odd Fellows and the Household of Ruth, the Parkers Creek area was also home to a Tabernacle (a chapter or lodge) of the Grand Order of Galilean Fishermen. In 1908, Alonzo Bell is listed among members of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows who were raising funds to build a hall for the organization.

In 1915, after Alonzo Bell’s death, his widow Dina Bell sold a 1/2-acre lot of the family’s land to lodge number 4685 of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows and unit 2172 of the Household of Ruth (GWD 16/250).
SIDENOTE: We believe that this 1915 transfer to the Odd Fellows and House of Ruth was a source of confusion in 1971 and 1972, when Louis Goldstein was divesting himself of land in this area, as described in the preceding sidebar on Brown’s Church land records. The 1972 deed for Goldstein’s gift of land to the Southern Maryland Tri-County Community Action Committee for affordable housing includes this wording, ” SAVING AND EXCEPTING the 0.50 acre conveyance from Arabella Wallace, et al, to Albert McCormick, et al. Trustees of the Order of the Galilean Fisherman Tabernacle No. 809 by deed dated October 21, 1919 . . . Liber A.A.H. No. 4, folio 12.” A careful reading of land record AAH 4/12 indicates that the Galilean Fisherman lot was north of the creek and we believe that Goldstein’s reference ought to have cited Dina Bell’s transfer of a half-acre to the Odd Fellows and House of Ruth near the location of the Brown’s Church property, south of the creek. Regardless, the half-acre once intended for a mutual benefit organization is now titled to Calvert County government and, on an informal basis, maintained along with 2.5-acre former Brown’s Church property.
Alonzo Bell and vicissitudes of farming
The Calvert County land records include fifteen bills of sale between 1893 and 1913 in which Alonzo Bell put up collateral–usually livestock–in order to borrow money to tide him over until the next tobacco crop sold at market. Such borrowing was a fairly common practice among tobacco farmers who depended on the annual sale of their crop, and it illustrates the insecure economy of tobacco agriculture.

Excerpt from land record TBT 5/529: “We, Alonzo Bell and Dinah F. Bell his wife of Calvert County, State of Maryland, being indebted to Thos. A. Hardesty of Calvert Co., Maryland, in the sum of Seventy Dollars and thirty-two cts, with interest from date, in consideration thereof we do hereby bargain and sell to the said Thos. A. Hardesty the following property: one yoke of oxen, one red buffalo and one white back with horns; one red and white spotted buffalo cow and calf and one ox cart. Provided that if we the said Alonzo Bell and Dinah F. Bell shall pay to the said Thos A. Hardesty thew sum of Seventy dollars and thirty-two cts, with the interest thereon, on or before the 10′ day May 1901 then these presents shall be void. Witness our hands and seals this 10′ day of May 1899. Alonzo Bell (seal), Dinah F. Bell (seal); Test: Benson C. Hardesty.” We have not determined how to interpret the noun buffalo in the preceding. It may reflect the idea–actual or fanciful–that buffalo oxen are the remnants of native Bison that crossbred with cattle brought from Europe, or a cross of cattle and water buffaloes, both from Europe. Or perhaps it was simply a descriptive term for oxen with a particular configuration or marking pattern.
Acknowledgements
This webpage was researched and drafted by Carl Fleischhauer in January 2025. Research on the Bell property boundaries by Art Cochran; map drafted by Exa Marmee Grubb. Research on the Parkers Creek School and related 19th century deeds by Mary Rockefeller, presented in her 2019 book Early Schools of Calvert County Maryland.