Malone's Church - Where Minty Was Born

Photo: Preservation Maryland, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped)

A stop on Harriet Tubman, a free self-guided tour.

Here on White Marsh Road you are in Peter's Neck, the low wooded country where Araminta Ross, called Minty, was probably born about 1822. Her birthplace was on Anthony Thompson's farm along nearby Harrisville Road. Thompson enslaved her father, Ben Ross, a skilled timber cutter and inspector. Her mother, Rit, belonged to Edward Brodess, who soon moved Rit and the children to his own farm near Bucktown.

From the 1790s a free Black community grew up around this spot. Free and enslaved people married across that line, worked as loggers, farmers and dockhands at Madison, and walked footpaths through the woods to one another's homes. Malone's Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in 1864, the first of four Black churches in these woods, organized so quickly that the faith community clearly existed long before freedom came.

Local tradition says Tubman and her free husband, John Tubman, lived and worked near here in the 1840s; no document confirms it. The birth site is on private land with nothing left above ground, so stay by the church and the road.

Getting here: Take Route 16 west from Cambridge through Church Creek to Madison, about 12 miles, then follow the byway signs onto White Marsh Road to the church.

Did you know?: Under Anthony Thompson's will, Ben Ross gained his freedom around 1840 and later received ten acres of Thompson land, but his wife and children remained enslaved by Brodess.

Photo op: From the roadside, frame the church against the tree line that once hid the footpaths between neighbors.

Nearby: No facilities here; this is a working church, so park only where the byway parking is indicated and keep voices low during services.

More on Wikipedia: Madison, Maryland · Harriet Tubman · Harriet Tubman's family

Malone's Church - Where Minty Was Born

Stops on this tour