Berkley School, also known as Hosanna School, is a historic school for African Americans located in

Darlington Darlington is a market town in the Borough of Darlington, County Durham, England. The River Skerne flows through the town; it is a tributary of the River Tees. The Tees itself flows south of the town. In the 19th century, Darlington underwen ...

Harford County, Maryland Harford County is located in the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the population was 260,924. Its county seat is Bel Air. Harford County is included in the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is al ...

. It was built in 1867 and is a rectangular two-story, three-bay frame building which rests on an uncoursed rubble-stone foundation. It is one of four structures erected in Harford County in the years immediately following the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

for the purpose of educating freed slaves. The school was officially established with funds provided by the

Freedmen's Bureau The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was an agency of early Reconstruction, assisting freedmen in the South. It was established on March 3, 1865, and operated briefly as a ...

for construction and teachers salaries. The Harford County School Commissioners took over operation of the School in 1879. It continued to function as a school until 1946 when the school ceased operation. In 1954,

Hurricane Hazel Hurricane Hazel was the deadliest, second costliest, and most intense hurricane of the 1954 Atlantic hurricane season. The storm killed at least 469 people in Haiti before striking the United States near the border between North and South ...

destroyed the second story but left the ground floor intact. The second floor was restored in 2005. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1988.

References

External links

Hosanna School Museum
*, including photo from 1997, at Maryland Historical Trust Defunct schools in Maryland One-room schoolhouses in Maryland Schoolhouses in the United States Buildings and structures in Harford County, Maryland School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Maryland School buildings completed in 1868 Historically segregated African-American schools in Maryland Historically black schools National Register of Historic Places in Harford County, Maryland Schools supported by the Freedmen's Bureau {{HarfordCountyMD-NRHP-stub