CEMETERY MANAGEMENT PLAN, WALTER PIERCE PARK/CUBA CEMETERY, ROCK CREEK PARK

Bedell, John; Fiedel, Stuart; Rentsch, Shelley

The Walter Pierce/Colored Union Benevolent Association (CUBA) Cemetery occupies seven acres of land that today is the site of Walter C. Pierce Community Park, in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC. From 1807 to 1890 part of this property was the Friends Burying Ground–the city’s only Quaker cemetery. From 1870 to 1890 it operated as a much larger African American cemetery known as Mount Pleasant Plains Cemetery. The National Park Service (NPS) owns 1.5 acres of wooded hillside within the cemetery area leading down to Rock Creek, adjacent to the Calvert St. Bridge. It is steep in some parts. A social trail through this area once connected Walter Pierce Park to Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway and Beech Drive below, but the hillside was closed to the public by the NPS in 2009. Several ongoing issues led to the preparation of this plan. A variety of natural and anthropogenic processes are causing negative impacts to the site. These include erosion from stormwater runoff, overgrowth of invasive species, unauthorized access and artifact collection. The impact of stormwater running from the adjacent bus turnaround is particularly severe, and has already degraded the riprap placed in gullies to protect the slope from erosion. The site is also lacking sufficient interpretive signage and infrastructure (e.g. fencing) to interpret and protect the site. Finally, descendant communities, and the local African American community in general, have substantial interest in this site and its historical and cultural significance. This report includes a history of the cemetery property, a review of previous archeological and historical investigations, a detailed description of current conditions, and suggestions for future management actions. The study area has two distinct parts: the steep, wooded slope, and an upper plateau area open to visitors. This document develops a general approach to management of the wooded slopes and suggests four separate concepts for improving the upper plateau. All of the alternatives and recommendations presented herein are based on the following design principles: • Respectfully acknowledge the history of the site and the interest of both the immediate neighborhood and the broader African American community, • Provide an appropriate civic park space for visitors at the top of the slope as a gesture of goodwill to respond to the realities of structural racism prevalent throughout the history of this cemetery site, • Build on the most outstanding vegetative natural feature found on the site, which is a natural grove of American beech trees, by developing the theme of the site to be “Benevolence Grove”. The designs all take into account the need to protect sensitive archeological resources on the site, and are presented with the idea that the actual plan will be developed in concert with members of the interested communities.