Wintering at Philadelphia's Mt. Moriah Cemetery

I sit in the heated sidewalk enclosure of Tony Luke’s cheese steak shop in deep South Philly, eating what may be the second best breakfast sandwich I ever had. (The first one by the way, also came from Tony Luke’s.) I’m watching the UPS trucks and car haulers take off for their morning runs as I sit inside the warm seating area.

St. Alban's Court

Cold outside, this early winter day, and supposed to get colder and windy. Perfect for an abandoned cemetery run – a hike through the wilderness that is Mount Moriah Cemetery. I pick up my friend Bob, who appropriately lives on St. Alban’s Court in West Philadelphia, where they filmed the movie, The Sixth Sense. Together we’re off to see dead things.

We park at the cemetery’s Cobb’s Creek Parkway entrance, which has been barricaded with concrete highway dividers. Before we begin our exploration around the abandoned mausoleums, I weapon up and load my cameras. This is only Bob’s second time here, so he’s not fully aware of all the things of which to be afraid. I had been told that the city pound confiscated all the wild dogs, but I took my iron ice hook just in case.

Mausoleum Ridge, Mt. Moriah in winter

Summer view of Mausoleum Ridge

As we clambered around inside the circle of mausoleums, I was surprised to see things I’d never seen here before. It’s almost as though the foliage has died a fuller death than usual − in summer, you can hardly see anything for the wildly overgrown bushes and trees, vines and pickers. The pickers and vicious thornage are REALLY what keep you from accessing any of the quaint old headstones and even the grand memorials.

It’s still a wilderness here, even though the city and volunteers spent the entire summer cleaning up portions of the place. Most of the effort had been spent on the Kingsessing Avenue side of Mt. Moriah, with its hundreds of relatively new Muslim graves and its tumble-down gatehouse. So I was surprised to see an entire section (above, Sect. 127, perhaps – see map) on the Cobb’s Creek side cleared of brush and looking the way a cemetery SHOULD look. Not only that, but we found a beautifully cared for family plot nearby, trimmed nicely with Christmas decorations at the top of the hill. This, in the midst of thousands of other graves covered with dead weeds and fallen trees.

As we make our way through the dense underbrush toward the giant rusting hulk of an iron memorial fountain, Bob tells me about growing up in a house surrounded by nine cemeteries. He’s comfortable around (and in) them, but his friends were afraid to go to his house. He’s also used to the dangers of abandoned cemeteries, as he has researched, explored, and photographed many of them in Edinburgh, Scotland. Apparently, many Scottish cemeteries are in the same deplorable condition as Mt. Moriah.

Climbing out of the tangles of vines and dead trees, we entered a clearing, and heard the dogs. Then we saw them. A small pack – three maybe. I tried to photograph them, but when I put the camera up to my eye, they darted into the high dead thicket. The barking continues as vehemently as ever. We head off in the opposite direction and talk about how stun guns and mace are illegal to buy or carry in the city of Philadelphia (though you can buy them in neighboring counties).

Winter is strange here at Mt. Moriah, with all the foliage gone – it’s almost as though you’re looking at the skeletal remains of the cemetery itself. There are hundreds of acres of dense woods shrouding massive marble and granite monuments, but the dirt roads are now walkable after the summer’s big clean-up. These roads weren’t made for giant garbage trucks, however, so the granite coping around some family plots has been scraped and broken. At least one tall granite monument is knocked over. The price of progress – at least all the piles of trash, building materials, and old tires are gone. (Just so you know, it wasn’t the barricades that stopped the illegal dumping – it actually stopped BEFORE the city locked the place down. All thanks to the zeal of one nearby resident who shall remain nameless).

People look at my photos and assume the cemetery is out in the boonies somewhere. Well no, I say, its in a densely populated, yet run down area of Southwest Philadelphia. Its size is estimated to be between 300 and 400 acres – most of which is an overgrown wilderness. A forest filled with all the grandeur of a Victorian cemetery, from the lowliest sweetly sleeping tombstone to massively ornate marble and granite monuments erected for the purpose of remembering God knows who, at this point. Bob points out that with all the negative publicity Mt. Moriah has achieved, those buried here are now remembered for a completely different reason.

Pet carrier, headstones in background

This is only Bob’s second visit to Mt. Moriah. I’ve been here so many times that nothing seems to surprise me. The more you learn about a thing, the less you pay attention, I suppose. For instance, the pet carrier we walked past. I though nothing of it, just Mount Moriah weirdness. Bob, however, deduced that someone had let their small animal loose in the wild, to fend for itself or get eaten by a coyote. He must have a sixth sense about such things. I thought of the small lame dog I saw here once, dragging itself through the weeds. But why leave the carrier here, with the door open? Because the person didn’t want to be seen leaving with an empty animal carrier. Ah.

We spend a few hours first on the Cobb’s Creek side, then make our way over to the Kingsessing Avenue side. I’ve been here so many times I’ve lost my early, wide-eyed reaction to this overgrown wrecked hull of a cemetery.  Still, I’m surprised at the piles of deer droppings here and there. You’d think with the dense woods, this place would be lousy with deer, but I’ve never seen one.

Most of the picker bushes at Mt. Moriah are dead for the season. Those that survive, however, can tear through armor. They are the worst here in the Circle of St. John as we try to navigate around the central marble monument to the Masonic Grand Tyler. It‘s shocking that someone went to the trouble to get all the way in here just to spray paint the monuments. It does seem to be a popular destination – empty beer cans abound and I find a burned American flag on the ground.

We talk about how to restore this place, on a piecemeal basis. When you think hundreds of acres of overgrown woodland, it does seem rather impossible. The place looks more like an improbable act of will than a result of simple neglect. So why aren’t movies being filmed in here? Certainly it would be very difficult to build something like this as a Hollywood movie set. Maybe film producers would think the viewing public would never believe such a place could exist. Why did Philadelphia allow this to happen to an historic landmark? Whatwould the Eiffel Tower look like today if it were in Philadelphia instead of Paris?

More dogs circle us. Great – we’ve got them on both sides. (Why is it that wild animals never attack people you WANT them to attack?) I kind of wanted to move further back to where dense trees hid some quite ornate dynasty plots, but Bob indicated that there were more dogs coming from that direction. I fondle the hook in my large coat pocket, enjoying the menacing power it gives me whenever I touch it. Then it occurs to me that one hook might not be adequate protection if TWO of us are attacked by several dogs. I blithely asked him what he would rather do. He said, we should probably head in the direction of the gatehouse (away from the dogs). I said, well, yeah, that would be the sensible thing to do, but what do you want to do? He was a bit uncomfortable with the proposition so we moved out of harm’s way.

I had this notion of an action hero called “The Hook,” who sits down with Bob at this point and says, “Now listen – this is CEMETERY photography we’re about here,” as our hero, without turning, takes a mighty swipe at a vicious dog leaping through the air toward them. The hook connects, the dog cries and runs off.

We walked toward the back of the crumbling gatehouse, really nothing more than a façade of crumbling brownstone, at this point; the clinging vines actually holding what’s left of the structure together. I spent a few minutes photographing the statue of Father Time behind it while Bob investigated the ruins of the gatehouse. “Looks like they’ve cleaned this place up a bit,” he said, noting the absence of broken tombstones, piles of old tires, and assorted garbage.

A few minutes later he came walking toward me and I asked him if he wanted to go around to photograph the front of the gatehouse. He said, “I don’t think so − someone has taken up residence in there.” Yikes. Bet that guy hasn’t had a Tony Luke’s breakfast sandwich in a while. So we headed off back in the direction of my car, a good twenty-minute walk across the cemetery. The weather turned windy and colder as I thought about Philadelphia’s upcoming Homicide Parade, meant to lament the city’s Big 300 murder rate for 2011. Yay.

Gatehouse at Kingsessing Ave., Mt. Moriah Cemetery

Acknowledgements:
Thanks to Bob Reinhardt, Tom Bera, and Donna for their inspiration in helping me write this article.

Evergreen for the Holidays

For a totally joyless experience, drive or walk through an abandoned cemetery at Christmas time. That said, I waited until New Year’s Day to take a drive through Camden, New Jersey’s Evergreen Cemetery  (an ironic name if ever there was one). I'd like to say that it is old, elegant, and beautifully restored, but such is not the case. A wreck of a graveyard, the shock of its graffiti-painted roadways are only eclipsed by sunken graves into which you can see ancient brick vaults and exposed wooden coffins.

A light, intermittent rain is hurrying to go nowhere, the wan sky casting an even illumination on the busted monuments. I expected to take some photos out the car window or through the rainy glass, making all blurry and cool images (but I forgot to do that). One thing that threw my concentration was the fact that the workshed door was ajar.

Note bike at lower right in photo

I’d never before seen this small cinderblock building open. As I drove by, I could see it was empty, except for a bicycle. Two scraggly artificial Xmas wreaths hung awkwardly off the edges of the wire door corners. Huh. I drove past, getting out to photograph the graffiti painted on the driveway in front of it. As I got back in my car, I was startled to see a man in his early thirties come out of the doorway holding the bike. He stood there all nonchalant. As I drove past him, I started to roll down the window to jokingly ask with faux sincerity, “Are you the caretaker?” But I reconsidered  – I could end up on the wrong side of a gun. 

So I slowly drove past, avoiding eye contact. This is always a good tactic as they know you can’t identify them. Camden is the second most dangerous city in America, cemeteries included. City officials and police have stated that massive budget problems and a deteriorating infrastructure have eroded the city's ability to keep the peace. In an article for The Philadelphia Inquirer, one resident summed up Camden's woes with what is surely the scariest quote you'll hear all day, "We don't have any real policing in Camden. They're just out here to pick up the bodies."

Sunken grave, Evergreen Cemetery

I drove around the back of Evergreen, making photographs here and there, when I noticed from across the cemetery the guy with the bike guy was still standing at the entrance of the workshed. Then I noticed another man, about the same age, walking into the cemetery carrying a white plastic bag. Um, there really is no LEGAL reason for two guys to be in an abandoned cemetery in the middle of the day in the RAIN. As I was ready to head out the entrance and leave them to their dealing, I noticed a sunken grave. The earth had collapsed about three feet down and you could see the brick arch of an underground crypt roof – and an old wooden coffin! Well, their business matters would just have to wait. Though I certainly didn’t want to get shot, I needed to get this shot. 

Even in this pseudo-maybe, maybe not really abandoned cemetery, you see leftover Xmas decorations on some of the graves. I saw six small stones in a family row, each with its own wreath and red bow. So relatives still visit decrepit, tumble-down cemeteries. There are still people who care about those who’ve set out ahead of the rest of us. While that doesn’t make the experience joyful, per se, it does to some extent restore one’s faith in humanity. Xmas decorations in a cemetery are like angel statues – they don't do anything for the deceased, but they benefit the living by softening the blow and honoring the memory of those long gone. 

After driving around for another ten minutes, the wind and rain got stronger, so photographically, I stuck a fork in it – I was done. I drove out the gate, past the guy with the plastic bag who was just STANDING inside the cemetery entrance waiting for me to leave. I made sure not to make eye contact. Cemeteries are filled with good discovery. You hang around them and you can’t help but learn things – mostly about yourself.


Further Reading:

Camden runner-up for most dangerous city

 Camden Named 2nd Most Dangerous City in America

Graves Sinking into Ground

Sounds redundant, doesn't it? Unfortunately, yesterday on the news (FOX 29), there was a story about a huge sink hole that appeared in Allentown Pennsylvania (about 60 miles north of Philadelphia). Sink holes, for the uninitiated, are chunks of land that collapse downward into open space, space usually created (in northeast PA anyway), by old coal mines. The effect is similar to a sunken grave, when the old wooden coffin disintegrates and collapses into itself. This creates a void in the earth that allows the ground to fall - I'm sure you've seen such depressions in the earth as you've walked through old cemeteries. (If a concrete vault is used to hold the coffin, this doesn't occur.)

I didn't take any of these photos you see here - they're all from the website LehighValleyLive.com. You can visit their site to see and read more. I have been to some of the Allentown cemeteries.

The sink hole appears to have given way in the middle of a street, and will prompt the demolition of at least two nearby homes. You can see portions of West End Cemetery in the photos. The coroner has gotten permission to exhume and move bodies if need be.

This is in the historic "Old Allentown" district of the city. Watch this Fox 29 news video to appreciate the magnitude the problem. (Listen to the part about the guy whose foot went through his basement floor and the hole started to fill up with water!) When a sink hole occurs, no one really knows when it will stop growing or even how deep it is! This particular one may take weeks to fill and repair. Even more frightening is the possibility of underground mine fires associated with sink holes, the most infamous ones that burned for decades turning Centralia, PA, into the ghost town it is today.

It appears that the Allentown sink hole caused a water main break, adding insult to injury. A dozen homes near North Tenth and West Chew streets have been evacuated.

I used to live about fifty miles further north than Allentown, in far northeast PA, Larksville, to be exact. The mountain my parents lived on actually smoked - a light smoke would always be coming from the ground as underground mine fires slowly burned the coal buried down deep. You wonder how people live like that, but they do. Sink holes, big and small, were also a way of life - a result of a hundred years of deep vein coal mining in the region.

Back in the 1970s, my Mom worked as a part-time housekeeper for a family in an affluent section of nearby Kingston, PA. One day she heard the teenage daughter scream from the basement. She ran from the first-floor kitchen to the basement door and started to run down the steps. She looked down and saw the girl at the bottom of the stairs watching in horror as the bathroom slowly disappeared into an ever-widening hole in the floor! My Mom grabbed the girl's hand and pulled her up the stairs, and out of the house! No one was hurt - physically, anyway. Property values, as you can imagine, plummeted.

Grave Decorations - Christmas in the Cemetery

For the special season of Christmas, I’m putting aside my usual erudite, logical, and authoritative prose (stop laughing, I can HEAR you) – to examine why people decorate graves at Christmas. As opposed to just asking them, I’m going to just tell you what I think. It’s far less complicated that way.

Of all the holes that may exist in your life, driving through a cemetery at Christmas time can identify a big one. It reminds you of things to come, while making you glad you’re not there yet. That said, a cemetery at Xmas may be the only physical entity that Heisenberg didn’t account for, when he wrote that the simple presence of an observer changes things. Do you really think your presence in a cemetery ever changes it? How about the act of setting up and decorating a full-sized Christmas tree? If anything, it makes the whole thing even more depressing.

A cemetery is a figurative rock (filled with actual rocks) − an impenetrable fortress of stone built by an equally strong belief system. Author Salman Rushdie might refer to a cemetery as an “ironclad citadel of traditions and certainties." Christmas is another tradition, a very strong one for us mackerel-snappers (as an old Jewish guy friend of mine used to call Christians). So why not tie the two together? Surely the florists and garden centers would have us believe that everyone needs a “grave blanket,” or a wreath for the mausoleum door. Give ‘em points for trying, but they haven’t influenced mass behavior anything like the Hallmark card company has. Decorating graves at Christmas seems to have not quite gone public.

I guess the guerilla florists who set up in parking lots target Christians because it’s such a widely-celebrated Christian holiday. Maybe we’re more gullible? Why else would we decorate graves with Santas and reindeer? Hanukkah is a week before Christmas, yet I don’t see the florists hawking sparkling blue menorahs or cute little foam dreidels with which to decorate Jewish children’s graves (in fact, I’ve never even seen a Jewish grave decorated for Hanukkah). Since we haven’t all succumbed to the commercial brainwash, there must be something very personal about placing Christmas decorations on graves. I've even seen poinsettias and wreaths on graves in abandoned cemeteries! Makes you realize that even though a cemetery may be abandoned, not all of its residents may be.

Christmas is of course a Christian holiday, and Christians decorate their homes and malls to make everything feel more cozy − but why cemeteries? To include their departed loved ones in the festivities? Christ-MISS may just bring to mind all the people we miss.

Grave Decorations

"Remember your loved ones this holiday season with a hand-made grave blanket or grave pillow from Dayton's. Commemorate your beloved's grave with sprays of Blue Spruce and Pine along with waterproof ribbons and bows."

Of course there’s also the flip side of sentiment and honoring one’s memory – that of not letting go. In this respect, the loss just keeps on giving. “We’re in a psychologically menacing month when unresolved emotional conflicts, loneliness and other problems influence our behavior.” (ref) Popular wisdom tells us that more people commit suicide at Xmas than any other time of year. While Christmas can be depressing for many people, this is simply not true (Read more here) - but it’s easy to believe. (Studies have shown this to be the only suicide link to the calendar: more of them occur early in the week and fewer on the weekend.) 

"There's got to be a build-up to the day that Christ was born.
The halls are decked with pumpkins and ears of Indian corn.
Dragging through the falling leaves in a one-horse open sleigh.
Suddenly it's Christmas seven weeks before the day.


Suddenly it's Christmas the longest holiday.
When they say 'Season's Greetings' they mean just what they say.
It's a season, it's a marathon retail eternity
And it's not over til it's over and you throw away the tree."


“Suddenly It's Christmas” by Loudon Wainwright III; lyrics © DOWNTOWN MUSIC PUB LLC OBO SNOWDEN MUSIC, INC.(ASCAP)

According to the folk singer Loudon Wainwright III, this is because Christmas is not a single day that’s celebrated, but an entire SEASON. So if you’re expecting to be sad and alone at Christmas, you won't just be sad and lonely on December 25th – you’ll be sad and lonely for two months. Even Valentine’s Day only lasts one day! A girlfriend of many months once broke up with me on Valentine’s Day. The actual day, right after a nice dinner out. Some people have impeccable timing, you know? But even in such a dismal situation, it’s simply the DAY that may remind you of the event a year later. On the contrary, if your Mom died on December 16th, this occurrence during the Christmas “season” is going to stay with you for many more.

"Christmas carols in December and November too.
It's no wonder we're depressed when the whole thing is through.
Finally it's January, let's sing Auld Lang Syne
But here comes another party shaped like a Valentine."

Which is not to say you're psychologically safe if your Dad died in August, as mine did. Christmas is traditionally when the family gets together. So when you're all sitting down for Christmas dinner five years hence, everyone still feels the empty space left by the missing person. Christmas brings the memory back. Which in some ways, is a good thing, of course. But do you REALLY want to go mucking about with all those Christmas decorations in the cemetery? Maybe it would be best to just drop the spray of pine boughs on your loved one’s grave and go back to life among the living.

And Furthermore .....

How to Decorate a Grave Site

Listen to Loudon Wainwright's "Suddenly It's Christmas."

175 Years of Reflections, Laurel Hill Cemetery

This year, the commemorative book 175 Years of Reflections, Laurel Hill Cemetery, 1836 – 2011 was published. It’s lovely, coffee table-sized, and hard-bound, filled with personal reflections on Laurel Hill by scores of (mostly live) people. A few years prior, I was asked if I would donate one of my Laurel Hill photographs to be in it − quite an honor. My image, “Colder than Ice on a Tombstone (2008)” appears on page 125.

Ed Snyder's "Colder than Ice on a Tombstone"

Available at Blurb.com

It’s one thing to force your own art on the world by writing your own book, but to be asked to be in someone else’s book is very flattering and meaningful. I do want to thank all the people involved in putting the book together, and for recognizing the emotional connection of all the contributors.

The format of 175 Years of Reflections is quite clever – “ … a collection of 175 remembrances about the cemetery, dating all the way back to its founding to the present day and includes poems, journal entries and much more.” (The website Geekadelphia continues,) “Through these you get a picture of what the Laurel Hill Cemetery has meant to people and to the city of Philadelphia. It really is a unique way to understand something that has been a part of this city for so long.”

Image by Frank Rausch (p. 110)

In April 2011, the Friends of Laurel Hill held a book launch at the cemetery. All contributing parties were invited. I knew one or two of my compatriots, but was not prepared for the dozens of people who showed up. Many of whom I’d only known through the press, such as Tom Keels (author of several books, including Philadelphia Graveyards and Cemeteries), as well as others whose art was familiar to me, e.g.  internationally known photographer Bob Reinhardt.

Image by Marietta Dooley (p. 155)

It was a great social event for Philadelphia artists and writers - I made new friends like Marietta Dooley (whose photograph in the book graces the cover of Laurel Hill’s current tour guide) and enjoyed talking with familiars Frank Rausch and Scott Kreilick. Frank’s always got great stories as he lives in the cemetery, and Scott’s historical conservation company is responsible for restoring  the “Old Mortality” statue grouping housed at Laurel Hill’s entrance.

"Old Mortality"

A copy of the book was very generously given to each contributing artist and author, whose work exemplified their own personal reflections of Laurel Hill Cemetery. As we lined up to receive our copy, people were thrilled to find that the organizers had taken the time to mark the page of the contributor’s work with a tall bookmark bearing the contributor’s name. Talk about attention to detail!

Image by Bob Reinhardt (p. 165 )

The event was incredibly well organized. Yards beer (Philadelphia’s best) and oer d'oeuvres were served, name tags given out, a tent and chairs to listen to the speeches. Gwen Kaminski (Laurel Hill’s Director of Development & Programs) read her poetry and Tom Keels spoke touchingly about his early visits to Laurel Hill. I remember quite vividly a line from one young man’s speech in which he mentioned  “the very human desire to be remembered after death.” The note included in each book from the “Friends of Laurel Hill” organization seemed to expand on this philosophic idea:

"Well beyond the year of Laurel Hill Cemetery’s 175th anniversary and, indeed, well beyond the life spans of those of us who are here to be part of it, this book will remain an enduring symbol of the language and art, of the life and death embodied by Laurel Hill. As a permanent addition to our archives, its words and images will inspire future generations of the living, and your own name will be forever linked with the history of America’s first National Historic Landmark cemetery." - Friends of Laurel Hill

What a wonderful sentiment! As far as my own photography and writings, I’ve leaned heavily on the creepiness of cemeteries, but that can be an unsteady rail. There really is just too much beauty and life in and around a cemetery like Laurel Hill to dwell on negative aspects. 175 Years of Reflections pulls together poems, stories, historical family photographs, fine art images, paintings, old lithographs, even children’s drawings  − REFLECTIONS, quite literally, on people’s POSITIVE experiences at the cemetery.

Cover detail

After the formal presentations outdoors, people were invited to stroll the grounds on this lovely spring day, or adjourn to the museum/gallery in the gatehouse. One could view the exhibits of historic memorabilia related to everything from Harry Kalas (the late Phillies sportscaster) to George Meade (lauded Civil War general), both of whom are buried at Laurel Hill.

During the informal milling about - and much to my surprise - various people came up to me and asked if I would sign page 125, on which my photograph was printed. Quite flattering, I must say. By the way, the title of my image, “Colder Than Ice on a Tombstone," is not dedicated to my ex-wife, as some might imagine. It was quite literally how I felt that winter's day in 2008 as I lay on Laurel Hill’s ice-encrusted snow to make the photograph. Quite opposite of the warm and friendly ambiance everyone enjoyed at Laurel's book launch party!

Books by Ed Snyder: 

Available at Amazon.com

Available at Blurb.com

Further Readings:

175 Years of Reflections, Laurel Hill Cemetery , 1836 – 2011 available at Laurel Hill Cemetery and through its website

Philadelphia Graveyards and Cemeteries by Tom Keels
Photographic Art by Frank Rausch
Rest in Pixeks, Robert Reinhardt's website
Kreilick Conservation, LLC

The Condemned Lafayette Cemetery

As you’ll recall from last week’s blog, Bloody Cemetery Apparition, one of the 47,000 displaced souls from on old condemned South Philly cemetery decided to hang out with my son and I for a spell. The fact that Chris saw it too made me feel a bit more sane.

As I commenced to dig into the history of Lafayette Cemetery (which was across the street from the famous Pat’s and Geno’s cheesesteak restaurants until 1947), the situation that presented itself appeared quite gruesome. But let me first take you back a couple years for a key part of the puzzle.

My friend Ken lives in Bensalem, PA, on the outskirts of northeast Philadelphia. As he is well aware of my obsession with cemeteries, he often tells me about interesting graveyards he’s seen in his travels. Near Bensalem is the Neshaminy Mall. Across Neshaminy Boulevard from the mall is a field of grass with a small monument in it. Ken stopped to look at it a couple years ago and told me he thought it was there because graves had been found in the field during some excavation.

Fast-forward to 2011 as I’m researching the history of Lafayette Cemetery. Turns out that the site across from the Macy’s side of the mall is where many of the bodies from Lafayette were buried. Happens all the time (or at least it used to) − a cemetery gets relocated, unidentified or unclaimed remains get reburied in a mass grave. Ah, but it turns out that such was not exactly the case here – by finding the site, we only set aside the first vial of the mystery.

Field monument across from Neshaminy Mall

While a good portion of the 47,000 bodies from Lafayette were buried here, they weren’t buried in the most dignified fashion. Consider this excerpt from the October 9, 1988 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

"Thomas A. Morris, president of Evergreen Memorial Park in Bensalem Township, was contracted to dig up 47,000 sets of remains from the run-down Lafayette Cemetery in South Philadelphia.

Under the terms of a 1946 Common Pleas Court decree, the bodies were to be buried again on 40 of the 156 acres owned by Evergreen, complete with caskets, drainage, new bronze markers, roadways and perpetual maintenance of the grounds. In return, Morris received clear title to the old cemetery property, bounded by Passyunk Avenue and Ninth, 10th, Federal and Wharton Streets."

Not only did Morris not bury the remains in the agreed upon fashion, but he soon sold the South Philly land to investors for $105,000 - who then sold it back to the city for $153,500! This may not seem like a lot of money now, but in 1947, $100,000 had the buying power of just over a million dollars (by 2011 standards).

Unscrupulous financial wheeling and dealing aside, the travesty here is that most of the 47,000 graves were not reburied as they were supposed to be. No tombstones were erected with the graves. What did he do with the old tombstones? We now know that Morris dumped most of the bodies in unmarked trenches on the outskirts of his Evergreen Cemetery property (in Bensalem , PA), as well as some in Bensalem’s Poquessing Creek (according to eyewitnesses!!).

The only reason the public is aware of any of this is because of an accidental unearthing of some wooden coffins on the old Evergreen site in 1988. A strip mall was being built, and the graves were discovered during its construction. Investigations turned up the following:

"After spending a week and a half digging test shafts at the site, officials last week said they had uncovered what probably are 32 trenches, each 300 feet long. Inside the trenches are stacks of wooden boxes, presumably containing most of the remains." (ref)

Are they really resting in peace?

The marker was only placed at the site in 1988 after the mass grave was accidentally discovered. Two bronze plaques flank it, dedicated to Civil War veterans known to have been buried at Lafayette. After Morris’ onerous actions became apparent, investigations continued into his other deal with the city for moving Franklin Cemetery in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood. In 1948, Morris was paid another $100,000 to move 8,000 bodies. Of that number, about 5,000 are unaccounted for!

Now realize that in the 1940s and 1950s, the vast majority of people thought stodgy old graveyards were an eyesore and should be eradicated. Victorian architecture, ironwork, and stone carvings were thought to be gauche. Given a cemetery that was a hundred years old where the few descendants that cared (and had the money) had already moved their loved ones out, the public really wasn’t concerned about where the bodies went. I can’t help but wonder now how the owners of those expensive suburban homes near the Neshaminy Mall felt after learning that there were thousands of mouldering corpses in their backyards.


But that’s probably no weirder than human remains under the Capitolo Playground. I mean think about it – there must be some there. When you look at the size of the Bensalem land in question, its hard to believe 47,000 bodies could be buried there − even if the hole was REALLY deep. My guess is that many of the original graves still reside under the Capitolo Playground in South Philly. The City of Philadelphia pays this guy $105,000 to dig up the bodies and rebury them elsewhere, but doesn't check to make sure he actually DID that properly. Then the city buys it back (for $54,000!) to build a playground. He knows they’re just going to pave some areas and plant grass in others – so he has no incentive to fully excavate the grounds and remove every grave!

"In 1951, the Securities and Exchange Commission began to look into Morris' dealings - particularly his apparent habit of selling large blocks of Evergreen Cemetery lots to speculators with the promise that the investors would be able to sell them for huge profits. The sales, according to the SEC, were in the same category as sales of securities, and Morris was not registered to sell securities.


Morris began to pile up debts, with the federal government filing tax liens against Evergreen Memorial Park. In 1958, the Pennsylvania Securities Commission asked that the courts appoint a receiver for Evergreen. In 1959, Evergreen filed for bankruptcy." (ref)

Capitolo Playground

The new owners renamed Evergreen Cemetery Rosedale Memorial Park, which exists on the site to this day. It is a well-maintained active cemetery. I guess after finding all this out I’m surprised that we don’t have MORE ghostly sightings in the area of the Capitolo Playground given the vast amount of graveyard residents who were so vilely disturbed from their final resting places. I think about the guy in the bloody suit who sat down with me and my son Chris, about WHERE his body may have ended up. Maybe he's still searching for it. And where ARE all those thousands of other bodies …?


References:
A TALE OF 47,000 BODIES, FINAL RESTING PLACE UNKNOWN
(The Philadelphia Inquirer, October 9, 1988)

Bloody Cemetery Apparition  (Last week's Cemetery Traveler blog posting)

Bensalem, Roots Web