Current Activities

This presentation highlights the Historic St. Mary’s Cemetery, located within the Turf Valley neighborhood in Ellicott City. This cemetery is historically associated with St. Mary’s Chapel at Charles Carroll’s Doughoregan Manor and St. Charles College, two early county Catholic institutions. This cemetery consists of individuals, both Black and White, who lived, worked and worshipped in this community in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This talk will address attempts at preservation and collaboration over the past thirty years, and how working on this site through a community-based archaeological approach is the best method to preserving and interpreting this significant site.

This talk will be held in the Avalon Room of the Miller Branch Library. Registration is encouraged, but not required.

Kelly Palich is archaeologist for the Department of Recreation and Parks, where she has spent the past 6 years managing sites and projects on Park Land throughout the County. Kelly’s interest and skills focus on historic preservation through public education; she has spent the past 20 years implementing programming teaching and involving all age levels in the process of archaeology and interpretation! Kelly is a resident of Howard County, where she resides in Laurel with her husband and two kids, both budding archaeologists!