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Remembering Greenmount Cemetery

A Story Continued.

Greenmount Cemetery

In 1880 members of the Black community of Frederick established Greenmount Cemetery, one of the few places in the City where African Americans could bury their loved ones. Located along 7th Street, Greenmount Cemetery held perhaps over 1,000 graves.

A Greenmount Memorial Garden is located Frederick Health Hospital property and work is being done to enhance the site with updated signage, history and the known names of those once interred. This place provides a space that is open to the community to reflect and remember those who came before.

The names of those who were once interred at Greenmount Cemetery are available here. While this list may be incomplete, it reflects the research of many historians and local activists and can be updated should further records be discovered.

Historical Timeline

  • 1880: Greenmount Cemetery established as “colored” cemetery by Working Men’s Association of Frederick. By one count there were more than 950 people buried at Greenmount; in all likelihood there were more.
  • 1898: Working Men’s Association of Frederick reorganized to Working Men’s Stock Company.
  • 1902: Frederick City Hospital (now Frederick Health Hospital) opens on land to the east of Greenmount Cemetery.
  • 1913: "Unused" half of Greenmount Cemetery property sold to Frederick City Hospital.
  • 1914: 380 bodies from East All Saints Street "colored" cemetery reinterred at Greenmount Cemetery.
  • 1920: Remainder of Greenmount Cemetery land sold to Frederick City Hospital.
  • 1923: African American community establishes Fairview Cemetery established on Gas House Pike, 2 miles east of Frederick.
  • 1925: Frederick City Hospital requests burials at Greenmount Cemetery cease.
  • 1927: Bodies moved from Greenmount Cemetery to Fairview Cemetery.
  • 1929: Baker Wing, a segregated unit of Frederick City Hospital, opens to treat patients of color.
  • Late 1950’s: Frederick City Hospital and treatment facilities are de-segregated.
  • 1961: Dr. Ulysses Grant Bourne Jr. becomes the first African American physician to be granted treatment privileges at Frederick City Hospital.
  • 2001: Excavation work unearths fragments of a person's hip or pelvis. Proper authorities contacted and remains are determined to be historical. Frederick County Health Department grants permit #1676 to transport and reinter remains.
  • 2002: Remains moved to Fairview Cemetery.
  • 2011: Human remains found, and City of Frederick contracted for archeology review per city code when Frederick Memorial Hospital was expanding parking deck.
  • 2014: Human remains found during construction of emergency department. The 2002 permit is still in effect. Kay Gant and David Key, leaders of the African American Resources, Cultural Heritage Society of Frederick County (AARCH Society ) request meeting with hospital to discuss their concerns.
  • 2016: Frederick Memorial Hospital partners with AARCH Society to develop Greenmount Memorial Garden on hospital property to memorialize and honor those originally buried at Greenmount Cemetery.
  • 2018: Greenmount Memorial Garden dedicated in May. The Greenmount Memorial Garden is located Frederick Health Hospital property and work is being done to enhance the site with updated signage, history and the known names of those once interred. This place provides a space that is open to the community to reflect and remember those who came before. First booklet of known names of those interred at Greenmount Cemetery published and distributed to the public.
  • 2020: Human remains found during excavation. Hospital submits request to States Attorney to remove and reinter to Fairview Cemetery.
  • 2021: Headstones, headstone fragments, and artifacts found during excavation. Booklet of names updated to include these new names found on headstones. Those names include Hannah Burgee, Lucy Parker, Mary Myers, Joseph Procter, Harriet Pinkney, Elizabeth Nichols, Annie Mary Hawkins, Matilda Juricks, Robert Bowie, H.S., A.D., R.B., and N.J. Reinterment of remains to Fairview Cemetery in partnership with AARCH Society.
  • 2022: Human remains found during excavation and AARCH Society notified. List of names and public invitation to public ceremony published in local newspaper by Frederick Health. AARCH Society and Frederick Health hold public reinterment ceremony at Fairview Cemetery, including larger headstone installation and invitation to all community members, descendants, elected officials, and religious leaders.
  • 2023: Greenmount Cemetery Working Group meeting at regular intervals to discuss next steps in the process.