During its July 2 meeting, the Pennington Borough Council adopted an ordinance which will amend the Pennington Crossroads Historic District to include the Pennington African Cemetery (PAC).
The Historic District, which begins at Bethel African Methodist Espiscopal (AME) Church on South Main Street and ends on North Main Street, was created through a 2011 ordinance. Although the PAC did not fall within that region at the time, it will now be added through the new ordinance.
According to a write-up by Angela Witcher, chair of the Board of Trustees of the Pennington African Cemetery Association, the PAC is one of the oldest historical landmarks in the Pennington area, and is the “resting place of individuals born as far back as the Revolutionary War [and] up until the Civil Rights era.”
Pennington residents who were a part of the United States Colored Troops during these war eras are also buried in the cemetery.
To fight segregation, Witcher wrote, the cemetery was established in 1863 to “ensure that Black residents were guaranteed access to a graveyard and place in which to honor their ancestors.”
With the current ordinance, the cemetery will be recognized for its historical context and significance to the Pennington Borough area, said Councilwoman Beverly Mills.
Mills said the addition of the PAC into the Historical District has come “full-circle” for her, as her third great-grandfather was one of the purchasers of the land and a trustee of the church.
“It was he, along with three other trustees of the Bethel AME Church [who made it possible to buy the land],” she said. “[The land] wasn’t exclusively owned by Bethel AME Church, it was a privately purchased cemetery, but many people who went to Bethel AME Church as parishioners are buried there.”
The connection between Bethel AME Church and the PAC go “hand-in-glove,” Mills said.
“You have the Historical District starting where the church is, and you have the cemetery where the African Americans could be buried,” she said. “To have that as part of the [Historical] District now is very exciting.”