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:
Female Union Band Society Cemetery
Female Union Band Society Cemetery
FOUNDED: 1842
ADDITIONAL NAMES: FUBS, Mount Zion West
AFFILIATION(S): N/A
HISTORY: The Female Union Band Society Cemetery was established in 1842 by the Female Union Band Society, a benevolent organization led by free Black women in Georgetown, Washington, DC. Decades before emancipation, these women purchased land in the nation’s capital and created a permanent place of burial, remembrance, and community care. The cemetery is a powerful example of free Black women’s leadership, mutual aid, land ownership, and Black self-determination in antebellum America. The cemetery is significant to local, national, and international Black history. Those buried here are connected to Georgetown, Washington, DC, Maryland, Virginia, the wider United States, and beyond. Their lives reflect histories of slavery and freedom, migration, faith, education, military service, skilled work, property ownership, family networks, and community institution-building. The cemetery was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 and, together with Mount Zion Cemetery was designated in 2018 as an UNESCO’s site of memory associated with the Routes of Enslaved Peoples programme.
BCN Contact Information:
Lisa Fager
Mount Zion Cemetery
Mount Zion Cemetery
FOUNDED: 1808
ADDITIONAL NAMES: Old Methodist Burying Ground, Mt Zion Cemetery
AFFILIATION(S): Mount Zion United Methodist Church
HISTORY: Mount Zion Cemetery, historically known as the Old Methodist Burying Ground, was established in 1808 by Montgomery Street Methodist Episcopal Church, a racially mixed Methodist congregation in Georgetown. In 1816, many of the Black members of that church left to form Mount Zion United Methodist Church, Washington, DC’s oldest Black congregations. Over time, the cemetery became a sacred burial ground for generations of Black Georgetown residents, including free and enslaved people, church leaders, laborers, artisans, educators, Civil War veterans, families, and community builders. The cemetery is significant to Black history because it reflects both the interracial origins of early Methodism in Georgetown and the emergence of independent Black religious, family, and community networks in the nineteenth century. Mount Zion Cemetery preserves the memory of Black Georgetown residents who built churches, schools, businesses, mutual aid networks, and freedom-seeking communities across generations. It is also associated with Underground Railroad history through Mount Zion’s burial vault and the broader networks connected to the church. The site was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 and, with the adjacent Female Union Band Society Cemetery, designated a UNESCO Slave Route Project Site of Memory in 2018. Today, the cemetery remains an important site of remembrance, research, preservation, and public education.
BCN Contact Information:
Lisa Fager
Halfway African American Cemetery
HALFWAY AFRICAN AMERICAN CEMETERY
FOUNDED: 1897
ADDITONAL NAMES: Halfway Colored Cemetery
AFFILIATION(S):
Coalition to Protect Maryland Burial Places
HISTORY:
Halfway “Colored” Cemetery (as it was known) was founded in 1897, when a Black fraternal organization, in Hagerstown, Maryland, purchased a piece of farmland outside town to create a new cemetery for Hagerstown’s Black community. The organization was called the Perseverance Lodge of the Independent Order of Good Samaritans and Daughters of Samaria. The cemetery was dedicated in August of that year with great ceremony. It was in use for about 35 years, with some 400 African Americans, mostly from Hagerstown, being buried here. The last known burials took place in 1932. The cemetery contains earlier graves too, dating as far back as 1844. The earlier graves are believed to have been moved to Halfway from the Bethel/Ebenezer A.M.E. Church cemetery in Hagerstown. At least thirteen veterans are buried here: twelve men who fought in the USCT in the Civil War, and one who fought in World War I. Others buried at Halfway include a Pullman porter, a midwife, a student attending Storer College at Harpers Ferry, a pastor, and business people.
Originally, the cemetery was six acres in size, covering most of what is now the 11000 block of Clinton Avenue, on both sides of the street. But by 1944, the Samaritan lodge had declined. The remaining members sold most of the cemetery property to a developer, retaining less than an acre as cemetery. The portion of the land that has not been sold is what makes up the Halfway African American Cemtery today. The cemetery is surrounded by houses and yards, with no direct street access as of 2020. The cemetery became overgrown and largely forgotten; most of the headstones were moved and broken, lost among the vegetation and fallen trees. Restoration efforts began in March 2020 and continue today. Surviving headstones have been located and cleaned; there are plans to restore the space and create public access. The Friends of Halfway African American Cemetery, incorporated in 2022, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
BCN Contact Information:
Emilie Amt
halfwaycemetery@gmail.com
Camptown Cemetery
CAMPTOWN CEMETERY
FOUNDED: 1870
ADDITONAL NAMES: None
AFFILIATION(S): None
HISTORY:
Camptown Cemetery was the earliest black cemetery in Brenham, Texas. Although nearly lapsed into obscurity in the early years of the 21st century, it has been restored and received State Historic Cemetery status. Drawing on the names found there, it has become possible to reconstruct a greater understanding of the influence and reach of the surrounding black community post reconstruction of the community of Camptown.
BCN Contact Information:
Charles Swenson
Sahicurn@gmail.com