Maplewood Cemetery (Durham, North Carolina)

Maplewood Cemetery is a historic cemetery in Durham, North Carolina. Many notable local politicians, industrialists, and civic leaders are buried in the cemetery.^[1]

Maplewood Cemetery was established in Durham's West End neighborhood in 1872.^[2] The land was previously owned by William H. Willard, who received $1500 in the sale.^[2] The cemetery was historically for Whites, and served Durham's upper-class families during racial segregation, with Beechwood Cemetery serving the prominent families within the Black community.^[3][4]

A section of the cemetery, known as the World War Veterans Plot, is dedicated to veterans of World War I, World War II, and the Korean War.^[5]

The cemetery includes graves of forty Confederate States Army and Confederate States Navy veterans of the American Civil War. In 2015, the Sons of Confederate Veterans spent $3,000 to build a Confederate memorial at the cemetery. The granite block with a bronze plaque was vandalized with graffiti written across it saying "Black Lives Matter" and "Tear It Down".^[6] It was vandalized a second time in 2019, with "cement or another hard substance" smeared across the plaque.^[7]

• Kate Lee Harris Adams (1919–2002), Women Airforce Service Pilot during World War II
• Doc Adkins (1872–1934), baseball player
• Mary Duke Biddle (1887–1960), heiress and philanthropist
• William T. Blackwell (1839–1903), industrialist and founder of the W. T. Blackwell and Company
• Joseph Penn Breedlove (1874–1955), librarian and author
• Wilbur Wade Card (1873–1948), baseball player
• Isaac M. Carpenter (1920–1998), jazz musician
• George Watts Carr (1893–1975), architect
• George Watts Carr Jr. (1918–2006), businessman
• Julian S. Carr (1845–1924), industrialist
• Angier Biddle Duke (1915–1995), diplomat
• Angier Buchanan Duke (1884–1923), trustee of Duke University
• Washington Duke (1820–1905), industrialist and philanthropist (originally buried here but later re-interred in Duke Chapel)
• Bartlett S. Durham (1824–1859), physician, farmer, businessman (originally buried in Antioch Cemetery and later re-interred here)
• Richard B. Fitzgerald (1843–1918), brick-maker and businessman
• John Wesley Fletcher (1940–1996), Protestant pastor
• John Sprunt Hill (1869–1961), lawyer, politician, banker, and philanthropist
• Eugene Morehead (1845–1889), banker
• Anita Morris (1943–1994) actress, dancer, and singer
• Edward James Parrish (1846–1920), industrialist
• Kathleen Peterson (1953–2001), business executive and murder victim
• Marty Ravellette (1939–2007), subject of the documentary No Arms Needed: A Hero Among Us
• Kenneth Claiborne Royall Jr. (1918–1999), politician and businessman
• Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans (1920–2012), heiress, philanthropist, activist, and politician
• James H. Southgate (1859–1916), politician and prohibitionist
• Wallace Wade (1892–1986), football coach
• Mamie Dowd Walker (1880–1960), first woman judge in North Carolina
• George Washington Watts (1851–1921), industrialist and philanthropist
• Richard H. Wright (1851–1929), industrialist