The first residents move into Greenbelt, the largest and best known of the New Deal’s federally-funded “greenbelt towns.” Greenbelt becomes an important model for other planned communities and America’s move to the suburbs. The new community initially has segregated housing in Jim Crow America.
Fugitive Slave Act is tested in Monkton
Edward Gorsuch of Monkton, pursues 13 enslaved escapees in 1851 to Christiana, just over the Pennsylvania line. Although he has a warrant under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act., the free Black community defends the escapees and Gorsuch is killed. It is the first test of federal legislation to retrieve escaped slaves.
