Going Back Through Time

I help document cemeteries to assist those in their genealogical research. One of the cemeteries I've been working on lately is an historically African American one by the name of Mount Peace, which is located on the White Horse Pike in Lawnside, NJ.  In the late 19th Century when a lot of the people were buried here, African Americans weren't allowed to be buried at the same cemeteries as whites.

Today, the cemetery is being taken care of by a group of dedicated volunteers, since the original owners went bankrupt in 1952.  As you can imagine, some areas of the cemetery have become very overgrown, and as much as the volunteers try to keep up with it, it's hard to see some of the headstones amongst all the vines and debris. In addition, there are a lot of headstones where the lettering is slowly fading away to nothingness, including many for men who served in the Civil War. And so, I felt an overpowering need to document as many headstones as I can while they are still legible. To date, I've listed about 185 of them on a site called findagrave.com, but that's just a fraction of what remain.

With each headstone I've entered, I've taken the time to try to pull up any information I can about the person on Ancestry.com. So far, I've been able to gather the most information on Franklin Carper.

This is Franklin's story:

Franklin Carper was born in Talbot County, Maryland in approximately 1840. He enlisted in the Union Army as a Private on March 31, 1864. He served in the Battles of Petersburg, Hatcher's Run, Sugar Loaf, Wilmington, and NE Station. He was discharged on December 4, 1865 in Wilmington, NC.

How Franklin got into the Union Army is different than you might think. Franklin's Military Service Records state he was a slave when he was enlisted and that was confirmed by an Application for Compensation for Service of Slave that was submitted by Charles Lowndes of Talbot County, Maryland, who stated that he received Franklin as a slave in 1846. Charles was paid $300 by the Union Army on May 31, 1864 in response to his application. In doing so, he had to release all his claims to Franklin forever.

Franklin died a free man in New Jersey on January 23, 1917 at the age of 77.

Franklin Carper is part of the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington, DC (Plaque #C-53).

You can read more about the history of Mount Peace Cemetery and find out about upcoming days when you can volunteer to help clean-up the cemetery, by visiting the Lawnside Historical Society's website.