Lincoln Cemetery
Progress, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
A landmark of central Pennsylvania's African American history. Established in 1827 by Wesley Union A.M.E. Zion Church. Among those buried here are T. Morris Chester, William Howard Day, Catherine McClintock, and at least 20 veterans of the Civil War.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Founded in 1827 by the Wesley Union A.M.E. Zion Church, this cemetery became a resting place for central Pennsylvania's Black community across generations. Among its graves are those of journalist and Civil War officer T. Morris Chester, educator and abolitionist William Howard Day, and more than twenty Civil War veterans. Each headstone marks a life that helped build free Black institutions in the decades around emancipation.
Why it matters
The cemetery preserves the memory of African American leaders and soldiers whose work advanced freedom and citizenship, anchoring a community's history in sacred ground.
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Related people
- · T. Morris Chester
- · William Howard Day
- · Catherine McClintock
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
U.S. Colored Troops Grand Review
Harrisburg, PA · est. 2006
When the great "Grand Review of the Armies" paraded through Washington in May 1865, the United States Colored Troops who had fought and bled for the Union were pointedly left out. In answer, Black regiments from Pennsylvania and Massachusetts assembled here at State and Filbert Streets on November 14, 1865, for their own triumphant review. Grand Marshal T. Morris Chester led them through Harrisburg to Senator Simon Cameron's home, where leaders including Octavius Catto and William Howard Day honored their service.
T. Morris Chester
Harrisburg, PA · est. 1986
Born in Harrisburg in 1834, T. Morris Chester lived a life that ranged across three continents. He taught in Liberia, recruited Black soldiers for the Union, and reported from the front as one of the only African American war correspondents of the Civil War. Afterward he raised aid for the freedpeople in Europe, was admitted to the English bar, and held prominent offices in Reconstruction-era Louisiana before returning home to die in 1892.
C. DeLores Tucker (1927-2005)
Harrisburg, PA · est. 2006
C. DeLores Tucker rose through the civil rights movement to become, in Pennsylvania, the first African American woman to serve as a Secretary of State anywhere in the nation. From that office she championed the state Equal Rights Amendment, affirmative action, voter registration by mail, and lowering the voting age to eighteen. Later she led a high-profile campaign against music lyrics she saw as demeaning to women, African Americans, and children.
Underground Railroad
Harrisburg, PA · est. 2000
In the 1850s a Harrisburg neighborhood known as Tanner's Alley served as a vital link on the Underground Railroad. Freedom seekers found shelter a block apart in the homes of Joseph Bustill and William Jones, while the nearby Wesley Union AME Zion Church hosted the era's fiercest voices against slavery—Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison both spoke there. It was a hub of Black community and antislavery organizing on the road north.