Tenant Farming & Farm Laborers at Hampton

After the Civil War the Ridgelys entered into contracts with individuals to rent out increasing amounts of land for share cropping and tenant farming. These arrangements allowed people to farm tracts of land while the tenant farmers either paid the Ridgelys in shares of their crop, or in monthly cash payments. It was nearly impossible for farmers to profit in these arrangements. One declared that “no man could make an honest living” at Hampton. Yet, tenant farming on the plantation and surrounding properties increased since there were few options for poor workers. By 1889, almost 90% of the land around Hampton was worked by tenant farmers. Tenant farmers and their families created a wide community of people living and working on Hampton land.

One name of a tenant farmer was Amanda Norris, who was born in Virginia and married James Norris in 1888. James worked as a farmhand at Hampton and together they lived in the quarters on the farm side around the turn of the 20th century.

Baltimore City and the surrounding towns depended on farms such as Hampton to feed growing populations, but tenant farming was a break-even endeavor at best. As crop prices fell through the early 1900s, many farmers in Maryland, including the Ridgelys, sold their land for residential development.

One formerly enslaved farm person, John Humphreys (1854-lv. 1930), spent his entire life toiling on the Hampton Home Farm. He was able to rise from a very meager laborer’s salary of $.50 per day in the late 1870s, to becoming the farm manager in the 1910s.

Dorothy Norris Croner (1908-2000), who lived in the tenant quarters with her father, dairyman Thomas G. Norris (James Norris's twin brother), around the time of World War I, recalled in an oral history recorded in 1998 that John Humphreys lived in the Overseer's house with his wife, her sister, and two sons.

A Hampton tenant farmer named Todd said about tenant farms: “No man could make an honest living on them.” Tenant farmers complained about high rents, and farm laborers’ wages averaged 50 cents a day from the 1860s into the early 1900s.

Black and white tenant farmers and farm laborers continued to work at Hampton well into the 20th century. Not until World War II brought about the end of dairy farming on the estate did the main farm operations cease.