History
The graveyard was established in 1786 by the First Presbyterian Church, a congregation of socially and economically elite local Presbyterians. Over the next 60 years, the burying grounds became the final resting place for important and influential merchants, politicians, statesmen, and dozens of veterans of the American Revolutionary War and War of 1812. Today, this "who's who" of early Baltimore is overshadowed by the presence of writer Edgar Allan Poe, who was buried here in October 1849 following his sudden and mysterious death. In 1852, a church was erected overtop the graveyard, its brick piers straddling gravestones and burial vaults to create what later Baltimoreans referred to as "catacombs." For years, it was thought that the Gothic Revival-style Westminster Presbyterian Church was built in response to a new city ordinance prohibiting cemeteries that were not adjacent to a religious structure. 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 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.
Westminster Presbyterian Church lived up to its promise for several decades, but suffered a dramatic loss of congregants by the early 1900s. Revived in the 1920s, the congregation continued until 1977 when care of the premises was assumed by the University of Maryland School of Law, which occupies the rest of the square block bounded by Baltimore, Paca, Fayette and Greene streets. Under the auspices of the non-profit Westminster Preservation Trust, the burying grounds were cleaned up and the church was renovated for public use as Westminster Hall. In 2006, the Westminster Preservation Trust installed more than 20 interpretive signs around the burying ground and catacombs.
The site has been used in an episode of Creepy Canada, with paranormal investigators from BSPR discussing its possible haunting.
Read more about this topic: Westminster Hall And Burying Ground
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