Pomonkey Historic District – Our History, Our Heritage

By Dr. Jacqueline Shin (MHT National Register Assistant) and Nicole Diehlmann

We are excited to announce that the Pomonkey Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places! Located in Charles County, the upper portion of Pomonkey developed into an African American enclave after the Civil War, serving the much wider Pomonkey area. The name “Pomonkey” comes from the Pamunky Indian tribe, which is also referred to as the Pamacocack and the Pamunkey. The Pamunky were one of several indigenous groups living in Southern Maryland prior to European contact. With colonization, the tribe was gradually pushed into smaller and smaller areas of land. Through the first half of the 19th century, this region of the county remained predominantly rural and agricultural, with its inhabitants primarily a mix of whites, enslaved African Americans, and American Indians. While most activity remained on large farms, which relied on tobacco as the primary cash crop, some small communities developed, particularly in crossroads areas.

Herrman Map (1673), showing “Pamunky Indian land” along Pomonkey and Mattawoman Creeks

In the mid-19th century, African Americans comprised the majority of Charles County’s population; most were enslaved, but there were also a small number of free Black residents. After Emancipation, some African Americans slowly acquired land from former slaveholders and established small farmsteads. These farms were often on the least desirable and least fertile land and were located at the edges of the farms of white landowners. This was the pattern in Pomonkey, as portions of the former South Hampton plantation were sold off into smaller parcels. African Americans established farms ranging from five to 25 acres, combining subsistence with cash crop cultivation. Pomonkey developed in two distinct clusters, both anchored by churches, and separated by a low-lying area through which flows a tributary of Mattowoman Creek. The northern cluster, comprising the new National Register Historic District, was dubbed “Uptown Pomonkey.”

In 1865, the U.S. Congress established what is commonly known as the “Freedmen’s Bureau” to provide necessary services to the newly emancipated African Americans and displaced Southerners, including Maryland. Pomonkey was the site of a school established by the Freedmen’s Bureau, which operated under the support of the Pomonkey Chapel (now the Metropolitan United Methodist Church). The church remained an advocate for the school and was active in securing teachers through the remainder of the 19th century. Into the 20th century, education continued to be a focus in Pomonkey.

Local Black citizens provided the majority of funds to construct a new school in the 1920s, with supplementary financing from the Rosenwald Fund, a national foundation for improving rural—and particularly African American—education in the South. In 1943, the Pomonkey Rosenwald school was destroyed by a fire, with a new elementary school replacing it in 1946. A high school featuring five large classrooms, an auditorium, science rooms, and a cafeteria, was dedicated in 1932, in a ceremony presided over by principal Miss Enolia Pettigen, an outspoken advocate for education. The school campus became a center of the larger Pomonkey community and continued as such through the late 20th century.

Pride of Southern Maryland Elks Lodge (1999)

Businesses such as Walton’s Market were established and flourished during the mid-20th century. Walton’s Market provided meats, produce, dry goods, seafood, and gasoline for county residents. The store had one of the first televisions in the area, and many residents recall seeing their first broadcasts in the store. To provide critical end-of-life services, limited by segregation, the Thornton Funeral Home opened in the 1940s. Leon and Margaret J. Thornton purchased a two-acre lot with dwelling, where they lived upstairs and established the business on the first floor; the funeral parlor, now run by the Thorntons’ children, continues to serve the Pomonkey community today. The town established a baseball field in 1963, and regional Black teams and leagues traveled from Washington, D.C., Virginia, and other parts of Maryland to Pomonkey to play.

Walton’s Market

The newly listed Pomonkey Historic District encompasses a significant concentration of buildings and sites associated with the development of this predominantly African American community between Emancipation and the passage of federal civil rights legislation in the late 20th century. All these institutions served as shared community centers for the Black population in the region, creating a tight-knit network with broad family ties. The community holds great meaning to those who grew up there, as is evident in the interviews with residents included in a documentary series, “Deep Roots and Many Branches.”