Prayer for Relief: Archeological Excavations within a Portion of the Columbian Harmony Cemetery (Site 51NE049), Washington, D.C.

Summary

The Columbian Harmony Cemetery was established in the mid-19th century to serve the District’s African American community and continued in use until 1960 when approximately 37,000 burials were exhumed and remains were re-interred in the National Harmony Memorial Park in Landover, Maryland.  However, the burial removal process at Columbian Harmony Cemetery was not complete; not all burials were exhumed and re-interred.  Headstones and other cemetery monuments, entire coffins, coffin fragments and disarticulated remains were left onsite in 1960 and all of these, as well as intact articulated burials, were discovered during recent archeological excavations conducted by Thunderbird Archeology within a half-acre portion of the cemetery under redevelopment. 

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Urban Public Archaeology of the Washington, D.C. Region   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2016

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 690