Historic Fells Point Trail: Douglass Place

Be Here Stories

This tour of Fells Point Historic Trail is created by The Baltimore National Heritage Area (BNHA), which promotes, preserves, and enhances Baltimore's historic and cultural legacy and natural resources for current and future generations. A walking tour of this and other destinations is available at www.explorebaltimore.org/tours. Located at 524 S Dallas Street Transcript: This row of five unassuming houses is here because of one of the most passionate abolitionists of the 19th century, Frederick Douglass. Douglass was born into slavery in 1818. At the age of eight, he was sent by his master, Thomas Auld, to work in Baltimore, assisting Thomas' brother, Hugh. The young Douglass asked Hugh's wife, Sophia, to teach him how to read, even though teaching slaves to read was against the law. Although Sophia later had to stop teaching him, Douglass' reading skills grew. He continued to educate himself. At the age of 20, he successfully escaped along the Underground Railroad to New York City. Douglass spread his story of freedom and grew into a respected writer, speaker, and abolitionist. He acknowledged how his life as a slave in Baltimore shaped him. Douglass later wrote, that "going to live in Baltimore laid the foundation, and opened the gateway to all my subsequent prosperity." In 1864, Douglass returned to Baltimore to this very site, which then had a church to celebrate the end of slavery. Years later, he came back and found the church abandoned seeing an opportunity. Douglass bought the dilapidated church, razed it, and built these five row houses to provide affordable housing for African Americans.