Laboring Sons Memorial Ground

The Beneficial Society of Laboring Sons of Frederick was established in 1839 by a community of Africa-American residents of the city. Although the Society had components of typical leisure and educational interactions, the group's primary function was to provide its members some form of cooperatively funded life insurance. By 1851, the Society accumulated enough funds from members dues to purchase an open Frederick city lot of land. In 1852, about a quarter of the lot was divided into 12' X 16' burial plots numbered by white marble corner posts. Burial plots were assigned to Society members who paid all of their dues and over 1,500 burials were conducted within the Laboring Sons Cemetery.

By the 1940s, the Society was no longer active and the Laboring Sons Cemetery had fallen into severe disrepair. The city of Frederick took over the block-long lot of land the cemetery was located on, and familial descendants of some of the Society members buried there were transferred to neighboring cemeteries. Instead of maintaining the remaining graves as a burial ground should be, in 1949 the city of Frederick converted the ground to an all-white park and playground area.

In 2000, construction efforts disturbed several graves that were unknown to be in the park, which sparked inquiry into the area's history by local Black community leaders and Frederick's city newspaper. Frederick's city government located files in the Frederick Engineering Department which detailed the names and locations of gravesites. After this discovery, the playground equipment was promptly removed and the grounds were redesigned as a memorial park. The plot of land was rededicated in 2003 with the installment of a granite monument that lists the names of 117 people known to be buried there.

Laboring Sons Memorial Grounds, Downtown Frederick Partnership. Accessed November 15th 2020. https://downtownfrederick.org/item/laboring-sons-memorial-grounds/.

Laboring Sons Cemetery, Maryland Government Website. Accessed November 15th 2020. https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/stagsere/se1/se5/030400/030454/pdf/msa_se5_30454.pdf.