Guest Column: Reisterstown Community Cemetery Project

The Reisterstown Improvement Association is raising money to restore the historic cemetery on Cockeys Mill Road.

By Linda Percy The Reisterstown Improvement Association, in conformance with its mission statement, has taken on the project of restoring the little historic cemetery that sits beside the Reisterstown Library.  We are currently engaged in fundraising for this restoration. The RIA took on this project because this little cemetery is one of the most important historic places in the county.  In 1764, John Reister created a deed of trust for a plot of land on Cockeys Mill Road.  This small plot of land was to have a cemetery, a school, and church, all of which were to be used by the entire community.  The school became the first high school, and then the public library.  The church burned down. The cemetery was open to all religions and races…

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Reisterstown Rewinds

Reisterstown During the Revolution

While records don’t trace any soldiers from Reisterstown to the battlefields of the Revolution, the town was undergoing its own changes.

Ever wonder why Benjamin Franklin’s name and face are all over Reisterstown? Rumor has it that the founding father visited town sometime during the Revolution to get wagons and supplies for the war. This may be why Reisterstown’s first school was named Franklin Academy. Although research doesn’t show Reisterstown as having soldiers in the war, the town was on the verge of its own changes. With Methodists organizing around Bishop Asbury in 1777, a log church called Asbury Chapel was built in 1791 where the Reisterstown Cemetery sits today. A second was built closer to the road in 1830, and a third in 1868. That third church is now known as the Reisterstown United Methodist Church. As the church cemented its presence in Reisterstown, the …

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