In Search of Peace For an Old Resting Place

Ana Hernandez cheers on friends on the soccer field at Walter C. Pierce Community Park, which was built on land that was part of a black cemetery. (By Nikki Kahn -- The Washington Post)

That could not have been what cemetery trustees had in mind when they bought the Adams Morgan tract in 1870 for about $2,500 from Charles Francis Adams, the son of President John Quincy Adams.

The 12 trustees, who wanted to secure burial plots for their families and friends, may have been a bit more prosperous and better situated than most African Americans after the Civil War. Some listed their occupations as laborers. But trustee Lindsay Muse, who would be buried there in 1883, worked as a messenger to the secretary of the Navy for more than 50 years, Belcher said. He was a freed man as early as 1827, records show, when he paid a Richmond woman $200 for his sister Charlotte's freedom.

"By the time he died, he had several parcels of property," Belcher said. "He apparently had a very large monument on his plot, and, of course, there are no markers there now."

Amelia Edmonson was laid to rest in the cemetery in 1874 at age 92. A Montgomery County native, she was the matriarch of a family that became famous in 1848 when six of her children tried to escape slavery on a ship that set off from the Seventh Street wharf in Southwest. Although they were soon captured, the episode became a cause celebre for abolitionists when two of Edmonson's daughters were about to be sold into prostitution in New Orleans, reportedly as punishment for the attempted escape. Abolitionists bought their freedom instead.

The Howard study, which will be conducted by several students, probably will not solve who is or is not buried there. It will entail "literally walking through the park on a grid system," Mack said, and will take about a month. The university, which is not being paid for the study, became involved at the request of Belcher and other neighbors. There is no estimate of possible costs.

Regina Williams, a spokeswoman for the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation, said the department welcomes Howard's recommendations. "We're following the lead of the experts on this," she said.

"The history of this place is very, very important," Williams added, "and out of respect, there are no plans to do any exhuming at all."

On a recent morning, Pierce Park looked as it always does: full of life. A boy hurried through with a trumpet case; a woman coaxed her golden retriever toward the lively dog run. On the soccer field, a half-dozen young men paused in action, and so it would be, all day long -- people in and out, cutting through, lost in their own business.

Probably none of them knew what used to be there, back when it was only the whitewashed fence, the big shade trees and the graves.