This property was purchased by Benjamin and Ellen Briscoe in 1929. They were members of the first group of African Americans to live in Lakeland. Both also are among the earliest documented African American workers at the nearby institution which would become the University of Maryland. Their Pierce home is an important complement to the current collection of recognized historic residential structures in Lakeland. Like the others it is representative of a significant period in the history of both the Lakeland community and our nation from 1865 until 1974, the period of segregation. It is also representative of a community impacted by a nationally significant program, urban renewal. That program impacted Lakeland for the time of initial plan development in 1968 until groundbreaking for the first structure in 1981.
One of the property’s residents, Benjamin Briscoe is found on the 1900 census living with his parents in Lakeland. Documents in the University of Maryland Archive list Mr. Briscoe’s employment during the 1910s as a butler at the institution’s predecessor, the Maryland Agricultural College. These and other documents also show the employment of other family members including Briscoe’s brother-in-law, Chesley Mack. Below Mr. Briscoe and Mr. Mack are pictured as mature men alongside the pastor and other trustees of Lakeland’s Embry AME Church.
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