More than a dozen leaders from Green Valley’s Mount Zion Baptist Church traveled to Pittsburgh last week to dedicate a gravestone honoring the congregation’s first pastor.
For the past 123 years, the Rev. Robert Simon Laws’ remains had rested in an unmarked grave at historic Homewood Cemetery in Pittsburgh. After learning of the lack of a gravestone, Mount Zion decided to do something about it.
“It was so appropriate to go to Pittsburgh,” said the Rev. André D. Ivy, Mount Zion’s senior pastor. “We thought it a good way of honoring his service, not just for Arlington but for all he served.”
The graveside service and marker dedication was part of Mount Zion’s ongoing 160th-anniversary commemoration. Ivy credited research by Kyra Hicks for unearthing much of the information about Laws.
“That’s how all of this came about,” he told ARLnow. “She took the project and ran with it.”
The 30-minute graveside recommittal ceremony was conducted with support from local Pittsburgh churches. Media from western Pennsylvania covered the event, and Pittsburgh Mayor Corey O’Connor declared July 10 as “Rev. Robert Simon Laws Day” in the city.
The event was a homecoming for Ivy, who earned a graduate degree at the University of Pittsburgh and received religious training and ordination in the city.
Laws (circa 1837-1903) was born enslaved in Middlesex County, Va. According to research, a $100 reward notice was posted for his capture after he escaped slavery in 1863. At the time, that part of Virginia was shifting hands frequently between Union and Confederate control.
By January 1866, he was living in Freedman’s Village, and from 1866-74 he served as the first pastor of what then was known as the Old Bell Church there. The church later evolved into Mount Zion Baptist, moving to Green Valley after the closure of Freedman’s Village.
In the 1880s, Laws assisted in establishing Virginia Avenue Baptist (Colored) Church in D.C. The church is now known as Friendship Baptist and located in Southwest D.C.’s Waterfront area.
In 1875, Laws earned a degree from Howard University, and is known to have been a featured speaker (along with Frederick Douglass) at the 1883 Emancipation Day celebration held in D.C.
At the dawn of the 20th century, Laws relocated to Pittsburgh, running a newspaper and serving as pastor of Mount Olive Baptist Church in the city’s historic Lower Hill District until his death in 1903.
Ivy said more research is needed to determine whether any existing Pittsburgh church is the lineal descendant of that church. There are several “Mount Olive” Baptist churches in the Pittsburgh area that could be connected to the earlier church, he said.
Mount Zion parishioners gathered at the church on the morning of July 9, making the 4.5-hour journey northwest to Pittsburgh.
Homewood Cemetery is one of the most historic burial grounds in western Pennsylvania. In addition to Laws, notables buried there include Chuck Cooper, the first African American to be drafted by the NBA, as well as Baseball Hall of Fame member Pie Traynor, former Pennsylvania Gov. Dick Thornburgh, industrialist Henry Clay Frick, D.C. socialite and diplomat Perle Mesta and multiple generations of the H.J. Heinz family.
“It was personally quite moving to stand at the burial site and pay tribute to Rev. Laws and to know that he is now remembered,” Hicks said “The Homewood Cemetery is quite scenic — neighbors walk, run and bike through its paths.”
Mount Zion’s 160th anniversary celebration continues through the year, with an evening gala set for Sept. 12 at the Renaissance Arlington Capital View Hotel.
