Members of the Silver Spring United Methodist Church and Van Buren Methodist Church seek signatures on a petition to the Maryland State Highway Administration to disinter bodies believed to be buried adjacent to the former Montgomery Hills Carwash at the Seminary Place shopping center on Georgia Avenue.
Currently, the state is working at that site on a road safety project extending from 16th Street to Forest Glen Road.
According to a letter from Senior Pastor Will Ed Green signed by many descendants of the former Mt. Zion Church, “Preliminary findings revealed 130 possible or highly probably interments on the site.” His letter noted that it appears partial remediation of the burial sites occurred in 1965.
Mt. Zion Church was located in that area and was one of two churches connected to the historically Black community of Lyttonsville.
The petition requests the state disinter bodies buried in the roadway and right-of-way prior to any road construction so that these burial sites are not damaged. Many of those buried there are believed to be former slaves.
Those signing the petition want to reinter any remains that the state would dig up during its roadwork and create a memorial park with memorial markers.
The petition states, “We write you today as descendants, descendant communities, and adjacent communities to the former Mount Zion Methodist Episcopal Church (Mount Zion) and cemetery in Silver Spring, Maryland. Mount Zion occupied the corner of Seminary Place and Georgia Avenue from December 7th, 1925 to November 4th, 1964 when it was purchased by the Safeway Corporation. That plot was later subdivided and combined with adjacent property for the construction of the former Montgomery Hills Carwash and gas station. Burials on the site were nominally moved to Maryland National Memorial Park in Laurel, Maryland.”
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