Return to Carroll Family Cemetery

At the request of Rev. Ruby Brown-Thomas we returned to the Carroll Family Cemetery off Poseytown Road in Nanjemoy.  Rev. Brown-Thomas is a minister at Mt Hope Missionary Baptist Church and has ancestors buried in the Cemetery.  A historic marker that included the cemetery had recently been placed nearby by the Charles County Commissioners, and there are plans to restore the farmhouse and mark the cemetery.

In October 2017 [Cemetry Volunteer Work] CCASM members and Esther Read identified, flagged, and documented over seventy unmarked graves in a wooded area that oral history indicated was a cemetery associated with the Carroll family and with the early Mt Hope Baptist Church.  Jim created the map showing the locations of the graves.

On April 26 CCASM members Elsie, Denise, Linda, Mary, Ned, Peggy, and Carol as well as volunteers Kathy and Antonio joined archaeologist Esther Read to make sure all the unmarked graves were still flagged and numbered.  Jim's map was a great help since some of the flags were missing and many of the flags no longer were numbered.  As you can see there was a thick layer of leaves on the site that had to be brushed away before we could see the impressions indicative of graves.

Looking for unmarked graves (flagged and unflagged)

About halfway through Rev. Ruby Brown-Thomas along with members of Mt Hope Church, members of the Carroll family, and a few CCASM members started adding the crosses made from PVC to the graves.  The white crosses really stood out. 

Adding crosses

Hear is a closer look at the volunteers verifying the flags and grave locations posing with Rev Brown-Thomas and William.  (Sorry I didn't get a photo of all those helping install the crosses.)

There are plans to enclose the cemetery with a fence and to add a sign. 

Mt. Hope Church & Cemetery Volunteer Workday

October is Cemetery Month.  On Saturday October 28 a special "Mt. Hope Church and Cemetery Volunteer Workday" was held at Mt. Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Nanjemoy.   The event was sponsored by the Mt. Hope Church community, Preservation Maryland, Coalition to Protect Maryland Burial Sites, Charles County Planning, and the Association for Preservation Technology.

There were four areas of activity during the day:

• Mt. Hope Cemetery Conservation and Headstone Documentation 
• Recording History - both oral and family documents
• Architectural Documentation  of Carroll Family Farmhouse
• Archaeology at Carroll Family Cemetery

Five CCASM members volunteered - Denise, Joe, Evelyn, Julie, Carol, and Jim.  And guess which activity we choose.  Archaeology at the Carroll Family Cemetery, of course.  It was not just us at the cemetery.  There were many, many members of Mt Hope Church and of the Carroll family that also helped at this site.

Esther Read, the Charles County archaeologist, was in charge.  If you have never looked for graves in an unmarked cemetery, here is what we did.  First, we looked for impressions in the ground.  Over time after someone is buried and starts to return to the soil, the ground on top begins to sink in.  We also looked for posts in the ground and rocks that may have marked graves.  And we found quite a few.  Scott Lawrence's experience working with old cemeteries definitely helped.  After the possible graves were marked with flags, we documented each one - length, width, amount of depression, presence of a marker, and presence of other plants, such as periwinkle, that were historically planted in cemeteries.  Also Jim Gibb brought a Total Station, an electronic transit, and recorded the positions of the head and the foot of all the possible graves as well of any posts or stones.

All the data gathered will be turned over to Mt. Hope Church.  Hopefully, in the future we will be able to learn more about what was found.