Supporting Halfway African American Cemetery

UPDATE: As of February 2024, thanks to generous donors and grants, we've succeeded in our goal of creating public access from the street into the cemetery. You can visit it at 11027 Clinton Avenue, Hagerstown MD, during daylight hours.

But we have so much more work to do to restore this special place. Please donate to help us meet our 2024 goals:

--a permanent sign at the street entrance

--creating a website with our database of burials

--stabilizing ownership of the cemetery, so that we can work toward conserving the headstones

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We're fundraising to create public access to a historic black cemetery that's landlocked by private yards, with no street entrance.

Halfway African American Cemetery is a long-neglected black cemetery just outside Hagerstown, in Washington County, Maryland. It has almost 400 known burials, dating from between 1844 and 1932. Since March 2020, the Friends of Halfway African American Cemetery, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, has been working to protect and restore the cemetery. We’ve made impressive progress, but we have a lot left to do! Our Facebook page, Friends of Halfway MD African American Cemetery, records our ongoing cleanup, research, and other activities.

Our big project for 2023 is to create a legal easement on an adjoining property, grade and surface a driveway from the street to the cemetery, and install attractive fencing that is in keeping with the historic nature of the site. Currently, visitors must go through neighbors’ yards to enter the cemetery. Once this project is complete, there will be permanent, safe, public access from the street to the cemetery at any time. Descendants, volunteers, members of the public, and people attending ceremonies on Memorial Day and Veterans Day will be able to enter the cemetery directly from the street.

We’ve applied for grant funding for this project, and we have significant support from several sources already, but we must finish raising matching funds. Will you help?

A gift of $50 will purchase and install one foot of fencing.

Budget for this fundraiser:

Fence and installation (matching funds) $2000.

Fence and installation (Fowler gravesite) $2000.

Removal of fallen trees $1000.

Total $5000.

We’re also raising money to replace the fence around the threatened gravesite of Miss Ellen Fowler (and unknown others). She died in 1898 and left instructions for the upkeep of her grave. Unfortunately. it is currently a dog run. We want to return it to the cemetery and give it the respect it deserves.

We also need funds to help pay for fallen tree removal. On March 7, Antietam Tree finished hauling away the large tree trunks in the cemetery—a vital step toward restoration of the cemetery, and also toward the completion of ground penetrating radar that will help locate lost graves. Volunteers have spent many, many hours cutting up and hauling away parts of these massive trees, but the final removal had to be done by professionals.

Halfway Cemetery was one of the main cemeteries for the historic Jonathan Street community in Hagerstown, one of Maryland's earliest free black communities. At least thirteen veterans are buried here—twelve from the Civil War and one from World War I. The cemetery is also the final resting place of a Pullman porter, a Storer College student, a pastor, an elementary school teacher, and many other adults and children.

The cemetery was completely derelict when we held the first cleanup day in early March 2020. Since then, volunteers and donors have been persistent in clearing away the vegetation, locating grave markers, and caring for this special place. We now need funds to continue with the work. Please help us preserve this vital part of Maryland’s African American history.

Other items on our 2023 wish list:

Ground penetrating radar $1500.

Website design $1000.

Digital copies of veterans’ files @45. $ 500.