where did frederick douglass live

Frederick Douglass lived in several places over his life, but the home most associated with him is Cedar Hill in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, D.C., where he lived from 1877 until his death in 1895.

Early life in Maryland

• Douglass was born into slavery in Talbot County, Maryland, near Tuckahoe Creek, where a marker now commemorates the approximate location of his first home.

• As a youth he lived and worked in Fells Point, Baltimore, where he labored as a ship caulker and stayed in housing for free and enslaved Black workers near what are now called the Two Sisters Houses.

Life in Massachusetts and New York

• After escaping slavery, Douglass lived in Lynn, Massachusetts; records show he bought a house on Newhall Street in 1847, and he also lived on Baldwin Street and Harrison Court during about six years in the city.

• Later in 1847 he moved to Rochester, New York, where he owned homes while publishing his antislavery newspaper and working as a leading abolitionist.

Washington, D.C. and Cedar Hill

• From 1877 onward, Douglass lived at Cedar Hill in Anacostia, Washington, D.C., an estate on a hilltop that became his permanent residence for the last 17 years of his life.

• Today the house and part of the surrounding estate are preserved as the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, restored to its 1895 appearance and containing many original Douglass family objects.

Other connected places

• Douglass returned to Baltimore later in life and built a row of houses known as Douglass Place on Dallas Street; a plaque marks 524 S. Dallas Street as the house where he lived there.

• He also planned a summer home called “Twin Oaks” in Highland Beach, Maryland, though he died before it was completed; the community later became a historic Black beach town linked to his family.

Quick Scoop: where did Frederick Douglass live?

• Born enslaved in rural Talbot County, Maryland, then sent to Baltimore as a youth.

• Lived in Lynn, Massachusetts, and then Rochester, New York, after escaping slavery and becoming an abolitionist leader.

• Spent his final years at Cedar Hill in Anacostia, Washington, D.C., now a national historic site.

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