A team of Baltimore City high school students is restoring Carroll?s Hundred, an 18th-century orchard owned by Charles Carroll Barrister, who represented Maryland in the Continental Congress.
More than 20 students from the Baltimore Talent Development High School signed up for the summer internship program sponsored by the Carroll Park Foundation.
“Teaching children about history is one of the most important things,” said Pam Charshee, executive director of the nonprofit foundation. “This is their inheritance. This is what binds us together.”
She hopes this internship will aid in the foundation?s goal of creating a living history park in the future.
The foundation wants to restore the property to its original state, Charshee said.
“Very little of what existed here then exists now,” Charshee said.
Funded by Twenty First Century Development and a grant by the History Channel?s Save Our History Foundation, the restoration of the orchard, known as the “Black Damask Project,” kicked off in May.
Students planted approximately 80 heritage fruit trees, including 12 types of apple trees not commonly harvested such as Golden Russets and Northern Spy?s as well as Damson plums.
Charshee thinks hands-on learning helps children learn history.
Baltimore Civic Works Group sponsored students for two days a week during the course of the
summer working at the orchard checking, pruning and mapping trees twice a week. They get $20 each day they participate.
“I think its important to preserve all history. This is our community,” said Brandon Barnes, 17, a BTDHS junior.
“I really never knew about [this property],” said Charles Harris, a sophomore. “I think it?s important to revive all history. You don?t want to lose your history.”
Beginning in the fall, Charshee expects to see the program expand into a school-wide civic engagement project at BTDHS, where students will volunteer to help give tours and aid with the living history aspect of the park.
“We want to bring back to life not just the landscape but the people that worked here,” Charshee said. “You can take yourself back to what this had been before Route 95 was put in. We could have a very significant role to play in Baltimore City.”
