SITE DIRECTORY
To learn more about any of the BCN sites listed below, click “Read more” to view individual site briefs. To search for a specific BCN site, use the search bar below:
Moses Cemetery
MOSES CEMETERY
FOUNDED: 1880s
ADDITONAL NAMES: N/A
AFFILIATION(S): N/A
HISTORY:
Moses Cemetery on River Road in Bethesda, Maryland, is located on poor land that was hilly, swampy and non-arable. Before the Civil War the land was bounded on all sides by slave owners. Although no documentation remains, there is a high probability that enslaved people from these were buried on this poor land as that was common across the slave states. After the Civil War, the land was sold to a number of free Blacks who established a thriving town there. A number of burials were documented there during the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century, including a Civil War veteran who fought with the 30th Colored Infantry Regiment.
In 1910, an African American community across the DC border, which faced displacement to make way for suburban development, sought to move its Cemetery to the River Road location where it bought a one-acre plot of land in the middle of the community. Congressional approval was required to move the bodies which finally happened in 1920. In the 1950s, the River Road community came under similar pressure from developers and by the mid 1960s, the community had been driven off the land. The 1910 cemetery was buried under a parking lot while scattered other tombstones could still be spotted. The cemetery is now the center of protest and legal action to restore the cemetery.
BCN Contact Information:
Marsha Coleman Adebayo
nofearcoalition@aol.com
bethesdaafricancemeterycoalition.net
Union Wesley Methodist Church Cemetery
UNION WESLEY METHODIST CHURCH CEMETERY
FOUNDED: 1873
ADDITONAL NAMES: N/A
AFFILIATION(S): N/A
HISTORY:
In Piney Thicket (also called “The Glen”), Montgomery County, MD, a small tract of land was sold to the Trustees of the Methodist Church (Nelson Cooper Sr, Thomas Jenkins and Aaron Turner). From our records, the deed is dated September 1, 1873. It is presumed that Nelson Cooper was the pastor at the Wesley Union church or had an active role in the religious services of a church in the area due to the 1880 census listing his occupation as a Preacher. The first burial was of Nelson Cooper on January 28, 1910, according to the Montgomery County death records. And the last burial was in 1946.
Sometime during the mid to late 70s, Montgomery County placed a tax on the family cemetery and sold the cemetery at a tax auction. Once purchased, the new owner did not know the land was a cemetery. He would find out, after the purchase, about the cemetery on the property. Now, his son owns the property and has been very cooperative in the descendants' pursuits to restore and preserve the cemetery. They have started their efforts in 2022. Since then, they are working to start a nonprofit (called Union Wesley Methodist Church Cemetery) and have started restoring the cemetery.
BCN Contact Information:
Cherisse Crawford
chrss_mllnr@yahoo.com
Conroe Community Cemetery
CONROE COMMUNITY CEMETERY
FOUNDED: Before 1892
ADDITONAL NAMES: Conroe Community Cemetery Restoration Project (CCCRP)
AFFILIATION(S): N/A
HISTORY:
On the near east side of Conroe, Texas, is a small cemetery that has been lost to human memory, but it has not been forgotten by nature. Located on Tenth Street in Conroe, Texas, just north of Highway 105, between Oakwood Cemetery and the old Conroe Normal & Industrial College is a African-American cemetery that had no name, but the African-American residents of old would refer to it as the Community Cemetery, or simply the Conroe Cemetery. This historic cemetery has graves dating back to the 1890s and include emancipated slaves, railroad workers, sawmill workers, the only confirmed Buffalo Soldier buried in Montgomery County, members of the fraternal organization called the Knights and Daughters of Tabor, International Order of 12, three early African American educators and over 200 graves for whom their names will remain a mystery but for whom we are placing a marker with Unknown on it.
Unfortunately, this cemetery had become so overgrown that hundreds of people drove past it daily and had no idea it was there. That has now changed!
The Conroe Community Cemetery Restoration Project is dedicated to seeing this forgotten piece of history restored and preserved so those who are interred there may once again be honored, and future generations can learn about this lost history of Conroe. It is also our desire to locate and work with the descendants of those buried in this cemetery so they may again have a connection with their past.
BCN Contact Information:
John Meredith
txgeoman@gmail.com