A second-story porch in the Victorian summer home Frederick Douglass built gave the aging former slave, abolitionist orator, publisher and diplomat a bittersweet vantage point as he gazed across the Chesapeake Bay.
The view from Highland Beach, four miles south of Annapolis, crystallized his crossing-over story of escaping from slavery. It was a tale Douglass told countless times to awed audiences on both sides of the Atlantic, stirring anti-slavery sentiments before the Civil War.
"As a free man, I could look across the bay to the [Eastern Shore] land where I was born a slave," Douglass declared while the summer house of his dreams, Twin Oaks, went up in the 1890s.
Today, the summer house - built in what was one of the nation's first vacation resorts for African-Americans - is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and serves as the Frederick Douglass Museum and Cultural Center. Yet somehow it has the aura of a country cousin, an overlooked attic of Americana, pinewood ceilings and all.
Still, it remains the heart of Highland Beach, which will celebrate the summer home's 110th birthday in a few weeks.
The event will include a blessing on the house, a dinner dance, a picnic and fundraisers to repair the frail shingle roof and give the three-color Victorian a fresh coat of paint in the original maroon, green and khaki trim.
The town of about 110 residents is responsible for the property's up- keep.
Highland Beach will celebrate another milestone in the fall: the completion of a long-awaited town hall to replace a tiny, one-story cottage that had long served the community.
"The town hall is a state-of-the-art building with a green roof and a rain garden," says Crystal R. Chissell, 43, the town's mayor and an assistant attorney general.
Chissell spent summers at Highland Beach as a child and now lives there year-round. "Something about the spirit draws you in," she says. "It's a naturally beautiful, special place. And if we don't do these things, who else will?"
At the time his summer home was built, Douglass and his wife lived in the Anacostia section of Washington in a large house called Cedar Hill, which is being renovated by the National Park Service.
Douglass was a respected presence in Washington political circles since the Civil War. "I know who you are, Mr. Douglass," Abraham Lincoln said on meeting the abolitionist, whom he consulted about the first black Union regiment during the war.
