[WardFive] Walter Pierce Park named Underground Railroad site

 

A general interest post – from the Historic Washington list.

SHARING!

 

Shirley Rivens Smith, President

US Africa Sister Cities Foundation, Inc.

DC-Dakar

2000 Upshur St., NE

Washington, DC 20018

202-635-3138

 

 

 

The National Park Service has named Mt. Pleasant Plains Cemetery at Walter Pierce Park a "National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom" site to honor those buried in the cemetery who risked their lives to escape slavery or helped others flee to freedom. This national award recognizes the profound contribution that freedom seekers made to the cause of freedom for all in the United States.

 

Among those named in the Walter Pierce Park nomination are: two brothers who boarded the schooner Pearl in 1848 in a bid to flee to points north and freedom; aiders and abettors of the Pearl escape; an enslaved man who left Prince George's County with invading British troops in 1814 to find freedom in Canada; three men who escaped slavery by enlisting in the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War; self-emancipated men and women who crossed into Union lines during the Civ il War; and members of the Colored Union Benevolent Association, whose church, school and community work were integral to the fabric of Washington's underground railroad network.  

 

Walter Pierce Park--located between Calvert Street and Adams Mill Road in Washington, D.C.—during the 19^th Century was the site of the Friends (Quaker) Burying Ground established in 1807, and the Mt. Pleasant Plains Cemetery, an African American cemetery established in 1870 by the Colored Union Benevolent Association. Both cemeteries were forced to close in 1890 due to neighborhood development. More than 8,400 people were buried at Mt. Pleasant Plains between 1870 and 1890, or reinterred there from an older Black cemetery. Since 2005, descendants and other concerned community members have worked with university scholars to honor the site. From 2005 to 2012, the site was the subject o f a non-invasive archeological study by Howard University biological anthropologist Mark Mack. In public events each spring, we read aloud the names of those buried in the cemeteries and tell some of their stories.

 

You can read or download the full 61-page Mt. Pleasant Plains Underground Railroad nomination at www.walterpierceparkcemeteries.org. But briefly, the nomination lists:

·       Ephraim Edmonson and his brother Richard Edmonson, two of 77 enslaved people who in April 1848 boarded the schooner Pearl near the 7^th Street wharf in Washington's largest known Underground Railroad escape attempt. Richard and Ephraim's brother-in-law John H. Brent and mother Amelia Edmonson also are named for their efforts to free their enslaved family members. Ephraim, Richard and Amelia Edmonson, and John H. Brent were buried at Mt. Pleasant Plains, along with some 19 other members of the extended Edmonson family. (The nomination includes the possibility that t wo other Pearl passengers—siblings Caroline Bell and John Bell—also were buried at Mt. Pleasant Plains Cemetery, but it is not certain whether those named on cemetery death certificates were the individuals of the same names who boarded the Pearl.)

·       Luke Carter, who hid Pearl passengers in his West End home before their departure. Apart from the Pearl, Carter, a free man, undertook dangerous travel to the south to rescue enslaved family members. He wor ked closely with outspoken abolitionist and Pearl mastermind William L. Chaplin. Luke Carter died in 1857 and was buried originally at Free Young Men's Cemetery, the graves from which were moved to Mt. Pleasant Plains in 1873.

·       Dennis Magruder, who in 1814 ran away from Prince George's County, Md., and marched off with the invading British forces to find freedom in Canada. Canadian records document his arrival and settlement in Nova Scotia by 1815. Magruder later returned to Washington. He died here at age 95 in 1867 and was buried at Free Young Men's Cemetery, the graves from which were moved to Mt. Pleasant Plains in 1873.

·       Lewis Ferguson (alias William Henson), William Tolson (Alias John Gray), and Edward Marks, who escaped slavery in the District, Maryland, and Virginia, respectively. All enlisted in the First Regiment of th e U.S. Colored Infantry and saw battle in the Civil War. All were buried at Mt. Pleasant Plains Cemetery.

·       Dabney Walker in 1862 gained freedom by crossing into Union lines near Fredericksburg, Va., and became a legendary scout for the Union Army. His wife, Lucy Ann Walker, remained behind Confederate lines for some time. As a laundress for rebel officers, she reportedly sent coded messages to her husband across the Rappahannock River by hanging clothes out to dry in ways that conveyed enemy plans. Dabney and Lucy Ann Walker were buried at Mt. Pleasant Plains Cemetery. The Walkers represent perhaps hundreds of others buried in the cemetery who came to Washington from the slave states as self-emancipated refugees of the Civil War.

·       Also named in the nomination are Colored Union Benevolent Association trustee Charles H. Brown who was active in early struggles for civil rights in the District of Columbia and was arrested for meeting secretly to aid freedom seekers. Brown was buried at Mt. Pleasant Plains Cemetery. Another Association member listed in the nomination is William Bush, who helped orchestrate the Pearl escape attempt and later moved to New Bedford, Mass., where he was known as a leading Underground Railroad man. Bush died and was buried in Massachusetts, but his membership in the Colored Union Benevolent Association links him to Mt. Pleasant Plains Cemetery at Walter Pierce Park.

Finally, in a related note, the Society for Historical Archaeology, a professional organization, has honored our beloved, departed colleague Mark Mack of Howard University by naming an annual Society award after him: the Gender and Minority Affairs Committee's "Mark E. Mack Community Engagement Award." Professor Mack personified the ideal of community engagement. He worked tirelessly with us in the concerned community at Walter Pierce Park for many years, and he dedicate d more than a decade of his life as a scientist to the African Burial Ground Project in New York.

Mary Belcher
Community Liaison to Walter Pierce Park Archaeology Project

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