Recently, Cate Atkinson, community historian with Historic Chevy Chase DC, explained that the house in which I grew up between the years 1965-1979, at 5807 Chevy Chase Parkway, NW, Washington DC, may well have been located on the site of an old burial ground, in which the remains of enslaved peop8le associated with the Belt plantation may been interred. I have recently written on the slavery-related history of this neighborhood, but it had not occurred to me that my family might have actually resided on or adjacent to an old slave cemetery. Given that much of my research and writing, including my 2011 book The Accidental Slaveowner, has revolved around enslaved burial grounds, this news has been particularly startling and fascinating.

Our childhood home, 5807 Chevy Chase Parkway is the white house in the center behind the park (Google Street View)
As I have noted, the manor house of the Chevy Chase plantation, established by Col Joseph Belt around 1725, is generally reckoned to have been half a block northwest of 5807, at the site that is now 3734 Oliver Street, about 500 yards southeast of Chevy Chase Circle.

Several doors away, Dr. Egbert Clark built a house at 3749 Oliver in 1908. Egbert Kent Clark, son of Dr. Egbert Clark, recalls that when sledding down the hill of Oliver Street as a child (evidently c. 1920) he would to veer sharply right to avoid headstones clustered at the base of the hill.

The following account, is given in the 1976 Walking Tour One of the Chevy Chase Neighborhood, under Stop #14.
“This was the Belt family cemetery called “God’s Acre.” It covered the territory which now encompasses the intersection of Oliver and Chevy Chase Parkway, the triangular park adjacent to it and many of the surrounding houses and yards. E. [Egbert] Kent Clark, who, as we mentioned before, was a resident of Oliver Street in the early days of Chevy Chase wrote, “Just past where we lived on Oliver Street, the land dropped steeply. It was a good sledding hill, and one had to make a sharp right turn at the bottom of the hill. If you didn’t make a turn you had to dodge the tombstones in an old cemetery.” During the excavation for the houses at 5724 Chevy Chase Parkway and 3700 Oliver Street, both on the southwest corner of the intersection, around fourteen human skeletons were uncovered. The builders had them removed so that the construction crew, who had refused to work among the remains, would return and build the houses. All the remaining tombstones were removed by 1925 to make way for the streets and houses planned for the intersection. The graveyard had been in existence since before the revolution. It is believed that Colonel Belt himself was buried there in 1786. As generations of Belts lived and died, the cemetery grew. The last burials probably took place before 1885. As you stand at this Intersection, Keep in mind that although the developers of Chevy Chase removed all the tombstones and a few unexpected remains, the vast majority of those laid to rest in Chevy Chase are still there.” (Footseps: Historical Walking Tours of Chevy Case, Cleveland Park, Tenleytown, Friendship, Neighborhood Planning Councils 2 and 3, 1976. p. 32)
A related account elaborates, “The Belt graveyard covered a surprisingly
large section of land just east of the manor house, between it and the Broad Branch [the creek currently covered by Nevada Avenue). Gravestones covered an area about as big as five or six medium sized residential lots until the mid twenties when they were removed….Around fourteen human skeletons were uncovered during the construction of the house at 5724 Chevy Chase Parkway, also in the twenties. The construction crew refused to work with the pelvises, skulls and other remains lying around the newly dug basement. So the builders picked them up and carted them away.” Origins 11, 1976, Neighborhood Planning Councils 2 and 3. https://chevychasehistory.pastperfectonline.com/archive/0FFF2109-353C-4950-AAD8-037001835730

Baist’s real estate atlas of surveys of Washington, District of Columbia : Volume 3.

cemetery was at intersection of Chevy Chase Parkway and Oliver Street.
According to the 1920 census, there do not appear to be residences at 3700 Oliver or 3724 Chevy Chase Parkway, suggesting that the buildings were still under construction. By 1923, 3700 Oliver was occupied by Harold G and Frances Moulton. I am not sure of the original owners of 5724 Chevy Chase Parkway, adjacent to 3700 Oliver.
Egbert Kent Clark, Jr. (1907-1999) was born 31 Dec 1907 so his sledding memories presumably date to the late 1910s or perhaps early 1920s, prior to the 1925 final removal of the surviving headstones. I am not sure where the headstones were removed to, or if any of them have been preserved anywhere.
Cate reports that a neighbor, two doors away from the house I grew up in, recalls workers unearthed a skeleton when digging for a swimming pool.

at the intersection and Oliver and Chevy Chase Parkway
As indicated in the neighborhood history account quoted above,the small triangular park in front of our old house, at the base of Oliver Street, where my sister Bonnie and I often played, was a central site of the old Belt cemetery. It seems likely that the headstones for the white family members were in the foreground area, closer to what is now the base of Oliver Street, and that enslaved people might been buried further back, that is to say closer to what is now Patterson street. Patterson descends towards Nevada Avenue, which covers the old Broad Branch Creek, which evidently ran through the old Belt plantation property. Presumably, the final resting places of the enslaved were not marked with headstones.
I am not sure if it is significant, but when we moved into 5807 in the mid-1960s, there was a pathway that ran from the triangular park along the western edge of our house, adjoining the alley that intersected with Patterson. (My mother, uncomfortable with the constant foot traffic across our front lawn, and past our dining room and kitchen, had the front yard and the rear end of this path fenced off around 1970. ) Speculatively, might this pathway have described the western boundary of the old burial ground?
Who is buried in the old slave cemetery?
Which enslaved persons might have been interred in this burial ground?
The 1761 will of Colonel Joseph Belt, which indicates many names of his enslaved persons, indicates that an unnamed a group of slaves were to be divided between the four children of Colonel Belt’s late son Joseph Belt, Jr. , including Joseph Sprigg Belt, c. 1752-1819. Presumably, some of these enslaved people remained on the Joseph Sprigg Belt property in Chevy Chase, which in turn was inherited after 1819 by his son Charles Richard Belt. Some or all of these inherited enslaved individuals seem likely to have been laid to rest in the burial ground between 1761 and 1819, when Joseph Sprigg Belt died.
As of this writing I have not located Joseph Sprigg Belt’s 1819 probate records (in the District of Columbia or Montgomery County) , which might lists the name of other enslaved people he owned, who might have been interred in this burial ground between 1819 and 1862, when Charles Richard Belt freed seven enslaved people under the terms of Compensated Emancipation.
Hannah and the Bowie Family
We can be reasonably confident that one enslaved person buried in the Chevy Chase Belt cemetery was the enslaved woman Hannah, whom Charles Richard Belt in 1862 attested was the mother of Lethia Bowie (born around 1813) and Henry Augustus Bowie (born about 1821) He writes: “Lethea and Henry are brother and sister, the children of Hannah who belonged to the late Jos. Sprigg Belt, residing in said county and they were born his property. Lethea’s children were all born at the petitioner’s residence after the death of his Father [in 1819].” Since Lethia was evidently born around 1813, we might speculate that her mother Hannah was born around 1795. I am not sure why Lethia and Henry took the surname “Bowie”; perhaps Hannah used the surname Bowie herself or perhaps Bowie was the surname of the children’s father. As I noted in a previous posting, the Belt slaveowning family married multiple times into the Bowie family, so it possible that the “Bowie” named of the enslaved family is derived from the slaveowning Bowies, a prominent Maryland extended family. (One family tree on ancestry.com lists Joseph Sprigg Belt as the father of the enslaved children of Lethea and Henry, but no evidence has been provided in support of this assertion.)
The enslaved Bowie family may have had some relationship to the family of Ellen Ursula Bowie Belt, 1805-1861, the sister of law of Charles Richard Belt. She was the wife of Lt William Joseph Belt (the brother of Charles Richard Belt) and the daughter of John Burgess Bowie and Catherine Duckett Hall Bowie. She was also the mother of Samuel Sprigg Belt, 1845-1920. The 1870 and 1880 censuses record Samuel Sprigg Belt residing in the household of his uncle Charles Richard Belt. (The 1870 census incorrectly lists him as “Samuel Sprigg.”) By 1880, Samuel Sprigg Belt, who was by then married to Mary Wilson Belt, was listed as the head of household.
In any event, Charles Belt in his 1862 petition indicates that he purchased a full interest in Hannah and her children from his brother Lt. William Joseph Belt after the death of their father Joseph Sprigg Belt in 1819. Charles Belt’s compensation petition implies that Hannah was deceased by 1862. Presumably she was buried on the plantation, in the burial ground near where my sister and I grew up.
nb Lethea Bowie might be the same person as Alethae Bowie (servant), born around 1816 in Maryland, listed in DC interment records: died 26 October 1866 and buried in the Colored Methodist Cemetery (Georgetown, later known as Mount Zion.)
Other slaves of Charles Belt:
Charles Belt’s 1820 census indicates he owns the following eleven enslaved persons:
Slaves – Males – 14 thru 25 | 2 |
---|---|
Slaves – Males – 26 thru 44 | 3 |
Slaves – Males – 45 and over | 1 |
Slaves – Females – Under 14 | 4 |
Slaves – Females – 14 thru 25 | 1 |
Presumably, the only adult female (age 14 to 25) was Hannah. One of the females under 14 may have been Lethea Bowie, who was freed in 1862 along with her children. The other nine persons do not seem to correspond to any of those listed in Charles Belt’s 1862 Compensated Emancipation petition, all of whom were born after around 1821. Those freed were Henry Augustus or Julius (later Bowie), born around 1821, and Lethea’s five children, as follows:
George Bowie, age 31, b. 1831
Andrew Bowie, age 17 born 1845
Hamilton Bowie, age 15, born 1847
Harriet Bowie age 19 born 1843
Eliza Bowie, age 13, born 1849
So it seems a reasonable inference that these nine either died, or were sold away, between 1820 and 1862. Some of these individuals may have been buried in the God’s Acre cemetery.
Note that the 1860 slave schedule, enumerated two years before Compensated Emancipation, lists Charles Richard Belt owning seven slaves, residing in one slave cabin:
Female, age 48 b. 1812
Female, age 40, b. 1820
Male, age 28, b 1832
Female, age 16, b. 1844
male, age 14, b, 1846
male, age 13, b, 1847
Female, age 10, b. 1850
The eldest female, age 48, must have been Lethea Bowie, but the 40 yeaar old female does not correspond to anyone listed in the 1862 petition, so perhaps she died or was sold away between 1860 and 1862. The other five individuals seem to correspond in ages with the five children of Lethea listed in the 1862 petition.
Eighteen years after DC emancipation, the 1880 census lists two black servants in the manor house of the old Belt plantation, by then the household of Samuel Sprigg Belt, in which Charles Richard Belt, then age 89, was still residing: William Gross, born about 1850 in Maryland, and the young women, Birtie Mason, born around 1864 in Virginia. It seems likely that William Gross, who seems to have grown up in Calvert County, District 2, Maryland, had a prior relationship with Samuel Sprigg Belt’s family, who form 1835 onwards were residing in Calvert County. MD. In 1870, the 20 year old William Gross resided about 50 households away from Ellen Ursula Bowie Belt, the mother of Samuel Sprigg Belt.
I hope at some point it will be possible to honor with markers or other signage, such as Witness Stones, the enslaved people who labored on the Belt plantation under conditions not of their own choosing, from c. 1726 to 1862, including those whose final resting places are in this old burial ground.
Addendum: Other Black Bowie Family Members?
I am not sure if Hannah, Leathea Bowie, or George Augustus Bowie might have been related to any of the following enslaved or free persons of color in the District of Columbia, with the surname Bowie:
- the enslaved woman Millie Bowie, who on June 10, 1824 filed a petition for freedom, asserting that her owner William M. Offutt had several years earlier illicitly transported her from Virginia to Maryland.
https://earlywashingtondc.org/doc/oscys.case.0340.004
- Arnold Bowie, listed in the 1840 census as head of household, with four other free persons of color, in Washington City, District of Columbia. Arnold Bowie, born 1807, is also listed in the 1850 census in the District of Columbia, married to Mary A Bowie, b. 1811, with children James, A, Lewis, Juliana, Emily, Randall, Columbus, G.
- Kitty Bowie, listed in the 1840 census as head of household, with five other free persons of color, in Washington City, District of Columbia.
- Priscilla Bowie, listed in the 1840 census as head of household, with three other free persons of color, in Washington City, District of Columbia.
- Richard Bowie, listed in the 1840 census as head of household, with two other free persons of color, in Washington City, District of Columbia, one an adult woman and the other a girl under ten years old. He may been the Richard Bowie who married Anne Thomas on 21 April 1838.
- Four individuals, Henry Bowie and his three children, freed through compensated emancipation in 1862, as the property of Ignatius Fenwick Young, trustee of Mrs James (Anna) Brent, who had acquired these slaves through the will of her grandmother:
Henny Bowie, a mulatto woman aged about Fifty (50) years—Sound & healthy value $700
Rezin Bowie, a black boy the child of said Henny aged about Eighteen (18) years—Sound value $900.—
Hank Bowie a boy copper colored the Child of said Henny aged about Fifteen (15) years healthy value $700.
Mary Louisa Bowie, a bright mulatto girl and Child of said Henny aged about thirteen (13) years value 800.
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