A few weeks ago, I was asked to fill in for someone giving a series of lectures on Baltimore-related topics, so of course, I said yes. The original presenter had only listed four of the six lectures, so I had to come up with two additional ones. In a vote from the class, we decided I would talk about local cemeteries.
I've been visiting cemeteries and graveyards (not sure what the difference is) since I was a child. When I lived in the UK, I made a game of trying to find the oldest gravestone in the churchyard.
I thought I'd share with you what is perhaps the smallest graveyard in the area. Probably the smallest cemetery
in the area is the O’Grady Family Cemetery is located on Camp Fretterd, former
Montrose, off Route 30, approximately two miles north of Reisterstown. The
property was purchased in 1843 by Colonel Franklin Anderson and sold again in
1895 to Dr. Adam Kalbach, a retired physician from Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
There is only one grave marker, and the Anderson family's mausoleum. Few country
estates in Baltimore County had private chapels as does the Montrose estate.
This chapel is Greek Revival in character.
Montrose Chapel, completed in
1855, is a one-story fieldstone structure with a square, three-story entrance
and bell tower at its south end. The bell in the tower is marked
“Meneelys/West Troy, New York/1854."
A stone wall encloses the chapel
yard. The yard has no particular distinctive landscape features except for two
grave sites along the east side. These sites are marked: one by a small stone,
the other a large masonry monument. The monument is the burial site of
Franklin Anderson. The stone is for a Stirling, with no indication of who that is... perhaps an enslaved person.
For more detailed information about the entire property, please click the Medusa listing. It is about 150 pages long and describes the entire property, which was once a reform school for girls! Also, be aware that you can visit the chapel and house, but you will be accompanied by an armed guard. Not kidding!
