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From YouTube: Calloway Cemetery
Description
There are great stories waiting in even the tiniest corner of Arlington. And we had this point proved for us again, when the members of Calloway United Methodist Church approached the county with a request to designate their churchyard cemetery a local historic district. The history of Calloway Cemetery stretches back to the 19th century, and opens a small but important window on the history of African Americans in Arlington.
A
B
C
Right
there,
that's
my
great-grandfather,
that's
my
great-grandfather
on
my
grandmother's.
My
family
goes
back
here,
probably
five
or
six
generations
we
are.
We
are
all
from
here.
I
grew
up
about
two
blocks
from
here:
I.
D
Think
it
was
back
in
2008,
my
supervisor
had
gotten
an
email
from
Bernard
carpenter,
wanting
to
inquire
how
the
church
trustees
could
designate
this
cemetery
as
a
historic
site.
So
we
talked
on
the
phone
a
few
days
later
and
ever
since
then,
we've
been
collaborating
and
it's
taken
several
years,
but
we
finally
have
the
cemetery
as
a
local,
historic
district.
E
Because
of
all
of
the
growth
that's
going
on
around
Arlington
right
now
and
all
the
development,
we
were
really
concerned
that
our
cemetery
might
be
in
jeopardy.
So
obviously
this
is
a
family
based
Church.
So
a
lot
of
a
lot
of
the
people
who
are
integers
their
family
members
aren't
here,
and
we
felt
that
you
know
we
wanted
to
protect
their
bodies
and
not
have
this
piece
of
land
being
be
used
in
a
development
mode.
It.
D
Was
a
really
challenging
process
because
there
was
not
a
lot
of
information
known
about
the
cemetery.
The
the
church
had
very
few
historic
records
that
had
been
saved
over
time,
and
so
we
really
had
to
start
from
scratch,
and
so
that
involved
a
lot
of
really
extensive
genealogical
research,
and
so
we
were
looking
at
census,
records
marriage
records,
death
records
maps,
all
sorts
of
things
to
really
try
to
piece
together.
The
story
of
the
people
who
are
here.
F
When
we
originally
came
out
here,
the
cemetery
was
quite
overgrown
along
the
tree
lines.
We
saw
about
35
to
40
markers
and
over
a
couple
of
months
of
doing
intensive
probing.
We
found
over
95
individual
graves
that
were
out
here.
Some
had
names,
some
did
not
literally
we
probed
every
6
inches
when
you're
looking
for
markers,
you
can't
think
in
terms
of
a
large
tombstone.
You
have
to
think
about
small
things:
people
that
don't
have
much
money
or
are
much
resources
in
order
to
mark
their
deceased
a
lot
of
times.