Historic Minneapolis cemetery earns spot on Underground Railroad Network

Between a construction site and a mattress store lies Pioneers and Soldiers Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in Minneapolis — and Minnesota's newest landmark on the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.

Among the 22,000 people buried there are Hester Patterson, Woodford Anderson, Charles Broden and William Goodridge

All of them escaped slavery, and Elyse Hill, a Georgia genealogist with St. Paul roots, has been pushing to get stories like theirs recognized in Minnesota.

"They were all so fascinating," said Hill, who also did the research to get St. Paul's Pilgrim Baptist Church added to the national network in 2023.

Patterson, Anderson and Broden were all enslaved people who escaped in search of freedom. Anderson was a U.S. Colored Troops soldier, and while Broden was not an official military member, he performed manual labor duties for the Iowa Unit.

Goodridge was an abolitionist and conductor on the Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania in the 1850s. He moved to Minnesota, where his daughter lived, after his business went bad. He is buried next to his son and his grandson, Toussaint L'Ouvert Grey, the first Black child to be buried in the cemetery.

"I had a curiosity about the colored troops buried there," Hill said.

The cemetery is just the second site in Minnesota to be added to the network, which includes more than 800 sites nationwide and is administered by the National Parks Service.

There will be a dedication ceremony at the cemetery on June 7.

In the meantime, the story of the cemetery, "In Memoriam: The Residents of Pioneers & Soldiers Cemetery," is on exhibit at Hennepin History Museum to honor those buried, including the more than 500 African Americans buried in Pioneers and Soldiers Cemetery that have been identified. An exhibit about the history of abolitionism and anti-slavery efforts in Hennepin County is scheduled to open this fall at Hennepin History Museum.

Historic Minneapolis cemetery

The cemetery, established on land owned by Martin and Elizabeth Layman, saw its first recorded burial in 1853, when the Rev. Timothy Cressey, founder of the first Baptist church in Minneapolis, buried his 10-month-old son there. The Laymans allowed members of their congregation to bury relatives until the land became a public cemetery known as Layman's or Minneapolis Cemetery, in 1855.

The Laymans had ties to the abolitionist movement, and it was one of the few cemeteries that were not segregated. Some of the plots sold for 50 cents per gravesite, but it also included a "Potter's Field" where those who died without money or family could be buried.

It remained open to the public until it reached capacity in 1918.

The burial ground fell into disrepair.

It changed ownership over the years, and was renamed Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery in 1928. Today, it's owned by the city and managed by volunteers.

The cemetery was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002 and the volunteer Friends of the Cemetery have been working to preserve and maintain the burial plots and do community outreach.

Susan Hunter-Weir, president of the Friends of the Cemetery, has spent the last 25 years collecting information on every person buried there, and helped Hill with the application for the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.

It was important to Hunter-Weir to include a woman among those being recognized and Patterson's life story stood out.

"Hester was incredibly interesting," Hunter-Weir said. "She was described as 'big-boned, stalwart and carried all her earthly possession in a bundle on her head.'"

At the cemetery, Patterson does not have a headstone — yet.

Hunter-Weir said she's buying one that reads: "Hester Patterson, Freedom Seeker."