LaMonte Cooke - Sheriff, Warden, Mason, and Tea Party Officer
LaMonte E. Cooke is one of Chestertown’s prominent citizens. As the first African American Deputy sheriff in Kent County, he has an outstanding law enforcement career which he continues today in his position as the Warden of Queen Anne’s County Detention Center in Centreville, Maryland. LaMonte Cooke was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1951. Cooke was adopted as an infant by Gladys Cooke. However, he was reunited with his birth mother as an adult and has maintained a relationship with his biological family. His birth mother was a Chestertown native, and he found throughout his early years as a Deputy in the Kent County Sheriff's Office that many community members were aware of his ties to the area.
Sheriff Cooke first moved to Chestertown in 1971, and over the years he has been involved with multiple organizations, lodges, fraternities, political, and nonprofit organizations. Cooke has also served on several boards of directors and held other leadership positions in the community. A glance at his collection of personal photographs and documents shows that he has given a significant portion of his life to one particular community event- The Chestertown Tea Party Festival. Cooke is also involved through his membership in the Thomas Henry Kiah Prince Hall Masonic Lodge #101.
The annual Chestertown Tea Party is held during a long weekend in May, filling Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with various activities such as a 5k run, colonial parade, live music, raft race, and more. Celebrating Chestertown’s heritage, educating locals and outsiders on the rich history of the town, bringing people together, and providing an opportunity for community growth for all are the event’s main objectives. Photos from the LaMonte Cooke collection show the social aspect of the festival and its ability to draw crowds in jovial spirit.
The Chestertown Tea Party Festival is based upon a real event that occurred in Chestertown in May of 1774. The original Tea Party occurred in Boston Harbor as protest by the Sons of Liberty against The Tea Act of 1773. The Act allowed the sale of Chinese tea by the East India Tea Company without paying taxes. The ensuing revolt against the Act lead to the symbolic dumping of hoards of tea into Boston Harbor. Following this and to show their disapproval of the closing of the port of Boston, citizens in Chestertown boarded ships carrying tea and symbolically dumped it overboard into the Chester River, mimicking the actions of anti-Tea Act colonists in Boston. The historical background remains relevant in this commemorative festival that Chestertown revisits each Memorial Day weekend. Community members can participate in or simply watch a full-fledged reenactment, as well as the playing of colonial fife and drum music, dancing, and other era-appropriate experiences. Though historically relevant, Adam Goodheart, the Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of the The Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience Washington College, disproved the actuality of this event in his essay published in The American Scholar entitled “Tea and Fantasy: Fact, fiction, and Revolution in a Historic American Town.”
In addition to being a celebration of Chestertown’s historical legacy, the festival provides an opportunity for the greater community to come together to support local businesses, charities, and organizations. These groups are encouraged to set up as vendors for the event. Some, like the Thomas Henry Kiah Lodge, use the money earned from their booth to cover operating costs and do philanthropy work in the community. The Lodge annually participates in the festival by selling crab cakes to raise funds for their charitable endeavors such as college scholarships. The Masonic Lodge’s crab cake stand has been a staple of the Tea Party for over 30 years. Melvin Shorter, a Past Worshipful Master and Lodge member, was interviewed for an article written about the Tea Party by My Eastern Shore MD in 2012. He stated that the Lodge sells between 1,300 and 1,500 crab cakes every year. Shorter is pictured several times in the Cooke collection, one photo showing him serving customers during the Tea Party in the 90s. The festival’s website boasts that “about twenty groups make money by selling food to festival-goers. Together, these groups annually make more than $75,000 in funds that are transformed into community services.”
Melvin Shorter - Past Worshipful Master of the Thomas Henry Kiah Prince Hall Mason’s Lodge #101 serving food during the Tea Party festival throughout the 1990s.
The festival also provides crafters, bakers, and other local artisans the opportunity to share their goods with others while fostering relationships between locals. Cooke says in his oral history interview, also posted on the Chesapeake Heartland Digital Archive, that he would like to widen the scope of the event even further and be more inclusive of minority communities in order to celebrate everyone in Chestertown. It is easy to understand how non-white locals may feel left out of a tragically white-washed history of colonial Chestertown and may avoid the festival for fear of not belonging. He explains that he would like to work towards more involvement in the festival from those within these communities. His second goal has been to amplify the voices of those born and raised in Chestertown. As of his interview in 2020, he succeeded in recruiting two Chestertown natives to the Tea Party festival’s executive committee.
In addition to his years with the Sheriff’s Office, his active membership in the Thomas Henry Kiah Prince Hall Masonic Lodge, his Vice Presidency of the Tea Party festival committee, and as the current Warden of the Queen Anne’s County Detention Center, he has historically been a Kent County representative in the Maryland Association of Counties. He has also worked with the local chapter of the NAACP, the 4-H organization, the Historical Society of Kent County, the Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast Committee under the Chester Valley Ministers' Association (CVMA). and he has served on the Board of Directors for People’s Bank and for Kent Youth.
The LaMonte Cooke collection contained in the Chesapeake Heartland Digital Archive groups into sub-collections of the Thomas Henry Kiah #101 Prince Hall Mason’s Lodge events, Worshipful Masters and members; The Tea Party and the annual Fish Fry; Sheriff’s photos; and, civic service with the State of Maryland and the Governor’s office in Annapolis.