Hutchinson UAME Cemetery

Also known as Derry Cemetery. So sad and disappointing. When the church moved from this location to Coatesville, it was basically forgotten, including the paying of taxes. The property was sold at Sherriff’s sale in 1972 for $141. Several cleaning efforts have led to temporary media attention, but no efforts have been lasting.
The following excerpt is from an article that appeared in the Mar. 3, 1993 issue of the Village News (Chester County, PA).
Derry Cemetery is Long Forgotten, by Lisa Anderson
Acting on a clue from the 1883 Breou Farm Atlas, Young climbed through overgrown brambles, briar, poison ivy and undergrowth into an abandoned field off of Caln-Mortonville Road to photograph the ruins of a 19th century building that once housed the Derry African Methodist Episcopal Church.
"The graves were sunken, tombstones tilted and lying on the gorund," Young said.
Common markers - stones that mark the presence of graves, but unlike tombstones do not give any information about the people in the graves - littered the cemetery lot.
"It was common practice years ago, just to put a common stone over a grave. Tombstones have not always been put over graves," Young explained.
But the most remarkable features of the graveyard are the many graves of soldiers who served during the Civil War in the "U.S. Colored Troops." Some of the soldiers are vets of the 5th Massachusetts Colored Infantry and the 127th Infantry.
The dates on the stones range from 1890, 1895, 1898, 1901 and 1908. The most recent date is 1911.
In 1822, a half acre of land owned by a man named London Derry was sold to Thomas Williams, John Beckett and Abraham Jackson, trustees of the Union Society of Colored People. The land was intended for the building of a meeting house for the members of the local A.M.E. church, and for a place to bury their dead.