By Liz Babiarz
Frederick News-Post Staff

FREDERICK -- Frederick city is prepared to spend $290,000 for an archeological dig of Site C, along Carroll Creek, to determine if any human remains lie beneath.

The 2.2-acre tract of land, opposite the C. Burr Artz Library, was once home to two historic cemeteries, one white and one black.

If bodies are found there, it will be the third time skeletal remains have been found in Frederick after they were supposedly reinterred in another plot.

Two times skeletal remains have been found -- at Frederick Memorial Hospital in 2002 and at the Laboring Sons Memorial Park, then a playground, in 2000. Both times black remains were unearthed.

According to maps of the city from the 19th century, Frederick city was home to three black cemeteries: Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church Cemetery on Site C, Greenmount Cemetery on West Seventh Street; and Laboring Sons Cemetery, now Laboring Sons Memorial Park, between Fifth and Sixth streets.

Details of the historic burial grounds and those interred there have faded from the city's history. Some cemeteries disappeared completely.

Such is the case with Site C, where only in January city officials discovered two cemeteries were located there.

"I think it had really been lost sight of," said Barbara Wyatt, the historic preservation planner for the city. "I don't even think it was well known in the black community."

The All Saints Church, a mostly white church, occupied the site's east side from 1750 to 1814. The Asbury Methodist Church occupied the west side beginning in 1827. Both churches had cemeteries.

About 150 years ago, Frederick outgrew its church cemeteries and Mount Olivet Cemetery was established. White residents were exhumed from the separate church cemeteries and reinterred there.

Records from All Saints Church show 324 bodies of white parishioners were moved to section MM of Mount Olivet in 1914, according to Ernest Helfenstein's "History of All Saints' Parish."

Paul Gordon, a local historian, said the family members of the deceased made the decision to move the bodies to Mount Olivet and some may have decided to keep their loved ones on the Site C plot.

For the blacks buried in the Asbury Methodist churchyard and possibly the black All Saints Church parishioners buried beyond the church's stonewall, there is no detailed record of their re-interment.

Because the deceased were black, they were not allowed to be re-interred at Mount Olivet Cemetery with the rest of the white All Saints parishioners.

Carroll Hendrickson, a local resident who researched the two churches, said the All Saints Church vestry shows that in 1914 the church paid to have the black bodies exhumed from Site C.

However, Mr. Hendrickson said there is no record of where the black remains were moved to.

City officials think it's unlikely they will find any skeletal remains under Site C. Ms. Wyatt said the land has been leveled about 30 feet. There is little potential of any lingering human remains, except for one portion of land where the Asbury Methodist Church sat, she said.

"Our expectation is we are not really going to find much there between the change in the grade, small particle that remains that hasn't been distributed," Ms. Wyatt said. " ... We really don't think we'll find much but still feel its our obligation to look."

But, Mr. Gordon and Mr. Hendrickson remember playing in the graveyards on Site C in the 1920s, after the plots were supposedly cleared and there were still graves.

"In my estimation, they will probably find bodies still on that site from both cemeteries," Mr. Gordon said.

Construction workers at Frederick Memorial Hospital found black skeletal remains during excavation work for the new emergency department in February 2002.

At the time, Ken Coffey, FMH spokesman said only "fragments of bones" were unearthed and buried at Fairview Cemetery, off Gas House Pike.

Bernard Brown, the president of Fairview Cemetery Inc. and caretaker, said eight bodies worth of bones were found at FMH and buried at the cemetery in March 2002.

Calls to FMH were not returned.

In 1925, the hospital bought the Greenmount Cemetery and decided no more burials would be allowed, according to Joy Onley's "Memories of Frederick, Over on the Other Side."

"Frederick Memorial Hospital wanted to expand and build that time. And, they said so we're going to move you," said Mr. Brown, repeating what he has heard from his elders.

"... Blacks during the 1920s didn't have any say at all. When the people in charge were all white, and they wanted to do something they took care of it. And told you this is the way its going to be."

FMH relocated 268 graves to Fairview Cemetery in 1925, according to Scott Rolle, state's attorney for Frederick County. When the bodies were being reinterred, some bones were possibly left behind, he said.

J. Ronald Pearcey, superintendent of Mount Olivet, said sometimes bones get left behind during reinterment involving a large amount of bodies.

"When you do a mass removal, you're not going to get everything," Mr. Pearcey said. "You are going to try your best, but you're likely to miss something."

On two occasions, human remains were found at FMH, "a couple months apart," said James E. Bowes, former Frederick County health officer.

"We just saved the bones," Dr. Bowes said. "It was the construction, happened within a year and I just told them to save them and give them to me when they were done digging."

Dr. Bowes said he was called to the hospital in February to examine the bones. Hospital officials wrote to Mr. Rolle for approval to move the remains, following Maryland code that says a person needs permission from the state's attorney to remove human remains.

In March, the remains were put in one casket and buried at Fairview Cemetery, Dr. Bowes said.

About 2,000 blacks are buried in that cemetery, a good portion from Greenmount Cemetery. However, no remains were re-interred there from Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church or from Laboring Sons Cemetery.

It wasn't until 2000 that city officials realized they had built a playground on top of Laboring Sons Cemetery, a black burial ground that has an estimated 1,500 bodies.

In January 2003, city officials dedicated a memorial at the forgotten cemetery and put up a plaque bearing the names of 160 of the known deceased.

William Lee Jr., former alderman, said the city did the right thing by paying respect to those people interred there, who were forgotten for so long.

"The communities were not sensitive to the importance of preserving and recognizing black cemeteries during that time, that's what happened at laboring sons," Mr. Lee said.

Mr. Lee said black cemeteries also faded because of poor record keeping in the black community and lack of funds to care for the grounds.

What little information remains about historic black burial grounds makes it difficult for some blacks to track their lineage. Mr. Lee said he regularly gets calls from people all over the country asking about relatives buried in Frederick. He has been "very successful in helping them," thanks to a record of 32 black cemeteries in Frederick, Carroll and Howard counties compiled by himself and two other men.

Keith Roberson, funeral director at Keeney and Basford Funeral Home, is writing a book about historic Frederick cemeteries and has encountered problems tracking down specific information about black cemeteries.

"In trying to do research, things that I can't find more often deal with African-American burial from cemeteries than what they do with white churches," Mr. Roberson said. "I think African-American families experience that more so with death reporting, record keeping and trying genealogy work. In our society, there was not a lot of emphasis on organization or the reporting of deaths ... which had to do with the prejudice and racism of the time."

Mr. Brown remembers that time and thinks it's "wrong and inhumane" what happened to black cemeteries in Frederick.

Today, he works hard to keep Fairview Cemetery preserved so it won't disappear like he has seen others.

"My grandparents are buried in Hyattstown and I can't find the cemetery anymore," Mr. Brown said. "That's what happened. They disappeared ... and that's exactly what happened here."

lbabiarz@fredericknewspost.com