Book Release: "Abandoned and Forgotten Cemeteries of Philadelphia and its Environs"

My new book has just been released! Thank you to everyone who pre-ordered Abandoned and Forgotten Cemeteries of Philadelphia and its Environs – you should all have your copies in hand at this point. As always, I welcome feedback on the book. 

I did an in-person book launch presentation on July 24, 2025 at the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, a week after the book was released. Head House Books was in attendance selling copies that I signed. It was great speaking with people about so many aspects of abandoned cemeteries – thank you all for coming! I do have five additional events scheduled throughout the fall in the Philadelphia area, so if you are interested in attending a lecture presentation or would like to chat or get a book signed, I’ve listed these at the end.

Now for a little bit about the book itself – here are the topics I cover:

• Why and how are cemeteries abandoned?

• City versus rural cemeteries and the demise of Lafayette Cemetery

• The Watery Remains of Monument Cemetery

• Genealogical challenges

• The Surprise Below - 

        First Baptist Church and Weccacoe Playground/Burial Ground

• Mount Moriah Cemetery – A Resurrection

• The Cemetery business model, old and new

• Mount Vernon and Har Hasetim Cemeteries - 

        Teetering on the edge of oblivion

• Volunteerism and respect for the past

..............................

Were I to do it all over, I might subtitle my book, The Collapse of Eloquence. It’s a phrase from Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Bluebeard. The actual title of my new book is Abandoned and Forgotten Cemeteries of Philadelphia and its Environs, and it was released into the wild in July, 2025 (America Through Time). The Collapse of Eloquence aptly describes the not uncommon result of people’s efforts to memorialize themselves, their story, only to find that their monuments to immortality did not stand the test of time. Maybe their descendants discovered this, if they even cared. Sometimes our best efforts to preserve a memory ends with the monument disintegrating. Sometimes nature washes it away (as happened in the central Texas flood in July, 2025), and sometimes even our progeny make those memories disappear.

Abandoned community mausoleum, Plains, PA.

Cemetery History

Philadelphia is no different from any other major American city. Its residents die, so we bury them in a churchyard. (Everyone dies, even Ozzy.) The city grows and the churchyard becomes full. The land becomes too valuable for graves as the city expands so the graves are either relocated or built upon. Large rural cemeteries are created. A hundred years later, they are no longer rural – these same cemeteries find themselves now in the middle of the larger city, just as the small church graveyards once found themselves in the way of “progress.” Some cemeteries survive this evolution, others do not. When the cemetery disappears, sometimes the burial records disappear too. Then memories collapse.

ChesLen Preserve Potters Field, Chester County, PA

As I wrote the book, there were many ideas I wanted to get across, topics I wanted to cover, e.g. the history of cemeteries in Philadelphia, why some have disappeared, why cemeteries are abandoned. I was interviewed by Linda Gould of the Cemetery Chronicles podcast in July and she asked me an interesting question – were there any themes or topics that arose while I wrote the book, that I hadn’t planned. And yes, there were. Volunteerism was one, i.e. how historic preservation is so greatly dependent on volunteers! Another was one she put into words quite eloquently - the fragility and relative impermanence of cemeteries. We think of cemeteries as rather staid entities, not very dynamic. We may assume that the most dramatic thing that happens is a few graves get dug each week.

Cemeteries, however, are quite dynamic! It is very possible that the cemetery you drive past each day may be on the verge of bankruptcy. High grass is a sign, for sure, of potential problems, e.g. with Har Jehuda Cemetery in Upper Darby, PA. Or, in the case of Mount Vernon Cemetery at Ridge and Lehigh Avenues in north Philly, the absence of tall weeds and grass may be an indication of quite the opposite. THAT cemetery was purchased in the spring of 2025, by an individual who is in the process of restoring it and turning it into an active “green burial” ground! It had been locked up with its trees and other foliage growing wild for decades.

Gardel Monument, Mount Vernon Cemetery, 2021

In the introduction to the book I wrote that I’d been working on it for twenty years, although I didn’t realize it all that time. I’d been documenting my cemetery travels (which began at the turn of the century - the twenty-first) since 2010 in my blog, The Cemetery Traveler. After photographing, exploring, volunteering in, researching and writing about hundreds of cemeteries across the United States, it occurred to me that the “abandoned” cemetery captivated my interest more than any other “type” of cemetery. When I would lecture about such places, people would invariably ask, how does a cemetery become ABANDONED? For many, this is incomprehensible. Hence, there is a chapter in the book exploring that phenomenon. Examples are given, e.g. Har Hasetim (est. 1890), the formerly abandoned Jewish cemetery in the woods of Gladwyne, PA (a Philadelphia suburb) and Mount Moriah Cemetery (est. 1855), a massive 200-acre property which was easily the nation’s largest abandoned cemetery when it was deserted in 2010. These also happen to be success stories, believe it or not – cemeteries that were saved from oblivion. Many Philadelphia cemeteries were not.

Mount Moriah Cemetery, Philadelphia, circa 2010

In Abandoned and Forgotten Cemeteries of Philadelphia and its Environs, I look at many cemeteries that have disappeared, or in some cases, just seem to have disappeared. Some have just been built over. Some, the bodies have been moved, others they have not. Monument Cemetery, the city’s second Victorian garden cemetery (est. 1837, after Laurel Hill, est. 1836) was destroyed in 1956 when Temple University acquired it to expand student parking. You can read about this travesty in my book, and see color photos of all the gravemarkers that were removed from the cemetery and dumped into the Delaware River under what is now the Betsy Ross Bridge. (The book is photograph-intensive, by the way, with 140 full-color images). Some large cemeteries like Monument and Lafayette Cemetery (which used to occupy the space that is now Capitolo Playground, near the cheese steak emporiums in south Philly) have barely left a trace. And where are the bodies? 47,000 from Lafayette and 28,000 from Monument? These are not pretty stories, but I cover them in the book.

Under the Betsy Ross Bridge

Many large cemeteries disappeared (sounds like someone just waved a magic wand, doesn’t it?), but scores of small ones did too. “Disappearing” could simply mean the graveyard was built over, like the Odd Fellows Cemetery under the playground of the William K. Dick Elementary School. It is fascinating to note that the Philadelphia Archeological Forum (PAF) has mapped out over 200 unmarked burial grounds throughout the city, with the intent that building developers take heed and do the right thing. Really, you cannot dig anywhere in Philadelphia without hitting a coffin, it seems. Temple found this out in March of 2025 when it tried to dig a foundation for a new building on the site of the old Monument Cemetery. Oops, they really DIDN’T move all the graves! And forget that “six feet under” idea. Burials were found eighteen inches under the blacktopped surface at Weccacoe Playground in Queen Village in 2014.

Weccacoe Playground, aka the Mother Bethel Burial Ground

Laws and Statutes

First Baptist Church plot at Mount Moriah Cemetery

Unfortunately, the laws that govern what happens when a backhoe accidentally crushes through buried wooden coffins are not well understood. They exist, but may not even be known to the parties involved. This is what happened at 218 Arch Street in 2017 when the foundation was being dug for a new condo complex. Legally, these thousands of full casket burials from the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia were on private property, so the developer had a certain responsibility. In Philadelphia, if human remains are found on private property, the landowner does not own any of the remains interred in that land. Under Pennsylvania law, such remains are under the control of next of kin/descendants and the courts. In this case, one would expect that the developer would have needed a court order to disturb these burials. He did allow about 500 burials to be excavated (and reburied at Mount Moriah Cemetery) but eventually the building went up - leaving an estimated 2,500 burials under the street. Apparently, this developer never saw the movie, Poltergeist.

Arch Street, where First Baptist remains were found to be not relocated to Mount Moriah

The PAF map was published in 2018, just after the Arch Street excavation, so this resource was not available for the developer to check for unmarked cemeteries before digging. The hope now is that developers WILL check the map first, then do the respectful thing. Or the legal thing. Hopefully both. Legally, in Philadelphia, if you do not “disturb” the human remains, you can build on, around, or over them. If you DO disturb the remains, then the Philadelphia Orphans Court has to get involved (along with the city coroner, police, archeologists, and so on) – but that’s only if the developer lets anyone know that human remains were discovered. 

(PAF) Philadelphia Historical Unmarked Burial Places Map

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

In Abandoned and Forgotten Cemeteries of Philadelphia and its Environs, I have tried to balance some good with the bad. Cemeteries that were saved, versus cemeteries that were destroyed, or just paved over like Bishops’ Burial Ground under Washington Avenue at 8th Street in South Philly. Or the previously unmarked Mother Bethel Burial Ground under the Weccacoe Playground in Queen Village, which is home to about 5,000 very quiet neighbors. After the accidental excavation of graves at Weccacoe in 2015, the Philadelphia Archaeological Forum (PAF) created its map of unmarked burial grounds. This fascinated me. I quickly looked at the area of the proposed Seventy-Sixers basketball arena in Chinatown to see if any unmarked graveyards would be disturbed … and yes there were two! The plan was abandoned though, so the arena is not being built. The burial grounds continue to rest quietly under the streets.

Southwark Community Garden, Queen Village (photo by Paul Wismar)

Back at the beginning of this piece, I said I’d been working on the book for the past twenty years. I didn’t realize it until last year when a publisher contacted me. When I was almost ready to upload the final edited manuscript in the fall of 2024, it occurred to me to look at the places I’d lived in Philadelphia to see if there were cemeteries in those areas. Eureka! The apartment building I used to live in on Queen Street was built over the Sixth Presbyterian Church Burial Ground! (Which could explain why one of the closets rained from time to time.) In addition, the community garden directly behind my apartment complex (shown in the photo above) was ALSO built over a different cemetery, the Ebenezer Church Burial Ground!! No wonder my neighbors’ vegetables are so plump and tasty, the flowers so vibrant. I find it amusing that they refer to their individual garden sections as plots.

That’s just one example of how new information bubbles to the surface and allows me to update the presentations I give from time to time. Here’s a link to that PAF map, if you’d like to see if you’re living on top of an old cemetery (or better yet, find out if a neighbor you dislike is living on top of one!): 

https://www.phillyarchaeology.net/wp-content/gismaps_maps/BurialMapV4/index.html#12/40.0102/-75.1089

I plan to do more speaking engagements this year, with book signings and so on. But these won’t be canned presentations. They will always be updated with current developments. People think cemeteries are fixed entities, unchanging pieces of property that simply get the grass cut every couple weeks. This is, oddly, not the case. Every time I lecture, there is new information, even if I’m discussing the same topic, the same cemetery. Consider the recent development where Temple University rediscovered graves under a parking lot excavation on April 12, 2025.

Temple's April 2025 excavation ends when they hit coffins six feet under.

Monument Cemetery, Gleason's Pictorial 1852

They were digging a foundation for a new building on the old Monument Cemetery site, whose graves were supposedly all moved in 1956. You can read about this “surprise” in the May 28, 2025 Philadelphia Inquirer article, “The discovery of human remains at Temple is a reminder of Philly’s history of careless cemetery removals.” Forget a collapse of eloquence, this is a collapse of respect. The article states, “We’ve long known about the careless, politically corrupt removal of cemeteries across the city from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries, including Monument Cemetery at the site of the university.” Maybe you didn’t know this. It is my belief that you should, which is one of the major points of my book. Owning up to our mistakes of the past and striving to do better in the future will make us better people. 

On a positive note, Laurel Hill Cemetery recently completed (in May, 2025) a massive year-long restoration project of its 1836 John Notman-designed gatehouse. For all its beauty and elegance, few people realize that Laurel Hill narrowly averted disaster in the 1970s. At that point, it was nearly full, its condition steadily declining since WWII. Its grandiose monuments were covered with graffiti; all the Tiffany stained-glass windows had been stolen from its mausoleums. The savior of the cemetery arrived in 1978 when the Friends of Laurel Hill volunteer organization was formed. Laurel Hill now thrives, its collapse of eloquence halted, its story continuing in grand tradition. Many memory gardens were not so lucky. Some, like Mount Vernon Cemetery (est. 1856) across Ridge Avenue from Laurel Hill, have been hanging on by a thread, locked up and neglected for decades. Since my book went to press, there has been an interesting development with that cemetery, as I mentioned earlier. After famously being advertised for sale on Zillow for a million dollars in 2024, it has been purchased with plans to care for the grounds and make it not only a walkable green space for the neighborhood, but to also make it a green burial site!

Mount Vernon Cemetery, 2013

Impermanence vs. Perpetual Care 

Rest in peace. Perpetual care. What do those phrases even mean in light of all this tumultuous activity? One thing it means is that some people are now demanding legal clauses in their burial contracts that say their remains will NEVER be disturbed. But who’s to say what will happen in a hundred years’ time? As we ponder all this and move toward a better, more respectful future, consider what Ben Franklin said: “Show me your cemeteries and I will tell you what kind of people you have.“ 

So my book, again, captures the fragility, the impermanence of these entities we assumed would last forever. Our cemeteries are part of our history, and whenever we lose one, we lose a chapter in our city's history. Historic sites depend greatly on the efforts of volunteers, so if you are so inclined, please consider volunteering your time to help out at your local cemetery. 

References and Calendar of Events:

Abandoned and Forgotten Cemeteries of Philadelphia and its Environs is available at the online retailers:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/abandoned-and-forgotten-cemeteries-of-philadelphia-and-its-environs-ed-snyder/1146630922

https://www.amazon.com/Abandoned-Forgotten-Cemeteries-Philadelphia-Environs/dp/1634995236

https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Abandoned-Forgotten-Cemeteries-Philadelphia-Its/Ed-Snyder/9781634995238

*********************

I will have books at several events in the fall, if you would like me to sign one. The first two are public lectures and the last three are events where I will also be selling my books and fine art cemetery photography:

(Lecture presentations below require online registration)

Ludington Library (Lower Merion Library System), 5 South Bryn Mawr Avenue, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010

October 9th, 2025 (7 pm)

https://lmls.libcal.com/event/14489528

Wissahickon Valley Public Library - Ambler Branch

209 Race Street, Ambler PA  19002 Sept. 17, 2025, 6:30 pm.

https://www.wvpl.org/abandoned-and-forgotten-cemeteries-phila-and-its-environs

Market of the Macabre at Laurel Hill Cemetery – Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025

https://laurelhillphl.com/events/annual-events/market-of-the-macabre/

Darksome Art Market at Mount Moriah Cemetery – Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025

https://www.darksomecraftmarket.com/mountmoriah

Chestnut Hill Arts Festival – Sunday, Oct. 12, 2025

https://chestnuthillpa.com/events/fallforthearts-2025/

Please Explore this Abandoned Jewish Cemetery!

Over the past few years, I have written in my Cemetery Traveler blog about a formerly abandoned Jewish cemetery in the woods of Gladwyne, Pennsylvania (this is a northwestern suburb of Philadelphia). The location and status of the graveyard (which was active from about 1860 to 1945) has perplexed people for years. Simply finding it has been the biggest challenge for most people. After you see the eighteen acres of hills and valleys peppered with thousands of old gravestones, monuments, and rusty fencing, you cannot help but wonder, “What’s the story here?”

Unusual zinc ("white bronze") cradle crave marker

Well, this weekend you have an opportunity to find out! Gladwyne’s Beth David Reform Congregation, the current owners of what is known as Har Ha Zetim Cemetery, will provide a tour and information session. If you’re curious, please come by! I will be attending. If you’d like to help at some point in the future, that’s even better. Here is Beth David's announcement:

Sunday in the Cemetery
Sunday, Oct. 25th, 2015
2 - 4 pm

This unique behind-the-scenes tour will provide insight into the historical, cultural, and spiritual significance of the Gladwyne Jewish Memorial Cemetery as well as the complex tasks involved in transforming this formerly abandoned site into a woodland memorial park.  Led by a group of local experts, we'll discuss a variety of topics relevant to the cemetery's revitalization including headstone restoration, gravestone mapping and database creation, and restoring the cemetery's rich forest ecology. Guides include Rachel Wolgemuth, historian and database manager at West Laurel Hill, Carol Yaster, President of the Board of the Friends of Laurel Hill Cemetery, Scott Quitel, ecologist and Founder of LandHealth Institute, and Bill Doran, superintendent of Laurel Hill Cemetery.

Meet in the parking lot of Beth David Reform Congregation by 2 pm. We will walk over to the cemetery via the Bridlewild trail and Conshohocken State Road to experience first-hand current state of cemetery access. Alternatively, vehicles will be available to shuttle participants to the cemetery. After the tour, please join us for afternoon tea in Beth David's living room for an informal question and answer session. Here you can view the master plan for the cemetery and find out how you can get involved.  

To register, please email Jill Cooper at jcooper@bdavid.org.

 Beth David Reform Congregation 
1130 Vaughan Lane
Gladwyne, PA  19035

Veteran's grave at Har Ha Zetim Cemetery

Another good reason to stop by is that the foliage is beginning to die off so you will get a better appreciation for the expansiveness of the cemetery, and the work that has been accomplished by volunteers. Invasive foliage as been cleared and paths have been laid out. For more information on Beth David Reform Congregation in Gladwyne, PA, please see website:  http://www.bdavid.org/ 

Same graves in fall and winter

For some background, here are the three blogs I’ve previously posted on Har Ha Zetim Cemetery: 

May 15, 2015

A New Era for Abandoned Jewish Cemetery

http://thecemeterytraveler.blogspot.com/2015/05/a-new-era-for-abandoned-jewish-cemetery.html

 March 9, 2014

Graves Beneath the Snow

http://thecemeterytraveler.blogspot.com/2014/03/graves-beneath-snow.html

 April 6, 2012

Passover and Gladwyne's Abandoned Jewish Cemetery

http://thecemeterytraveler.blogspot.com/2012/04/passover-and-gladwynes-abandoned-jewish.html

A New Year - A New Abandoned Cemetery

The only thing more titillating than photographing in an overgrown abandoned graveyard is the inkling that you’re not supposed to be there. I was certain to keep an eye out for people keeping an eye out for people like me. The vines hanging from the trees this day after Christmas gave no quarter as to the holiday just passed. No decorations, no wreaths. The place seems totally off limits even to the families of those interred.

As I drove out to the old graveyard, I was fairly sure I could get over the six-foot fence at a point where it bordered another property. I certainly did not want to attract attention by climbing over the front fence, even though tractor-trailer boxes were parked along the road, offering partial cover. Besides, I didn’t necessarily want to leave my car on the road in this part of town.

So I drove through the light snow squall to the back of the adjacent property until I found a section of the fence that seemed scalable (in both directions, which was key). The radio said the turnpike was closed due to the current blizzard, a multi-vehicle accident the unfortunate result. The snow was not headed my way. While snow would have perhaps accentuated the old landscape of this cemetery, I certainly did not want to leave tracks. I also didn’t necessarily want to get paged for work while trying to be quiet in there. I imagined myself having to talk on my cell phone to help resolve some work issue while standing waist-deep in thorn bushes. Luckily, my pager only went off once during my escapade, and it was before I hopped the fence. I made sure to snap all my communications devices into their little holsters, as the last place you want to lose a pager or cell phone is in an abandoned cemetery (believe me, I’ve done it).

I parked my car near the back of the property. Pocketing my smaller cameras and throwing my larger camera case around my shoulder, I approached the fence. There was not a living soul around. I found an area of the wire fence where hundred-year-old vines covered both sides. They looked strong enough to hold my two hundred pounds. I threw my work gloves on to protect against the barbed wire at top. Climbing up, I swung my leg over the top as the barbed wire ripped my jeans and skin at the knee (you’re always a bit more conscious of bleeding when you’re taking a blood-thinning low-maintenance daily aspirin dose). Perhaps the other leg I’ll lift higher. Hanging my camera strap on a nearby tree limb, I scaled the vines down the other side.

The brownscape ahead of me was a vista of clumped dead weeds covering headstones and piles of rubble. Barely passable in winter, this mess was an obstacle course of vines and other dense foliage in spring and summer. It was like navigating through a field of giant balls of steel wool. Here were the outlying graves, the folks who could not afford to be buried in the elite center of this old Victorian graveyard, who could not afford an obelisk or an angel. Insidious Japanese knotweed is the guardian of their plots.

I thrashed through the dried mile-a-minute foliage and dead poison ivy until I reached a road, of sorts. I could see large monuments through the trees, as well as another, better-kept cemetery off in the distance. It was cold. The brambles and tangled rose bushes beckoned a forked greeting. It was all very dissonant yet reassuring at the same time. Like stepping into a different, albeit friendly, dimension - the fabled Elysian Fields where the favored photographer can enjoy perfect happiness, visiting the home of the dead who were judged worthy.

Abandoned cemeteries do this for me. Stepping through the crackling brush reminded me of walking through the woods hunting with my Dad when I was a kid. Just as cold but at least I didn’t have to worry about my noise scaring the deer. Walking on dried leaves and dead branches sounds like you're walking through a bowl of corn flakes. That’s odd, a giant granite baseball…this fellow must have been famous in his day.

The sky was mostly cloudy, with occasional sun peeks, prompting me to jump between 400 and 100 ISO a number of times. This is digital, so the change is simple. I do my serious work with film, but I didn’t really want to lug the heavy stuff through this dense overgrowth. It also takes time to change film rolls and I did not want to be encumbered with that. I wanted to travel light and quick. It was spooky in there, with not so much as a bird or squirrel about, just cold reckless winter. Which is why I was quite startled to glance up and see what appeared to be a human form ahead of me!

I really didn’t need the Lady of the Weeds (in the photo above)  to bring appropriate gravity to the situation, but there she was, facing me like a gunslinger. Strange how the dead vines and ivy still cling to the bases of monuments, the faces of angels, the bodies of other mourning figures. The winter has not killed off the red and yellow berries – they add a splash of color to the muted hues of winter, of death. The mausoleums look small amidst the huge overgrown trees and other foliage – they seem anything but grandiose.

The granite pyramid with its obscure marble statues stands reticent facing the street, its meaning obscured by years, by trees, by the tangle of current events. I find cover under a large evergreen, to zoom in to the pyramid while keeping out of view of the cars driving down the road. I'm wondering if anyone really cares. Well, at least I care. The weeds are matted down here, like maybe they might have been cut back before winter. In fact, one area seems like it was somewhat cleared, with tombstones uprighted, small trees cut back, flags placed near some small military headstones.

After an hour of this, I’m thinking I should head out – don’t want to press my luck. I find a closer spot to scale the fence – in fact I can see my car on the other side, through the trees and vine-entangled barbed wire. I really don’t feel like trudging through the weeds and brambles to get down to the easier-access area. I can do this. I slip my smaller cameras into safe pockets and get ready to climb the fence.

After hanging my largest camera up high on a rusty metal post, I am relieved to find that the old vines have shrouded the barbed wire, making it safe for my legs to go over. You would think that a six-foot man would not have much trouble getting over a six-foot fence - but you would be wrong. I’m no gymnast, I think to myself, as I scale the vines– ow – cramp in my leg! Kind of bizarre that I'm doing this, being on the wrong side of fifty. Crush-proof and flight-ready, I am not. But, in the name of art, I throw my bulk over the fence, grab my camera, and drop down to the ground.  I think I ruptured a spinal disk.

The only thing more ridiculous than my graceless exit out of that graveyard was my exit out of the SAME graveyard two days later! More on that next week.

Please click here to read part two of this story:
Elysian Fields – The Second Coming