​Parson’s Cemetery Signage Project Receives Mini-Grant Funding

Parsons Cemetery, located in Salisbury, is today both operational and historic. According to their website, it is an urban green space, an outdoor museum, and in the words of architectural historian, Keith Eggener, urban cemeteries "are where life meets death, nature meets city, and present meets past."

Preservation Maryland recently bestowed Parsons Cemetery with the 2020
Best of Maryland Community Choice Award.  Over the past several years, the Parsons Cemetery Advisory Board has worked hard to develop walking tours in Parsons Cemetery. Seven tours have been developed and more are being planned for future release. In addition to the tours, Parsons Cemetery is an active participant in
the Wreaths Across America program which honors veterans at Christmas time.

Over the past year, a comprehensive database was created to identify all the veterans who are
interred in Parsons Cemetery so they can be recognized, even those who have no markers.
Work is now underway to create a comprehensive database of all first responders interred in
the cemetery. Ultimately, the Board’s goal is to make the information in the Cemetery
Information Management System (CIMS) available to the public, so they can search for and
locate any person interred in Parsons Cemetery. However, this information is not very useful if people are not easily able to locate graves. Thus, the Board believes the installation of signage is a critical next step in the continued development of self-guided tours and other activities like Wreaths Across America.

Currently, there are no signs which delineate the layout of the cemetery. Parson’s Cemetery is
broken into 9 sections with 40 rows of plots. Through the strategic placement of 19 signs at
various points in the cemetery, the signs will make it easier for people to complete the self-
guided tours in a timely manner. The signs will also make it easier for visitors to locate a specific
person interred in Parsons. The impact of these signs will be immediate and long-lasting, as the
signs will be a permanent feature of the cemetery. Work is expected to be completed by June
2021.   

You can visit their site, by clicking here.

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