One of Cloverly's treasures is a small but historic African American settlement, known as Holly Grove. 


Mabel Thomas, a retired school administrator, is a homeowner in Holly Grove. "Let me show you why I love this neighborhood. As far as we can see," she said, with a sweep of her arm toward a country lane beside her house, "these are family."


In the 1880s, the seven "patriarchs" of Holly Grove started buying farmland, Thomas said. All the farms bordered Holly Grove Road. A walk down the street's south side is like a peek into the past. Gnarled holly trees, red-berried bittersweet and split-rail fences frame clapboard houses with porches on the front. Some of the homes are tiny cottages.


"This is Quaker country, and Quakers freed their slaves," Thomas explained. "After the Civil War, Quakers were among the few who would sell land to black people."


She said the residents of Holly Grove wouldn't budge after World War II, when developers tried to buy their land at below-market prices. The landowners dug in their heels again in the 1960s, when the county's controversial "community renewal program" tried to relocate them. "They called it neighborhood renewal; we called it 'Negro removal,' " Thomas said with a laugh.


Jean Thomas Moore popped in from down the street and marveled that her own great-grandchild, who lives nearby, is a ninth-generation Montgomery County resident.


Holly Grove "has always been such a nice little place," Moore said. "Some of the younger people who inherited property have sold it, and now we are a mixed community."


Excerpt from the Washington Post article by Marianne Kyriakos, December 9, 2006


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Montgomery County, Maryland, surveyed 1865.

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Our Mission

The Holly Grove Historical Preservation Association was established to educate and encourage the protection of the historical black significance and archaeological sites that are associated with its important past, events and people; that are representative of the generational founding families .

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