Old St.
Paul's Cemetery
For more
information about our Cemetery, or to schedule an appointment to visit the
cemetery,
please contact Rick Tomlinson at
410-243-0407 or
rick@osp1692.org.
Though not
complete, the following website has graciously posted our cemetery database
which contains more specific information about those buried in our cemetery:
www.mdgenweb.org/oldstpaul.htm
Representative Listing of Burials (in Adobe .pdf format)
On October 7, 2005 the Daniel Morgan
Symphonic Band from Winchester, Virginia visited the cemetery to honor George
Armistead, playing
"The Star Spangled Banner" at his gravesite.
Old St. Paul's Cemetery
Research and
text by Ruth Mascari
This text is from the booklet, A Shelter for Eternity, which is available from Old St. Paul's Parish office.
In the late 1700s, the Vestry of Old St. Paul's Church was faced with the need for a third cemetery. Cemeteries had never been viewed as good neighbors. Aside from the fact that they contained the bodies and souls of the departed (who, it was believed, had the ability to wander the land), they could become unsightly and even unhealthy.
Therefore, a new cemetery site was purchased in 1800 on the western edge of town at the intersection of Lombard and German Streets (now Redwood), in an area where several members of the Vestry owned a great deal of undeveloped property.
Church member Samuel Smythe purchased 2.8 acres of land from the heirs of Alexander Robinson, whose house is found on the 1802 Hanna and Warner map of Baltimore, directly across German Street from the Smythe purchase. The land was subsequently bought by the Church. Many of the parishioners immediately bought grave lots and began construction of vaults and plots.
The burying grounds are by no means all that remains of old Baltimore, but in many cases they are the only tangible link to the city's earliest citizens. Through the preservation and interpretation of the landscape, grave, and works of funereal art, we gain a clear glimpse into the minds, mores and tastes of 18th and 19th century society.
Old St. Paul's Cemetery weaves many funerary traditions older than the City of Baltimore itself into the rich tapestry of its history. The earliest stones are reminiscent of New England churchyards of the colonial period. The shape of early stones is simple, the carving minimal and the verbiage sparse. Later monuments are only slightly less plain--some upright and block-like, some tablets laid on the ground. Here and there are table vaults, rectangular tablets raised on legs or pillars. A few of the most recent stones, those of the late 19th and early 20th century, copy ornate Victorian architecture.
But the preponderance of the vaults and stones are Greek Revival, in keeping with the style of the first third of the 1800s. The large barrel vaults are possibly the most prominent Greek Revival design. They present imposing flat-faced facades with little or no decoration. The large mounded grave behind the facade was usually bricked over and covered in ivy, sod or myrtle. In a time of superstition and medical ignorance, fear of live burials was relieved by a top vent so the living could hear cries for help. Mounded as high as ten to twelve feet, barrel vaults accommodated a "door" with steps descending into an area tiered on either side. Some vaults were known to house thirty or more interments.
As counterpoints to the prevailing styles, a few very unique stones grace the burying grounds. Mrs. Bowley lies under a medieval sarcophagus; baby girl Wyatt is snug in a little white stone bed; and Pastor Mahon rests beneath an elaborate Celtic cross in rose marble with a Latin inscription.
An outdoor museum of artworks in stone, Old St. Paul's Cemetery articulates the grief, longings, and hopes of citizens and families now gone. Within the walls of the old burying grounds reposes a three-dimensional world created by the living to shelter them for eternity.
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