In the Laurel area, African American ironworker communities included Bacontown and the Grove alongside Rossville. Bacontown took its name from Maria Bacon, a former slave freed in 1860, and in 1880 land she inherited from her former owner, Achsah Dorsey, became the basis of the community. The Grove was home to St. Mark's United Methodist Episcopal Church, whose land was donated by Snowden heirs Elizabeth and Mary Jenkins, and which for several years shared a pastor with Queens Chapel United Methodist Episcopal Church. Children from all three communities attended the Muirkirk Freedmen's Bureau School, where white pupils were taught in the morning and African American students in the afternoon. Abraham Hall served residents of Rossville, Bacontown, and the Grove. A wider spirit of cooperation also shaped the Grove's annual Emancipation Day celebration, sponsored by St. Mark's Church, the Benevolent Sons and Daughters of Abraham, and other fraternal organizations. These institutions and activities fostered a larger African American community spirit in Laurel that continued after the Ironworks closed in 1920, when the Muirkirk Ironworks were converted to a paint factory using iron ore for pigment and many former ironworkers found work there, at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, or with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.