Halloween at Westminster Hall and Burying Ground in Baltimore

Sancerres at Sunset

My eyes welled up as I pushed the needle through the red fabric. I was replacing a button on a cape I’d found in one of my late mother’s closets. 

I imagined her sewing it on when she first made the garment.  It’s not something I have occasion to wear often. But I thought it would make for a fun frolic during Halloween in Baltimore.

Westminster Hall is a Gothic Revival former church built in 1852 above a Burying Ground. To avoid disturbing the graves, the builders set it upon brick piers, thus creating catacombs.

My companion and I passed through the iron gate and strolled into the Hall. We paused for a few moments to listen as “Count Dracula” played the colossal restored Johnson and Son 1882 pipe organ.

The Memorial is set within a historic garden. It features a larger-than-life bronze statue of George Mason seated on a stone bench below a 72-foot-long trellis. He looks casual and pensive. 

It is the final resting place of many of Baltimore’s most prominent 18th- and 19th-century residents, including several American Revolution and War of 1812 veterans. 

But it is best known for hosting the grave of Boston-born Edgar Allan Poe. The writer died in Baltimore of unknown causes in 1849 at the age of 40.

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