J. Hubert Black

J. Hubert Black was an American politician and businessman in Howard County, Maryland
Early life
Black lived with his family on a 253-acre cattle farm in Woodbine, Howard County. The property was owned by his family since 1883. It was left to J. Hubert after the death of his father in 1945. He married Ada Castleman, a worker at Fairchild Aircraft, who founded the first division of the American Cancer Society in Howard County.
Black served in World War I. Black worked as a trustee of the Libson school until his resignation in 1938. Later Black worked for the Patuxent Institution, which was the central district of the State of Maryland division of parole and probation, in Jessup, Maryland for 30 years. Black retired on 28 September 1961, announcing to newspapers that "farming is in my future". Shortly after notice of the Columbia project in 1963, Black sold his family property to C. Lawrence Moore, a teacher and farmer who had just sold his land for the Kings Contrivance area of the Rouse Columbia development project. Moore would go on to run the property as "Larriland Farms".
Councilman
In 1962 Black became a member of the first all-GOP Board of commissioners. Black, along with Charles E. Miller and David Force, ran on a no-growth plan for the county. Each councilman owned large-acreage properties in the County. In 1965 Black was one of three county commissioners that approved the zoning exceptions proposed by Howard Research and Development in 1965 to create the planned community of Columbia, Maryland. Black was aware of the Rouse plan as early as 1963, when James W. Rouse presented a notification that he had acquired 14,100 acres of Howard County property. The project plan was officially announced in November 1964.
In 1965, Black and other councilmen rewrote the County 1960 General Plan specifically to include "An Outstanding development presented to the County by the Howard Research and Development Corporation". Black served as councilman from 1962 to 1968.
Black also served on the Howard County Welfare Board and was appointed part of the Maryland Parole board by Spiro Agnew. Black retired in Ranson, West Virginia, away from the community he helped create. His wife Ada died in 1988.

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