Eric Sheppard is trying to save from development the last parcels of Elkridge land owned by African-American families whose once-considerable holdings can be traced to the late 19th century.

An Elkridge resident and a businessman in Baltimore County, Sheppard is fighting a battle on two fronts — against elderly landowners burdened with property taxes who want to sell and developers eager to add to the area’s boom in warehouses and housing developments.

Sheppard formed the Economic Unity Service Inc. to foster black economic development. It meets once a month at Elkridge Library on U.S. 1 and, over the past year, has held educational meetings and sponsored fund-raisers.

For Meadowridge, it has rallied investors to help elderly landowners stave off developers.

The group of clergy, business people and residents has had mixed success. Many of the remaining landowners have preferred to stay independent in making decisions about their land, Sheppard acknowledges.

One descendant of the seven large African-American families that controlled much of the land in what is called the Meadowridge corridor — bordered roughly by U.S. 1, Meadowridge Road, Montgomery Road and Old Waterloo Road — last week sold one of her family‘s last two parcels.

“I don’t want to carry this for the rest of my life,” Minnie Johnson, 75, daughter of Samuel Blackstone, says of the 8-acre parcel she sold. Johnson lives in Columbia.

The Blackstones, Sparrows, Snells, Smiths, Jacksons, Fields and Andersons are the seven African-American families that each owned about 100 acres in the area, holdings that in some cases can be traced to forebears who once were slaves.

Over the years, most of this land went out of the control of the families — sold in small real estate deals to raise money or in forced county tax sales to pay overdue property taxes.

Much of the Blackstones’ acreage was sold to the state to make way for Interstate 95, Johnson says.

Part of black heritage

Today, much of the land the families have left is in 1- to 4-acre lots that are undeveloped or dotted with family members’ houses.

The plots are awkwardly surrounded by the rapidly growing industrial parks, major thoroughfares and new housing that have overtaken the area. The once-rural area now has two schools, two shopping centers, three industrial parks and a half-dozen new housing developments. A golf course is east of the corridor.

“We want to keep this land in the black community,” says Sheppard, who considers the area an important part of Howard County’s black heritage.

“The black folks who still own land in Elkridge need to be careful,” he says. “We only have a little bit of land left. Our choices are to keep it or to get the best bang for the buck. I vote for keeping it and developing something there ourselves.”

Economic power

Land ownership means economic power, which creates opportunities, says the Rev. Robert A. F. Turner, leader of the Howard County African American Coalition, which supports the efforts of the Economic Unity Service.

In retrospect, he says, few foresaw the boom that has come to Elkridge, and much of the families‘ land was sold for far too little money.

“Land is what empowers African-Americans economically,” Turner says. “So it’s unfortunate when someone buys property from us, and we learn later it wasn’t the best arrangement for us. It’s not the buyers’ fault. It’s our fault for not making informed decisions.”

Approached by buyers

Adds the Rev. Roland Howard, 71, who owns a 2-acre, undeveloped parcel off Mayfield Avenue: “Blacks used to own just about all of the Meadowridge corridor. It’s amazing how it got away from us. We have to learn that we are always to hold onto what we have, so we will always have something.”

Like the Blackstones, the other six once-major landholding families are now led by elders in their 70s and 80s, who have been approached by potential buyers countless times over the years.

The Sparrow family, which owned 78 acres along Meadowridge Road, sold most of its farmland in bits and pieces rather than pay annual property taxes, says Leola Sparrow, 70, who now lives in Glen Burnie. By the late 1980s, she says, the Sparrow holdings had dwindled to its current few acres.

“People have always been interested in buying the land,” she says. “But we kept it for a while. We didn’t sell it right off.

“We farmed that land, but when our parents passed on, all of the children got jobs. No one wanted to farm,” Sparrow says.

“I’m a little regretful we were unable to keep the land,” she says. “Elkridge has grown up a whole lot. Now, we sure would have gotten much more for the land. But it was always a struggle paying those taxes.”

Marsha McLaughlin, deputy director of Howard’s Planning and Zoning Department, agrees there is a lot of development pressure in the Meadowridge corridor.

“There’s a lot of growth all up and down Meadowridge Road,” she says. “If I had land anywhere in Howard County 20 years ago, I would feel astounded about the growth all around.

“Columbia is pretty much built out,” she says, “but there’s a lot going on in Elkridge because land is available there.”

Land in the area is valued over a wide range depending on location and potential use. Johnson’s 8 acres went for $200,000. A lot sought by Browning-Ferris Industries Inc. — the waste-management company that wants to build a trash transfer station off U.S. 1 — has been valued at $200,000 an acre.

Owners who sell too quickly pay the price of not recognizing the potential in their property, says Patrick O’Guinn, a business law professor at Howard Community College.

“They primarily need more education about how it all works,” he says. “Not being sophisticated about how taxes and land work is not {an issue among} African-Americans — it’s mainly an issue among the elderly.”

Pub Date: 6/22/97