In going through cemetery burial records, my talented research assistants Donna Lacagnina and Marilyn Veek discovered that we had the same individual entered twice in our records under different names. We apparently had a lady named Mary "Polly" Conrad  in an unknown/unmarked burial here at Mount Olivet. We also have a woman named Mary "Polly" Grosch (1783-1841) with a known burial space of Area NN/Lot 128.  Donna and Marilyn made this discovery by going through FindaGrave.com memorial pages and found that both "Marys" were assigned to the same grave lot (NN/Lot 128), and grave space. The accompanying photo of the gravestone (on FindaGrave.com) on this location for Mary Grosch substantiates the presence for the Mary Grosch burial and entry. However, the Mary "Polly" Conrad entry left plenty of questions with no such stone to be found as this was an unmarked grave as assumed.

Donna and Marilyn are with the Friends of Mount Olivet membership group, and next consulted our cemetery database which would show that both "Marys" (Mary "Polly" Grosch and Mary "Polly" Conrad) not only shared the same birth and death years, but were born and died on the same days as well. This is when Donna and Marilyn began to look closer, assuming an error had occurred in duplicative data entry here at Mount Olivet. 
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​Our database entries did not add a great deal of vital and family info outside of a full birthdate of December 7th, 1783 and death date of August 29th, 1841. Both entries also included the same name for both Marys' mother. This was Hannah Conrad. However, both entries would also point to each other in a very interesting set of statements in the optional "Remarks" section at the bottom of each entry page.  Mary "Polly" Grosch's page reads:

"See Mary "Polly" Conrad buried in NN-128-10. Removal from Old Lutheran Graveyard, Frederick, Md. Mary was a free Mulatto woman who was raised and worked for the Grosch family. As a result, she went sometimes by the name of Mary "Polly" Grosch. However, her real name was Mary "Polly" Conrad."

This was extremely interesting to learn, especially in regard to Mary "Polly" being referred to as a "free Mulatto woman." On top of that, she possesses one of the largest memorials in this particular cemetery area.  Her gravestone is what we call a "ledger," or "tablet," memorial or marker. Again, she is referred to on the stone simply as Mary Grosch with a death date of August 29th, 1841, dying in the 57th year of her age.       

A ledger stone is an inscribed stone slab usually laid into the floor of a church to commemorate or mark the place of the burial of an important deceased person. Think of accounting ledgers, and ledger paper and notepads—long and narrow.
 
​Ledger stones may also be found as slabs forming the tops of chest tombs. An inscription is usually incised into the stone within a ledger line running around the edge of the stone in the same manner a ledger book contains stacked rows of recorded information and numbers. Such inscription may continue within the central area of the stone, which may be decorated with relief-sculpted or incised coats of arms, or other appropriate decorative items such as skulls, hourglasses, etc. Stones with inset brasses first appeared in the 13th century.

Traditionally, these memorials are found in Colonial-era burying grounds, and generally reserved for the upper class. The Grosch family of Frederick was certainly prominent, but it is fascinating to see a stone of this size on the grave of a "person of color," no less a single woman of color. She certainly must have carried clout in the community and her greater family. If anything else, the simple inscription on the face of this particular ledger stone states that Mary "Polly" Grosch was a "Faithful member of the Lutheran Church."

​Exactly eight years ago this month, I penned a multi-part "Story in Stone," in which  I explained my attempt in searching for the earliest Frederick residents of color to be buried in Frederick’s Mount Olivet Cemetery. The rural cemetery opened in 1854 and specifically catered to Frederick’s white community, an unspoken and understood practice not only here and the Deep South, but in many places in the North as well. Separate burying grounds, or separate sections within established graveyards, had been set up by churches or beneficial societies for the black populace. This was no different with how churches had evolved, marking a color divide with religion (ie: the Methodist Episcopal Church vs the African Methodist Episcopal Church). The same was true here in Frederick as well. From before the time of the Civil War up through the Civil Rights Act of 1964, many cemeteries would remain segregated with “unwritten” and, in some cases, “written” rules to back the claim.
 
Mount Olivet is the largest cemetery in Frederick County. Today, it operates without discrimination in burying people regardless of color, creed, religion, sex and national origin. At the same time, Fairview Cemetery, located on East Church Street extended/Gas House Pike continues a proud tradition of service as the predominant “black cemetery” of town. This is simply a historic and cultural precept.

My fascination with Mary "Polly" Grosch, or Conrad, was one of breaking the color barrier in death. She was described as being Mulatto, or mixed race (black and white). First off, here was a woman that was a Free Black living (and dying) in Frederick at a time long before the Emancipation Proclamation and the American Civil War. She died in 1841 at the age of 57. The question remains: Was she a former slave? If so, when was she manumitted, and by whom? As a matter of fact, were her parents (or just one of them) slaves? Who was Hannah Conrad?

Second, it is interesting to learn of Mary "Polly," a woman of color, being originally buried in Frederick's second Evangelical Lutheran burying ground. The Lutherans had two such downtown graveyards in Frederick. The first was located on East Church Street behind the church edifice. You can still see ancient gravestones there today, but a traditional expanse, or field, of stones is not what you will find. The Schaeffer Center, the congregation's early Sunday School, eventually displaced many a gravestone and likewise decedents, when it was built in 1892. It fronts East Second Street, on the north end of the Lutheran church property. Many of these stones can be found propped up along the vintage Sunday School structure.

A second Lutheran burying ground would open down the street on the southeast corner of East Church Street extended and East Street. This is where the Lerner Collection (formerly Frederick Coin Exchange) and Talbots are located today within Everedy Square. I think this is most likely the place of Mary "Polly's" original burial, because this ground and its decedents were moved to Mount Olivet in 1907 to Area NN.

Area NN is an interesting one here in Mount Olivet. It’s shape is somewhat triangular as it sits against the western boundary of the cemetery, not far from the Barbara Fritchie and Thomas Johnson gravesites.  The section often raises curiosity among visitors as the stones within are somewhat positioned very closely together—almost too close together, but there is a reason. Most of the people interred here today, came from other burial grounds that once graced downtown Frederick.
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Many of these gravestones have death dates that predate Mount Olivet’s opening in 1854, and there are several examples written in German. The Colonial architecture is clearly evident and the rationale for these stones placed so close together lies in the fact that these comprise church group reburials dictated by the trustees of local congregations. Three different churches bought the bulk of the lots on NN — the Presbyterian, Evangelical Lutheran and Methodist Episcopal. These churches once had their own designated burying grounds downtown, but elected to transfer bodies via mass removal to Mount Olivet, allowing for re-use or resale of the former graveyard properties.

This was certainly not an uncommon practice for the time, and in the case of Area NN, most of this reburial activity occurred in 1907-1908. This option was designed to take the congregations out of the graveyard business, and maintenance thereof, deferring the job to an entity that solely was suited to handle the assignment. 
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As for the makeup of the property, the Methodists are to the left, Lutherans in the middle (see tall obelisk monument in middle) and Presbyterians to the right. 

Marilyn brought the situation of both Mary "Pollys" to my attention, and we started searching for more information on this singular woman with two names. Our intent was threefold: 1.)To correct our cemetery database with duplicative listings for the same woman; 2.)To correct any Find-a-Grave.com information on Mary Polly's memorial page, as we had made one a few years prior under the Friends of Mount Olivet management; and 3.)To learn anything we could about Mary "Polly," and discover how she may connect with the early prominent Grosch family of Evangelical Lutheran Church and Frederick Town.

Our first endeavors included a consultation with Jacob Engelbrecht's heralded diary, and then a search to see what was on Ancestry.com for this woman. For those not familiar with Engelbrecht, he was an early resident of town, a tailor by trade, who kept a diary from 1819 until his death in 1878. He worked as a tailor and lived out most of his life on West Patrick Street next to Carroll Creek and across the street from legendary neighbor Barbara Fritchie.

Jacob Engelbrecht was a fellow parishioner of Mary "Polly" in Evangelical Lutheran Church, and as usual, his diary did not disappoint. We found the following entry dated August 29th, 1841:

"Died this afternoon in the year of her age, Miss Mary Grosch, granddaughter, or rather niece I should say, of old Mrs. Kimboll, Buried on the Lutheran graveyard."

I was quite familiar with the early Grosch family and their connection to the church, not to mentian Mrs. Catharine (Grosch) Kimboll (also spelled Kimball), a notable early businesswoman of Frederick Town. She ran a tavern on West Patrick Street from 1797-1828 that hosted many early statesmen such as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. It was called "The Sign of the Golden Fleece." This structure, located near the northeast corner of West Patrick and Court streets ,would eventually become Talbott's Tavern and later the City Hotel—Frederick's prime lodging spot throughout the century, eventually yielding to the Francis Scott Key Hotel that would be built on the original footprint.

Mrs. Kimboll was the former Catharine Grosch, daughter of an early German settler in town named Johann Conrad Grosch (1712-1794). Mr. Grosch is commonly known as "Conrad Grosch" and was one of the first members of Frederick's Evangelical Lutheran congregation, as he came to the area a short time after the town's founding in 1745.  Grosch was a great benefactor and one of the first builders of the original large ediface of the church on East Church Street, begun in 1752.

I recalled that Mr. Grosch was also an early slave owner. This wasn't uncommon, as I recall years ago being surprsed to learn that some of our early German settlers of Frederick owned slaves. Michael Roemer (1715-1800) was another leading member of this congregation, and his slave Adam Cooms (aka Combs and Coomes) is buried on the Evangelical Lutheran Church property in an unmarked grave.

Old local histories state that Cooms (c.1739-1824) helped build the Lutheran Church, and was the only Black man to be a regular (confirmed) member of the church at the time of his death. He was also the first Black individual buried in the Lutheran Graveyard in the year 1824. 

​Michael Roemer (aka Raymer) is buried on the church grounds downtown, as is Johann Conrad Grosch. Roemer's gravestone is still here, however there is not one for Conrad Grosch or his wife Maria Sofia (Gutenberger) Grosch (1717-1785). I found it odd that our Mary "Polly's" gravestone was featured on the latter's FindaGrave memorial page. Two other Grosch family members are here in unmarked graves in son Adam Grosch (1754-1785) and a mystery lady named Salome Grosch (1721-1794) according to church records. Perhaps she was Conrad's sister or cousin?

Conrad Grosch was born May 18th, 1712 in Eichloch in "Rheingrafischen Hernschaft" (now Rommersheim, in the Alzey-Worms district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany). He married (Maria Sophia Gutenberger) in 1737 in her hometown of Woellstein, Alzey. The couple came to America in 1748, the same year Frederick County was created out of Prince Georges County.

On the journey across the Atlantic, Conrad and Maria Sophia would bring one son and two daughters— one of which was Catharine (Grosch) Kimboll. Once here, they expanded their family to include four sons and four daughters: Maria Dorothea Grosch (1739-1810) married Col. William Beatty; Peter Grosch (1741-1796); Catharine Margaret Grosch (1745-1831); Henry Grosch (1749-1749); Johann Michael Grosh (1749-1777); Christina Grosch (1752-1808) married Matthias Buckey; Anna Barbara Grosch (1752-1828); married Col. Elie Marion Williams); Adam Grosch (1754-1785). Catharine married William Kimboll, a saddler by profession, in the early 1760s. The couple had at least one daughter, Maria Barbara in 1763, but William seems to vanish from the records by the late 1790s.

With this information, coupled with our records saying that Mary "Polly's" mother was a Hannah Conrad, how could Catharine be our subject's grandmother? I acutely picked up on the interesting connection with the name Conrad however, as this was Catharine's father's first name of course. This led me to two online databases of baptisms for Evangelical Lutheran Church. The first can be found on Evangelical Lutheran Church's website, twinspires.org, in the preservation section. The second comes from late Genealogist Bob Fout's website, bobfoutgenealogy.com, under FELC Baptisms 1780-1785.

Note the individual "Polly," baptized on December 21st, 1783. This is two weeks after her birth on December 7th. She is our Mary, as her mother is Hannah, and there is a direct connection to the Grosch family. I think the mystery is partially solved! Conrad is not a last name of her mother, and sponsor, Hannah. Rather, Hannah is listed simply as Conrad Grosch's negro woman, without a last name. Blame the error on the vintage ELC Baptismal Ledger not having wider columns to write this information. I think we can say with surety that Hannah was a slave of Conrad Grosch.

I decided to peck around in both of these databases a bit more and eventually found the following entry from June 11th, 1775. It is a baptism for a child named Jacob, the son of negroes Henry and Hannah. Conrad Grosch and wife Sophia are the sponsors. Could Jacob's mother be the same Hannah who gave birth to Polly eight years later in December, 1783?

Again, we see Conrad Grosch in the picture. However, what happened to Henry over that eight year span. Was he Polly's father? Or was it someone else?

I finally consulted a hardback volume entitled A History of Evangelical Lutheran Church. The majority of the book contains a history of the church written in 1938 by a Gettysburg Seminarian named Dr. Abdel Ross Wentz. The book was published, compiled and brought up to date by Amos John Traver in 1988. I looked for anything I could find on Mary "Polly," and Mrs. Kimboll, as there were several references to Conrad Grosch as you can imagine as he was also one of the earliest church elders. On page 185, I found the following passage that gave me great satisfaction in discovering:

"A question of order was raised in 1811 when (Rev. David Frederick) Schaeffer catechised a mulatto girl and then proposed to confirm her. The action of the council was that 'a majority of the church council resolved that Mr. Schaeffer should confirm Mrs. Kimbold's (sp) Mullate Girl and should let her come to the communion as the last one in the church or as Mr. Schaeffer thinks best.' The record does not state , but knowing Schaeffer's interest in the blacks and all needy souls we may conclude that the girl was confirmed and was admitted to the communion table after all others had been communed. And knowing his tact and prudence we may conclude that she was seated, not in the main auditorium on the left-hand side where the other women sat, but in the gallery at the back of the church. This custum with reference to negroes continued in the church until the issues of the Civil War were raised, and it was renewed towards the close of the century."

Mary "Polly" was about 27 years old at this point. Could this be Mrs. Kimboll's "mulatto girl?" I would think that if an exception be made for a person of color to be confirmed in Frederick's early Lutheran Church, it would certainly be a person with a connection to church builder and former leader, Conrad Grosch who had died in 1794. Secondly, I'm now thinking that Polly's confirmation name was likely "Mary." This would explain the duality of names, and would be appropriate for a number of reasons, especially since her baptismal sponsor was Mary Sophia Grosch. Perhaps there are confirmation records that need perusing to prove this fact? And don't forget the inscription on Mary "Polly" Grosch's ledger stone as being "a faithful member of the Lutheran Church." This was a highly important accomplishment for a person of color, just as Adam Cooms would make the history books as the slave who helped build Evangelical Lutheran's first church in Frederick Town. My friend Marcia Hahn was kind enough to find the Church Minutes from January 1811 in which the church council discussed the issue of Ms. Grolsch potential confirmation. Unfortunately those records are written in German in the 1811 Evangelical Church Minutes Book,  but I submit them below anyway. (If you know German, please kindly translate this record and feel free to add the passage in the comments at the end of the story.)

Twenty-three persons were confirmed in Frederick's Evangelical Lutheran Church and here is the original list of those individuals from Church records. Note that Polly Grosch was last to be listed in the 23rd position on this document (​ELC Vol III pg 319).

In my research, I did find this interesting biographical piece on the state's Maryland Historical Archives website regarding Catharine Kimboll's brother, John Michael Grosch. This son of Conrad and Mary Sophia Grosch died in 1777 while serving in the American Revolution at the Battle of Germantown (PA). Note the section toward the bottom listing the decedent's nieces. Here lies the puzzling mention of a female named "Mary" with no other supporting documentation. Why is she just out there like an island? Apparently she is a daughter of one of Michael's siblings, but which one? Likely one with a last name of Grosch which leaves Peter or Adam.

Anyway, searches for anything on a Conrad Grosch granddaughter named Mary turned up fruitless. The only thing I could find was Mary (Charlton) Grosch, wife of Peter Grosch, and an aunt of Francis Scott Key to boot.

Catherine Kimboll died at age 86 on May 18th, 1831. She was the last of her immediate family. Jacob Engelbrecht made note of her death in his journal and commented that she was buried in the Lutheran Graveyard. This most likely was the churchyard. ​Mary "Polly" Grosch would live another decade before her death in 1841. I almost forgot to check Evangelical Lutheran Church's Death Register for Mary "Polly's" death entry. To my delight, I would find "two for the price of one" to complete my research.

Wow! Now, how could these two ladies die so close together, and, fittingly, why is there no burial information for Mary, but there is information of her removal? Because these two ladies are the same person. Polly died of dropsy, also known as Edema. This is fluid retention, swelling caused by excess fluid buildup in the body's tissues. Mary "Polly" was 57 years of age at the time of her death.

I was not certain who made the plans for Mary "Polly's" burial. She would never marry, or have children. Did she have siblings or anyone else? Perhaps a Grosch cousin? Catharine's daughter Maria (Morris) had died in 1834 and is buried in South Carolina, so we can rule her out, unless it was one of her daughters of which she had a few. Jacob Engelbrecht refers to these ladies as a Mrs. Dugas and a Mrs. Shaw but they lived elsewhere. I presume that it may have been the Evangelical Lutheran congregation, itself, or a clergyman. This Black trailblazer certainly deserved an honorable memorial, especially considering how generous she was to the Church and Missionary Society with those donations at the time of her death. That was a good amount of money back in those days.

​Thanks to a late, final discovery by Marilyn, we would learn a bit more about our mysterious  Mary "Polly" in the form of a will in the Frederick County Courthouse records. This was written on July 29th, 1841, exactly one month before her death. Therein we find that Mary "Polly" had formidable wealth—even enough to purchase her own ledger gravestone! The first orders she gives to her executors Edward and John A. Mantz revolve around her own burial:

​"First, and principally, I commit my soul into the hands of Almighty God, and my body to the Earth to be decently buried at the discretion of my Executers hereinafter named, and after my debts and charges are paid. 2nd, I devise and bequeath forty dollars for a tombstone to be placed over my grave." 

EPIOLOGUE
Since the story's completion, my assistant Marilyn Veek was inspired to search for a manumission record for Mary "Polly" Grosch, and also one for her mother Hannah. She  was successful in finding Mary "Polly's" manumission thus confirming that she was a slave. More valuable information shows that Hannah was a slave of William Kimboll at least as early as 1765, 18 years before Mary "Polly's" birth in 1783.

The manumission of Polly (aka Mary) by Catherine Kimboll occurred on July 26th, 1810 by Frederick County Courthouse deed WR 37 647 (attached). Mary has "served her since her infancy."

Conrad Grosh's Last Will and Testament makes no mention of enslaved persons, however the 1795 inventory of his estate includes "1 Mulatto slave girl named Poll." Mary “Polly” would have been 11 years old at this time. 

​​According to his will, Conrad Grosh’s real and personal estate was to be sold. Marilyn was unable to find a deed by which Catherine Kimboll obtained Mary “Polly,” though presumably it was from Grosh's estate. However, there is a 1792 deed in which Peter Mantz sold a negro woman named Peggy Fisher to Elie Williams in trust for Catherine. Mr. Williams was Catharine's brother-in-law, as well as an executor for her father.

​Marilyn also uncovered a complicated set of deeds involving the mortgaging and sale of the negro woman Hannah. We can assume that this slave was Mary “Polly” Grosch’s biological mother. On August 28th, 1765, William Kimboll mortgaged Hannah "and her increase" to Christopher Edelen (Frederick County Courthouse Deed J 1288). On February 26th, 1766, William Kimboll mortgages to William Beatty and Peter Grosh various household goods and also a negro woman named Hannah (Frederick County Courthouse Deed K 397).  

​On March 15th, 1766, William Kimboll paid off his debts to Edelen and to Beatty & Grosh (2 deeds at K 415). He then immediately sells Hannah to John Beatty (Frederick County Courthouse Deed K 416).

​I often stop, and truly take in the human statues I see in our cemetery. Most often these are females, and come in the form of angels, "women in mourning state" and young cherubs. Recently, I spotted a young figure of a girl who looked quite angelic, but I don't know if she was actually depicting one of the heavenly variety as I didn't spy any wings. She is holding what looks to be a small bunch  of flower petals in her left hand, and appears to be in the process of dropping a petal (or petals) with her right hand —and on this very grave. I’m not sure of the exact significance of this act, but angels are often known to spread blessings.

I soon asked myself whether this funerary ornamentation was intended to be a representation of the young nine-year-old decedent in this grave space, or that of a like-aged chum showing affection and/or pity for young Rebecca M. Zacharias (August 25th, 1891-December 16th, 1899)?

I then thought about whether this marble art piece has a relationship to flower girls, you know, the ones utilized at weddings. Their role is to spread flowers or petals ahead of the bride, or hand them out to the guests. 

I decided to review the duty behind flower girls at weddings. Of course, job number one is to be incredibly cute and actually steal a bit of attention away from the marital couple. The flower girl is responsible for throwing flower petals on the ground as she walks down the aisle before the bride. The origin of the tradition is believed to have stemmed from symbolizing a leading of the bride from childhood to adulthood, and soon-to- be motherhood. It’s for this reason that the flower girl is also usually dressed in white, representing innocence, similarly to the color worn by most brides.
 
Rose petals are said to symbolize fertility and the couple's hope for children.  The tradition apparently began in Ancient Rome, where the flower girl serviced the bride and groom by carrying wheat and herbs. This was to bless them with prosperity and fertility. I also read that the tradition may have originated from superstition, with the flower girl throwing petals to ward off evil spirits. During the Renaissance, flower girls carried strands of garlic based on the belief that garlic repelled bad luck, along with vampires too as we all know.

In the Elizabethan era, wedding guests would scatter flower petals from the bride's home to the church. Flower girls followed musicians in the wedding procession, “carrying a gilded rosemary branch and a silver bride's cup adorned with ribbons.” The cup was usually filled with flower petals or rosemary leaves, as an alternative to a basket. Other alternatives included a small bunch of rosemary sprigs used as a sweet posy or a small floral bouquet, incorporating sprigs of fresh rosemary.

The Victorian flower girl most resembles the modern ones we all know. Victorian-era (1837-1901) flower girls were traditionally dressed in white, perhaps with a sash of colored satin or silk. Her dress, usually made of muslin, was intentionally simple to allow future use. The Victorian flower girl carried an ornate basket of fresh blooms or sometimes a floral hoop, its shape echoing that of the wedding ring and symbolizing that "love has no end."

Well, that's the story behind wedding flower girls, dropping petals at the happiest of life's occasions. So what then does this statuary monument here in Mount Olivet's Area R represent? ​The Victorians regularly used symbols for funerary art. The angel was a symbol of spirituality & the hand pointing downward traditionally symbolized “sudden death” or “mortality." Petals plucked from a whole flower is like a person leaving the whole of humanity —a journey traveled alone to heaven.
 
In researching further, I found the legend of St Dorothy. On her way to death, she was mocked by Theophilus of Adana in Luke's Gospel of the Bible. He asked for proof of the heavenly garden she was going to. After Dorothy's death, an angel visited him with a basket containing flowers and fruit in the middle of winter. This would correlate to our angel or girl on this particular memorial in the act of bringing proof that the deceased is in heaven.
 
The floral bouquets in the hands of angels can be found in some instances as spreading floral petals over hallowed ground. I think the bouquets are comprised of “roses” (symbol for love) and “forget-me-not” (symbol for remembrance). Sometimes the opposite is true as angels can also be shown as picking flowers, signifying the harvest of souls for heaven. 

We've talked before in this blog about the iconography of flowers in cemeteries. Here's a link to a story from seven years back. Interestingly, the cover image (of the story) was taken in this very, family lot of the Zacharias family. I had zeroed in on an old flower pot on the bookend side of Rebecca M. Zacharias' parents/grandparents large family marker. This is in Area R/Lot 81. 

So that's all I can tell you about this unique statuary monument. Naturally, I was equally curious to learn more about the young child under the monument—a poor soul who died at nine years of age, long before having the opportunity to walk down a church aisle while following a flower girl. 

I didn't expect to find much on little Rebecca Mealey Zacharias whose life spanned less than a decade. As I reported earlier, she was born on August 25th, 1891.  By dying in late December, 1899, she would never be enumerated in a US Census. Rebecca was the daughter of Horace C. Zacharias and Tempie Elizabeth Wilcoxon. She had one sibling, a sister named Hilda A. who was born in 1897.

Shown below are Rebecca's interment card from the Mount Olivet records, along with her obituary announcement and a report on her funeral from the Frederick News.

The obvious overarching title which is clearly legible is the word "Sleeping," a wholly Victorian notion toward death as this was the period when expressions such as "Resting in Peace" and "In Golden Slumber" came into existence in cemeteries and would soften the Puritanical attitude towards death as ambivalent and containing both terror at the possibility of eternal damnation and hope for deliverance.

Below "Sleeping" are three separate epitaphs, two of which come from the Bible. The first line is from Psalms 31:1 and reads, "In thee O Lord do I put my trust." The second, "Budded on earth to bloom in heaven," is especially poignant and speaks to the fact of a life cut short before its prime. The final epitaph comes from Colossians 3:3,  "Your life is hid with Christ in God."

In my scanning of local newspapers for anything more on Rebecca, I would find two memorials published during the year after her death (1900). These were submitted to the Frederick News by family members, and fittingly include references to both angels and flowers.

The larger Zacharias cemetery plot here in Mount Olivet's Area R is quite impressive. The family monument is located a few feet south of Rebecca's "flower girl" and is by far the largest in the area. The central family monument has the Masonic compass emblem on its face on its eastern side. On the opposite, west side, a monogram of J. F. Z. exists. Three generations of family are here in the form of Rebecca and her sister, her parents and her grandparents.

​Let's talk about Rebecca's parents, Horace Clinton Zacharias and Tempie Elizabeth Wilcoxon. Horace was born in Frederick on March 10th, 1867, the only child of John Flavius Zacharias (1842-1868) and wife Ann Rebecca (Miller) Zacharias (1839-1908). Horace's father, John Flavius Zacharias died the year after Horace's birth. I found John Flavius in the 1860 US Census living on the farm of his father, Christian Zacharias (1802-1875), a farmer of Emmitsburg District in northern Frederick County.

Thanks to a publication entitled The Annals of Franklin County, Pennsylvania (published in 1905), I learned about the family progenitor who immigrated to America from Germany. This was Matthias Zacharias (1757-1825) who eventually settled in Stony Branch Valley, roughly three miles  southeast of Emmitsburg. He called his property "Single Delight." His son, also named Matthias Zacharias (1757-1825), was a Revolutionary War veteran who has a great story in connection with his old countrymen, the Hessian soldiers. These men were Horace C. Zacharias' Great-Great Grandfather and Great-Grandfather.

While researching this story, I discovered that my old friend, Michael Hillman, has included a great research of the Zacharias family and their properties on his Emmitsburg.net website. Click the link to read more, however we are going to focus on Horace Clinton Zacharias at this point as he was the man who erected the fine monument for Rebecca, and the large granite Zacharias stone in memory of his parents as his father's monogram adorns the western face with outlier markers for them, as he would also have for him and his wife, Tempie. I've been told that this monument is made from a very high grade granite, and likely cost a great deal at the time of purchase.

Surprisingly, Horace C. Zacharias does not have a biography in Williams' History of Frederick County. I had to piece together his life from reading newspaper articles. His obituary in 1946 was accompanied by a photo, so I could finally put a face with a name.

According to Horace Zacharias' obituary, the family lived at 100 East Third Street, in a house that he built in 1895. The earlier house on the property was owned by John W. Miller, his maternal grandfather. Horace John Miller was a butcher and Horace and his widowed mother were living with Miller in the 1870 census after his father's death. 

The family situation was the same for Horace a decade later as his Aunt Elizabeth Miller assumed the home after his grandparents' deaths in 1876 and 1877 respectively. He received an education in local schools.

On the very next day, the Frederick News printed a Frederick Business Index in the May 17th edition of their publication. I learned that Horace was doing more than just the "Occasional Club" activities as he was working in a business that perfectly befits his first name. He was proprietor of a livery business on today's Maxwell Alley between East Second and East Third streets. This was basically his back yard.

For those unfamiliar with the profession, a livery in the late1800s was an establishment that rented out horses for riding, or for pulling buggies or wagons. It also boarded horses for those who did not own a stable. For a price, the livery would feed, groom, and exercise a boarded horse, and also keep its stall clean. The livery provided feed and bedding. Horace would give his business the name Champion Livery.

I went on to find several articles over the next decade that praised Horace's business, and the way in which he conducted it. He would often be mentioned as bringing residents to special outings throughout the county, with frequent destinations being White Rock on Catoctin Mountain in the Yellow Springs area north of town, and Sugarloaf Mountain to the southeast of Frederick City. Articles talk of his bandwagon, busses and beautiful stock horses. Along the way, Horace would find a wife in Tempie Elizabeth Wilcoxon (b. May 3, 1867), daughter of Frederick lumberyard owner John A. Wilcoxon (1807-1883). 

As Horace's business was "off and running," or better yet, "trotting along," he kept himself active with volunteer work with his church, and within Frederick's Columbia Lodge. At Evangelical Lutheran Church, he became manager of the Sunday School, and would later be responsible for dedicating a memorial window to his mother, Ann Rebecca Zacharias, upon her death in 1908. He would become a Worshipful Master of the local Freemasonry chapter and was instrumental in the building and opening of the chapter's new home on West Church Street in 1902.

Around this same time, we see Horace C. Zacharias changing gears professionally. He would sell his Champion Livery business in 1901 to a man named George Edward Myers. Mr. Myers would operate this business until 1909 and a picture survives of his granddaughter Lizzie (Mary Elizabeth Stewart Myers) holding two horses outside the stable location on Maxwell Alley. This photograph appears in Gorsline, Cannon & Whitmore's Pictorial History of Frederick (1995) and is part of Heritage Frederick's rich collection.

In the 1910 census, Horace C. Zacharias gives his profession as that of a "Stock Dealer." I found a number of articles showing him in the purchase and sale of business stocks, and also in local real estate. Properties would come to include 37 and 39 East Third Street, along with 42 and 44 East Third Street. In addition, he acquired land east of Frederick on the southside of the Old Baltimore Turnpike (Rt 240) near the old Emmons C. Sanner Farm near Quinn Orchard Road. In the 1920s, Horace returned to his roots and dealt in livestock.

However, one of Zacharias' most savvy dealings would include purchasing property between Carroll Creek and today's Citizens Way, along the east side of Court Street. This occurred in 1900, and was later co-owned with a gentleman named James Burke. Nearly four decades later it would become the site of Frederick's first large scale supermarket. 

Horace C. Zacharias died on January 23rd, 1946. He had a great career as a local businessman. His death made front-page news and his funeral was well-attended. The only thing that was missing was the opportunity to see his daughter Rebecca fully blossom into adulthood. He would be laid to rest by her side on the family plot on January 26th.

Horace C. Zacharias' wife Tempie would live nine years before her death on February 2nd, 1955. Her mortal remains would be placed next to her husband and within a few short yards of her beloved daughter, Rebecca. 

I loved that Mrs. Zacharias' funeral announcement described the event as having "a profusion of flowers,"  so fitting as I will now always associate this funeral plot with flowers. Unlike Rebecca, the Zacharias' other daughter, Hilda Ann (Zacharias) Opel, would live a life eleven times as long as her deceased older sister. Hilda lived from 1897 to 1997 and is buried with her husband Charles A. Opel directly behind our "flower girl" —​Rebecca M. Zacharias.

*****************************************************************************************************************Would you like to learn more Frederick history from author Chris Haugh?

Consider taking his upcoming 4-part lecture course on entitled:
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Learn more about this course and others presented by Chris Haugh/History Shark Productions. Legends of Frederick will feature four weeks of illustrated presentations exploring the life and times of Gov. Thomas Johnson, Jr., Francis Scott Key, Barbara Fritchie and diarist Jacob Engelbrecht. Tuesday nights in March. Cost $79 for entire 4-part (10 hour) class, or ala carte options for each "legend" at $25. Click the button below to learn more/register or visit HistorySharkProductions.com!