National Park Service spotlights Barton Heights

Barton Heights Cemeteries are six contiguous burial grounds that African American churches and fraternal organizations established beginning in 1815. The six cemeteries are Cedarwood (originally Phoenix Cemetery), Union Mechanics (formerly Union Burial Ground), Methodist, Ebenezer, Sons and Daughters of Ham, and Sycamore. Together they are important reflections of what African Americans achieved in establishing cemeteries for their own. Burial societies helped establish the cemeteries offering death benefits, the most basic of insurance. These burial societies were the precursors of the benevolent organizations and fraternal orders and the black insurance companies of the later 19th and early 20th centuries. The Barton Heights Cemeteries are the final resting place of prominent African Americans in the city.