Evergreen Cemetery and the McLane and Widmann Burials therein
Bladensburg, MD
Photos courtesy of Alice Warner
This is what the entrance to the cemetery looks like from the road. Actually, I missed it and had to make a U-turn. The gate is visible but the fence is so overgrown that the gate is what you have to see to see it. To get the key you have to pay a $10 deposit at the Bladensburg Police Station. You get your deposit back upon returning the key. The gate is hard to open. I opened it with great difficulty, and barely far enough to squeeze through.
The left fencepost
The path leading up the hill. There are graves all over, not just near the path, and it looks like they are fairly randomnly scattered.
The McLane plot was to the left upon entering, along the fence that parallels the road. The gravestones were sodded over, and once I thought I could tell where they were, I dug through the sod to uncover the stones
.
In the above picture, the sunglare of white in the background is the black path in the preceding picture. This is taken from standing at the edge of the McLane Plot.
This is the view of the plot when I arrived. Through the bushes is the road. The stone has a base, and the stone has broken off its base and says McLane. Note there are no other stones in this picture.
Another view of the stone from above. There is a little stone that was hit by the McLane stone when it fell-- you can see the back of it in this picture.
This is the little stone. It reads: Milton E Hall
1892-1950
This was my best way of getting the shot-- apologies for my foot in the picture. THe white glare to the side is a piece of paper I used to reduce glare.
This is the stone not in the McLane lot but closest to it. This is the Widmann family stone. The picture was almost impossible to get rid of glare in. Although Mary C Widmann on the family stone got no deathdate besides 1866-19__, she does have her individual stone as seen below. The following are the Widmann individual stones:
After seeing those stones in the Widmann plot, I decided there had to be McLane individual stones also parallel to the ground-- but where were they? I looked in a straight line with the Widmann stones, and found the following little stone showing.
Using a blank gift card, I scraped away the sod to reveal this:
Mother
Anna C.
1850-1934
I decided there would be more stones also and found this little gray blotch
which uncovered to be
It was very difficult not to get so much sun glare. It read: Amelie J.C. Adams Died 1931.
To reduce the glare I had to take the picture upside down. I then retook the first "Mother" stone.
Next I saw this corner of stone.
The stone was at an angle so it was really difficult to uncover. The bottom of the face of the stone (where the dates were) came through the sod, but the name was buried a couple of inches.
This was about as good as I could get it. Isaac Sheppe, 1877-1943.
Once I had uncovered the 3 stones, there was a gap. They were perfectly aligned, and they were identically sized and there was an obvious gap. I decided that although I couldn't see ANY stone, there HAD to be one there.
BEFORE:
Finding a stone is really there:
AFTER:
Please note, that according to the DAR cemetery records about evergreen, THIS stone wasn't there in 1953. The other stones disappeared by 1983, but this stone had been sodded over sometime between 1934 and 1953. The others sometime after 1953. Now the stones are all visible, although how long it will be before they are re-covered, who knows.
They are in line with the Widmann stones, which were never covered. If they are covered again, take a stick and poke it into the ground in a straight line with the Widmann stones until you hit stone. This "FATHER" gravestone, although buried for 50+ years, was close enough to the surface to feel easily with a used up gift card that I used to scratch away the sod.
The view of the McLane Plot. In the distance, with a straight line down the stones, the white glare is the path that goes in the cemetery. parallel to the stones to the right is the road the cemetery is on.
The four leftmost stones are the McLanes; the ones to the right are Widmann.
McLane and Widmann in same image.
All of these pictures are hi-res and can be blown up very large and still not pixelate. The detail on the Widmann stone can actually be read if you zoom in on the above picture.
For any additional information: