‘Under new management’: Friends of Mount Vernon Cemetery open the graveyard to the public for the first time in two decades

After volunteers had mowed more than 40 miles of brush and cut through cables of weeds that obscured statues and grave markers, North Philadelphia’s Mount Vernon Cemetery officially opened to the public Saturday for the first time in two decades.

Call it a one-day reintroduction to the public, said Brandon Zimmerman, volunteer coordinator with Friends of Mount Vernon. He’s been leading a crew of history and cemetery lovers — most of whom have no connection to the space — who have taken up the task of clearing the place of porcelain berry vines engulfing tombs and obelisks dating as far back as 1856.

He described what the group called a “Fall Festival” as “a way to do something to celebrate the season, celebrate the volunteers, celebrate renewal, rebirth, etc.”

The “rebirth” refers to a legal battle that eventually ousted the cemetery’s former absentee owner, Joseph Dinsmore Murphy, a lawyer in Washington. In recent decades the cemetery was left overgrown, and descendants of people buried in Mount Vernon said they couldn’t access their loved ones’ final resting places. Members of the Barrymore acting dynasty, Revolutionary and Civil War soldiers, and 19th-century beer barons are among those buried there.

» READ MORE: Judge ousts absentee owner of historic Mount Vernon Cemetery. Rehab could involve goats.

Those advocating for a change in ownership took to a law aimed to remedy blighted and abandoned properties. In May 2021, Philadelphia Common Pleas Court named the Philadelphia Community Development Coalition Inc. as the cemetery’s conservator under the Abandoned and Blighted Property Conservatorship Act.

Zimmerman has led weekend cleanups whenever nature and weather permits since March 2022.

The work has been everything but easy. Before this past summer was over, an 8-foot statue of an angel was once again cocooned by thick overgrown weeds. Volunteers have had to buy their own gloves and bug spray at times because there’s a limited funding pot. Then there are the “swarms of ticks” and swaths of poison ivy that threaten volunteers.

Still, Zimmerman said, volunteers keep coming back, and he hopes the festival proves to be a bit of a turning point.

Discussions about Mount Vernon’s future are some of the trickiest to navigate, said Zimmerman. Because no new plots have been sold since 1968, he said, the most direct stakeholders — the ones who have family buried in Mount Vernon — have limited engagement.

“Because you’re not coming to visit someone you knew in your lifetime, it becomes this sort of ethereal or genealogical kind of abstract concept,” he said, adding that the donor base is limited.

At the same time, funding from the usual preservationist grant avenues is competitive, especially in an area where there are plenty of Revolutionary War soldier graves, explained Zimmerman. Seeking local financial support has its own complications.

“Mount Vernon was for whites only,” said Zimmerman, “and how do you reconcile a whites-only cemetery that is basically parked right on the outskirts of one of the most impoverished African American communities in the city?”

Taking into account the limited available resources and the beautiful and much more well-known Laurel Hill Cemetery across the street, Zimmerman is angling to create a “sustained ruin.” Rather than the perfectly manicured cemetery look, the aim would be to make sure the graves are visible and, eventually, mapped out.

For the festival, volunteers offered a glimpse of that vision. By Zimmerman’s estimate, they had mowed 42 miles of brush and cut through weed pods that had consumed statues, obelisks, and tombstones. The space was still incredibly overgrown and visitors were encouraged to wear sturdy shoes despite the many cleared paths that led to the graves of actors Louisa Lane Drew, Maurice Barrymore, and John Barrymore.

Volunteers such as Mike Lewandowski, 54, led tours through the cemetery, walking people to some of the more notable points, including a space that holds 2,500 bodies from the Second Presbyterian Church that used to be buried at Fifth and Market Streets. The bodies were reburied 10 per casket and stacked in columns of up to eight.

The tour also laid out the last year and a half of cleanup, inspiring people such as Montgomery County resident Rhia Whetstone, 37, to consider volunteering.

“This is in the middle of the city and you’d never know,” said Whetstone, who came with her husband and toddler after hearing about the festival from a friend.

Other visitors were charmed to learn that stuffed animals randomly scattered around the paths are not remembrances from families, but rather transferred from neighboring cemetery Mount Peace — by foxes.

Patty Davis, 68, made the trip to the festival from Wyndmoor with her husband. A blossoming cemetery aficionado — many of those in attendance were — Davis said she’d driven past Mount Vernon countless times and always thought it was an extension of Laurel Hill. The “mystery” of the space and details of the preservation fight drew her in.

“Also, I wanted to like see if it was spooky or felt scary; you know, it’s Halloween time,” she said. “And I didn’t feel that. I felt like a sense of peace.”

Using a grant from the Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy, Zimmerman was able to make the festival free and obtain Porta-Potties. Close to 300 people attended the event, stopping for baked cookies, art prints, jewelry, and thrifting on the way out. The day included a pagan ritual to honor the dead, led by South Street Circle.

In all, Zimmerman considered the day a major success in raising Mount Vernon’s profile — and some money — that perhaps will pay for another mower. Zimmerman hopes the success of the festival means other events, such as a John Barrymore film screening and a beer tour of sorts, could be of interest to the public. But first, Zimmerman has to see if he can afford that extra mower.

Cleanups resume in December.