Developers of a townhouse project originally wanted to dig up the graves and move them several hundred feet.

GERMANTOWN, Md. — Montgomery County residents are celebrating after they say a grassroots effort saved a historic cemetery threatened by development.

Zachariah Waters was a Revolutionary War patriot. His wife and children are buried alongside him. This family were the first settlers of what is now Germantown. In a way, the last one out turned off the lights. The last surviving family member built a fence around these grave sites.

Susan Soderberg with the Germantown Historical Society toured WUSA9 around the grave sites near Father Hurley Boulevard and Century Road.

“Today, we have a school named for them, and a road named for them. They are very important to our community,” explained Soderberg.

Developers of a townhouse project originally wanted to dig up the graves and move them several hundred feet. A letter writing campaign by the Germantown Historical Society led the developer to think twice. The plan is still for the cemetery to be bordered by new residential buildings and a freeway overpass. But for now, there is a compromise: “To keep them right where they are and develop around them and to make this area around the cemetery into a little park,” said Soderberg.

Part of Germantown’s history is already lost. The grave sites of slaves are across the street from the Waters’ family grave sites. There are condos there now.

“The slave cemetery doesn’t have any gravestones like this. It has field stones that were one time set up in a row upright. Now they are all scattered,” Soderberg pointed out.

The developer, “Symmetry At Cloverleaf,” didn’t return our request for comment. But after WUSA9 reached out Thursday morning, the developer asked for an extension from the Montgomery County Planning Board. It was expected to vote to approve the project this afternoon.

“We have to keep vigil and a watchful eye on this, but it is great to have a history of this sort. We have lost so much in Germantown where half of our historic sites are gone,” Soderberg said.