Carroll H. Hynson Sr., a prominent Anne Arundel County businessman and developer and the county's first black bail bondsman, died Sunday of pneumonia at Anne Arundel General Hospital. He was 95.
"He was a real distinguished gentleman who was 95 years young," said state Comptroller Louis L. Goldstein. "I've known him since 1939 when I came to Annapolis as the youngest member of the House of Delegates. He was certainly the backbone of Annapolis and I was proud to call him my friend."
Mayor Alfred A. Hopkins of Annapolis praised Mr. Hynson's "ability to succeed, to overcome in a time when it was difficult being black. He always had a real warm smile on his face and was a very successful businessman. . . ."
"I've known him all of my life and we had a certain common bond between us -- I was a Jew and he was black -- and it was during the days of segregated housing and restricted neighborhoods," recalled Lou Hyatt of Hyatt Realty.
"We developed a mutual relationship and interest in numerous projects where I built the houses and he sold them. He was a forward-thinking man who eventually became one of Annapolis' leading business leaders."
Mr. Hynson was born in Wittman, Talbot County. His father was a crab-and-oyster packer and his mother a homemaker. He left
school in the ninth grade and worked odd jobs before he moved to Annapolis in 1919.
"He worked at Carvel Hall Hotel as a bellman and later a waiter before becoming an insurance man," said his son, Carroll H. Hynson Jr., deputy director of public affairs for the Maryland State Lottery. "He later worked for Branzell Plumbing Co. and opened his first store in the early 1930s on Acton Street in the heart of Annapolis' African-American community, where he sold wood and coal."
The elder Mr. Hynson then secured a mail contract and trucked mail daily from the Annapolis post office to the Washington, Baltimore and Annapolis Railroad station in Severna Park, where it was placed aboard the cars for transport to Baltimore.
"He started saving his earnings and purchasing rental properties in Annapolis, and a lot of it was property no one wanted," said Mr. Hynson Jr., of Severna Park.
"At first, no one thought he was black with a name like that. But later on, a lot of whites were very instrumental in helping him buy property, which eventually all turned to gold. He was accepted because he was well liked and his personality had no racial boundaries."
Mr. Hynson Sr., one of the first black developers in Anne Arundel County, developed Arundel-On-The-Bay and Capitol Hill Manor off Spa Road in the late 1940s. "All the street names in Capitol Hill Manor were named after family members," said the son with a chuckle.
His father also underwrote mortgages so that blacks could purchase the homes.
Mr. Hynson Sr. became the county's first black bail bondsman in 1945 when he posted a $250 bond for a boy accused of stealing a box of blackberries. He operated Carroll H. Hynson & Son Real Estate & Bail Bonds at 95 West St. in Annapolis until retiring in 1987.
"It was a profession to be proud of -- where you could rub shoulders with judges, lawyers and professional people," he said in a 1981 interview.
Mr. Hynson Sr. passed on his penchant for hard work to his son.
"He kicked my you-know-what when I was 13 and had me tTC working in a laundry, fixing lawn mowers and digging ditches," Mr. Hynson Jr. said.
"He always left me with this admonition ringing in my ears: 'You can't be average, you have to be one step above. We as black people have to be extra good and do well,' and I realize now that it was done out of love, and I respect him greatly for it."
The son recalled losing a job as a disc jockey in the mid-1970s. He returned to Annapolis hoping that his father, then in his 70s, would give him a job and turn over his business to him. But Mr. Hynson Sr. hired him as an office boy and paid him a minimal salary, instead.
"I didn't want to be an office boy taking orders from his secretary. I wanted to be the boss' son and an executive," the son said laughing.
"It proved to be a great lesson. Thank God he did that."
The elder Mr. Hynson had been a board member of the Severn Savings & Loan and was a lifetime member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Frontiers and the Elks.
Services will be held at 11 a.m. tomorrow at Asbury United Methodist Church, 87 West St., Annapolis, where he was a longtime member.
Other survivors include his wife of 60 years, the former Addel M. Gross, a retired school teacher; a daughter, Bertha Hynson Woods of Elkridge; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.