Members of Maryland’s Legislative Black Caucus dodged thorny vines, bees and branches as they entered a wooded state property suspected of being a burial site for Black boys who died while incarcerated by the state more than a century ago.

The lawmakers gathered at the Prince George’s County site because they wanted to see it for themselves after reading about it in The Washington Post. And they knew before they toured the neglected makeshift burial ground that they wanted to act.

Dels. Pam Queen and Kym Taylor crunched through a carpet of leaves as they approached a cement headstone. Queen, a Montgomery County Democrat, snapped a photo of the inscription that read “Mark Davis,” a 13-year-old from Baltimore who died on Feb. 3, 1885.

A thick tree trunk propped up the unmoored headstone of William Jones, 17, who died on March 30, 1887. A half-buried headstone remembered someone from Annapolis named Washington, who died May 9, 1888, “aged 16 years.”

Those were some of a handful of markers with inscriptions. A short walk away and into the woods, several rows of cement blocks covered with thick, green moss marked more.

Nearby, the Cheltenham Veterans Cemetery was neatly mowed and manicured.

Leading the tour was Marc Schindler, the former assistant secretary of the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services. He explained to lawmakers how he and former Secretary Vincent Schiraldi came across the record of a House of Reformation and Instruction for Colored Children while researching Maryland facilities decades ago.

And he never let it go.

Sometime after the pair took over the state agency in 2023, they continued looking.

That place has since had several names. At one point it was called Boys’ Village of Maryland. Now, it’s called the Cheltenham Youth Detention Center.

Schindler said the Maryland General Assembly in 1830 decided to stop incarcerating children with adults. First they moved the white children into a separate facility.

But it was not until 1870 that the state moved about 400 Black children to the House of Reformation, he said. Children’s death certificates list their place of death and burial as the state facility. It is not yet known how many people may be buried in the nearby woods.

Schindler said records revealed the kids were locked up for minor infractions — running away, vagrancy, minor theft — and the conditions were “horrendous.” Most of their death certificates said they died of natural causes, he said.

The emotional and somber walk drew strong emotions from lawmakers and motivation for the upcoming legislative session.

“I’m just thinking of how inhumane people can be,” said Del. Debra Davis, standing near a grave marked with a cement block, “and under the color of law.”

The Democrat represents Charles County, but she grew up in Prince George’s County not far from the burial grounds.

She said the site exemplifies the need for the state to study ways to repair the harms caused to Black people by racist government policies.

“I know it’s controversial, but the state did this and refused to repair,” she said.

Davis referred to a caucus-led reparations bill Gov. Wes Moore vetoed in May that proposed studying the harms caused to Marylanders by slavery, segregation and racist government policies. Moore said he would rather act than enact a study.

David Turner, senior adviser and communications director for Moore, said the Democrat “has long spoken about Maryland’s often complicated history and the powerful force for good that government can be in righting the wrongs of the past.”

Moore will propose funds to restore and repair the burial site in his next capital budget, Turner said.

At the very least, Davis said, the families need to be recognized, the graves marked and the site cleaned up.

“What are we going to do, apart from restoring and maintaining?” state Sen. Will Smith asked his colleagues. “What are we going to do to correct some of the injustices that we’re sitting on right now?”

Smith, a Montgomery County Democrat, said he sees a through line from this injustice to the state’s long-held practice of charging teens as adults. He said he’ll reintroduce a bill to reduce the number of adult charges teens face.

Del. Jheanelle Wilkins, the caucus chair and a Montgomery County Democrat, said the caucus is still working through its legislative priorities but wants to see the bill passed.

Del. Jeffrie Long Jr., a Prince George’s County Democrat, represents the part of the district where the Cheltenham site is located. He said it’s key for his community to know what happened here.

“There’s so much more that lies beneath the surface,” he said. ”And somebody’s links to their family are missing.”

State Sen. Michael Jackson grew up not far from the burial site and now lives even closer. He didn’t know about it back then but recalled the lore around a mysterious place grown-ups used to warn children about.

He said kids would be told to “behave yourself or people will come and take you away and you won’t come back.”

When he was young the place was called Boys’ Village of Maryland, one of a handful of names it’s held over the more than 100 years the state has been incarcerating children here.

The 61-year-old Democrat who represents portions of Calvert, Charles and Prince George’s counties said it’s now up to the the caucus to call for transparency and find a way to make things right.

“At the end of the day,” he said, “we need to be mindful of never, ever allowing something like this to happen again.”