The Historic Cemetery
Duncan Heights Cemetery is on abandoned land in the town of McCandless, PA. We are calling on anyone interested in restoring this cemetery with us to come out on our work days to try to refurbish this cemetery so that veterans and others can have a distinguished resting place.
Note: No one owns this property. We all work at our own risk.
Ninety-five years, one forgotten ground
Duncan Heights was founded in 1931 as a cemetery for Pittsburgh's African American community during segregation, when burial options open to Black families were often limited to less desirable ground. About a decade later it opened to anyone, with a section set aside specifically for war veterans.
The cemetery was abandoned in the 1960s. Its ownership records disappeared along with it — a mystery that neighbors, journalists, and township officials have tried and failed to untangle for over sixty years. Today it sits as six overgrown acres of woods and marsh along Duncan Avenue, holding what may be hundreds, possibly thousands, of graves.
What hasn't disappeared is the effort to care for it. Cub Scouts cleared it by hand in 1977. A Korean War veteran mowed its front lawn for decades starting in 1994. Neighbors have spent ten-year stretches digging through county deeds looking for an owner. In recent years, volunteers have GPS-mapped grave sites, an Eagle Scout candidate made its restoration his project, and community work days continue to uncover headstones — including those of African American veterans — that had been buried under decades of brush.
Reclaimed by the woods, reclaimed again by neighbors
Beyond a mowed lawn near the entrance, the rest of the cemetery is a mix of brambles, fallen trees, and a flood-prone creek clogged with old debris — shopping carts, tires, and decades of dumped trash sit tangled among the headstones. Orange and white survey flags mark newly discovered grave sites as volunteers slowly work outward from the cleared sections.
This cemetery has no owner. It only has volunteers.
No government agency, church, or corporation is legally responsible for Duncan Heights today — which means its only caretakers are the people who choose to show up. If you'd like to help clear brush, document graves, or simply learn more before your first work day, here's where to start.