Historic Headstones Of DC African Americans Relocated To Maryland

KING GEORGE, Va. (AP) — Dozens of headstones from a historical African American cemetery successful the nation’s superior that were utilized arsenic erosion power on the Virginia shoreline of the Potomac River are being relocated to a memorial plot successful Maryland.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser attended a ceremonial successful Caledon State Park successful King George connected Monday to people the transportation of the archetypal 55 headstones from Virginia to Maryland, officials said. The sedate markers volition beryllium portion of a memorial plot astatine National Harmony Memorial Park successful Prince George’s County honoring the 37,000 radical buried astatine the archetypal cemetery.

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The Columbian Harmony Cemetery was established successful 1859 and was the astir salient burial tract for African Americans successful Washington, but it was moved successful the 1960s to marque country for improvement including the Rhode Island Avenue-Brentwood Metro station. Remains were moved to a memorial plot successful Maryland, but the gravestones were sold oregon fixed away, officials said.

Grave markers ended up on a 2-mile (3-kilometer) agelong of the stream of King George County, wherever Virginia Sen. Richard Stuart discovered them successful 2016 portion exploring a spot helium had conscionable purchased. Historians helped Stuart to larn astir the root of the gravestones and helium past worked with different authorities leaders to instrumentality them to a due memorial site.

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Officials from Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia are moving with Hyattsville, Maryland-based History, Arts, and Science Action Network, a restorative justness nonprofit enactment that has been moving with descendants and researching the stories of those buried successful the cemetery.

Prominent radical buried astatine the archetypal cemetery include: Elizabeth Keckly, a erstwhile enslaved who became a seamstress and trusted confidante of archetypal woman Mary Todd Lincoln; Osborne Perry Anderson, the lone African American subsister of John Brown’s raid connected Harpers Ferry; Mary Ann Shadd Cary, America’s archetypal African American pistillate paper editor; and Philip Reid, a foundry idiosyncratic who helped physique of the Statue of Freedom astatine the U.S. Capitol, officials said.

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This fall, National Guard members from Maryland and Virginia volition retrieve much headstones successful the country wherever the archetypal artifacts were found, officials said. Virginia approved $4 cardinal for betterment and restoration of the gravestones and the instauration of a shoreline memorial, Northam’s bureau said.