About a city block’s walk into the woods off Rt. 579 near Bozman, is a site where a 170 ft. cell tower is expected to be erected this year, bringing much-anticipated cell service to most of lower Bay Hundred. Our modern world requires footprints on the land. Yet just 180 feet further into those woods lies a different kind of footprint – not modern at all, but quite remarkable.
White glints of sun shine brightly on a few random gravestones, and several large rectangular concrete vaults emerge from dark frozen puddles of mud. A large “No Trespassing” sign calls attention, and that’s about all that’s left of the former Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church – a historic African American churchyard and cemetery from the 1870s.
Like so many historic African American cemeteries on the east coast, Asbury and Green Chappel Cemetery could easily have disappeared under the poison ivy and leaf litter of the Eastern Shore forest – gone forever. But this cemetery is being saved, preserved to mark our local cultural history and to honor the lives of the 120 people who are buried there.
The Family and Friends of Asbury and Green Chappel Cemetery, a non-profit organization, is working to preserve, document and repair what’s left of the small churchyard and cemetery. Led by Childlene Brooks and Hasan Wilson, the group organized and began fund-raising in 2006.
In 2010, they hired Grave Concerns, a historic cemetery restoration organization, to make recommendations for the documentation and restoration of the site. The company outlined a multi-phase plan to meet the goals of the group, and with assistance from community volunteers, a good portion of the initial work has been completed.
Grave Concerns researched historic records and found that the church was abandoned in the middle of the 20th century. The latest marked grave shows a date of 1955. A map was created of the half acre plot, showing remains of a church and a church hall, grave depressions and mounds, and five grave markers. Six broken vaults were found, all of which were vandalized, presumably by thieves searching for human skulls.
The nonprofit group now owns the property, the site was surveyed and documented, and open vaults that had been vandalized are now secured. Water and mud were pumped from the broken vaults, new concrete vault covers are in place, and the eight existing headstones were cleaned and repaired. Human remains that had been scattered around the site are now properly buried.
Plenty of work remains. Deep watery depressions, called fossae, formed when wooden coffins decay and collapse underground, are the only signs of many of the 120 gravesites. Next steps in preservation of the site include filling in the fossae with soil, which will stabilize the surface of the cemetery, and erecting a fence around the perimeter.
Treated wood crosses will be added to identify the locations of each of the graves, and continued genealogical research will help to identify the names of many of those interred there. Catherine Wilson, a genealogist in Easton, has begun some historic and genealogic research into the eight known people buried in the cemetery. Eventually, interpretive signage will educate about this community congregation in Talbot County’s history.
Van Thompson, of Tara Communications, owner of the cell tower site, intends to help. “When my wife and I first walked the property, we were deeply saddened by the condition of the cemetery. We have been discussing different options of what we could do to help. Hopefully our business venture here will be successful and we will be able to help”, he says.
It’s easy to see how so many of these historic cemeteries just can disappear into the woods. Property changes hands, and churches disappear as communities change, and few are left to try to handle what’s left.
Recently, the nearby Village of Claiborne watched their Methodist church deteriorate rapidly when the church virtually emptied out and went away. Luckily, the Village Association was able to purchase the church to use as a Community Center. Raccoons had taken up residence inside and without the efforts of the larger Claiborne community, that church too, could have disappeared into the marshy wetlands of the Bay Hundred peninsula.
The proposed cell tower is on the agenda of the Talbot County Planning Commission for Feb. 1st, 2012. Local residents are hoping that the tower is built to meet their communications needs.
Old uses and new uses – the past and the future, tied together. Our community has opportunities to work together and meet the needs of those who live here now, while properly honoring the memory of the past. This is work worth doing.
To donate to the Asbury and Green Chappel Cemetery fund, preserving this Talbot historic site for future generations, call 410-822-8403 or email savebozmancemetery@gmail.com.
Fascinating article on this old rural cemetery near Bozman. Nature reclaims history, in time. It’s good that members of the community are restoring it. One would expect Indian relics in these woods, more than an old church cemetery.
An appreciation of history gives insight into the human condition and a perspective for understanding our own life and times.
Every hear the expression “there’s nothing new under the sun”? Human aspirations and fears, successes and failures, camaraderies and prejudices – all existed long before any of us were born. So as we grow to appreciate the lives of our ancestors, presented within the context of the times in which they lived and died – we have a prism for better understanding what it means to be human: fragility, resilience, creativity, despair, fear, inspiration, love. History speaks to all of these things, we need only listen to learn of who we are today.
Hopefully, this little cemetery, as well as the stories of the people contained within, can be preserved and presented to future generations. Wouldn’t it be great if the developer of the proposed cell tower – a modern marvel that will keep us in touch with one another – could find a way to help us stay in touch with our past?