On Veterans Day 2022, reporter Steve Mellon of the Pittsburgh Union Progress published a remarkable story about a hidden hillside cemetery in Ross Township where African American veterans rest in near-total obscurity. In his reporting, Mellon uncovered the extraordinary lives of men like Buffalo Soldier Leonard Conrad, Harlem Hellfighter Walter Jones, and Civil War sailor William Scroggins—stories nearly lost beneath weeds and brush. We’ve shared some of their history below, but we invite you to read Mellon’s full article here for the complete account.
A few hundred yards up a brush-choked lane seven miles north of downtown Pittsburgh lies a small parcel of earth that should be hallowed ground. Instead, it is overgrown, neglected, its history buried under weeds.
The cemetery doesn’t have a name. No one knows who established it or why it sits where it does. There are no surviving records of its founding and no church affiliation. What we do know is that burials took place there between 1909 and 1995, and that it served Pittsburgh’s African American community during much of the 20th century.
Families who buried loved ones there may have moved away, passed on, or lacked resources to keep it up. Without a clear owner or governing body, the hillside gradually succumbed to neglect. Over time, brush, trees, and poison ivy swallowed the stones, and the place slipped almost entirely out of public memory.
Clever and tireless local researcher John Schalcosky compiled a list of nearly 100 names buried here, including six known veterans. National Park Ranger Rich Condon cleared some of the brush out of respect for the veterans.
One stone they uncovered carries the name Leonard Conrad, who died December 2, 1912. Beneath his name is etched “24 U.S. Infantry.” Those were the famous Buffalo Soldiers who served on the frontier after the Civil War.
Further uphill lies Walter Jones of the Horseshoer Supply Co., 369th Infantry Regiment, the famed Harlem Hellfighters of World War I. The Hellfighters endured 191 days on trench lines, longer than any other American unit, suffering approximately 1,500 casualties and earning a place in military legend. After the war, Jones worked in Pittsburgh’s Middle Hill, only to die of heart disease in 1932 at age 41.
Then there’s William Scroggins. Born in 1843 in Baltimore to free Black parents, Scroggins enlisted “at sea” aboard the USS Nansemond in late 1863. That ship was once the merchant steamer James F. Freeborn, converted into a gunboat enforcing the Union naval blockade. Rough seas nearly wrecked her—waves crippled her structure, stalled engines, and risked all hands overboard. In desperation, crew members tossed guns, anchor, and tons of weight into the sea. The gamble worked, and the Nansemond survived.
Scroggins was one of 28 Black crewmen aboard, working as a cook. He helped starve the Confederacy of supplies, a critical contribution to the war effort.
After the war, Scroggins settled in Pittsburgh and worked as a barber, opening his own “Fashionable Hair Dressing and Saving Saloon” with bath rooms. He married, fathered ten children, and joined the Grand Army of the Republic alongside his father, George. Scroggins died on December 21, 1916. His funeral included a $125 casket, a new $15 suit, gloves, a horse-drawn hearse.
This unnamed cemetery contains stories that we too often brush aside or neglect, like the headstones that mark the remains buried beneath them.
