Christopher Haugh, Community Relations & Historic Preservation Manager of Mt. Olivet Cemetery and a member of the Francis Scott Key Lions Club, spoke to the club recently about the history of the cemetery. Mt. Olivet Cemetery was founded in October 1852 to serve all denominations and all of Frederick City, selling shares at $20 which could then be exchanged for 12 grave lots. Welshman James Belden, an architect from Baltimore, designed the cemetery, which opened on May 23, 1854, with its first interment, of Ann J. Crawford, 67, occurring five days later. Veterans from the Revolutionary War to present day are interred there; Mt. Olivet has the second-highest concentration of War of 1812 veterans, surpassed only by Baltimore’s Greenmount Cemetery. With over 700 Confederate soldiers buried there (most of the Union soldiers were reinterred at the National Cemetery in Sharpsburg when it opened), Confederate Row is the second-highest draw in the cemetery, after the Francis Scott Key Monument.
Lion Chris Haugh, President Toni Gray, Frederick PD Lt. Mike Lee.
Also attending was Frederick PD Lt. Mike Lee, Commander of the Special Operations Division, the Operation Blue Thank You honoree for the meeting.