J. Adam Fenster/The Gazette The Boyds Negro School, which operated from 1895 to 1936, was purchased by the Boyds Historical Society in 1981. Society members fear dwindling membership, money and community involvement will hasten the historic school's demise.

"We're kind of floundering," said Ginger Gibson of Boyds, a member of the society since 1979.

The group -- now numbering about eight members -- once included Germantown, which formed its own historical society in 1990, and Clarksburg, which broke off last year to form it's own group.

Illness, relocations and deaths have also taken a toll and the group has met only once since May. No fund-raising holiday fruit sale was conducted this year.

"We used to have work parties and we'd have meetings with good speakers and that drew people," Gibson remembered wistfully. "We'd have Christmas parties and craft shows --but we just don't have the people to do that anymore."

"I think it's just the changing times," said Betty Hawkins of Boyds, society secretary and founding member.

Nonetheless the women remain hopeful that the community can be reinvigorated around the rich history of the little town sitting on the border of suburban Germantown and the more rural Agricultural Reserve.

Boyds, officially founded in 1873, had its beginnings when James Alexander Boyd, a stonecutter who worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and the B&O Railroad, bought 130 acres between Washington and Point of Rocks. It was a railroad town and farming community for many years.

"There's wonderful stories in the area," said Gibson, citing the Civil War, and the railroad among the attractions. "It's getting people to listen."

The keystone to any resurgence for the society will likely be a small one-room schoolhouse on White Ground Road.

The Boyds Negro School, which served students from 1895 to 1936 and was a private home for several decades, was purchased by the society in 1981 and was a motivating focus of its attention for many years afterward. The school is decorated to reflect its probable appearance in about 1900. It's past was featured in the video documentary "Boyds Negro School: Historic Lives" produced in 2000. The Boyds Historical Society's archives are stored in fireproof filing cabinets at the school.

Gibson and Hawkins each remembered days of scraping, painting, weeding and otherwise restoring the house.

Few people see the fruits of those labors, however. A youth class from nearby St. Mark's United Methodist Church meets at the school on Sundays, but otherwise the building is open only by appointment and there have been few of those recently.

In April, then-president Eskin Huff spoke to members of the Boyds Civic Association about the need for volunteers so the school could open regularly throughout the summer and work could be done to catalog the archives, which consists of newspaper articles, photographs, and audio and videotapes. "That was another dream," Hawkins said.

Huff has since stepped down from his position as president. Mote, the vice-president, now fills the role.

With grants seemingly harder to find and dues drying up, the society has dipped heavily into its savings in recent months to pay bills for insurance and electricity. Outside help is needed, members say.

"We're just on our last pennies," Mote said. "We've struggled with this for so long getting whatever grants we could and now we're out of grants and I just hate to lose that building."

"We need energetic young people to help us," Gibson said, pointing out a deep crack in a schoolhouse corner, mold stains on the ceiling and the remains of a fallen tree outside. "We need someone who has a vision of what it could be and should be, too. And that would be someone older than the Scouts [who sometimes help in the effort]."

Society members would also like to see a railing or wheelchair ramp installed, a move they hope would encourage more visitors. A high school student interested in history could also be helpful in scanning and otherwise working with the archives. A donation of gravel could improve the chained-off driveway.

Gibson would hate to see the building lost to future generations in Boyds. "We've worked so hard -- a small group of people has worked so hard," she said.

"It's a matter of people and money and we need both."