Mt. Hope Cemetery was founded in 1872 as a city owned African American cemetery. Mt. Hope is located on 34.5 acres at Fayetteville Street and Prospect Avenue, and is a pastoral landscaped cemetery with hills and views of downtown. Those buried there include the Reverend Henry Beard Delany, one of two black Bishops of the Episcopal Church at the time of his death, and Colonel James H. Young, commander of a black regiment during the Spanish-American War.

DATABASE
The records for Mount Hope Cemetery, like all city owned cemeteries, were apparently destroyed by fire sometime in the 1930s and with them the knowledge of who was buried there and in what location. Staff at the Olivia Raney Local History Library have attempted to reconstruct the list of interments using North Carolina death certificates and the Raleigh Death Register. Names of those listed as buried at MountHope have been added to the over 7,000 names currently on record with the City of Raleigh. An attempt was made to provide complete names as well as both birth and death dates for each individual. Please note that death certificates provide accurate dates of death but other information such as spelling of a given name or birth date are based on the information that the informant knew about the deceased. The database is color coded to indicate the source of the information as well as to note conflicting data.The following database for Mt. Hope Cemetery was put together with painstaking research by volunteers and staff at the Olivia Raney Local History Library under the direction and leadership of Karen-Marie Allen, branch manager of the library.
To access database, click here.

The Nomination to the National Register of Historic Places was approved in January, 2009.

To print a map of Mt. Hope Cemetery, click on Walking Tour of Mt. Hope Cemetery.