The Lost Cemetery of Marple: Hayti

In the southern portion of , under the I-476 overpass, along Old Marple Road, sits an all-but-forgotten graveyard of a vanished church. Up the steep hillside above the road lies the cemetery of the African Union Methodist Church.  The church served as the focus of the Hayti community as early as 1839. Prior to that date, residents of the Hayti community held worship services in their homes.

A small, frame church was completed in 1839 and a cemetery was established on the high ground nearby. The little African Union Methodist Church was the second church built in Marple, the first being . The Hayti congregation incorporated their church in 1869 as the Union American Methodist Church of Marple.

For many years, the Hayti congregation worshipped in the little frame church and buried their dead in the adjoining cemetery. Many of those buried there served their country in the Grand Army of the Republic during the Civil War. They were carried home to rest in Hayti Cemetery and there they still lie. Headstones in the cemetery indicate that burials were made in the cemetery as late as 1918.

After the original church was destroyed by fire in 1892, the congregation, which was in the process of building a new church in Media, began to worship at their new location. The new church, on Olive Street, had it's name changed to Trinity Union American Methodist Episcopal Church of Media where the congregants still worship today.

Unfortunately, the cemetery in Marple has been abandoned, but it remains a silent memorial to a brave and humble people who built their faith on solid rock. They buried their loved ones among the rocks on the hill, many in unmarked graves, knowing that their memory would last forever.