A Long-Forgotten Burial Ground in Clifton Park

St. Vincent Cemetery opened in 1853 on a 5-acre parcel located on the country estate of philanthropist Johns Hopkins, which was then located just outside of Baltimore City in today's Clifton Park. Parishioners at St. Vincent De Paul Church had previously used the St. James Cemetery on Harford Road which closed and sold to the city that same year. The church moved all of the bodies interred at St. James to the new St. Vincent Cemetery. In 1940, St. Vincent de Paul Church stopped selling burial plots on the grounds but continued to bury anyone who already held a deed. In the 1950s and 1960s, the cemetery suffered from neglect and repeated vandalism. In 1982, the cemetery closed and many of the grave markers were destroyed or removed in an intentional effort to discourage any attempt to disturb the bodies interred. Left in disarray for thirty years, the graves nearly disappeared under thick weeds and five tons of trash and illegally dumped debris. Fortunately, since 2010, the volunteer-led Friends of St. Vincent Cemetery have been slowly restoring this historic site. Genealogist and volunteer archivist Joyce Erway began compiling research on the cemetery as she investigated her own family tree in the 1990s. Over two decades, she helped to expand the list of known burials at St. Vincent from just 450 to over 4,000 people. Among these known burials is Peter Storm, a local coppersmith who was born on January 22, 1762 and died on November 4, 1842. Storm participated in the battle of Yorktown in 1781 and in the defense of the city against the British attack in 1814. Peter Storm's funeral was held at St. Vincent de Paul Church, and he was initially buried in St. James Cemetery and reinterred at the northeast Baltimore location in 1853.

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2301 N. Rose Street, Baltimore MD 21213

Access to the cemetery is provided by the driveway for the Clifton Park Maintenance Building (the "Old Pony Barn" at 2401 N. Rose Street).

Baltimore's Oldest Cemetery

Contained on a little less than three acres across from Clifton Park in northeast Baltimore, the Friends Burial Ground tells the stories of generations Baltimore's Quaker families across their 300 years of rich history in our city. Established in 1713 on a tract of land known as Darley Hall when the Friendship Meetinghouse was built on what is today Harford Road, the cemetery has been in continuous use ever since.

While small, and a bit unassuming, the Friends Burial Ground has approximately 1,800 graves with the earliest legible marker dating from 1802 and, without a doubt, many date from the 1700s. The stone wall around the grounds and the Sexton's House both date back to the 1860s and, in 1926, 122 graves were moved from a Friends cemetery at the Aisquith Street Meeting House in Old Town.

The many notable interments include Louisa Swain, who made history in Wyoming on September 6, 1870 as the first woman to vote in a general election in the United States at age 69, and Dr. Thomas Edmondson who lived in a grand estate that eventually became Harlem Park in West Baltimore. Dr. Edmondson recently resurfaced in the public light as his collection of Richard Caton Woodville’s artwork was exhibited at the Walters Art Museum.

2506 Harford Road, Baltimore, MD 21218

The Clifton Park Valve House on St. Lo Drive in Clifton Park is a magnificent Gothic revival stone and tile-roofed structure built between 1887 and 1888. It was built to house the machinery used in the operation of Lake Clifton, which was once part of the city’s water supply and was connected to Lake Montebello to the north by a 108-inch underground pipe. Large wheels were set underneath the floor of the Valve House to regulate the flow of water from Lake Montebello. Lake Clifton began to be filled and developed with Lake Clifton High School in 1962. No longer needed, the Valve House was abandoned at that time. Designed in the style of a small medieval cathedral, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. By then it was already in a state of disrepair and 91ÊÓƵ first recognized it as endangered. Baltimore City owns the building, and in 2003 a private developer began plans for the restoration and reuse of the building. This effort did not mature, and the City continues to own the building.

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2701 Saint Lo Drive, Baltimore, MD 21213

Henry Thompson was born in 1774 in Sheffield, England and came to Baltimore in 1794, where he became a member of the Baltimore Light Dragoons. He was elected captain of this company in 1809, six years after completing a house called "Clifton" in what is now Clifton Park in Baltimore City but back then was Baltimore County. By 1813, Captain Thompson had disbanded the Light Dragoons and formed a mounted company called The First Baltimore Horse Artillery. Brigadier General John Stricker soon enlisted Captain Thompson and his horsemen to act as mounted messengers traveling between Washington and Bladensburg to report on the movements of British troops and ships. The unit also became the personal guard to General Samuel Smith, who commanded the defenses during the Battle of Baltimore and Ft. McHenry in 1814. Henry Thompson contributed much to Baltimore in addition to his War of 1812 service. In 1816, he built and was president of the Baltimore and Harford Turnpike Company, now Harford Road. In 1818, he served on the Poppleton Commission that laid out the street grid in Baltimore that we have today. He was also a director of the Port Deposit Railroad, The Bank of Baltimore, the Merchant's exchange, the Board of Trade, the Baltimore Insurance Company, and, to boot, he was the recording secretary of the Maryland Agricultural Society. Later in life he served as a marshal at the dedication ceremonies of the Washington Monument and Battle Monument, and Grand Marshal of a procession commemorating the death of General Lafayette in 1834. As for Clifton Mansion, Thompson owned the property until 1835. During that time, he hosted a number of notables that include Maryland Governor Charles Ridgely of Hampton, Alexander Brown (considered America's first investment banker), Henry Clay (who early in his political career was a chief agitator for declaring war on Britain in 1812), and General Winfield Scott (who commanded forces in 1812 and later masterminded the Union's military strategy in the Civil War). In 1835, Thompson sold Clifton to a gentleman named Daniel Cobb. Thompson died shortly after, in 1837, and Cobb went broke. After failing to make his mortgage payments, Thompson's heirs reclaimed Clifton. The heirs soon sold the house and grounds to a prosperous and up and coming Baltimore merchant looking for a fine summer estate. That, of course, was Johns Hopkins, and a story for another day.

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2701 St. Lo Drive, Baltimore, MD 21213