Highland Beach

For almost three years, since a fire badly damaged its home on Charles Street, the Eubie Blake Cultural Center has been leading a vagabond life. Its current digs are on the ground floor of the Brokerage complex at 34 Market Place, which will soon be part of Port Discovery, Baltimore's new children's museum.If its guest book is any indication, the Eubie Blake center draws precious few visitors these days. Thus, a small but intriguing exhibit there about Highland Beach has gone without virtually any public or media notice.

The new Highland Beach town hall is the greenest building for miles around, Mayor Crystal R. Chissell said before addressing a throng of residents Friday at the building's dedication. In truth, the color of the Shaker-plain gathering place is closer to gray. But what the mayor meant was that the shingled structure is an environmentally state-of-the-art facility designed with "green features." The 2,200-square-foot building with a garden roof is as energy-efficient as a 21st century building can be. Touches as simple as windows that open and natural light give the interior a light, airy feel.

All over Maryland, there are people who grew up in towns that used to be small, sleepy places and rue the loss of the slow pace, the rural feel, the open spaces.If they know about Highland Beach -- and they probably don't -- they must be envious, for somehow this tiny black community just south of Annapolis has defied change.Highland Beach's 100th birthday finds the place pretty much the same as it was in 1893, when Maj. Charles R. Douglass, son of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, created a resort community for blacks after being turned away from nearby Bay Ridge because of his race.

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]

A century ago, Highland Beach offered African-Americans a refuge not only from the sweltering summer heat of the cities, but also from the racism of Anne Arundel County's white beaches.Charles R. Douglass, the youngest son of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, founded the resort community four miles south of Annapolis. Over the years, Highland Beach's distinguished visitors have included educator Booker T. Washington, poet Paul Laurence Dunbar and author Alex Haley.Today, town residents want to preserve their history by establishing a local museum.

Residents are being advised to avoid the shoreline and wooded area near the intersection of Arundel on the Bay Road and Bay Highlands Drive in Highland Beach because of a sewer main break Tuesday. The break was reported at 9:20 a.m., and the 12-inch main was repaired by 4:30 p.m., said Pam Jordan, spokeswoman for the Anne Arundel County Department of Public Works. The break caused the release of about 90,000 gallons of wastewater, some of which entered Oyster Creek. Officials with the state Department of the Environment and the county Health Department met at the site Tuesday and are advising all residents who come into contact with spillage to wash their hands and clothing immediately.

Citronella candles, an electric bug zapper and Malathion couldn't control the mosquitoes in the pond behind deLois Stevenson-Nicholas's Highland Beach house. Now she's staging an amphibian assault.Yesterday afternoon, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources dumped about 1,500 tadpoles and frogs into the pond.Most were bullfrogs, which on maturity weigh a pound or more and love a meal of bugs."They will eat every insect they can shove in their mouth," said H. Robert Lunsford, chief of the DNR's freshwater fisheries division.

The town of Highland Beach, a tiny, predominantly black enclave south of Annapolis, has agreed to work with the American Civil Liberties Union to give more voting power to people who actually live there.Property owners in Highland Beach now can vote for the mayor and four commissioners whether they live there or not. The ACLU says that practice has been struck down by the federal courts because it unfairly dilutes the voting strength of town residents."We trust that Highland Beach officials will be amenable to revision of the Town's Charter and election procedures consistent with the requirements of the Constitution," Deborah A. Jeon, an ACLU staff attorney, wrote in a June 10 letter to town officials.

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]

Highland Beach, a black enclave born of segregation, has thrived in quiet isolation just south of the hustle and bustle of Annapolis. But the hidden legacy of the close-knit community has been both its bane and its saving grace.It has placed the residents, who are celebrating the town's 100th anniversary, at a crossroads.On the one hand, they want the outside world to acknowledge and celebrate the rich history of the community where poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, educator Mary Church Terrell, author Langston Hughes and other members of the "talented tenth," or black elite, created a lifestyle that continues today.

Chissell sworn in as 17th mayor of Highland Beach Crystal R. Chissell has assumed the top elected position in Highland Beach, one of Maryland's smallest incorporated towns. Chissell, who was sworn in as mayor Thursday, succeeds two-term incumbent Raymond Langston. She ran unopposed and won a four-year term July 26. Langston "did not want to run for re-election, and it seemed a logical step for me," she said. "I had already been doing so much work for the town." Chissell, 41, works as an assistant attorney general providing counsel to the Maryland Environmental Service.

Towson U. students receive free-enterprise honors Three Towson University students - two of whom are from Anne Arundel County - received first runner-up honors at the USA Northeast Regional Students in Free Enterprise competition April 10 in Philadelphia. David Shank of Linthicum, Pasquale Carannante of Pasadena and Katie Weishaar of Malvern, Pa., presented the marketing plan "The Diversity of International Markets." This is the first time in three years that Towson University has participated in the competition.

Residents are being advised to avoid the shoreline and wooded area near the intersection of Arundel on the Bay Road and Bay Highlands Drive in Highland Beach because of a sewer main break Tuesday. The break was reported at 9:20 a.m., and the 12-inch main was repaired by 4:30 p.m., said Pam Jordan, spokeswoman for the Anne Arundel County Department of Public Works. The break caused the release of about 90,000 gallons of wastewater, some of which entered Oyster Creek. Officials with the state Department of the Environment and the county Health Department met at the site Tuesday and are advising all residents who come into contact with spillage to wash their hands and clothing immediately.

From her home in Highland Beach, Elizabeth Jean West Langston often walks next door to the Frederick Douglass Museum and Cultural Center to give tours of his former summer home. She unlocks the door, then begins telling stories about artifacts from Douglass' life - the trunk he took to Europe, the game table where he played checkers with his grandchildren, the chair in which he rocked. "I've gone through it so often that sometimes I go through it too fast," said Langston, 63, who helped lead the effort to get the legendary abolitionist's home turned into a museum in 1996.

Famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass spent two years building his summer home on the shores of Highland Beach, with dreams of looking out across the water to the Eastern Shore, where he was born a slave. Although he died in 1895 before the house on Wayman Street was completed, Douglass was able to sit on his balcony overlooking the Chesapeake Bay. Called Twin Oaks, the house is a little-known museum and repository of Douglass artifacts and will be featured tonight on "Restore America" on the Home and Garden Television cable channel.

Famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass spent two years building his summer home on the shores of Highland Beach, with dreams of looking out across the water to the Eastern Shore, where he was born a slave. Although he died in 1895 before the house on Wayman Street was completed, Douglass was able to sit on his balcony overlooking the Chesapeake Bay. Called Twin Oaks, the house is a little-known museum and repository of Douglass artifacts and will be featured tonight on "Restore America" on the Home and Garden Television cable channel.

THE PICTURE in the book shows hundreds of people frolicking at the Fort Smallwood public beach in northern Anne Arundel County. Beach-goers sit on the sandy shore, stroll along a wooden pier and wade in the water. The photo, taken in 1931, is from "Anne Arundel County: A Pictorial History," by The Sun's Jacques Kelly. You won't find these scenes in northern Arundel anymore. The water and the beaches aren't what they used to be. Today's challenge is to prevent water conditions from getting worse.

Highland Beach, believed to be the country's first resort community for African-Americans, has so outgrown its tiny, one-story Town Hall that its records are kept in a bathtub in a back room and spread around town in private homes, and the crowds at summer meetings often overflow outside. "When we have meetings, we literally have people standing outside the windows, listening in," said Mayor Raymond L. Langston. At this bay-side community southeast of Annapolis, long since integrated and continuing to change, residents are eager to preserve their past and spread their story.