Lyttonsville is a mostly residential neighborhood of
Silver Spring, Maryland
Silver Spring is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, near Washington, D.C. Although officially unincorporated, in practice it is an edge city, with a population of 81,015 at the 2020 censu ...
. Established in the 1850s, it is among the oldest neighborhoods in
Montgomery County and is a notable example of a community created by free
African Americans
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
before 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 ...
. Today, Lyttonsville is a 68-acre,
predominantly residential neighborhood mostly composed of modest
single-family homes
A stand-alone house (also called a single-detached dwelling, detached residence or detached house) is a free-standing residential building. It is sometimes referred to as a single-family home, as opposed to a multi-family residential dwelling ...
.
Location
Located in the Silver Spring CDP, Lyttonsville is bordered by
East-West Highway (Maryland Route 410) to the south, beyond which is the neighborhood of
Rock Creek Forest
Rock Creek Forest is a mostly residential neighborhood in Silver Spring / Chevy Chase, Maryland. It is bordered by Chevy Chase to the east, Silver Spring to the west, Maryland Route 410 to the north, and the border with Washington, D.C., to the s ...
and, further south, Washington, D.C.
Rock Creek Park
Rock Creek Park is a large urban park that bisects the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C. The park was created by an Act of Congress in 1890 and today is administered by the National Park Service. In addition to the park proper, the Rock Cr ...
and Chevy Chase are located to the west,
Forest Glen Park to the north, and
Woodside and Downtown Silver Spring to the east.
History
Before the establishment of Lyttonsville, the area was home to large
tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...
plantations
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
, including Edgewood and the Highlands. The landowners included the prominent
Carroll and
Brent families, who introduced a large slave population to the area.
In 1853, Samuel Lytton, a
free
Free may refer to:
Concept
* Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything
* Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism
* Emancipate, to procur ...
African-American man who worked in the nearby house of newspaper editor
Francis Preston Blair
Francis Preston Blair Sr. (April 12, 1791 – October 18, 1876) was an American journalist, newspaper editor, and influential figure in national politics advising several U.S. presidents across party lines.
Blair was an early member of the De ...
, purchased more than four acres of land from a white farmer, Leonard Johnson, on the east side of Brookville Road near today's Garfield Avenue.
This tract became the center of Lyttonsville, one of the first Black communities in Montgomery County. Lytton is often erroneously referred to as a freed slave, but there is no historical evidence that he was ever enslaved.
Two churches and a two-room schoolhouse were long the heart of the tight-knit community. In the 1870s, the
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...
built the
Metropolitan Branch
Metropolitan may refer to:
* Metropolitan area, a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories
* Metropolitan borough, a form of local government district in England
* Metropolitan county, a typ ...
line past, or perhaps through, the neighborhood. A bridge over the tracks at Talbot Avenue eventually connect the area to Silver Spring.
In 1918, the bridge over the railroad was replaced with the one-lane metal
Talbot Street bridge.
Lyttonsville had about 60 Black households and 300 residents by 1930. Shops and houses sat along Brookville Road and Garfield Avenue, whose intersection hosted the Pilgrim Baptist Church and its cemetery. In 1917, the two-room Linden School for grades 1-7 was built on the north side of Garfield. "The school, which had no running water or plumbing, served the African American community until Montgomery County’s schools were integrated in 1955," the 2017 sector plan said.
Brookville Road also hosted a beer hall named Ike’s Blue Moon.
The neighborhood lacked running water and paved streets until the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the Montgomery County government acted after years of lobbying by residents. Racist county policies had "enabled poverty to set in and enabled environmental racism to run rampant through the community", according to the chair of the Montgomery County Historic Preservation Commission. Lyttonsville was "already suffering from substantial disinvestment, environmental pollution issues, and was desperately in need of assistance"—indeed, county planning documents consistently identified Lyttonsville as the area most in need of assistance. The county decided to seize much of Lyttonsville, including 60% of the residential area and one church, using
eminent domain
Eminent domain (United States, Philippines), land acquisition (India, Malaysia, Singapore), compulsory purchase/acquisition (Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, United Kingdom), resumption (Hong Kong, Uganda), resumption/compulsory acquisition (Austr ...
. The land was sold to developers, who built apartment complexes, an industrial park, a
Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission
The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC Water) is a bi-county political subdivision of the State of Maryland that provides safe drinking water and wastewater treatment for Montgomery and Prince George's Counties in Maryland except ...
service center, and a
Ride On bus depot.
By 2012, the community had become ethnically and racially diversified. Although descendants of some of the original residents still live in the neighborhood, Lyttonsville is now home to residents from around the world, including Africa, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere. The arrival of the
Purple Line's
Lyttonsville station by 2027 is expected to transform the neighborhood.
Transportation
Lyttonsville is served by
Metrobus numbers
J1 and J2, as well as by
Ride On numbers 1, 2, 5, and 11.
Washington Metro
The Washington Metro (or simply Metro), formally the Metrorail,[Google Books search/preview ...](_blank)
service is available on the
Red Line in nearby
Downtown Silver Spring
Silver Spring is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, near Washington, D.C. Although officially unincorporated, in practice it is an edge city, with a population of 81,015 at the 2020 censu ...
,
Forest Glen, and
Wheaton. By 2027,
Purple Line service will be available at the nearby
Lyttonsville
Lyttonsville is a mostly residential neighborhood of Silver Spring, Maryland. Established in the 1850s, it is among the oldest neighborhoods in Montgomery County, Maryland, Montgomery County and is a notable example of a community created by free ...
,
16th Street–Woodside station, and Silver Spring stations.
See also
*
Forest Glen Park, Maryland
Forest Glen Park is an unincorporated community in Montgomery County, Maryland and a residential neighborhood within the Silver Spring census-designated place. The community is adjacent to Rock Creek, Rock Creek Regional Park, and to the Uni ...
*
Rock Creek Forest
Rock Creek Forest is a mostly residential neighborhood in Silver Spring / Chevy Chase, Maryland. It is bordered by Chevy Chase to the east, Silver Spring to the west, Maryland Route 410 to the north, and the border with Washington, D.C., to the s ...
*
Talbot Avenue bridge
References
External links
Scarred by urban renewal, Silver Spring’s Lyttonsville neighborhood gets a second chance Greater Greater Washington
{{Silver Spring, Maryland
African-American history of Montgomery County, Maryland
Ethnic enclaves in Maryland
Neighborhoods in Montgomery County, Maryland
Silver Spring, Maryland (CDP)
Unincorporated communities in Montgomery County, Maryland