Lincoln Cemetery---Harrisburg

Jun 13

Written By alanah cooper

Site Brief:

Founded: 1877

Location: Harrisburg, PA

Additional name(s): Wesleyan AME Church Cemetery, Harris Free Cemetery, African Burial Grounds

Affiliate group(s):

SOAL: Saving Our Ancestors' Legacy

History:

Lincoln Cemetery is Harrisburg’s oldest surviving Black Cemetery. The ground was consecrated, outside of the city limits, in November of 1877 on a plot of land that lies on the border of what is now the Town of Penbrook and Susquehanna Township in Dauphin county, Pennsylvania.

Although the first burial at Lincoln Cemetery did not occur until 1877, most of the Black People who died in Harrisburg, since the 1700s are also buried here. They had to be disinterred from the earlier Black Cemeteries, located within city limits, when it became illegal to bury Black People within them. Lincoln Cemetery is the final resting place of over 90 Black Civil War Veterans (and counting), and hundreds of veterans of later wars. Almost all of Harrisburg's early black leaders are buried in Lincoln Cemetery. Including former slaves, leaders in the Underground Railroad, politicians, doctors, lawyers, the first Black Superintendent of schools, journalists, musicians, college professors, countless reverends, entrepreneurs, firefighters, school teachers, policemen, civil rights activists, and founding members of our Nation’s most prominent Black Fraternal Orders.

Lincoln Cemetery is clearly a significant cultural heritage resource for the region. But Harrisburg's unique geographical position, also made it a transportation hub, a crossroads and waypoint for Americans migrating North, South, and West during the 1800s. So, Lincoln Cemetery is also Nationally significant---A source of unexplored and untapped stories and data about the Black Family, social networks and community in the 18th-20th centuries, it is an untapped well in an individual's quest to break the 1870 brick wall, and has the ability to galvanize all people to a deeper understanding of the importance and significant role Black People had in the building of our nation.

Lincoln Cemetery has suffered from nearly 150 years of abuse. Multiple incidents of extreme vandalism (For a time in the 1990s youth used the cemetery as an ad-hoc dirt-bike course to practice stunts). Arson, resulted in a complete loss of original burial records in 1884 and in the 1930s, as well as all buildings on the property. By the 1970s all plots were sold and burials slowed. Dwindling resources, an aging membership body, and the decreased prominence and visibility of Lincoln Cemetery in Harrisburg's Black community meant Wesley Union Church faced hard choices.

A financial shortfall during the construction of their new church building was made up by using the monies made available when church leadership disincorporated the cemetery's governing body and took over the perpetual care funds that were established and had been growing through interest earnings and donations for roughly 100 years.

By the second decade of the 21st century, Lincoln Cemetery most closely resembled an overgrown pile of felled trees and discarded brush. The only grave markers that could be seen were sinking and broken. SOAL: SavingOurAncestorsLegacy, was formed in June 2021 as a descendant led volunteer-based nonprofit organization working to restore Lincoln Cemetery, through conservation and preservation work onsite, public history research, and the digital humanities.