August 31st, 2023 by WCBC Radio
Jane Gates was born into slavery in 1819. In the seven years between Maryland's Emancipation and 1871, Jane Gates raised five children and worked as a laundress and a nurse, amassing $1400 which was enough to purchase this home on Greene Street in Cumberland, Maryland where she raised her family. In recent years, one of her great-great grandsons, John Gates began the ongoing effort to convert this home into a museum to memorialize and recognize the early African-Americans of Cumberland. The City of Cumberland now recognizes August 31st as Jane Gates Day.
