Sacred Places
The Bellevue Passage Museum Community Garden
A climate-resilient garden at one of Bellevue's last significant public places.
WHERE
Royal Oak, MD
SETTING
Neighborhood
PARTNER INSTITUTION
The Bellevue Passage Museum
Visit
HOW IT CAME TO BE
The store is one of the last things left.
01
The Need
Bellevue is a historically Black village on Maryland's Eastern Shore dating to the late 1800s. Its position on the Tred Avon River made it ideal for seafood packing, where many residents worked, and two of the only three African American-owned packing houses on the Eastern Shore operated here. Connected to wealthy Oxford by the nation's oldest privately operated ferry, Bellevue's history is in danger of being overshadowed and even erased. The John U. Green Store, recognized in the Maryland Inventory of Historic Places, is one of the village's last significant public places.
02
The Vision
The project aims to revive the store as a museum, add a multipurpose annex gallery and staff building, and create a climate-resilient community garden of native plants, trees, and heirloom vegetables. The garden pays homage to the Bellevue founders' legacy of environmental stewardship and answers a need for more green space and biodiversity. The ultimate goal is to narrate Bellevue's story as one of Maryland's oldest self-sufficient African American maritime communities, and to inspire future generations by showcasing what that community achieved.
03
The Transformation
Come back soon. [Placeholder per 19 Aug call.]
