Washington County Soundwalk Experience > Camptown
In Belle’s Alley in Downtown Brenham, you learn about the establishment of Freedom Colonies. In the Camptown Soundwalk Experience, you learn about the earliest Freedom Colony in Washington county, where the enslaved met before emancipation and established a settlement at the end of the Civil War. The area is steeped in history and community pride.
The outdoor exhibit will introduce you to specific sites that contributed to the development and well-being of those who live here, and their history. You will go on a tour that includes sounds and stories of the area. Just point your phone at the QR Code on each panel and listen in to stories of the past.
If you enjoy this Soundwalk, continue to learn more about our rural roots with the Washington County Soundwalk Experience and visit Burton, Chappell Hill, Independence, and Washington on the Brazos.
Camptown – Introduction – Panel 1
Transcript of audio:
On July 12, 1865, Federal Army soldiers settled in this area. Company B of the 17th. U.S Infantry walked these grounds to carry out their goal of protecting the once enslaved and keeping order in Brenham. As you continue on the sound walk experience, you will be immersed in sounds from the past. Each stop allows you to read about its rich history, and hear sounds associated with it.
We are on the Southeast side of Jerry Wilson park and the tour will end on the Northeast side of the park. Starting from here you will follow the path walking down to the Camptown Cemetery. One of the oldest black cemeteries in Brenham, then you will visit remaining buildings of Pickard High School, the oldest black school in Washington County. Your next stop will be the Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church then on to Saint. John AME Church who both got their start in structures within the Army encampment. From there, you will visit the Prince Hall free and accepted Mason Monument, where you will get information about its history and other lodges in Camptown. Your final stop will be an introduction to the vibrant businesses that contributed to the economic stability of the area as shared from the vivid memories of people who grew up here.
Walk forward down to the end of this street to learn more about the historic Camptown Cemetery and get a glimpse into the history of those buried there.
links on panel: Visit TX10.org to order a book on additional stories of those buried in the cemetery.
Transcript of audio:
Welcome to the Camptown Cemetery, which was originally established as a black cemetery in the 1820s, while Annabella Harrington, one of Stephen F. Austin’s old 300, was settled here. Funeral rituals are among the oldest cultural traditions among African Americans since enslaved people were typically able to mourn as they chose.
A home-going service is rooted in African culture that celebrates a loved one’s release from this life and a reunion with God and loved ones. Rather than only mourning a person’s life departure, services are typically upbeat and joyous that include singing and praising God, much like the song being sung, and those type of songs continue as the body is laid into the ground. Listen in as Charles Swinson, our noted historian, shares some of his research on those buried here in Camptown Cemetery.
Cemeteries are meant to be places where those who have lived are remembered, and it is here that many found with their final rest.
People like Wiley Hubert, a well-respected carpenter who was very much involved in building homes and a school for formerly enslaved residents, as well as helping establish Camptown Cemetery. Robert Sloan was a well-respected African American constable who wasn’t afraid to fight for justice.
Louisa Mangrum Hughes acquired hundreds of acres of real estate and sold the land on which the East End School next to the cemetery was built. Sam Love was a beloved teacher who helped teach the young and old alike to respect an education which had previously been denied them. There are also those who led a more dubious life, such as Hiram Williams, a member of a black militia, who also volunteered for the Spanish-American War in Cuba, while also leading a life of gambling which led to frequent scrapes with the law.
And there are those too whose lives tragically ended much too soon, such as young Australia Warren Guy, a veteran of World War I, who survived the war only to be tragically killed by the Ku Klux Klan.
These untold stories of lives once lived and many others are being gathered so that we can better understand the rich history of those who have come before us here in Camptown.
Follow the path around the Pickard Reunion Building and across Kerr Street to learn more about Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church, whose members were instrumental in helping to establish the school as well as the cemetery.
Camptown Pickard High School – Panel 3
Transcript of audio:
Camptown Schools, later renamed Pickard, is actually believed to be one of the first African American schools in Texas. Founded in 1866, less than a year after emancipation, the school occupied small rented rooms, spaces in local churches, a leftover dining hall from the Union soldiers, and eventually grew into a full campus that accommodated over 500 students. With four buildings including the main building, home economics building, gymnasium, and the vocational agricultural building. Listen in, as Lorenzo Cole, a former history teacher and coach at Pickard, share his fond memories.
I was just proud of all of my kids. I still am. Some didn’t get as far in life as the rest of them did, but they were still good kids. And they go back now, they’re family people, and we lost some, some have gone on the glory. And we had teachers that taught.
We believed in teaching our kids. And also, we went to church with these kids, too, that’s another thing, we went to church with them, and the kids didn’t act crazy with us, at all. And when they came to class, they knew we didn’t play, and they had to learn.
Kids from Pickard became doctors, lawyers, successful business men and women, but I’m proud of Pickard.
Today, the two remaining Pickard buildings are the Home Economics Cottage and the Gymnasium. The Gymnasium is used by the Brenham Independent School District, while the Home Economics Cottage is used for community programs and events sponsored by the Pickard Reunion Association. The members are fortunate to share memories of their time at Pickard.
It was white with windows and it was a wood frame building. It had one entrance in the front, and on both ends it had an entrance. There was an entrance facing to the north, and then a south entrance. And then on the back side was an entrance that was the basement. And so you could either go through the auditorium, down some stairs to get to those rooms, or you could walk around the building and come in from the ground floor.
You could stand on the back steps and look to your left and you would see what was the cemetery. And at that time, it was very little that you could see very few tombstones because of the trees. You know, it wasn’t well maintained, and so you couldn’t really see a lot of a cemetery.
And I might add about when you go in, the floor. Of course, the floor was wooden. After years of going there, it would have a little creaking sound every now and then, you know, you walked across. So if you walked the halls when there were classes going on, you know, you just more or less tipped, if you know, trying to tip so that you wouldn’t disturb the class.
And then the assistant principal, Mr. Petty, if you were in the hallway and he didn’t know where you were going or what have you, he’d have the ruler beside his leg and he’d be hitting it, tapping it and he would say “Alright Mister, where are you on your way to? Where are you going Miss? Miss, where are you going?” You know. And the idea if he thought you were doing something you didn’t have any business, he would take it and tap you on the leg, you know and, “Okay, you need to get on to where you need to go”. You know, that kind of thing. The teachers would have certain things like a curriculum of things that you know they were going by. So on some days you would come in and then when you come in that would be the living room in there, and it might be in the curriculum that day that they are going to tell you how to clean up, how to have a nice living room and that kind of thing. Then when you came into the other part that would be tables setup for cooking. Today we enter we might have a cooking class and they going through procedures of how to make this and how to make that and then we would have a demonstration and we would eat what we cooked, right. We would have a demonstration and then they put in on in the oven or whatever they got and then before class was up we’d get a chance to everybody us get a sample of it.
At the time it was mostly girls. Yeah, but every now and then we might have a [guy]. One or two. Most of them went to the Ag building. They were taught different ag things, you know, how to grow stuff. They were also taught about rotating crops. That was a big thing that many of the farmers didn’t know at that time. So, by going to ag the ag teacher would teach things that the boys could carry back to their families to improve their crops and learn how to rotate from corn maybe to cotton or whatever to get more yield.
Follow the path around the Pickard Reunion Building and across Kerr street to learn more about Mt. Rose Missionary Baptist Church who’s members were instrumental in establishing the school as well as the cemetery.
Camptown Mt. Rose Church – Panel 4
Transcript of audio:
Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church got its start meeting under Brush Arbor and later utilized the dining hall left from the Union Soldiers Camp in this area. The original church building was built in 1874 and went through several iterations before burning in 1925. The current building before you was built in 1967. The church bell was an important part of communicating to the community as there were no cell phones back then and was used to signify significant events such as a call to worship or if there was a fire or danger or to announce the death of a member of the community. Listen in as members shared their experiences growing up attending Mount Rose.
My earliest memories attending Mount Rose I guess I was about nine or ten, we always came to Sunday school. The thing that stuck in my mind they used to have revival and everybody that didn’t belong to church had to sit on the front seat and we’d all sit up there and wait and wait during the revival and I think when I joined church a few of us had gotten up, some of the ones would sleep, we hunched them. So everybody on the seat got up and joined churches by 12 or 15 of us that joined church. Well you didn’t go down the center of the first of all you went to the right at the left ushered by the ushers and basically were taken to the front unless you came in late then you take the back seat.
You had two podiums one on both sides, left and right. And of course if you were a speaker you either went to a right podium or the left podium to to speak and it was it was raised up above the the level that you walked in. So you had to walk up steps to get there so of course it was off-limits.
You couldn’t even walk on the steps I know back in my day you stepped on the first step somebody was gonna get, snatch you off, sacred area something. That was just tradition. Yeah and that was the tradition. And women could not get up there, period.
Reverend Dennis was a teaching preacher he was not fire and brimstone he was sort of low key and he taught the word he would give you the scriptures and he would he would explain the scriptures but he didn’t do all that fire and brimstone type preaching. Yeah. But that was his style. He taught well you understood what he was saying you could go in the word while he was there teaching you. That’s what he did, he taught us.
He saw people as they say dressed to the nine, really dressed in nice suits your hats matching making those days gloves and purses.
I was gonna say.
Adults were really clean. Children, you and your Sunday dress cause when you left church you got out of your Sunday dress Yeah, put on your play clothes. You didn’t even keep your school clothes on So we had you know certain dresses for Sunday It was like five girls in my family and two boys and my mom made all of our dresses So these were special Sunday dresses and as soon as got out of church. but we had little socks turned down and your regular little shoes we didn’t wear heals and hose. We got real grown, I mean, as kids growing up having all those activities through the week we were as I said we were being taught. There were older Matrons in the church that taught us how to pray, rather than just say father. Taught us how to pray for the people on our side the sick and shut in. Just you know, every time we came I learned something different, because I didn’t know.
The women were the teachers in the church. They were our mother figures and they set examples of how you’re supposed to be as a young lady. What was expected of you and what you better not do. But they did it not just by telling us but by demonstration. Showing us. They lived the life that they taught us. The kind of women that were here, we saw strong women who were principled and who, like I said didn’t just talk about how to do things.
Look to your right across Garret Steet and approach the panel near Alamo Street to learn more about the history of St. John African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Camptown St. John AME Church – Panel 5
Transcript of audio:
Establishing an African Methodist Episcopal Church was another way the once enslaved wanted their own religious experience. Richard Allen and Absalon Jones, while both Methodist ministers, saw the way in which African Americans were still treated differently. With the help of the ideas from other leaders and many congregational members, those ministers helped establish AME. St. John AME Church’s focus is on family and generational inclusion, as some of its members recall while growing up in this church.
It wasn’t in the air condition. The windows was, you know, we had the wood floors. They didn’t have no carpet. No, not back then, the standard wooden seats that we sit in. And, you know, like I said, we had [not clear]. But they could preach, they would sing. Yeah, yeah. Oh, they sang songs. How many verses? All the verses. All the verses. All the verses. If it’s ten, if it’s ten verses, they singing all ten. You can almost tell when it was getting ready to end the sermon, because that’s when the whooping come in. The whooping start, Right. So that’s when you, you know, we started saying, oh yeah, all of them had a uniqueness. But, you know, Reverend Coates, A.A. Coates, I think that was his name. Oh, he had one. It was just, it had a little, [singing a high note with a flourish as an example of his style], it’s the way he could do it. But, I mean, it would always be the same. They never did change. Right. They had the whoops. They don’t have whoops anymore. Always had a piano. Yes, a celestial choir. And mostly it was the older people. Yeah. Yes. They sang hymns. Celestial choir. They could sing. Yes. We had a lady, Mother Parker. Mother Parker, had that voice, she was an old lady, but she had strong voice. And she was blind. She would sing from the pew. If she felt the spirit, she stands up and everybody got quiet because we wanted to hear her sing because her voice was so strong.
It felt like God was in the place because everything was so sacred. You couldn’t even walk across the pulpit. Mmm mmm, [overlapping voices] You had to walk around the church, Little kids, better not be walking on that alter. You could not be doing that. You had to stay away from that alter, You only went to alter for alter prayer and communion. But you couldn’t even touch it, you couldn’t go, you couldn’t even reach across it for nothing. Everything was just sacred. It would be like if someone reached everyone would be like [gasp], She reached across that altar! But what does that mean? That was good times.
Behind you, New Garrett Street, visit the most worshipful Prince Hall Masonic Lodge Monument and panel to understand how the history of these churches are very intertwined with lodges and how the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge played a key role in leadership in the Camptown community.
Camptown Prince Hall Lodge – Panel 6
Transcript of audio:
Fraternal orders in benevolent organizations played an essential role as the once enslaved began to build their own culture and communities. Members of these groups often held leadership roles and were active in making a difference in the communities.
Listen in during a reimagination of the meeting with some of its early notable leaders of the most worshipful Prince Hall Free and Accepted Masons and some of their impressive work across the state.
Norris Wright Cuney, present. I am the first Grand Master of the most worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Texas Free and Accepted Masons.
Richard Allen, present. I am the second Grand Master of the most worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Texas. I helped to construct the first bridge over Buffalo Bayou in Houston and was elected in 1869 to the Texas Legislature serving Harris and Montgomery Counties.
Abram Grant, present. I am the fourth Grand Master of the most worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Texas and served as the nineteenth bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
John Wesley McKinney, here. I am the tenth Grand Master of the most worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Texas and served as the sixteenth bishop of the now Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. I also helped establish the Fraternal Bank and Trust.
William Coleman, present. I am the thirteenth Grand Master of the most worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Texas and I served during the Great Depression at which time our membership suffered, greatly, but we persevered.
Lucian L. Lockhart, I am the fourteenth Grand Master of the most worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Texas. I am blessed to be here and to have implemented important changes to the name of our fraternal order.
Henderson D. Wynn, present. I am the 11th Grand Master of the most worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Texas and I was born in Chapel Hill in Washington County. I served as Principal of the school in Chapel Hill and I was a member of the AME Church and a member of the Board of Trustees of Paul Quinn College.
Isidore Huddleson Claiborne. Here, I served as a 16th Grand Master for 15 years and Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of the Southern Jurisdiction, 33rd and last degree of Freemasonry, which is the highest level achieved in the order. I also helped to establish the Prince Hall Gardens throughout the state, which provided thousands of homes for our people.
William Macdonald, present. I am also known as Gooseneck Beale, and I was the first black millionaire in Texas as a banker in the Fraternal Banking Trust.
Thomas H. Routt. Present, I am the 18th Grandmaster of the most worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Texas. During my time, I am a federal judge and helped create shock probation, which was designed to shock a first offender into lawful behavior by subjecting them to a brief prison term to deter them from a future life of crime.
Prince Hall, here. I received the charter from the Grand Lodge of England that enabled African Americans to start masonry in the United States. I am honored to be here among such impressive leaders.
7 score and 10 years ago, Captain William D Matthews and Norris Wright CUNY brought an historic band of brothers together at the birthplace of Texas, that of Washington County, the Brazos River Valley, in Brenham, TX, to set to work an organization that would spread to each and every county in Texas.
The actions of which we bring to fruition, Prairie View A&M University, the Fraternal Bank and Trust, a host of Texas legislators, University principles and presidents, HUD affordable housing apartment complexes that span from Houston to Navasota to Fort Worth and Dallas. Truly, we have seen our great brotherhood change over the past century, but change is good.
Prior to desegregation, the two strongest pillars in the black community were the church and the Masonic Lodge. Since the interring of our patron Prince Hall on Cobbs Hill in Boston, MA., Prince Hall Masons have been in the forefront of the battlefield for basic human rights, the civil rights movement, healthcare, and education.
As we’ve heard, these leaders contribute greatly in establishing businesses. Our final panel shares the history of these businesses in Camptown as the community grew, please follow the directions to the entrance of Jerry Wilson Park on the corner of Alamo and Chappell Hill streets.
Transcript of audio:
Establishing public commerce within the Freedom Colony helped form the community as independent post emancipation, agriculture was the main source of revenue, even though meanwhile enslaved mastered other skills. As the colony grew, members expanded their skills and desire for additional revenue into entrepreneurial opportunity. In an area that was predominantly self-contained, there are many fond memories growing up and interacting with proprietors like Mr. Wilson, Mr. Nathan or Miss Nanny Watts at her teen center and other business owners in the neighborhood. Listen in as community members regale you with what it was like growing up in Camp Town.
Go across the street, Jerry Wilson, there was a phone booth, of course, right there in the corner where you could stop and tell Mom who’s on our way home. Yep. We had a quarter. And then, Jerry Wilson Store He had the hot links, It was a white building that I can remember. Peeling paint on it. And then walk in the door and it was, screened door, a screen door. It had a spring that it closed real hard and had a little dingle, right, some kind of a little bell on it. Let you know you’ve got another customer. But it was a meat market wasn’t it? In the back where the hot links was, but when you go through you had to go through the, aisle, shelves. Okay Right. And I just remember, it was all old stuff on there. Dusty.
But that candy was right there in the front cause that was as far as I went, I got that candy. [laughter] But you had to go through the aisles to get to the meat market. And Mr. Jerry was out. Every time I go in there, he always be back there in that back. Yeah. And the main thing that you wanted him to know, I want a big one. Gimme a big sausage and and you know he’s always put them crackers. But the sausage, this is it. Those sausages were so good. I guess regular size sausage, but the taste, yeah. He would cook it in this I remember this big ole pot, cooker, right. And they just got better and better every time you would go. And he would put it in this little brown bag and it would be just so greasy. In a brown bag, with crackers. But when you ate it, take it out and you held it away from you. Because when you bite into it, the grease was gonna pop, get ya. Yes. And that’s when you know this good.
The snack bar was open on Sunday evening because we would leave YBD and stop by the snack bar on the way home. We can tell Mom know we’ve been there cause we smelled like it. It was only like candy? I think she may have had chicken sandwiches or chips, chips and stuff like that. Chicken fried chicken baby on some fresh bread, [inaudible] and tomatoes, You [inaudible]. Yes, Sir. Mattie Mae Way She made the best chicken sandwiches in town. And I would go there. Mostly I would go there to eat sandwiches. how much was the sandwich? Probably about 25 cent 25/30 cents.
The pickles with which they used to put the peppermint in. Yeah. The sour Pickles with the peppermint in. Well, they, you know, there would be these great big old charts like gallon jars of sour Pickles and kids used to walk from Alton. Over there to the store and they would buy these big old Pickles and we would have them wrapped in. I think wax paper and paper towels and they would get a peppermint stick around, but it was a thick peppermint stick like. That, and they would stick it in there and you would suck on the pickle, which has the sour, and you have the sweetness of the peppermint. And so yeah. Yeah, yeah. I have forgotten about that. Oh Yeah!
We danced a lot because she had the good music. And that’s when I learned how to slow dance, how to two-step, right there at that snack bar. Oh, she had a jukebox. Hey, put your favorite, you know? I think it was a quarter to play your favorite tune. And then sometimes she would, what do you call it, trip it. To let us have free music, you know, we wouldn’t have to put our quarters in. She no kids don’t have money here, you know? But yeah, it was a Victrola. And you pressed those numbers. I don’t know if you know what a Victrola look like, but you have the alphabets and the numbers. Yeah. Press that alphabet and that number. And the song would come up on the record. Thing spin around, lay down. And then the little needle thing would hit it [snaps], [inaudible] [then you] would be dancing.
She had hamburgers too. It was greasy, you’d bite into it and that grease. But it was really good. Back in the day, you know when they made a burger, they put a lot of grease or shortening in the skillet, so to speak, and then they will put that bread down on there, you know, skirt around in the grease and then they turn the fire up a little higher. They get some toasted buns. It you could do this squash them and you could see the grease coming out of the bread.
The dentist. Mr. Dr. Porter. Yes, he was my mom’s dentist. At that time they would put gold. Yeah, she can have an open face gold tooth. Most of the old people you’re talking about, you know, they put gold teeth and stuff like that. But He was her dentist and she would go, we would go with her. And she would lie back in the chair and he would fix her teeth and he would clean ours. Not all the time, but I guess she would [beg for money?] or something like that. But he was our dentist. He was the family dentist.
I mean, that was the beauty of the black beauty shop. You got to go hear all the latest gossip and everything, and then you would then she would have to stop and eat, of course, because she [was a fat lady]. Oh, we fry chicken. We would take chicken and whatever she wanted. Whatever we had, you know, for lunch and maybe we would take it to Ms. Alberta. So she could come on and eat. She would have to leave. She could just stay there and eat. And we could just stay there and talk. But that’s how we got the latest gossip by standing waiting, waiting in line to get our hair done. And don’t let it be Easter or Christmas. [laughing] You’d be waiting. Everybody and their Mama was getting their hair. The line was out the front, and sometimes we sit in the car on the outside. It was a small place with dryers around the around the wall. You would sit there and you could smell hair burning because she pressed hair wouldn’t have the perm, she did the hair on the hot plate, or whatever it was with the straightening comb, right, so everybody [inaudible] curler, had to get it curled. And if you had long hair, we would really get mad because it would take so long but the short hair people, you know, It didn’t take very long for that, but you could smell hair.
[Sigh] And with that, this concludes our Camptown sound walk experience. We hope you enjoyed learning more about the history of Camptown and will visit us again soon.
Washington County Soundwalk Experience > Camptown