Elizabeth Jefferies & Barbara Barksdale
Barbara Barksdale recounted the time that she reassured a volunteer that they would find graves in the tangled vines, brush and tight trees of the hillside at Midland Cemetery.
“We know they’re down there, and we’ll pull them out one soul at a time,” she recalled saying to a member of Team Rubicon, a military veteran volunteer organization that was helping at the cemetery.
The graves of this historic Black cemetery are in the trees because of decades of neglect and forgotten history. But after 32 years of recovering this hallowed place, protection is available in the form of the National Register of Historic Places to keep it from being lost to the generations again.
“When I first started this project, I had no clue what the State Historic Preservation program or National Register was,” Barksdale said. “I started because of my grandfather. I started because I wanted to do something for him.”
Now, Midland Cemetery, founded in 1795, has been nominated to the National Register of Historic Places, much to the relief and elation of Barksdale.
“To me, it meant nobody could destroy it anymore,” she said.
While a listing in the register doesn’t guarantee the cemetery’s existence in perpetuity, it does offer some security.
“It validates that it’s not just special to us or to the community, but something of national significance,” said historian Steven Burg, a professor at Shippensburg University.
Burg serves on the board of the Pennsylvania Hallowed Grounds project (PAHG), which aims to preserve African American burial sites across Pennsylvania, of which 150 have been found.
Burg said that a National Register listing protects the cemetery against any kind of project funded with state or federal money and that any development would include more review.
“It forces builders to stop and consider what they are doing before moving forward,” Burg said.
Barksdale pointed out why this is important. Down the hill from the cemetery runs Kelker Street. Across Kelker is a cemetery sign and Steelton-Highspire High School.
“You see that billboard over there? That’s the beginning of the cemetery,” Barksdale said. “Most people have no idea and even that man just drove over it. They didn’t realize they drove over the bodies, because the bodies are under the street.”
The bodies in the cemetery are friends and family of the community who served as Buffalo Soldiers, U.S. Colored Troops, Montford Point Marines and World War I and World War II veterans. These bodies were people who formed churches, like the Monumental AME Church in Steelton, and served as civic leaders and steel workers, foundational to the community.
Barksdale said that, when she first began cleaning up the cemetery, she used these souls as reasons why local officials should allow her to do her work. She was told that she was trespassing and would be jailed if she continued. Continue she did, but that history exemplifies why it’s important to look to future preservation.
“We’re not going to be here forever, and we want to preserve what we’ve gone through to get here,” said Elizabeth Jefferies, Friends of Midland Cemetery board member.
The Long View
Allowing cemeteries into the National Register of Historic Places is a new phenomenon.
Burg explained that the National Preservation Act of 1966 did not include cemeteries because there were just so many. But, in 2020, the State Historic Preservation Office in collaboration with PAHG, created a process to allow their inclusion, which the National Park Service approved in 2021. Now, the goal is to increase the number of African American cemeteries on the list.
“We’re taking the long view,” Burg said.
For Barksdale, the long view includes educating students about the cemetery. She works with teachers at the high school to provide a holistic learning experience via the cemetery.
She explained that they begin with Civil War history. The lessons also include science (examining the ground), art (tombstone designs), math (the numbers included on the grave markers), and, finally, English.
“We want you to write a little thing about what you discovered, what you found, who did you bring to mind here,” Barksdale said.
Barksdale, a local historian herself, talks about the people in the cemetery and recounts the local and national history of the time for context. As she speaks, she pulls listeners into the people’s lives with great enthusiasm, so that a person is enraptured by the story.
“This woman has so much knowledge,” Jefferies said. “She speaks from her spirit.”
Barksdale’s spirit and tenacity show as she continues her work at Midland. In April, a group of archeologists visited the cemetery with ground-penetrating radar to find additional gravesites, as headstones often descend straight down into the earth.
Barksdale discovered one of these graves accidentally when she tried to remove a stone from the ground for safer mowing. It was a headstone of an infant boy, whom she realized, after some research, was born on that very day, 100 years prior.
“[He] just wanted to be known,” Barksdale said.
Team Rubicon volunteers discovered the long-forgotten grave of Bert H. Rouzee, a World War I veteran who served as a medic. This full-circle moment was not lost on Barksdale. These modern soldiers resurrected the grave of a brother-in-arms whom history had forgotten.
Barksdale’s preservation work has included collaborations with many different individuals and groups—board members, scout troops, incarcerated people, volunteers, college students and historians like Burg.
“Barb and a lot of people around the country do their incredible work,” Burg said. “For me to support that and help with long term preservation, I couldn’t think of a better thing to do with my skills as a historian.”
Midland Cemetery is located at Kelker and Cole streets, Steelton (Swatara Township). For more information, visit www.midlandcemetery.com.
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