Gravestones for black boys who died while at the Reformatory House in Cheltenham, Maryland, in the wooded area adjacent to the Maryland Veterans Cemetery.
Tyrone Turner/WAMU for NPR
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Tyrone Turner/WAMU for NPR
When Veronica Spears read the letter, she started shaking.
“What’s wrong?” » asked her husband.
At that moment, she said, she couldn’t find the words to respond.
“The letter said that they found out that my grandfather had a brother who was in a reform institution,” she later told NPR in an interview. “And he died when he was 12. We never knew.”
Spears’ family is one of 16 people that researchers at Georgetown University’s Center for Youth Justice have linked to children who died at the Reform and Instruction Home for Colored Children in Cheltenham, Maryland. The center has been working since February to identify children who died at 40 reform schools and youth detention centers across the country, as well as any surviving family members, as part of its investigation. Forgotten Children Initiative.
Veronica Spears’ great-uncle was one of the black youths who died while incarcerated at the House of Reform and Instruction for Colored Children, which operated from 1870 to 1937 in Cheltenham, Maryland. The graves are located in a wooded area in front of the establishment.
Tyrone Turner/WAMU for NPR
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Tyrone Turner/WAMU for NPR
To date, researchers have identified the graves of more than 1,000 children in 29 states. The largest burial site is located near the House of Reform, now Cheltenham Youth Detention Centre. More than 230 black boys were found buried in the woods across the street from the facility.
Small tombstones are easy to miss, especially in the fall, when they seem to sink into the fallen leaves. Some waste from a neighboring construction site mixes with the leaves.
Chuck Copeland, Spears’ cousin, hiked through tall trees and thorny brush one morning in late September. A pastor who lives about two hours from us leaned down to read one of the headstones.
“He meant nothing. He meant nothing to them,” he said, grimacing. Then he read: “Thirteen Years of Baltimore, Mark Davis, 1885.”
Headstones for black youths who died while detained at the House of Reform and Instruction for Colored Children in Cheltenham, Maryland. More than 230 black boys are buried opposite the facility, which now operates as Cheltenham Youth Detention Centre.
Tyrone Turner/WAMU for NPR
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Tyrone Turner/WAMU for NPR
Established in 1870, the Reformatory, where Mark Davis died, was the first detention center for black children in the American South, according to Georgetown researchers. It was created to get young black people out of adult prisons. Children as young as 5 years old were incarcerated for criminal offenses, as well as for a number of noncriminal reasons, including being poor, homeless or orphaned, the researchers found.
There, boys were forced to work without food and disciplined by white guards wearing a “brass-studded belt.” according to a report from the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services. In the 1920s, boys were rented out to nearby farms, with the institution taking most, if not all, of their wages. They were also forced to work in the reformatory’s broom factory under conditions described by Baltimore City union investigators in 1926 as a “fire trap,” according to the report.
Georgetown researchers have not discovered why Spears’ great-uncle, Arthur Hamilton, was incarcerated there, nor have they found his remains in the cemetery. The family learned that he had died of tuberculosis in 1917.
A Maryland State Historical Marker details the history of the Reform House in Cheltenham, Maryland. The state placed the marker in May 2026.
Tyrone Turner/WAMU for NPR
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Tyrone Turner/WAMU for NPR
Marc Schindler was a top official in the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services when the state rediscovered the cemetery in 2024. When he went to work at Georgetown University, he continued his research at similar sites across the country. His team has so far found graves linked to 40 institutions, from Salem, Oregon, to Augusta, Maine.
Some graves are next to juvenile detention centers that are still operating.
“I am hopeful that in states across the country, people will come forward and we will be able to see an appropriate response to what I consider to be unquestionably a national tragedy,” Schindler said.
As states become aware of these grave sites, some state lawmakers across the country have begun looking at restitution options. In Florida, lawmakers created a $20 million fund for survivors who attended an infamous reform school that closed in 2011. In Arkansas, officials created a memorial to honor 21 black boys who died in a 1959 correctional facility fire.
This year, Maryland lawmakers created a commission search and identify all children buried in Cheltenham. The commission, hosted by the state attorney general’s office, includes members of the children’s families, who will weigh in on the future of the site and how the state should repair the way it treated the children at the reform institution.
“Understanding that history is extremely important, but understanding how that history relates to our current practices is probably more important,” Sen. Will Smith, who sponsored the bill creating the commission, told NPR.
Smith pointed out Maryland Laws which lead to hundreds of children being billed as adults each year. He said accounting for the state’s past involves changing these types of laws. And this year, the state Legislature took a step toward that goal. After more than a decade of pressure from advocacy groups, lawmakers passed Smith’s bill removing certain offenses, such as gun possession, from the list of charges that automatically send youths to adult court. This change took effect this month.
Smith credits the legislature’s Black Caucus trip to Cheltenham’s grave with convincing lawmakers to support the change.
Veronica Spears (left) visits the grave in Cheltenham, Maryland, with Marc Schindler (right), a research professor at Georgetown University and head of the Forgotten Children Initiative, which works to identify burial sites or cemeteries associated with juvenile correctional facilities across the United States.
Tyrone Turner/WAMU for NPR
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Tyrone Turner/WAMU for NPR
When Spears and Copeland visited the grave that day in September, they finally reached a place where there were no more headstones. What remains are rows of gray cinder blocks – more than 200 of them, with no names or dates. Researchers believe Arthur Hamilton is buried somewhere in this part of the woods. Spears said she believed that too.
“I don’t have any proof, no,” she said, placing her hand on her chest. “I felt it in my chest. I felt a heaviness. I knew he was screaming at all of us – they all were – to let us know that we were there and that we had been mistreated.”
She pursed her lips and looked at the ground. After a while, Spears, Copeland and other family members gathered in a circle among the cinder blocks. They all remained silent until Copeland, the pastor, began to speak. He deplored the history he was being taught. History was not taught to him. The betrayal he feels.
“The first thing I learned to memorize in school was the Pledge of Allegiance,” he said. Then he raised his hands, gesturing to the graves around him. “Liberty and justice for all.” He shook his head as his hands landed with a thud at his sides.
After another moment of silence, Copeland led the family in prayer.
“Thank you for this opportunity to remember our uncle Arthur Hamilton,” he said.
Copeland said he wants children to know they are no longer forgotten.
The Spears family gathers around the cinder blocks marking the children’s graves near the former Colored Children’s Reform and Training Home in Cheltenham, Maryland.
Jenny Abamu/UMOA for NPR
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Jenny Abamu/UMOA for NPR
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