This historic Black cemetery holds thousands of stories. Meet the N.J. woman fighting to preserve them.

The legacies of thousands of freedom seekers, enslaved people and Black veterans are preserved among the headstones and markers at a 125-year-old Black cemetery in Lawnside.
Land development, financial struggles and changes in leadership have threatened the Camden County cemetery over the years. But, thanks to hundreds of volunteers — including one dedicated woman recently honored with a national award for her efforts — the landmark has endured.
“I tell people, we’re in a cemetery, but it’s living history,” said Dolly Marshall, a board member of the Mount Peace Cemetery Association.
Marshall recently received the Emerging Leaders Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation for her leadership in restoring the site.
“It’s very important that we have safe spaces where we can learn freely,” she said of the cemetery.
Located off White House Pike in Lawnside, a historically Black community, Mount Peace Cemetery is the resting place for over 7,000 Black people.
It was created in the early 1900s, at a time when Black people were excluded from other burial grounds.
African royalty, Civil War veterans, famous abolitionists, formerly enslaved people, as well as teachers, pastors and everyday people are buried at the site, according to preservationists.
Researchers at Mount Peace Cemetery are learning more about a princess from Sierra Leone in West Africa who died in Camden in the early 1900s and was buried at the cemetery. The princesses’ mother was from Virginia and met an African king, creating an unique family story that Marshall is waiting to tell.
Marshall, a Camden native who recalls driving past the cemetery with her parents as a child, has 14 of her own ancestors buried at the 11-acre site.
Her discovery of familial links to Mount Peace began in 2017 with a search for the grave of her great-great-grandfather, a Civil War veteran buried there.
“When I started land clearing and restoring and exposing burials that have been lost, I found more ancestors,” she said.
The bulk of Marshall’s work with the cemetery began in 2020, when she and other volunteers helped restore three acres of land. In just five months, Marshall and a dedicated volunteer were also able to locate and mark over 200 graves.
The board stopped accepting new burials in 2010 and preservation work on the site has been strictly volunteer-based.
Challenges in maintaining the cemetery have come in waves, causing difficulties over the years, according to the Mount Peace Cemetery Association.
In the 1960s, land development reduced the once 18-acre burial grounds to just 11. And in the 1970s, as the site’s former board of trustees began to pass away, the cemetery became overrun with weeds and turned into a dumping ground.
Preservation New Jersey had even listed the cemetery as an endangered site to raise awareness about its potential demise.
Today, volunteers are working to keep the cemetery alive by landscaping, repairing headstones and mapping and identifying burials, Marshall said.
Coming up on the landmark’s 125th anniversary next year, several national recognitions are helping to keep the site alive and eligible for grant funding.
A major milestone for Mount Peace last year was its designation as part of the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom by the National Park Service, according to the board of trustees.
Of the over 800 sites included in the network, Mount Peace is one of the few in New Jersey recognized by the National Park Service for its connection to the Underground Railroad — a network of safe houses and passageways that helped enslaved people escape to free states in the North and Canada during the 1800s.
MORE: Historic Black N.J. church tied to the Underground Railroad gets new National Park honor
Although the cemetery wasn’t established until after slavery was abolished, many individuals buried there were born enslaved, sought freedom in Lawnside, or had direct connections to the Underground Railroad.
The borough of Lawnside is also considered a significant site on the Underground Railroad. Before its incorporation in 1926 as the only African-American municipality in the northern United States, the borough was known as Snow Hill or Free Haven. It includes the Peter Mott House, the oldest house in the borough, which was named after an African-American preacher who provided refuge to escaping enslaved people.
In New Orleans last month, Marshall accepted her award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation for her leadership in restoring Mount Peace Cemetery.
Marshall’s honor was among 10 awards handed out for preservation work across the nation. Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson, one of the two remaining Negro League ballparks in the country, was also honored at the ceremony with Richard H. Driehaus Foundation National Preservation Award in recognition of efforts to revitalize the historic site.
Marshall said her work is far from over.
“I am proud to receive honors from the National Trust for Historic Preservation,” Marshall said. “But at the end of the day, that recognition must be transformed into action to keep this history alive.”
Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.