Site
New St. Johns United Methodist Church
9123 Tilghman Island Rd,
Wittman, MD 21676
From the church parking lot, you can see the fields of the Covey Farm and the broad Chesapeake Bay beyond. As Douglass described, the site is midway between the landmarks of Kent Point and Poplar Island.
History
On New Year’s Day 1834, when Douglass completed the seven-mile walk from St. Michaels to Covey’s farm, he was filled with dread as he recalled the stories he had heard about Covey’s cruelty and frequent use of the whip. It wasn’t long before Douglass found out for himself how terrible Covey could be. The young slave was sent into the woods (behind this church) for a load of wood behind a team of unbroken oxen, with disastrous results and vicious punishment to follow.
This is also the scene of the weeklong Bayside camp meetings, which drew several steamers from Baltimore. In the camp meeting, Douglass observed Thomas Auld experience a conversion, become an exhorter, and yet continue to starve and whip half the members of his household. Religious hypocrisy among the slaveholders of the white Methodist church of the 1830s is a theme in all three Douglass autobiographies. Covey was also known for wearing out knees with daily prayers, “as strict in the cultivation of piety, as he was in the cultivation of his farm.”
However, it was here that Douglass came into his own when he defeated Covey in a much-celebrated fistfight. In Douglass’s own words, “This battle with Mr. Covey … was the turning point in my life as a slave … I was NOTHING before: I WAS A MAN NOW.” — My Bondage and My Freedom.
As you proceed to Site #4, note the intersection of Pot Pie Road in Wittman. The road leads to Pot Pie Neck, where Douglass’s friend Sandy Jenkins procured a root offered as a talisman. Douglass had the root in his pocket during his fight with Covey.