Mt. Pleasant Plains Cemetery
Site Brief:
Founded: 1870
Location: Washington, DC
Additional name(s): None
Affiliate group(s): None
History:
Mt. Pleasant Plains Cemetery in Washington, D.C., was a Reconstruction Era cemetery owned and operated by the Colored Union Benevolent Association from 1870 to 1890. More than 8,400 people were buried there. About 60 percent of the burials were those of young children under age 5. Among the adults, most came to the District from Virginia and Maryland during and immediately after the Civil War. The Association that owned the burial ground was founded by free Black men in 1838; it was multi-denominational. Mt. Pleasant Plains Cemetery at Walter Pierce Park is a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom site because of the Association's ties to the 1848 escape on the schooner Pearl, and because its burials include countless freedom seekers, known and unknown.
In 2005, descendants, allies, and Howard University anthropologists undertook a multi-year archaeological and historical investigation of the site, using non-invasive methods to document and protect the graves that remain. No grave markers are visible at the site. Today, portions of the seven-acre cemetery are occupied by a city park (Walter Pierce Park), the National Zoo, and Rock Creek Park (a national park).
