After years of unsuccessfully trying to obtain the public access of burial records from the cemetery "stewards" Sharp Street Church, we have been successful in having a copy of the records purchased from the Schomberg Center for African American Studies in New York by the Enoch Pratt Free Central Library in Baltimore.

The detailed records are housed in the African American Department on the first floor of the Central Library, 400 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD 21201 410-396-5430 or 1-800-325-6438.

I was privileged to be the first person along with our Families Coordinator, Tavon Clagett, to view them yesterday. The records, on Microfilm, consist of the following information:

Reel 1- Financial Board Meetings 1913-1933
Reel 2- Board Meetings 1911-1950
Reel 3- Damaged and not available
Reel 4- Cemetery Ledgers 1892-1936
Reel 5- Cemetery Burials 1933-1955
Reel 6- Cemetery Burials 1953-1964
Reel 7- Cemetery Burials 1966-1974
Reel 8- Cemetery Burials 1907-1968
Reel 9- Cemetery Burials 1974-1989
(there are also burials from 1993 on this reel) along with Sharp Street Weekly Reports Jan-Dec 1947

While there are large gaps in some of the burial dates, everything that was available during the time of the Lily Foundation/Schomberg Survey of African American Churches is listed. We will be advocating and pursuing the release of any additional/all records, currently located in the basement of Sharp Street Church, be added to these public records. This will allow anyone who is interested to have free access to help in their search for family members buried at Mt. Auburn.

Again, these records are FREE to access with only normal minimal library charges to print a copy of the page you need.

During our visit, we noted quite a bit of confusing and sometimes unusual notations such as:

Burial descriptions-
Single Grave Reg XDeep
Single Grave on Top
Regular Depth Deep

Location descriptions-
Left of wooden upright headstone from row
Behind Big Tree
Buried near the Fence

Still, it is so much more information than we have ever had access to before.

Most of the records contain-
The Name, Age, Date of Birth, Date of Death, Funeral Home, Location of Death, Place of Birth, Where Buried and the Date Recorded.

In the next few days we will be posting a link to at least one complete page from the records so that you can see the information and how it was recorded.

Finally! these records are back at home in Baltimore for all to access, FREE!

And as always, we will continue our fight to preserve and restore Baltimore and Maryland's most historic African American Cemetery and will continue to post updates.

lumoorman@preservationalliance.net
tavonclaggett@comcast.net