Rediscovered Past

This plot of land, once at the edge of the city, became a cemetery where scores of African Americans were buried and later was surrounded as the neighborhood expanded. By the late 1940s, after nearly a century as a cemetery, it had become overgrown, and the dwindling Beneficial Society of the Laboring Sons, unable to maintain it, agreed that the City would build a playground and erect a memorial. In October 1949, city workers recorded grave marker locations before bulldozing the area and burying headstones under soil, and Chapel Alley Park, a segregated whites-only playground, was built above the cemetery without the promised memorial. Among those buried here were James Bowens, a Negro who was forcibly removed from his jail cell and hanged by a mob in 1895 before a scheduled hearing, and Agnes C. Boyd, who died at age 2 in 1905. By the 1990s the site’s earlier history was nearly forgotten until local residents’ proposal to rename the adjacent alley Laboring Sons renewed interest, bringing to light the site’s past and the forgotten promise. Modern investigation, including ground-penetrating radar, confirmed graves, and a commission established in 2000 recommended removing the playground equipment, renaming the park Laboring Sons, and creating a suitable memorial. In 2013, more than half a century after the original agreement, the City dedicated a memorial at the site.

Frederick, Maryland · United States