WILMINGTON — Nearly two dozen people joined in for a wreath-laying and prayer service May 2 at the graves of long-ago French soldiers and a distinguished Catholic from Delaware at Coffee Run Cemetery, the state’s oldest Catholic graveyard.
Members of the Knights of Columbus Council at St Joseph’s on the Brandywine were joined by brother Knights of Peter Claver from St Joseph’s on French Street.
Father Glenn Evers, pastor of St. Joseph’s on French Street, offered graveside prayers and blessings.
The group remembered six French Catholic soldiers buried there during the American revolution. The second wreath paid tribute to Andre Noel, a Catholic citizen of Delaware and former enslaved person who died in 1822.
Knights of Columbus member Bill Knightly offered the gathering a narrative outlining what is known about the more than 200-year-old gravesites. He said Noel, after his release from slavery, was a barber and prominent business owner in Wilmington, investing money he had received from his slave owner upon gaining freedom.
