Mount Zion Cemetery (Methodist Episcopal Burying Grounds; Female Union Band Society Graveyard)
This cemetery is one of the few remaining physical reminders of the significant contributions of Black people to the development of Georgetown.
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Mount Zion Cemetery's history and that of the generations of African Americans, both free and enslaved, interred therein highlight life and evolving free African American culture in the District of Columbia from the earliest days of the city.
Located within the Georgetown Historic District, Mount Zion Cemetery is composed of two separate adjacent cemeteries, the old Methodist Burying Ground and the Female Union Band Society Graveyard, which almost equally occupy a wooded site of approximately three acres overlooking Rock Creek Park. The land for the former was purchased in 1809; for the latter, in 1842. No fence separates the two properties, and over the years they have come to be known in the community simply as the Mount Zion Cemetery.
There are few large monuments in Mount Zion Cemetery. Most headstones are simple and modest. The earliest graves, located in the old Methodist Burying Ground section near Mill Road, date from the early years of the cemetery. Marble grave covers seal brick underground vaults. There are a few fenced family plots of later origin.
DC Inventory: April 29, 1975
National Register: August 6, 1975
Within Georgetown Historic District
