CHELTENHAM, Maryland – A 10-year-old dead of exhaustion. More than a dozen dead from pneumonia. About 100 youths succumbed to tuberculosis.
These are some of the main findings from a new Capital News Service analysis of death records for Black youths who died at the notorious House of Reformation and Instruction for Colored Children in southern Prince George’s County.
The institution in Cheltenham, Maryland, has a storied history of abuse, neglect and labor exploitation since its start in 1873 as the first juvenile detention center for Black boys in the Southern United States.
About 300 youths are estimated to have died while in custody, according to state Sen. William C. Smith Jr., D-Montgomery County. They were buried in mostly unmarked graves in two sections of the woods next to the facility.
“This was a state-sanctioned activity, and we were responsible for this,” said Smith, chair of the Judicial Proceedings Committee and member of the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland.
CNS’ investigation further uncovered details about the deaths of youths, most of whom were Black, who died in detention at the House of Reformation and two other Maryland correctional institutions between 1877 and 1941.
In total, CNS compiled and analyzed 177 recorded deaths of incarcerated youths — 142 from the House of Reformation, 34 from the Maryland House of Correction at Jessup and one from the House of Refuge for Juvenile Delinquents, now the Charles H. Hickey Jr. School in Baltimore County. The details of their deaths came from death certificates, newspaper articles and grand jury reports. Nearly all were boys.
There are at least a dozen unverified accounts of additional deaths.
The ages of the 177 youths at their times of death ranged from newborns to 21. The death certificates had many gaps on the origin of the youths, but from available records, they originated from 14 counties and Baltimore City in Maryland. Eleven of them came from outside of Maryland and for 42, no hometown or birthplace was listed.
“The burial site at the House of Reformation is not the only place in Maryland where incarcerated children are buried,” said Marc Schindler, former chief of staff and assistant secretary for the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services.
For youths from the House of Reformation, many are buried in unmarked graves in the woods adjacent to the manicured Cheltenham State Veterans Cemetery, about nine miles south of Andrews Air Force Base. Four barely visible tombstones and rows of cinder blocks are disappearing under debris in the woods from about a century of neglect. Smith is pushing for an investigation of the deaths and a proper burial for the youths.
“It was such a horrific metaphor for what’s happened to all these children,” said Crystal Foretia, former policy and legislative administrator at Department of Juvenile Services who researched the House of Reformation and the gravesite in 2024.
At the former House of Correction at Jessup, an unassuming cement marker notes 182 inmates who died before 1951 are buried in the vicinity. “Judge each man by what he might have been” is also inscribed. The Capital News Service investigation found 34 death certificates from the House of Corrections for youths 21 years old or younger. Two of those were newborns.
Tuberculosis was the official cause of death for 57% of the cases CNS examined. The disease, a contagious bacterial infection, primarily affects the lungs and can be spread through the air. Pneumonia was the second-highest official cause of death, cited in 10% of cases. Exhaustion was cited as a contributing cause for nine deaths involving some boys who had not reached puberty. James Tilghman, age 11, died of “cardiac dilation” and exhaustion in 1909. Typhoid, a bacterial infection that spreads through contaminated food and water, killed 12 boys.
Based on investigations about the treatment of the youths at the facilities, the medical conditions cited on the death certificates may not be accurate.
A state-sanctioned activity
Reform schools popped up in the United States in the 19th century to move juvenile offenders out of prison, but many youths still ended up at the House of Correction at Jessup. Known as “The Cut” or “The House,” the Jessup facility opened in 1879 and was the second prison established in Maryland. It operated until 2007, though an extension of the facility, now named Jessup Correctional Institution, is still a prison.
The House of Reformation and House of Refuge operated as segregated, privately run reformatories for “delinquent” boys, and were supported by local and state funds. The House of Refuge — now the Charles H. Hickey Jr. School — opened exclusively for white youth almost 20 years before the House of Reformation. The state took over the House of Refuge in 1918.
In 1937, the state took over the House of Reformation at Cheltenham after pressure from church leaders, newspapers, community advocates and unions. It was subsequently replaced with the Cheltenham Youth Detention Center. Both the Cheltenham and Hickey reformatories now are secure detention facilities for youths awaiting trial or placement.
Leaders at the House of Reformation, House of Refuge and House of Correction physically abused youths in custody, according to news coverage in the early 20th century. All three facilities instituted variations of a convict leasing system, contracting out boys to work around the state under the guise of vocational reform.
Despite some similarities, clear disparities persisted between the House of Reformation and the House of Refuge, including funding, educational opportunities and institutional conditions, according to an unpublished Department of Juvenile Services report authored by Foretia.
‘Not fit for a dog’
Not all of the Black boys sent to the House of Reformation had committed a crime. “A lot of these boys were placed in the facility for incorrigibility, or for being a minor without proper care. Or vagrancy, which could be translated into homelessness,” Foretia said.
Boys described as “feeble-minded” were sent to the reformatory; under modern diagnostic criteria, such boys could have been diagnosed as intellectually disabled.
A Child Welfare League of America investigation in 1934 revealed the facility endangered the health of the boys overcrowded into dormitories, among them boys suffering and dying from tuberculosis.
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Many of the boys also had venereal diseases, according to a 1935 grand jury report from the Criminal Court of Baltimore City. Boys at the Cheltenham institution were “ruled almost entirely by fear” and wouldn’t speak to them, reported the grand jury members who visited the facility.
The facility’s practice of contract labor was described by one newspaper as “virtual slavery, peonage and a chain gang.” The institution forced boys to work six days a week for contractors around Maryland to help pay for the costs of the reformatory.
Smaller boys worked in on-site factories for broom making, shoe repair or chair caning; the broom factory was described as “a veritable firetrap” in 1926.
Some boys were “paroled to service,” meaning they were forced to exclusively work for private families until they were 21 years old. This practice was not found in facilities for white youth, according to the Department of Juvenile Services report.
In 1934, The Afro-American newspaper closely followed the shooting of inmate Audrey Brunson, by a white guard. Brunson survived the shooting. The newspaper was one of the few outlets that provided a platform for the House of Reformation boys to disclose their abusive experiences. They described being whipped, beaten, flogged, lashed and clubbed.
Some, like George Washington, personally wrote to The Afro-American. “I am a crippled boy, and have not got no people and have been down here 7 years and 3 months and 13 days and I have never been beat up so bad before since I have been here as I got beat up this afternoon about 12:30. I cannot put up with getting beat up for nothing,” Washington wrote.
Others, like George Clark, continued speaking out about the facility when they made it out. Clark told Afro-American in 1934, “Cheltenham is a place not fit for a dog.”
Contributing to this story: Akira Kyles, Brandyn Fragosa, Zaka Hossain, Raphael Romero Ruiz, David Landerman, Sophia Hernandez-Pina, Rob Wells
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