| From: maryjbelcher@comcast.net <maryjbelcher@comcast.net> List Editor: Matthew Gilmore <dc-edit@MAIL.H-NET.MSU.EDU> Editor's Subject: Walter Pierce Archeology Day April 25 (fwd) Author's Subject: Walter Pierce Archeology Day April 25 (fwd) Date Written: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:14:01 -0400 Date Posted: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:14:01 -0400 |
Dear Friends interested in the Walter Pierce Park cemeteries:
On Saturday, April 25, from 2 to 4 p.m., Howard University archeologists will
demonstrate how they're using ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to detect graves
from the 19th Century African American and Quaker cemeteries in Walter C.
Pierce Community Park in Adams Morgan. The Howard team, led by Professor Mark
Mack, will answer questions about the survey as it moves into this second
phase--and third year--of community-supported archeological research at the
park.
The event will begin with a short welcome, followed by ongoing demonstrations
of the GPR equipment, which shoots radar beams into the earth to locate graves
and other subsurface features. The goal of the Walter Pierce Archeology
Project is to identify, protect and commemorate the cemeteries, where more than
7,000 people were buried up until 1890.
Anthropologists and historians will be on hand April 25 to record people's best
memories of the park over the years. We're especially interested in speaking
to people who might have witnessed a building developer's excavation of the
site in 1959, or anyone who has old photographs of the park or the cemeteries.
We'll also be accepting cemetery artifacts that might have been removed from
the site, which people wish to return, no questions asked.
As we look back, we'll also look forward on April 25: Park planners from
Washington Parks & People are eager to hear what people like about the
park, what could be better, and how the historic cemeteries can best be
commemorated.
Funding for the GPR survey, historic documentation of the site, and the
creation of a comprehensive park plan is included in the D.C. Fiscal 2009
budget. The $200,000 appropriation was sponsored by Ward 1 Councilmember Jim
Graham, a tried and true supporter of the archeological project, and Ward 5
Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr., chair of the council's Committee on Libraries,
Parks and Recreation. Washington Parks & People, led by Steve Coleman, is
administering the city funding for the project.
For those of you who have never been to Walter Pierce Park, it's located just
east the Duke Ellington Bridge over Rock Creek, wedged between Calvert Street
and Adams Mill Road. The closest Metro stop is the Red Line National
Zoo/Woodley Park/Adams Morgan stop. The new Woodley Park-Adams Morgan-Columbia
Heights-Logan Circle Circulator bus stops just a half-block south of the park
along Calvert Street at Adams Mill Road.
***
The Names: There is no known list of everyone who was buried in the Quaker
(1807-1890) and African American (1870-1890) cemeteries at Walter Pierce Park,
so we're creating one. We're now reviewing death certificates at the D.C.
Archives, recording the names, ages, addresses, causes of death and other
biographical information for every man, woman and child buried in the
cemeteries. It is slow, but never boring, work.
The District government began issuing death certificates in 1874. Between 1874
and 1890--when the cemeteries at Walter Pierce were forced to close due
to neighborhood development pressures--about 75,000 people died in D.C. So
far, we've reviewed about half of those certificates, and we're finding
that about 10% of them reflect burials at the Walter Pierce site. The African
American cemetery, established by the Colored Union Benevolent Association, was
known officially as the "Mt. Pleasant Plains Cemetery;" it was also called the
"Young Men's Burying Ground," after an earlier cemetery the group owned. For
burials that took place before the issuance of death certificates in1874, we'll
be reviewing a city register.
Curiously, we've found only one death certificate so far that reflects a burial
in the "Friends Burial Ground." We don't know whether Quakers were failing to
file official city records for deaths among their membership, or whether their
cemetery was also referred to as Mt. Pleasant Plains. We'll be documenting the
Quaker cemetery through other means and are open to guidance.
Preliminary data indicate that very young children made up the majority of
people buried in the African American cemetery. Most of the adults and older
people buried there--some topping 100 years of age--came into the city during
and immediately after the Civil War. We're finding many family names still
common in our city today. With funding from the city and the Washington, D.C.,
Humanities Council, we look forward to making this information public very
soon.
****
Thanks to the efforts of Washington Parks & People and the Kalorama
Citizens Association, hundreds of people over the past several months have
helped prepare Walter Pierce Park for the ground-penetrating radar
survey, clearing it of dense brush and recurring trash. They include
enthusiastic neighbors, the Renew group from Catholic University, the Alpha Psi
Omega Service Fraternity at Howard University, Georgetown Day School students,
World Bank employees, Stanford University in Washington, Americorps members
from Pittsburgh, and church groups from North Carolina and Ohio. We're very
grateful for their help.
Mary Belcher, community liaison to the Walter Pierce Park Archeology Project
maryjbelcher@comcast.net
202-462-9069
Matthew Gilmore
H-DC
list co-editor, web editor
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