The Old Quaker Burying Ground

Yesterday, after returning from Pennsylvania, I decided to go for a bike ride. I started out going down the back road of SERC, then had a decision to make when I got to Muddy Creek Road: left towards the open road or right towards town. I decided to go left.

Meandering down the road, I came across an Old Quaker Burying Ground. Quite literally, that's what it is called by the Maryland Historical Society. It was at this site in April of 1672 that George Fox, the founder of Quakerism had the first General Meeting of Friends in Maryland at the West River Quaker Meeting House. 

Upon his death in 1684, John Hooker, a dedicated Quaker, gave all of his land to his son, except an acre and a half. In his will he clearly proclaimed that this piece of land "is already laid out for ye people called Quakers for to meet on and to bury your dead , and to be wholly at their service forever." And thus, ever since that time many generations of well-known Quaker families in the area have their final resting place here.

There are family plots of land here where many members of the same family were buried next to each other, all of whom come well established Quaker families: Hooker, Benning, Gale, Cheston, Crandell, and Chaney. Although the strict and simple ways of the Friends did not permit the use of gravestones, so many graves are unmarked, thus it is impossible to know just how many people are buried here, because the marked graves are just the beginning.

As I was leaving the the burying ground, two things caught my attention.

The first were these cute animals sitting on a stump by a group of grave markers near the white picket fence which marks the borders. A quick glance over and I thought they were real, but looking closer I saw they were painted clay figures. Someone must have put them there, but the reason remains unknown to me. Nevertheless, they look at home on their stump.



The other thing that caught my eye was this small gravestone, almost engulfed by the well-manicured shrubs surrounding it. It marks the grave of Thos Alvin Wilde small child, who lived only six months from July to December 1930. Yet, even today the grave is well attended with new flowers and the bushes are trimmed back. It makes one wonder who this child was, that even 80 years later someone still cares and comes to tend to the grave.

I enjoy the quirky parts of history, the parts that are not so commonly known and the parts that one cannot find in a text book. This grave yard opened my curiosity as I biked by it a perfect white picket fence surrounding many lines of grave stones of a variety of ages, yet it all looked so well taken care of. The Quaker culture is so prevalent up here in the Northeast, but it's something I had never encountered before coming up to attend Bryn Mawr. The United States is so large, each part has its own history and culture waiting to be discovered if only one would take the time to explore it.