Westminster Hall and Burying Ground is a graveyard and former church located at 519 West Fayette Street (at North Greene Street) in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It is currently part of the grounds of the University of Maryland's School of Law. It occupies the southeast corner of West Fayette and North Greene Street on the west side of downtown Baltimore. It sits across from the Baltimore VA hospital and is the burial site of Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) and several politicians and military officials. The complex was declared a national historic district in 1974.
History
The graveyard was established in January 1787 by the First Presbyterian Church of Baltimore, from land on the west side of old Baltimore Town purchased by a committee of laymen consisting of William Smith, John Boyd, and William Patterson, a locally prominent merchant and owner of the future Patterson Park, father of Elizabeth Patterson, (1785–1879), who in 1803 married Jerome Bonaparte, a brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. The land was sold by Colonel John Eager Howard (1752–1827), a former commander of the Maryland Line regiment of the Continental Army in the American Revolution. Howard owned the estate and mansion of Belvidere, in what was called "Howard's Woods", north of Baltimore Town, later to become the neighborhood of Mount Vernon-Belvedere, and the site of the landmark Washington Monument. First Presbyterian was a congregation of Presbyterians and Reformed Protestants, and since it was established in 1761 it had been located in downtown Baltimore at the northwest corner of East Fayette Street at North Street (later Guilford Avenue). From 1790 to 1795, it occupied a landmark twin-spired Georgian-Federal building. Over the next 60 years, the "Burying Grounds" (or cemetery) became the final resting place for many important and influential merchants, politicians, statesmen, and dozens of Baltimore veterans of the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. In July 1852, Westminster Presbyterian Church was erected at the graveyard, with its brick piers straddling gravestones and burial vaults to create what later Baltimoreans referred to as the "catacombs." For years, it was thought that the Gothic Revival-style church was built in response to a new city ordinance prohibiting cemeteries that were not adjacent to a religious structure. But research in the early 1980s by historian Michael Franch found no such ordinance—and revealed a more complex motive: The congregation hoped that the new expansion church would serve Baltimore's growing "West End"—new churches were then springing up in every corner of the city in response to a dramatic increase in population—and provide protection to an aging, old-fashioned, 18th century-style "burying ground" that few saw as an appropriate resting place for the more up-to-date 19th Century. Westminster Presbyterian Church lived up to its promise and ministry for several decades, but had suffered a dramatic loss of worshippers by the early 20th century, as many people were moving to the outer city and its suburbs, joining other congregations there. Even First Presbyterian and the Franklin Street congregations eventually merged in 1974, (now known as "First and Franklin Street Presbyterian Church") moving to the First Church building at the corner of Park Avenue and West Madison Streets, with the old Franklin Street building now being used by a fundamentalist Protestant congregation that however takes good care of its historic building. Revived in the 1920s by a number of new active members, the congregation continued until 1977, when the small remaining Westminster Presbyterian congregation was disorganized, and its historical assets reverted to the Presbytery of Baltimore. The care of the church building and burial ground was taken over by the University of Maryland's School of Law, which occupies the rest of the square block to the south, southeast and east (bounded by West Baltimore, North Paca, West Fayette and North Greene Streets). The School of Law's city block campus is also surrounded by those of other schools of the University of Maryland at Baltimore's westside and downtown campus, founded in 1807. Under the auspices of the newly organized, non-profit "Westminster Preservation Trust", the "burying grounds" were cleaned up and the church was renovated for secular public use and is now known as "Westminster Hall". The restoration included the pipe organ that had been installed in the church by Johnson & Son in 1882 as their Opus 577. This restoration was done by Andover Organ Company. Support and a listing has also been obtained from the Maryland Historical Trust and other heritage and tourism organizations such as the newly established efforts of the Baltimore National Heritage Area, with the National Park Service, with cooperation from the Maryland Historical Society, the Baltimore City Historical Society, Baltimore Heritage, Preservation Maryland, and the Office of Promotion and the Arts in the Mayor's Office of the City of Baltimore plus the Baltimore City Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation. In 2006, the Westminster Preservation Trust installed more than 20 interpretive signs around the burying ground and catacombs to provide historical and biographical information on the area. The site was used as a filming location for an episode of Creepy Canada, with paranormal investigators from BSPR discussing its possible haunting.
Historic designation Westminster Hall and Burying Ground was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 17, 1974. They are included in the Baltimore National Heritage Area.
Persons of note interred A number of famous Marylanders are interred here, including many Revolutionary patriots and veterans of the War of 1812. Other Marylanders include:
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