Red Brick Courthouse
29 Courthouse Square
After the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands to aid newly freed African Americans. By the time it closed in 1872, the Bureau had provided assistance to four million former slaves making the transition from slavery to freedom, including those in Rockville.
The county courthouse was the site of an 1866 case brought to the court by Rockville’s Freedman’s Bureau to recover money stolen from Rockville’s African American community. In 1858 African American freedmen and slaves raised money through subscriptions to construct a church.
The money was entrusted to J. Mortimer Kilgour, who joined the Confederate Army in 1861 and never returned to Rockville. The Freedmen’s Bureau assisted Daniel Brogdon and Solomon Williams in accusing Kilgour of theft. The Bureau tracked down Mr. Kilgour and returned the money to the Rockville Colored School Board in 1867.
Marker is on Courthouse Square (West Montgomery Ave.) west of Maryland Avenue.
Courtesy hmdb.org
