Tucked away in an obscure corner of Halfway, outside of Hagerstown, an overgrown half-acre is all that remains of what was once a sprawling burial ground for Hagerstown’s African American community. Most of the “Halfway Colored Cemetery,” as it was known in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, lies under the surrounding houses and gardens. A few surviving gravestones can be seen in people’s yards, and half a dozen still stand in the small preserve of the cemetery.
In the course of several years’ research, I’ve found the names of nearly a hundred people buried at Halfway. The earliest of them is Jesse Guynn, who was buried in 1844 from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Hagerstown, where he and his family were members. The cemetery surely pre-dated his burial, though. Its origins are unknown so far; the land passed through various (white) hands during the nineteenth century, as burials continued. Then, in 1897, a black fraternal order in Hagerstown, the Independent Order of the Good Samaritans and Daughters of Samaria, purchased the existing Halfway Colored Cemetery and surrounding land, a total of seven acres, and officially incorporated the cemetery.
The Good Samaritans were mostly members of Ebenezer A.M.E. Church (also known as Bethel) in Hagerstown, whose cemetery on Bethel Street was full and had been closed in 1893. The Halfway Cemetery became the replacement for the old Bethel burial ground, which was no longer in use. In 1899, some of the bodies from Bethel Street were actually moved to Halfway. In the early twentieth century, many African Americans in Hagerstown chose to have their loved ones buried at Rose Hill Cemetery, in town, but many continued the older tradition of burial at Halfway. (There were also other burial sites for blacks throughout the county.) Not only Ebenezer, but also Asbury and other black churches in Hagerstown, buried members at Halfway.
At least seven Civil War veterans are interred at Halfway: William Bell, Benjamin Brooks, Henry W. Dorsey, John W. Dorsey, Oliver Hicks, James C. House, and Perry Moxley. Perry Moxley was one of the Good Samaritans, a trustee of Ebenezer Church, and famously a member of Moxley’s Band, the Hagerstown musical group that enlisted together in 1863 to form the First Brigade Band of the United States Colored Troops. His wife Sarah and son Perry are also buried here. Halfway is also the resting place of World War I veteran Irwin Sullivan, whose story I’ve told in another blog post.
The Halfway African American Cemetery helps tell the story of Hagerstown’s free black population before the Civil War, through Reconstruction, and well into the twentieth century. For example, Bernard Nelson Simms, buried here in 1903, had worked for fifteen years as a Pullman car porter. Pullman porters held a prestigious position in the African American community and were important in black history, forming the first all-black union and helping build the black middle class.
The last known burials at Halfway were in 1932, though the cemetery may well have continued in use after that. Records from the 1930s show that the cemetery then had about approximately fifty gravestones and an estimated 355 unmarked graves. In the 1950s, most of the cemetery was sold off to a developer, and houses were built on the land. Only a small piece, less than an acre, was preserved as cemetery. It is completely overgrown and is not accessible or easily visible from any street.
Cleanup: Efforts are currently underway to clean up and preserve the remaining part of the cemetery. On a cleanup day in early March 2020, more than forty volunteers cleared underbrush and fallen trees. Antietam Tree generously donated labor and the use of a chipper, and archaeologists from Hood College guided some of the work. Local Scouts and the Antietam Chapter of the DAR were also major contributors. Before the cleanup, only four gravestones remained in the cemetery proper; volunteers found several more during the cleanup, including those of Perry Moxley and his son. COVID-19 has temporarily derailed our plans to continue working on cleanup and restoration, but in time we hope the cemetery will become a park-like setting that can be visited and enjoyed, and a fitting memorial to Hagerstown’s historic African American community.
Location: The cemetery was formerly located immediately behind the newer Jewish cemetery (known as the Hebrew Cemetery or the B’nai Abraham Cemetery) on Virginia Avenue in Halfway, just southwest of Hagerstown. The Jewish and African-American cemeteries may have been adjacent to each other. However, the Jewish cemetery is still visible from the street and is still tended. The remaining portion of the Halfway African-American Cemetery does not touch the Jewish cemetery. The remaining portion of the African-American cemetery is located in a residential block bounded by Lincolnshire Road, Clinton Avenue, Rosewood Avenue, and Gay Street. It does not touch any street. There is access through several of the nearby yards with permission.
Contacts: For access to the cemetery site, or to talk about plans to preserve the cemetery, please contact Elizabeth Paul, eapaul@myactv.net. To talk about the history of the cemetery and people buried there, please contact me, Emilie Amt, via the form below.
(Please be warned that there is false information online at Find-a-Grave, linking the Halfway Cemetery to the family of Harriet Tubman; this information is not true.)
Sources:
Don Brown Cemetery Files, Western Maryland Room, Washington County Free Library, Hagerstown, MD.
Hagerstown newspapers, 1890s-1930s.
Samuel W. Piper, Washington County, Maryland, Cemetery Records (Westminster, MD: Family Line Publications, 1992-94), vol. VI.
Great to see this. Thanks for putting this out there. Good, concise summary that is very readable. I was happy to be able to participate in the initial clean-up.
Thank you for helping! It was a great day, and your work was truly appreciated.
Tks for Ur research & deligence in helpig to persevere African American. Historical CEMETERYS IN WESTERN MD
Awesome work , glad researcher continue to be deligent.
This is important work. Thank you.
Terrifically valuable and exciting research; I hope the clean-up can resume before Maryland’s exuberant foliage gets to work.
Thank you for posting this article!
I am so glad that the people who are buried there are being remembered and that the cemetery will be a place of peace and reflection.
Thank you
“Hagerstown’s free black population before the Civil War…” do you have any information about the city/county’s pre-civil war free black population, or could you point me in the right direction to learn more? My great grandfather had just arrived from Germany in 1856, and I’ve often wondered what he experienced in those years right before the Civil War broke out.
Meanwhile, very interesting piece of history.
Thank you! This is such a good (and big) question. Very little has been written about the free black population before the Civil War, but I think you’ll find more about the German immigrants. Normally I’d suggest starting at the Western Maryland Room at the Hagerstown Library, but of course right now the libraries are all closed… One book that might cover a lot of bases for you is Too Afraid Too Cry: Maryland Civilians in the Antietam Campaign, by Kathleen A. Ernst. The early chapters cover the experience of all civilians, black and white, and the book is well researched and very readable. If you want to delve into primary sources, I’d suggest historic newspapers, which often give interesting slices of life–but for those you need either a database subscription (like Newspapers.com) or an open library (for microfilm access). For the local free black community before the Civil War, one excellent primary source is the Rev. Thomas Henry’s autobiography, which available to read for free online. It’s a bit chaotic to read, but very rich in anecdote and atmosphere. And once you start doing local/family history, you’ll keep finding more sources, plenty of which are online.
What a great article to know about Hagerstown. Thank you for sharing the information. If you need more help with clean up. Please let us know
Thank you–we’ve put you on the contact list!
Very good information Thank you and may God Bless you
Thank you!
I grew up in Hagerstown and did not know anything about this cemetery and so I found this information enlightening. I have recently returned to this area after living away for the past 40 years. Please put me on your contact list for help in clearing the foliage to restore this sacred place.
Thank you–we’ve added you to the cemetery volunteer list!
Emilie, thanks for researching and publishing this topic. I’m a descendent of one of the Catholics who landed at St. Clements, MD in 1634. So, research and accuracy are very important to me. Keep up the great work.
Thank you!
This is a good article, with details that I was not familiar with. One comment, the street Rosewood is Rosewood Drive, not Ave. My family had this street developed starting in late 1951 finishing in Winter 1952. There was a fence along the side of the cemetery on the Rosewood side. I do not remember any part of the cemetery being on the property subdivided for Rosewood Drive. This property was behind the main house belonging to James Ridenour on Virginia Ave and contained an apple orchard. Lincolnshire Road and Clinton Ave. were pretty well built up at that time. I don’t remember much about the Gay Street side, as I didn’t have much reason to travel there at that time.
If part of the cemetery was sold by the owners to a developer, this must have been before 1950, to the developer(s) of Clinton and part of Lincolnshire Road. The houses on Lincolnshire between Clinton and the northern end were all of similar frame construction. I don’t remember any brick homes in that section. The homes from Clinton to Lincoln Ave were of various individual designs, indicating they were built by their owners. I do remember my neighbor across the street allowing access to the cemetery several times. These folks are all deceased. I will put these comments on the Hagerstown and Western Md Facebook page, in reply to several commenters.
My parents bought their house on Clinton Ave. in 1962 and it was a 3 bedroom brick rancher and this cemetery actually started about midway in our backyard and went on about another quarter of an acre northeast !!!
I am a member of Find A Grave and use it extensively for my own genealogy research. I can’t figure out why anyone would have posted inaccurate information on the Tubman family. When posting online records, integrity is everything. I submitted a correction request today for Harriet’s mother at Find-A-Grave. I hope they choose to correct the inaccuracies. I really enjoyed reading about the history of the cemetery. If not for your post, I would have never known it existed. Thank you for your dedication.
Thank you for your comments! I use Find A Grave too, and have also found it very helpful, so I was baffled too by the inaccurate info (about HT’s husband as well). I submitted a correct several months ago, but I’m not familiar with the inner workings of Find A Grave, so hopefully you’ll have more success!
could you please add me to the list of volunteers for the next clean up? thank you.
Will do! Thank you!
I’m struggling with this. Attended Lincolnshire 6 years starting in 1955. Many friends lived within a hundred yards of The school. Probably played in basements that displaced graves. Glad we’re recognizing the area’s history. At the time we bused every Black kid in the county to north street School. Held black face minstrel nights in Lincolnshire auditorium. We built our houses and school on a graveyard ( but not the Hebrew one). contemporaneously we didn’t give it a thought but today I’m ashamed.
Ken, I’m sorry to be so late in replying to your thoughtful comment. I do want to acknowledge your courage in posting it, and to encourage others to face this difficult history too. Those of us who are white and privileged should be uncomfortable with this past. So what do we do with our discomfort, now? How do we turn it into something good? How do we make amends, reach out, and work for a better, more just community? Each of us has something to contribute.
Thank you for your important research & preservation efforts! I’m involved with the preservation efforts for the African American Boyd Carter Memorial Cemetery & possible slave burial ground in Jefferson County, WV. We are not professionals but have gathered lots of research. We suspect there are close to 200 burials (108 confirmed & possibly more than 60 unmarked graves). I would love the opportunity to collaborate with you. Thanks again!
I’m sorry I didn’t see this comment until now–don’t know how that happened. I’ll send you a private message.
Hello! First, THANK YOU for restoring the cemetery! I am part of a nonprofit formed here for the preservation, restoration, documentation and education of Lebanon Cemetery, the African American cemetery in York. While researching one of families, the Reeves, we realized that John C. Reeves, Jr. married a Laura Bell, who was from Hagerstown, MD, the daughter of William & Katherine (Catherine) Crawford Bell. It was noted in a newspaper article in The York Daily on March 7, 1907 that while visiting her daughter, Catherine “dropped dead” but was taken back to Hagerstown for burial. She was a widow at the time, so William would have died before her. I searched for African American cemeteries in Hagerstown and came across this article and saw it mentioned a William Bell. I’m hoping you may have found her in this cemetery. I’d love to be able to link Laura with her parents.
Hi Tina–thank you for your kind and fascinating comment! I’m going to reply separately via email (hopefully that will work).
Emilie
Thankfulness to my father who shared with me regarding this blog, this web site is truly amazing. Ofella Nestor Laband
Thank you! I hope to post more often this year.
Hello Ms Amt…! I enjoyed your article about the African American Cemetery near Halfway and Hagerstown. I visited there many years ago (pre-Intetnet) while researching my family’s “footsteps” in Hagerstown. I was interested in the Jewish Cemetery where ancestors of mine are buried, several of whom were involved in the founding of the b’nai Abraham Synagogue. I became aware of the African American cemetery at that time and was able to gain access to some of the grave sites which, as you point out, were and are in the backyards of residential properties. I wrote about this many years ago in a few genealogical journals published on the history of Jews in Western Maryland. I also included a list of grave markers, names and dates that had been published in books I had found at the Central Library in Baltimore some four decades ago. These books were quite old and in the intervening decades may no longer sit on public shelves. In any case, I assume you are familiar with those. One of the points you make in your article is that the African-American community in that area certainly predates inscriptions on the oldest visible grave markers in the cemetery. The assumption I made at the time of my visit nearly 40 years ago was that perhaps the older grave sites were not visible because they are in the yards of, or under, residential housing. This prompted me to do some prowling about outside of the cemetery proper. I have never found a satisfactory answer to a similar question regarding the Jewish cemetery The Jewish community in Hagerstown likewise predates the oldest markers in the Jewish cemetery. Some of my own family fall into that category. They most certainly were buried somewhere. The synagogue, b’nai Abraham, was not the only synagogue in Hagerstown. Much to the upset of the good folks at b’nai Abraham, I was challenged by them and did produce substantial evidence and history of b’nai Jacob, another synagogue in Hagerstown which did not survive. One of the founding members was my great-grandfather, JH Gerber, for whom a street in the old downtown area is named. The congregation and organization at b’nai Abraham at the time did not want to hear any of this and discounts the property records, leases, receipts, notes by congregants, newspaper articles, and so forth establishing conclusively another synagogue did exist in Hagerstown. I understand the politics of that and that b’nai Abraham has invested a lot of time, energy and effort in promoting a particular history which they have no interest in amending. Similarly, when I have asked the question about where members of the Jewish community in Hagerstown were buried in the mid 1800s as an example, I received only blank stares and the same irritated attitude. I wonder what became of those decedents? They do not turn up in other cemeteries in the area or in nearby states. Just some comments and thoughts provoked by your very interesting article…Sending you my best regards, J Dramin
Thank you for sharing this history. There’s so much to ponder here. Two obvious themes: One, that both these cemeteries for marginalized groups were located outside the city limits (at a time when at least one black cemetery in town was being closed down), and two, that history can so easily be lost, even the history of institutions.
Like many of those who’ve written in the past two years, I grew up in Halfway–next to the Southside Lanes–our house was originally a log house and still had horsehair plaster when we moved in in 1956. We never knew about the African-American cemetery, but I am so glad that it is being recognized and honored today. My father would be so glad, too–he was the advisor to the black fraternity at Shepherd College back in the 1960s.
Umm, make that the 1970s, when Dad was an advisor for the black fraternity at Shepherd! 🙂
Thank you for adding your story to the ongoing history of the cemetery and Halfway. It’s interesting how quickly knowledge of the black cemetery was lost within the neighborhood.