Unheeded & Lone: The Byberry Township African American Burial Ground

There is an unmarked and overgrown African American burial ground located in Byberry Township in northeast Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Originally, the name of this site was The Burying Place For All Free Negroes or People of Color within Byberry. The name has since been changed to The Byberry Township African American Burial Ground.?

This burial ground was founded by the Byberry Quaker Meeting in 1780. 243 years later, the land and stories of those buried here have all but been forgotten.?

On January 17th, 1780, Byberry Quaker Meeting purchased about 330 square feet of farmland from their neighbor to the northeast, Thomas Townsend. This land was then consecrated with the sole purpose to remain a final resting place for free and formerly enslaved Africans who lived in Byberry.?

The first recorded burial was for an African American man named Jim who was formerly enslaved by Daniel Walton–an early member of Byberry Quaker Meeting. No other burial records have since been found, so the exact number of burials at this cemetery is still currently unknown.?

Over the past 200 years, Byberry Quaker Meeting served as the steward of the African American burial ground until the decision was made to sell the land containing the cemetery to the City of Philadelphia. In 1980, the transaction was made. Unfortunately, the deed from this transaction was subsequently lost.?

Thanks to the voluntary research and advocacy work of Joseph Menkevich, the Byberry Township African American Burial Ground was added to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places on October 9th, 2015.?

In February of 2022, CBS PHILADELPHIA interviewed freelance historians Kathleen Butler and Joseph Menkevich on their?research and hopes for the future of this site. View the full story here.

Now, it is the charge of the Society to Preserve Philadelphia African American Assets (SPPAAA) and the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia (PAGP) to collaborate with elected officials and local organizations such as the Northeast Philadelphia History Network and Byberry Friends? Meeting to advocate for the maintenance and memorialization of the Byberry Township African American Burial Ground. In addition, we continue to search for all possible whereabouts of the missing deed.?

To summarize, the immediate interpretive plan goes as follows:

1. Continue to search for the missing deed & explore other paths forward for permanent stewardship.
2. Clear litter and landscape the grounds
3. Draft interpretive panels to commemorate the burial ground as well as the legacy of slavery and abolition in Byberry Township.
4. Hold a commemorative ceremony for those interred at the Byberry Township African American Burial Ground.

This project is funded by a grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Henry A. Jordan Preservation Excellence Fund to create an interpretive plan for the historic Byberry Township African American Burial Ground in Northeast Philadelphia.?

How to get involved:

Email Hannah Wallace at [email protected] to receive updates, event invitations to offer your opinion on the memorialization of this site.