This Saturday, come out to Eastern North Philly for a little gardening and much deserved celebration.

The restoration and revitalization of one of the most historic burial grounds in America has had a beautifully positive ripple effect on the surrounding North Philadelphia neighborhood… a quiet, yet very real and very solid miracle.

Fair Hill Burial Ground was land given to Quaker founder George Fox by Pennsylvania founder William Penn, over 300 years ago. Fox gave it to the Quaker community for a burial ground, and many early Philadelphians are buried there.

Many more famous Philadelphians from the era of the Abolitionists are also buried there, including Lucretia Mott and African-American Robert Purvis, often referred to as the ‘president of the Underground Railroad.’

Over many decades, and for a variety of reasons, the burial ground became neglected, then derelict, and eventually outright dangerous… a five acre blight in the center of a troubled neighborhood. Then, in the late 1990s, a bunch of Quakers from various Meetings around the Delaware Valley began a series of clean up days at Fair Hill. They teamed up with local church and community groups, as well as just regular folks who lived in the neighborhood and happily rallied to efforts to make their surroundings a little better.

The burial ground is now a quiet and quite beautiful oasis, and the clean up days are more beautification and maintenance than removal of mountains of refuse. The clean up days have, over the years, moved outwards into the surrounding neighborhood, and formerly garbage strewn lots are now green spaces, community gardens and murals, thanks to hands extended in friendship and opportunity to various other groups. Fair Hill has become a respected, vital part of progress and community pride in North Philly.

Come out this Saturday for a little gardening and a little celebration, as Fair Hill has their Summer Festival. If you have kids, bring ‘em! Clean up / gardening anytime from 10 to 12 noon, then a horse and carriage will be on hand to ferry kids around the ‘carriage way’ throughout the burial grounds, free of course. There will be complimentary barbeque midday, and kid’s games 1 to 3. Live music happening throughout.

As Penn said, “Let us then try what Love will do.” Come out and see what some old fashioned hard work, powered by Love, has done.

Fair Hill is on the 2900 block of Germantown, between Indiana and Cambria. If you’re driving, try rolling along Germantown Avenue from north west or from south east until you run into it. Germantown Avenue is one of the most historic roads in America, and is still plenty fascinating!

Fair Hill
www.fairhillburial.org