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Thanks to the efforts of Joseph Mckenzie (formerly of Cumberland and a neighborhood childhood friend) and Byron Schulten of Cumberland, a vast amount of information pertaining to Cumberland's Sumner Cemetery is now located on the historical website, Find A Grave.
This website, again through the efforts of Joe and Byron, identifies 179 gravesites within Sumner Cemetery. This not only includes the names, birth and death dates where known, but in many cases photographs of the tombstones and the original obituaries and dates as they actually appeared in the Cumberland newspapers of that era.
Established in 1884 by the "Laboring Sons of Cumberland", sometimes known as, "The Sons of Sumner", Sumner was the first all black cemetery in Allegany County. On June 21, 1977, Sumner Cemetery was approved to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Eventually, a new black cemetery, known as Woodlawn, was opened due to Sumner Cemetery being almost filled.
Sumner Cemetery on the Find A Grave website
Sumner Cemetery in Cumberland, as well as numerous other African American sites and schools across the country, was named after United States Senator Charles Sumner (1811-1874). Sumner was from Massachusetts, an abolitionist, and the Senate's most vocal opponent of slavery. He is remembered for being beaten unconscious in 1856 on the Senate floor for making a speech opposing pro-slavery groups in Kansas. Sumner was responsible for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, helped in the establishment of the Freedmen's Bureau, and worked to have equal pay among African American and white soldiers. Sumner Cemetery.