Baltimore's Point Boys helped Frederick Douglass learn to read

In Frederick Douglass' early years, he spent a lot of time in Fells Point, where, in his efforts to learn to read, he created his own barter system for impromptu classroom instruction. Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born around 1818 into slavery in Talbot County. When he was 8, he was sent to Baltimore to live with a ship carpenter named Hugh Auld. It was in the streets of Fells Point that he learned to read with the help of the Point Boys.