Bare Hills, A Contrast in Time
I saw the old house first, set behind a row of faded 19th century houses strung along Falls Road a mile north of the city-county line. It was a caved-in box that had given up being a home many winters ago. The dried vines that clambered up the weathered wood couldn’t hide the gaping holes where windows had been.
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- Abandoned after a tree limb fell on its roof, this decaying house is hidden behind a half-dozen other 19th century frame houses along Falls Road. The dwellings are all part of the Scott Settlement Historic District, one of Baltimore County’s earliest African-American enclaves. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)
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- The light green outcroppings of serpentine rock created a barren landscape that gave the community of Bare Hills its name. The serpentinite rock was mined for chromite in the first half of the 19th century by Isaac Tyson, Jr., a Quaker businessman who had a monopoly on chrome production for over six decades. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)
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- A window frame has become a trellis for the overgrown vegetation that adorns this derelict house within the Scott Settlement Historic District. This historically significant community of free African-Americans, who lived along Falls Road about a mile north of the Baltimore City boundary, dates back to the 1830’s. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)
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- The wind blows through the paint-cracked vestibule door of an abandoned rear house on Falls Road. The decrepit structure presents a stark contrast to the adjacent suburban-style retail center at Clarkview Road. The house, once occupied by Scott family descendants, had four rooms and an outhouse. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)
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- The rotting linoleum floor of the former kitchen resembles a faint crossword puzzle, but one with few clues about its recent occupants. Ricky Scott, 55, who lives nearby, recalls that his great-grandmother, Henrietta “Nanny” Scott, cooked for the extended Scott family in this space, using a wood stove. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)
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- A plant stem works its way into the vestibule of this uninhabited dwelling in the Scott Settlement at Bare Hills, where a debris-covered school diploma was discarded with other remnants of family life. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)
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- With doors, roof, and walls cascading downward, the living room is now nature’s host. Harvey Scott, the deceased father of the current owner of the property, was born in this house in the 1920’s and had a landscape maintenance business in North Baltimore. – Amy Davis Baltimore Sun (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)
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- The Bare Hills retail center, with upscale restaurants and stores, is reflected in the window of this empty, deteriorating house in the Scott Settlement. A stone’s throw away is a clothing boutique selling $220 blue jeans. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)
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- Ricky Scott, 55, who has worked at racetracks and horse farms as a groom, lives in one of the remaining Scott family homes on Falls Road. He spent much of his childhood at the abandoned house behind him, where his grandparents, Catherine and Walter Scott raised his father and two siblings. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)
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- William Walter Scott III, 82, left, visits with his nephew Ricky Scott, in the wooded grove behind the houses that were once filled with their relatives. Scott family members now live in four of the old homes along Falls Road, but at least two of the houses at the north end of the Scott Settlement have been torn down. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)
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- Ricky Scott holds a 1930’s photo of his great-grandmother, Henrietta “Nanny” Scott, who helped raise Ricky and his nine siblings. “She was nice, but strict. There was no talking back to her. If we wanted to play in the quarry on Falls Road we had to do our chores first.” (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)
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- A china teacup and a few other household items were left behind when the rear house at the northwest edge of the Scott Settlement was abandoned after a tree limb crushed the roof. Its last occupant was the family of one of Ricky Scott’s brothers, Harvey Scott, Jr. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)
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- The gravestone of the founder of the Scott Settlement Historic District, Rev. Aquila Scott, is the only marker still visible in the original family cemetery in Bare Hills. The cemetery was located next to the first church built by Rev. Scott, a log structure long gone. Rev. Scott, the son of a freed slave, purchased land in Bare Hills in the 1830’s for himself and his descendants. He later built the small Church of Slaves and Freemen in Ruxton on Bellona Avenue, which has been restored. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)
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- William Walter Scott III, 82, is the patriarch of the remaining Scott clan at Bare Hills. Behind him is the collapsed house built by the founder of the Scott Settlement, the Rev. Aquila Scott, which was destroyed by fire. Rev. Aquila Scott was also a blacksmith and wheelwright on the Falls Road Turnpike. Scott views the changes to the historic family enclave with equanimity. Once primarily a black community, Scott now has a number of white neighbors. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)
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- The mulched and landscaped perimeter of the new retail center at Falls and Clarkview Roads forms the demarcation line between the faded pre-Civil War neighborhood founded by free African-Americans and the high-end commercial center catering to affluent North Baltimore residents. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)
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- The 1868 White and Covin House, placed on the Baltimore County Landmarks list in 2005, was built by Matthew Yates, Jr., a grandson of Aquila Scott. County historians consider it to be a distinctive example of early African-American vernacular architecture, with intact log joists and wide plank floorboards in the original one-room structure. Only the exterior of the Yates House has been spruced up, with a protective new curb that encircles three sides of the building. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)
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- The vacant mid-18th century White and Covin House, also known as the Matthew Yates Jr. House, has survived the combined pressures of Falls Road traffic, commercial encroachment, and requests by the current owner to have it razed. The White and Covin House and its sister houses along Falls Road are a reminder of the unique rural community that once flourished on these bare hills. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)
Walking across an outcropping of the pale green serpentine rock that gave the neighborhood its name of Bare Hills, I notice a striking contrast. To the north of this ramshackle house is a recently built collection of upscale stores and restaurants, the type of retail center that seems to pop up overnight, leaving you to wonder what had been there before. Its solid generic brick exterior is the opposite of this forlorn, unstable structure.
The home was abandoned after a large tree crashed into the roof. As I poke around the exterior, photographing details of decay and nature, Ricky Scott, who lives in the house that fronts this one, comes by. Scott, 55, grooms racehorses when he can find work at the track or horse farms. “My family started Bare Hills,” he explains. “At one time everybody was related to the Scotts.” One of his brothers owns this empty shell.
It turns out that this cluster of frame houses on the west side of Falls Road, south of Clarkview Road, is the Scott Settlement Historic District, a Baltimore County Landmarks Preservation site which is also part of the Bare Hills National Register of Historic Places. The tract was settled by Rev. Aquila Scott, the son of a freed slave, who came to the Jones Falls in the 1830’s to work as a wheelwright and blacksmith on the Falls Road Turnpike. He built houses for himself and his descendants, as well as a log church and family cemetery. The church is long gone, but Rev. Scott’s gravestone is still visible in an overgrown pasture near Walnut Avenue.
Ricky Scott’s uncle, William Walter Scott III, the patriarch of the remaining Scott clan in Bare Hills, shares more history. Rev. Aquila Scott’s original house is still standing, but barely. Destroyed by a fire a number of years ago, the frame structure has partially collapsed, and appears to be held up as much by the underbrush and adjacent trees as by its own hewn timbers.
In better shape than the Aquila Scott House is the vacant White and Covin House, sandwiched between Falls Road and the Bare Hills retail complex. It was built in 1868 by Aquila Scott’s grandson, Matthew Yates, Jr. The Baltimore County Landmarks Preservation Commission recognized the house “as a distinctive example of early African-American vernacular architecture,” and a significant part of the Scott family enclave. The Commission turned down a request by the current owner to raze it.
Scott family members still live in four of the surviving houses in the Scott Settlement.
William Walter Scott III, 82, views the changes to the historic community founded by free African-Americans with equanimity. He now has a number of white neighbors. Scott and his nephew, Ricky Scott, fondly remember when almost all of the houses were filled with relatives.
Ricky retrieves a photo of his grandmother, Henrietta “Nanny” Scott, who lived in the rear house destroyed by the fallen tree. “She was strict. There was no talking back to her.” Yet he also remembers that she “cooked for everybody.” His grandparents “had their own garden, maybe an acre or more. Meat and stuff – my grandfather hunted rabbits, raccoons and squirrels. They tasted good. All of us had to pluck the chickens. Everybody pitched in and did everything. If we wanted to play in the quarry on Falls Road we had to do our chores first.”
Ricky Scott recalls the house had no bathroom, just an outhouse. Nanny Scott washed the family’s clothes with a washtub and washboard. Today a clothing boutique located a stone’s throw from the Scott house sells blue jeans for $220. A gourmet pizza restaurant in the same center is called Earth, Wood & Fire. Ironically, these are the elements that have forged and scarred the pre-Civil War Scott Settlement. Wood houses were built by hand on barren earth considered undesirable except for mining. A fire destroyed Rev. Aquila Scott’s first church, and led him to build the small “Church of Slaves and Freemen in Ruxton,” which has been restored. Sadly, another fire devastated founder Scott’s own homestead, which could have been the crown jewel of the historic Scott Settlement. Yet the Scotts hang on, as traffic speeds past their proud community on the once-rural Falls Road.
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John
May 15, 2013 @ 15:31:09
In sixty two I was born at 6219 Falls Rd, next door to the Tysons, and remained there until about sixty eight. The physical and cultural landscape of Bare Hills was changing. My mom would put me in the carseat in the Jeep and we would go exploring. Emptied houses stood where the Jones Falls Expressway would soon be built. We would watch the York-bound mail train pass along the Jones Falls (at Railroad Avenue); this service would soon end. Ella, an elderly lady across the road at Scott Settlement, often took in ironing in these pre-permanent press days. I remember Ella’s long, low kitchen, warm and inviting with the smells of baking bread and ironed shirts. Sometimes a boy about my age would come over to play at my house. Herbie was mute. I have this indelible memory of him acting out the rescue of a ladybug with my toy fire truck (metal of course)… One day a huge crane and other heavy equipment began to move on the Copper Hill Road. We got in the Jeep and went to investigate. We witnessed the removal of the street cars from the Bare Hills railyard, destined for the streetcar museum. It was a rich historical landscape in which to grow up, with Falls Road a fading yet persistent dividing line.
Richard Crystal
Jan 04, 2013 @ 18:33:16
There is what used to be a schoolhouse or church set on a hill opposite Clarkview Rd. For a time it was part of Church Home and Hospital. Back in 1959 it was used as an annex for Wellwood Elementary on Smith Ave and I went to first grade there, as Ft. Garrison Elementary had yet to be built. It was simply referred to as Bare Hills. Is this the “Church of Slaves and Freeman in Ruxton”?
Amy Davis
Jan 11, 2013 @ 00:31:00
Dear Richard,
RIchard,
Thanks for adding some more history about Bare Hills. I referred to the “Church of Slaves and Freemen in Ruxton,” because I thought that name added context to the story, since the African-American community in Bare Hills was founded by the son of a freed slave. Sorry for the confusion. This was the original name for the small, restored chapel now called St. John’s African Methodist Episcopal Church in Ruxton. It’s on the west side of Bellona Avenue near the light rail tracks. I don’t believe the historic school you went to was ever a church. Ironically, the Scotts and other African-Americans could not attend this school during the many years of segregation, even though it was across the street from their homes.