{"id":856,"date":"2023-01-26T21:24:58","date_gmt":"2023-01-27T02:24:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tealdragon.net\/tealdragongal\/?p=856"},"modified":"2023-01-26T22:15:49","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T03:15:49","slug":"st-marys-cemetery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tealdragon.net\/tealdragongal\/2023\/01\/st-marys-cemetery\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Mary\u2019s Cemetery in Turf Valley Overlook I – Ellicott City, MD"},"content":{"rendered":"
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St. Mary’s Cemetery – photo from https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/saintmaryscemeteryproject<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The historic St. Mary\u2019s Cemetery is located in Turf Valley Overlook between Ponte Vedra Ct., Pebble Beach Drive and The Concord Ct.  Cemetery Lane runs towards the cemetery from Old Frederick Rd\/Rt. 144 across Rt. 40, into Turf Valley Overlook, though the visible portion of the road ends before Dunes Dr.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n

Facebook Page for St. Mary’s Cemetery Project<\/strong> at https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/saintmaryscemeteryproject<\/a>
including photos and newspaper articles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History of St. Mary\u2019s Cemetery in TVOI<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Several newspaper articles have been written about the cemetery over the years.  The historic sites mentioned in the article below are near TVO.  The Carroll\u2019s Doughoregan Manor is located down Manor Lane off Old Frederick Rd across from Terra Maria neighborhood, and the St. Charles College ruins are in Terra Maria off Old Frederick Rd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Baltimore Sun \u2013 April 24, 1991<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Decades-old cemetery threatened by development Howard graveyard may be sold off.<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

By Carl Schoettler, Evening Sun Staff<\/p>\n\n\n\n

http:\/\/articles.baltimoresun.com\/1991-04-24\/news\/1991114116_1_mary-cemetery-howard-county-burial-ground<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joe German whacks his way with his cane through the brambles and dry brush toward his grandmother\u2019s grave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI remember this graveyard was just like a lawn,\u201d German says. He\u2019s 83, hearty, well-preserved and still a bit countrified. He\u2019s lived almost all his life in this little piece of Howard County near Ellicott City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s stomping through St. Mary\u2019s Cemetery, a Catholic burial ground now more than a century old. He\u2019s prowled through the old cemetery since he was a boy. Today, St. Mary\u2019s is overgrown with loose underbrush beneath a stand of poplar, walnut and a few locust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

St. Mary\u2019s is also surrounded by the new and pricey homes of Turf Valley Overlook. It\u2019s an isle of the dead among the living, a hint of the past of Howard County, a small reminder that life didn\u2019t begin yesterday in the middle of a neighborhood that didn\u2019t exist a few years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mary\u2019s Cemetery received the dead from the families of workers and servants and former slaves on the manors of Howard County, Doughoregan and Pine Orchard, and from St. Charles College, the \u201cminor\u201d seminary of the Maryland archdiocese, which burned down in 1911.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The graveyard now is threatened by a developer who proposes building, or selling the land for building, homes on two parcels that enclose the \u201cexisting cemetery.\u201d Neighbors \u2014 and German \u2014 say the two lots are also part of a much larger original burial ground and still contain graves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The neighbors like the cemetery just fine the way it is. Twenty properties border the 3.21-acre plot and they say they were told it would remain forever undeveloped because of the cemetery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

hTC Banded together as Friends of St. Mary\u2019s Cemetery and Preservation SocietyInc., opponents of development researched old church burial records, hired a lawyer, fired off letters to the county executive and the department of public works, and stymied work at the cemetery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

James M. Irvin, Howard county DPW director, said development of public improvements to the lots should be held up until all gravesites had been identified and relocated \u201cin accordance with the requirements of state law and the deed restrictions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Irvin later seemed to be contradicted by William R. Hymes, Howard state\u2019s attorney, who could find no legal impediment to bulldozing the cemetery, and Marsha McLaughlin, head of the county planning department, who approved the developer\u2019s proposal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

St. Mary\u2019s Cemetery gets its name from the private chapel at Doughoregan, the ancestral home of the Carroll family. Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the last signer of the Declaration of Independence to die, is buried in the chapel. Masses are still held there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

German lives across U.S. 40 from Turf Valley Overlook on Cemetery Lane, an extension of the easement which led into the old cemetery where his kinfolk are buried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cI was born back here in a place . . . we called it \u2018up in the woods,\u2019 \u201d he says. \u201cGran\u2019pap built the college.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

St. Charles College, that is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe maintained it after he built. He stayed there until the college burned down. They kept him 63 years and they wouldn\u2019t let him be buried here. He wasn\u2019t a Catholic. He was a Methodist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gran\u2019pap\u2019s name was Joe German, too. He was a builder. His grandson\u2019s still a Methodist. And he\u2019s a stone mason who still works at his job. But usually not more than six hours a day anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy grandmother, she was Catholic,\u201d German says. \u201cShe was from Switzerland, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He leads the way to her gravestone in the little cleared place he tries to keep neat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Felice, beloved wife of Joseph German, the stone says. Died March 17, 1915. In the 57th year of her age. RIP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With her are buried six of her children who died as infants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cL.B.,\u201d says German, reading off another stone, \u201cthat was my grandmother\u2019s mother. Her name was Bruneau. That\u2019s where she\u2019s buried.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And his brother who died in infancy is buried here somewhere, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe keep this plot pretty much down, me and my cousin Charles [German],\u201d German says. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to get in here and take these briars out shortly, too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The German plot is in what is described as the existing cemetery in a surveyor\u2019s plan submitted to the county health officer and planning and zoning. It\u2019s a 145-by-160-foot plot dadoed into Lot 2 on the 3.2-acre site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lot 1, Lot 2, and the \u201cexisting cemetery\u201d front on Cemetery Lane, which right now is cut off by a metal gate at one end and dead-ends in a lawn at the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandra Pezzoli, one of the neighbors, researched church records for the Friends of St. Mary\u2019s at St. Louis Church, in Clarksville. St. Mary\u2019s is a mission of St. Louis Church. Burials are documented in St. Louis\u2019 Record of Interments in a variety of orotund Victorian script.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She found 143 burials recorded at St. Louis, one at St. Alphonsus in Woodstock and 22 undocumented burials. But only 48 tombstones (with 51 names) have been found. So 116 are unaccounted for. The Friends of St. Mary\u2019s believe they may well be scattered throughout the whole plot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Baltimore Sun \u2013 July 12, 1992<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arrogant officials violate law, cemetery<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

By Barbara Sieg, For the Howard County Sun<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full article \u2013 http:\/\/articles.baltimoresun.com\/1992-07-12\/news\/1992194159_1_mary-cemetery-arrogance-of-power-chapel<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

St. Mary\u2019s Cemetery takes its name from St. Mary\u2019s Chapel at Doughoregan Manor, home of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and John Lee Carroll, governor of Maryland from 1876 to 1880.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 167 people, both black and white Marylanders, children as well as adults, who the Catholic Church documents as being buried in St. Mary\u2019s Cemetery throughout the 1800s and up until 1941, were the parishioners of St. Mary\u2019s Chapel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the historical significance of St. Mary\u2019s Cemetery is not the principal issue. What is important is that a graveyard, irrespective of its origin, regardless of whether many of its graves are marked with simple field stones or not marked at all \u2014 a graveyard has been raped and ravaged. How and why has this been allowed to happen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first dreadful act, particularly outrageous to Catholics, was the sale by the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore of the 3.2-acre cemetery in 1986-1987 to developer Don Reuwer for $10,000. It is a tragic and puzzling fact that the German family, which has many members buried at St. Mary\u2019s, offered to buy the cemetery and take care of it; their offer was rejected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, the present developer of the cemetery, H. Allen Becker, indicated that because of the tempest that has been stirred up over the building of houses in the cemetery, he might be willing to stop work and sell out. The price tag is, of course, no longer $10,000. The reported cost to the relatives and the Friends of St. Mary\u2019s Cemetery, who still want to own and preserve the cemetery, is now much higher \u2014 for a ravaged cemetery!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Baltimore Sun \u2013 June 7, 1995<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neighbors want to save old cemetery<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state\u2019s actions are intended to avoid a controversy similar to the one the county faced in 1992 with the St. Mary\u2019s Cemetery on St. John\u2019s Lane in Ellicott City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that case, the county approved a construction project over the warnings of Ellicott City residents about the presence of a historic graveyard \u2014 only to have remains unearthed during the excavation of sewer lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A year later, the county passed a cemetery preservation law that requires developers to preserve burial grounds as open space and halts development immediately when remains are discovered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councilman C. Vernon Gray, who sponsored that legislation, said he will do what he can to determine if a there is a historic cemetery in Columbia Hills. \u201cBased upon oral history, they say it\u2019s there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barbara Sieg writing a book on St. Mary\u2019s Cemetery and other local cemeteries<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Baltimore Sun \u2013 March 20, 2014<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Arthur Hirsch<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full article at \u2013 http:\/\/www.baltimoresun.com\/news\/maryland\/howard\/bs-md-ho-cemeteries-preservation-20140320,0,5419966.story<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnfortunately, we\u2019re all mortal, but that\u2019s why I want to write this book,\u201d said Sieg, who does not yet have a publisher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book is one more thing she can do to get the word out about Maryland\u2019s historic cemeteries, which she sees as threatened by both neglect and development. She expressed little confidence in the enforcement of state laws that protect the sites \u2014 some of which she helped to create \u2014 or in local officials\u2019 willingness to protect burial grounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1992, as president of the Coalition to Protect Maryland Burial Sites, she joined the uproar when a developer building houses at Turf Valley Overlook in Ellicott City \u2014 with county approval \u2014 unearthed human remains in what had been St. Mary\u2019s Cemetery. In an opinion article in The Baltimore Sun, she deplored the \u201carrogance\u201d of public officials and said \u201ca graveyard has been raped and ravaged.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The remains were eventually reburied and the 3.2-acre cemetery, once owned by the Catholic Church, was rededicated. Sieg said the incident shook her confidence in county planning officials, who revoked a building permit on the site for another developer in the 1980s, then approved one years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sieg\u2019s chapter on that incident is tentatively called \u201cA Day of Infamy in St. Mary\u2019s Cemetery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This information is also posted at https:\/\/turfvalleyoverlook1.org\/tvoi-and-county-resources\/st-marys-cemetery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The historic St. Mary\u2019s Cemetery is located in Turf Valley Overlook between Ponte Vedra Ct., Pebble Beach Drive and The Concord Ct.  Cemetery Lane runs towards the cemetery from Old Frederick Rd\/Rt. 144 across Rt. 40, into Turf Valley Overlook, though the visible portion of the road ends before Dunes Dr.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-howard-county-history"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4w3yf-dO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tealdragon.net\/tealdragongal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tealdragon.net\/tealdragongal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tealdragon.net\/tealdragongal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tealdragon.net\/tealdragongal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tealdragon.net\/tealdragongal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tealdragon.net\/tealdragongal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":872,"href":"https:\/\/tealdragon.net\/tealdragongal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856\/revisions\/872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tealdragon.net\/tealdragongal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tealdragon.net\/tealdragongal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tealdragon.net\/tealdragongal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}