Primary Source Collection – Lincoln Cemetery

The former Lincoln Cemetery in Carlisle is now called Memorial Park.  For many years after the Civil War, Lincoln Cemetery was the most significant graveyard in town holding former veterans of the United States Colored Troops (USCT).  In the 1970s, however, the mostly abandoned cemetery became the target of an urban redevelopment project.  Today, all that remains to commemorate those soldiers –whose remains are still in the ground underneath the park– is a plaque and a series of wayside markers.   Below you will find five short newspaper articles from the nineteenth century, documenting various burials at Lincoln Cemetery, including the Henry W. Spradley, whose remarkable story has been turned into the subject of a short documentary film, “Henry W. Spradley, Citizen,” which is freely available at the House Divided Project’s YouTube channel.

Carlisle Herald May 25, 1882	Carlisle Herald June 8, 1882	Carlisle Herald Sept. 25, 1895	Carlisle Herald April 12, 1897	Carlisle Herald Nov. 26, 1900