About

Turner Cemetery and Mary S. Brown-Ames UM Church are located at 3424 Beechwood Boulevard, Pittsburgh, PA 15217. The site is located on the busy block of Beechwood Boulevard a short distance north of the intersection of Beechwood Boulevard, Hazelwood Avenue, and Brown’s Hill Road. A bright red wrought-iron fence fronts the cemetery.

The cemetery is half an acre in size and is open to visitors during the day. The entrance is on Beechwood Boulevard beside the church. Street parking is available in front of the church except during morning rush hours, 6-9 a.m.

When you visit, please do not touch the tombstones or make rubbings of them. The tombstones are fragile, and spalling of the surface is a problem.

For information about the cemetery and church or to make an appointment for a guided tour of the cemetery, contact Helen Wilson at hjtwilson@gmail.com. (No bathroom facilities are available at present.) The site has no steps, but the ground is uneven and slopes upward.

Mary S. Brown-Ames Church is still a functioning congregation under the pastoral care of its dynamic pastor, Jeff Lukacs. However, the church building is now closed for demolition. A new building will be built on the site. While construction is going on, the congregation is meeting at the West Homestead UMX at 515 W. 8th Ave., West Homestead, PA 15120. Services are at 10:30 on Sundays. Everyone is welcome. For more information about the lively spiritual side of the church, go to brightredfence.org.

The TC/MSBA Historical Committee, under the auspices of Mary S. Brown-Ames Church, has been studying the history of Turner Cemetery and Mary S. Brown Memorial-Ames UM church for more than twelve years. We are amazed at how much information has been written and collected about the site for over 200 years. Our files would make a stack more than two feet high, and that doesn’t count the extensive information we have found online.

The fascinating thing about this site is that is relates to every part of Pittsburgh’s history, from before the arrival of settlers from Europe, to the wars the United States fought in, to the growth of industries and the effects of that growth, to the influx of various ethnic groups into the area, and to the changing landscape from forest to farmland to urban neighborhood.