Tucked away in an incongruous green space close to a busy thoroughfare in Mechanicsburg Pennsylvania is Lincoln Cemetery, the final internment for tens upon tens of African Americans, buried here at a time when racial segregation was still legal in this country.
Although the earliest tombstone dates to 1862, there is speculation that there were graves here much earlier. After all, the home of the slave owner William Harkness (who lived in the early 1800s) was nearby, and he may have buried the people he had enslaved on these grounds.
Lincoln Cemetery calls to mind two important trends of the late 1800s: first, it is part of the “Lawn” or “Garden” Cemetery movement, when folks stopped being buried in the center of towns — often on parish church grounds — and started having their tombs placed in open green spaces designed to be meditative areas where the living would walk amongst trees and grass and contemplate.
Second was a demographic trend specific to Mechanicsburg’s important geography in light of the Civil War. From the 1860s to the 1870s, the black population doubled (estimates are rough but about 50 to 100 people), as they fled slavery in the south and looked for new job opportunities. The relative dispersal of African Americans was much higher in many rural areas in this part of Pennsylvania in the late 1800s than it is now, enough so that Lincoln Cemetery could be filled.
The last person interred was in the 1950s, and Lincoln Cemetery went into decay for several decades. In the last 30 years local veteran groups have been maintaining it, but there are renewed efforts to involve other historical societies in its upkeep.
Sources: Dr. Steven Burg, Shippensburg University
