04-11-2024 Howard Magazine - Flipbook - Page 38
The Silver Award pin worn by Sarah Hill,
a Girl Scout who is now working toward
a Gold Award after taking action to
rehabilitate the abandoned cemetery.
attached to Doughoregan Manor, St. Paul’s and
St. Louis’s. Only 51 graves were marked, or less
than one-third.
In 1986, the Archdiocese of Baltimore, which
had owned the cemetery for about a century,
sold it for $10,000 to a developer who planned
to build two houses on the site, Palich said.
The developer was granted a building permit
by Howard County. In the summer of 1992, he
began to lay the concrete foundation and to
dig trenches for water and sewer lines — until
the earth-moving equipment uncovered the
remains of three men and two women. At least
three and probably all five of the disturbed
corpses were of Black people, Palich said.
As a result of the ensuing uproar, the corpse
fragments were reinterred during a ceremony
attended by the archdiocese, the NAACP and
residents. Howard County traded the developer
two tracts of undeveloped land in another part
of the county in exchange for the cemetery. A
coalition of community residents formed a
group called the Friends of St. Mary’s Cemetery
and Preservation Society. The society, which
had fought the development, agreed to maintain
the cemetery for perpetuity.
But it’s difficult to enforce an agreement that
depends entirely on volunteer labor.
“Some people died,” Palich said, “and others
moved away.”
Over the decades, nature began to cover the
traces of the tombstones. Nearly everyone forgot
St. Mary’s existed — until the two Scouts made
a presentation to the genealogical society in
December 2020 and then reached out to Palich.
“I think it was the first time that a room full
of adults listened to what I had to say,” Sarah
Hill said.
In November 2021, the county Recreation
& Parks Department removed dead trees and
enough underbrush for Palich and her team to
begin pinpointing the locations of underground
38
| Spring 2024 | howardmagazine.com
gravesites with ground-penetrating radar and
specially trained “cadaver dogs.”
Klementsen organized about 30 Scouts in
three daylong cleanup sessions that exposed
more tombstones and removed small
mountains of debris. Hill is building a website
for the cemetery and is hand-mapping graves
with the goal of creating a chart for future
visitors. Greene is attempting to revive the
Friends group, which he hopes will establish
a nonprofit that can raise money to defray
renovation expenses.
And Palich is looking for descendants of
people interred at St. Mary’s. She is asking
anyone who thinks they might be related to
someone buried there to contact her via email
at kpalich@howardcountymd.gov or by calling
410-313-0423.
“Cemeteries are sacred ground,” Greene said.
“Why should St. Mary’s Cemetery be any
different from the other well-established, wellgroomed cemeteries around the county? Why
would we not want that for our ancestors?”