2025 LATEST NEWS of the Cumberland Historic Cemetery Organization Inc.

The Cumberland Historic Cemetery Organization was founded in 1983 by our late Co-Founder Katherine M. Wolford who died in 1995 and is buried at Rest Lawn Memorial Cemetery, LaVale, Md. and current President Edward W. Taylor Jr.

The CHCO purpose is to protect and preserve the sacred and historic burial sites of all American Patriots. The CHCO protects and preserves our nation, the United States of Americas, history and heritage. The CHCO is a patriotic organization of the U.S.A. The CHCO prays for the Holy Souls.

The CHCO erects and restores monuments through our designated and protected gravesite program, from the American Revolutionary War era to current day. The CHCO is a charter member of the Coalition to Protect MD. Burial Sites Inc. May God bless and have mercy on the Holy Souls and the United States of America. Amen.

Cumberland Times-News May 28, 2025

On Memorial Day weekend 2025. The Cumberland Historic Cemetery Organization held their annual Memorial Day Service at Sumner Cemetery, Yale St., Cumberland, Md. Sumner Cemetery is the first black cemetery that was established in Allegany County, Maryland.

In 1991 the CHCO unveiled their first Civil War monument to honor six black Union Soldiers of the U.S.C.T. unit. Each year since then the organization holds their Memorial Day service at this sacred and historic location.

Pictured at the cemetery are: Md. Senator Mike McKay, City Councilman Eugene Frazier, U.S. Congresswoman April McClain Delaney staff member Edena Bradford, Sumner Cemetery Committee Member Christine Peck, and the CHCO President Ed Taylor Jr. Ms. Bradford presented the CHCO with a Certificate of Congressional Recognition.

The CHCO also took part in the Cumberland Memorial Day parade.

Cumberland Times-News May 21, 2025

During the week of May 18, 2025 members of the CHCO have been busy decorating all of their hundreds of designated and protected grave monuments for the upcoming Memorial Day weekend. The monuments have been erected and restored by the CHCO since 1983. Pictured are members at the monument erected in 2021 for freed slave Critty Powell that is located in Sumner Cemetery in Cumberland. Also pictured in the Sumner Cemetery are members at the First CHCO Civil War monument to honor six black Union Soldiers. Members are also shown at the restored monument of Daniel Schmenner who died in 1855. He is buried in St. Luke’s Cemetery that is located in Cumberland. The monument was restored by the CHCO in 2008.

On Sunday, May 25 at 2 pm the CHCO will hold their annual Memorial Day service at the CHCO Union Soldiers monument located in Sumner Cemetery. The cemetery is off of Yale Street, Cumberland, MD. The public is welcome to attend the ceremony!

On Saturday May 10, 2025 the CHCO President Ed Taylor, Jr. gave a tour of the restored Shrine of the Pieta in SS. Peter & Paul Cemetery. The cemetery is located off of Fayette Street in Cumberland. The group taking the tour was St. Padre Pio Secular Third Order of St. Francis. After the tour Father Mark Carter lead the prayer of the Holy Rosary. To see photos of the CHCO restoration go to the 2024 latest news webpage and see the latest YouTube video.

On Saturday May 3, 2025 Cumberland Historic Cemetery Organization members attended the annual conference of the Coalition to Protect Md. Burial Sites. This year the meeting was held at the Washington County Library located on Potomac Street in Hagerstown, Md. CHCO President Ed Taylor, Jr. spoke about the CHCO designated and protected grave monument program. The Coalition was founded in 1991 and the CHCO is a charter member.

The Cumberland Historic Cemetery Organization President Ed Taylor Jr., is pictured outside the CHCO headquarters in front of the Maryland state flag. The Maryland flag will fly at the headquarters until the end of March for Maryland Day, which is March 25th. The state was founded in 1634. Taylor is holding a small bronze seal of the state that was donated to the CHCO in 1984, which was the 350th anniversary of the state. The state flag is made up of the coat of arms of Maryland’s founding family, the Calverts. The colony was founded as a Roman Catholic colony. The two botany crosses on the flag expresses the Christianity of the colony and then on to statehood. Also, during the Civil War 1861-65, Maryland Confederate soldiers wore the botany cross on their uniforms.

Cumberland Times-News January 17, 2025

Cemetery organization honors all veterans

I am writing in response to the letter titled “Reader questions claim of patriotic organization” published in the Dec. 30 Cumberland Times-News.

According to the National Archives and Records Administration Public Law 85-425, sections 432-433, which passed in 1958: (3) Section 432 is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection: “(e) For this section, and section 433, the term ‘veteran’ includes a person who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, and the term ‘active, military or naval service’ includes active service in such forces.”

Alan Septoff calls Americans who fought for the Confederate States of America traitors. With no facts, he claims the founding documents made abundantly clear the Confederate States of America was dedicated to the dissolution of the United States of America to preserve chattel slavery.

Mr. Septoff claims the Cumberland Historic Cemetery Organization is not a “patriotic organization” because it displays a Confederate flag on its headquarters and displays it on its website.

Mr. Septoff, the Cumberland Historic Cemetery Organization honors veterans of all American wars.

Leo Rowan III
Ridgeley, W.Va.

Cumberland Times-News January 15, 2025

Not a single Confederate convicted of treason

A recent letter to the editor maligns the patriotism of the Cumberland Historic Cemetery Organization by questioning one of several historical flags flown at the organization’s headquarters in an inferior position to the United States flag, which is properly displayed in the position of honor.

The writer falsely asserts that the Confederacy’s actions were traitorous, and that secession was dedicated to the dissolution of the United States for the express purpose of preserving chattel slavery. Such an assertion belies the inconvenient truth that chattel slavery was sanctioned by the United States Constitution from its ratification on June 21, 1788, until the ratification of the 13th Amendment on Dec. 6, 1865, far longer than the four years the Confederacy existed.

Moreover, President Abraham Lincoln, in his inaugural address of March 4, 1861, advanced his support for a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited Congress from ever abolishing or interfering with chattel slavery.

The seceding states never sought dissolution of the United States but rather wished to exercise their reserved right to peacefully exit the voluntary compact they entered.

Not a single Confederate, including Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gen. Robert E. Lee, was convicted of treason, in large part due to the unsettled constitutional questions as to whether one’s citizenship and loyalty was to one’s native state or to a monolithic Union. Trying Jefferson Davis for treason would have raised questions about the legality of secession and the constitutionality of the war.

One merely needs to consider the untold constitutional violations that Marylanders suffered at the hands of the Lincoln administration, which included the suspension of habeas corpus, the arrest of state and local officials, including Maryland’s U.S. Congressman Henry May, the imprisonment of newspaper editors, and election interference, to comprehend the states’ rights concerns of the seceding states and occupied Maryland.

Terry Klima
Perry Hall