Agnes Kane Callum
2025 Black History Month: Unsung Heroes
Hollywood, MD
This Black History Month, the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project honors the unsung hero Agnes Kane Callum (1926-2015) whose ancestors are connected to Sotterley Plantation, a Middle Passage arrival location in Hollywood, Maryland, on the Patuxent River.
Agnes Kane Callum with photographs of her ancestors
I dare say I am the first one who has ever done serious work on the blacks of
St. Mary’s County, and they played a significant role in the growth
of the county. Much of the wealth has come off the backs of the black people.
So, we have to leave something.
– Agnes Kane Callum
Agnes Kane Callum was born in Baltimore, MD, on February 24, 1925. After marriage, children, and a career with the U.S. postal service, Ms. Callum, at age 46, passed the high school equivalency test and 4 years later, in 1968, enrolled at Morgan State College where she completed her Bachelor's degree (1973), earned a Master's degree in Social Science (1975), and was a Fulbright-Hayes Fellow at the University of Ghana.
As a college student, she began researching her family history in southern Maryland, writing a paper on the acquisition of land by free blacks in St. Mary's County, Maryland. Her desire to learn more led her to pursue the study of genealogy and history, a pursuit that lasted her lifetime. Of particular interest to Ms. Callum was her connection to Sotterley Plantation, where her paternal grandfather, Henry Kane, was born enslaved in 1860. The Archives of Maryland also mentions her great-grandfather, Hilliary (Hilry) Kane, who was born enslaved in St. Mary’s County. After his mother was sold (1827) and years of transactions that sent him to different locations, Hilliary was finally allowed to join his wife and family at Sotterley, where he “. . . lived in the slave quarters from 1848 until Maryland's 1864 Unionist Constitution abolished slavery. Married twice, he and his wives raised 18 children in this sort of post-and-plank cabin, chinked against the wind by a mix of mud and hog bristles.”
Ms. Callum is recognized as “a distinctive genealogist and front-runner on African American history in Maryland” who “has worked relentlessly to chronicle her family lineage and the history behind slavery in St. Mary's County, inspiring others to do the same. A lifetime resident of Baltimore, Maryland, Kane's work in the fields of genealogy and history have resulted in the preservation of a crucial aspect of Maryland's history that remained unstudied.” Instrumental in obtaining the more than $30,000 in matching funds for a grant needed to restore the original cabin of her ancestors at Historic Sotterley Plantation, her achievements also include:
numerous books and articles on African American history and genealogy, among them: Kane- Butler Genealogy; History of a Black Family; The Kane's Sojourn at Sotterley; Kane Family News Notes; 25 volumes of Flower of the Forest, a black genealogical journal; and Tomb Stone Inscriptions of Mount Calvary Cemetery;
work as a founding member of the Baltimore Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society and the founding editor of a 16-volume black genealogical journal, Flower of the Forest, named after the plantation in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, where her maternal ancestors lived after Emancipation that is essential to understanding slavery in Maryland and other states;
role in the establishment of Historic Sotterley’s Descendants Community through the Descendants Initiative and the Common Ground programs and in the development of Historic Sotterley’s “Slavery to Freedom” educational program and site interpretation;
research and publications on the history of U.S. Colored Troops, including, Colored Volunteers of Maryland, 7th Regiment United States Colored Troops 1863 - 1866, Bounty Records of the 9th Regiment United States Colored Troops 1863 - 1866, and History of the 9th Regiment United States Colored Troops Volunteers of Maryland, Civil War 1863 –1866;
publications on the history of St. Francis Xavier Roman Catholic Church, the oldest African American Catholic parish in the United States;
work as a frequent columnist for The Catholic Review, writing about “colonial Maryland and the role played by people of African descent, including Mathias de Sousa, one of nine indentured servants brought by Jesuit missionaries on the Ark when it arrived in St. Mary’s River in March, 1634."
The contributions of Agnes Kane Callum in the fields of genealogy and African American history laid the groundwork and methodology for those interested in continuing this research to uncover the role and impact of African presence in the state of Maryland, the region, and this nation. In 2014, Ms. Agnes Kane Callum was inducted into the Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame in 2014 and “. . . continued to be a passionate historian of African American history until as recent as three weeks before her death on July 22, 2015.”
Please follow this link to watch a video interview with this unforgettable ancestor, Agnes Kane Callum.
For additional information and photos, please follow this link to view a panel discussion: Forward Together: The Legacy of Agnes Kane Callum.
Sources
Schoettler, Carl. "A Sense of Ownership Pain and Pride: History Weighs heavily on the Old Sotterley Plantation in St. Mary's County, and on those who labor to save it, black and white," Baltimore Sun, January 22, 1996.
Baltimore Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society | In Memoriam–Agnes Kane Callum
Baldwin Jr, Samuel C.P., Sotterley in Six Parts, “Equals at Last”