The first Archdiocesan cemetery, St. Peter’s Kirkyard, was opened in 1770 at the corner of Cathedral and Saratoga Streets in downtown Baltimore.

In 1816, the Cathedral Cemetery at Riggs and Fremont Avenues was opened to replace the then-full St. Peter’s. Those interred at St. Peter’s Kirkyard were relocated to the Cathedral Cemetery. In 1869 the Archdiocese of Baltimore purchased the Bonnie Brae estate from Capt. Charles McBlair.  The 40 acres, located just inside the Baltimore City limits, became New Cathedral Cemetery.  Over a seventeen year period the graves located at the Cathedral Cemetery were moved to New Cathedral Cemetery.

The cemetery has since purchased an additional eighty-five acres assuring burial sites for future generations.  In 1936, St. Patrick’s Cemetery was moved from Orleans Street to a new section in New Cathedral appropriately named “St. Patrick.” The headstones and markers from, St. Peter’s Kirkyard, St. Patrick’s  and Cathedral Cemetery, were reinstalled at New Cathedral Cemetery.   Unfortunately, time and the elements have erased many of the names and dates, but the magnificence of the old monuments and statues lives on.