Harry Sythe Cummings manuscript collection

Harry Sythe Cummings (1866-1917) was a lawyer, fraternal leader, and the first Black councilman in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. He was the second eldest son of the eight children of Henry Cummings (1826-1906) and Eliza Jane Davage Cummings (1843-1913).

Henry Cummings (sometimes spelled Cummins) was enslaved by Charles Carnan Ridgely’s son, David Ridgely, at White Marsh Farm in Baltimore County, Maryland and he was manumitted in 1854. After moving to Baltimore around 1860, Henry worked as a chef at Guy’s Monument House, located on the west side of Battle Monument Square, where his speciality was terrapin. In 1863 he married Eliza Jane Davage (sometimes spelled Davidge), who was the daughter of Charles Davage and Sidney Hall (d. 1896). Sidney Hall was born into slavery at Perry Hall, which was the Baltimore County, Maryland estate of merchant Harry Dorsey Gough (1745-1808).

Both Henry and Eliza Cummings were active in Baltimore’s civic and social scenes. Eliza also conducted a lodging and boarding business in the family homes, first at 424 West Biddle Street and then at 1234 Druid Hill Avenue. One of Harry’s brothers, Aaron Cummings, became the first Black United States Postal Service Supervisor in Baltimore and his sister, Ida Rebecca Cummings (1868-1958), was the city’s first Black kindergarten teacher.

Harry Sythe Cummings received his early education in Baltimore City public schools and at the age of sixteen enrolled at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, earning his A.B. degree in 1886. He then entered the University of Maryland Law School and in 1889 he became one of the first two Black men to receive their Bachelor of Law degrees from this institution. Cummings was admitted to the practice of law on May 30, 1889 and continued actively in that profession.

Entering politics as a Republican, Cummings was the first African American to serve in the City Council of Baltimore, being elected in 1890. He was reelected in 1891, 1896, and served continuously from 1907 until his death in 1917. Cummings introduced the ordinance, which was passed and signed by Mayor Ferdinand Latrobe on February 16, 1892, founding Baltimore’s first Manual Training School for Colored Youth. He was also a member of the City Council Joint Committee on Education and the Citizens Committee, which worked to appoint African American teachers in the city public schools. At the Republican National Convention held in Chicago, Illinois in June 1904, Cummings delivered one of the addresses seconding the nomination of Theodore Roosevelt for the Presidency of the United States. Additionally, he was a member of many fraternal orders and from 1910 to 1912 served as Grand Attorney for the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows.

In 1899 Cummings married Blanche Theresa Conklin (d. 1955) and the couple had two children, Harry Sythe Cummings, Jr. (1905-1997) and Louise Virginia Cummings Dorcas (1912-2006), who was an art teacher at Baltimore’s Frederick Douglass High School for 40 years. Cummings died in 1917 and his funeral, held at the Metropolitan Methodist Episcopal Church, was attended by the Mayor of Baltimore, John H. Preston, as well as members of both branches of the City Council.