"The Lonely Bones" (A Film)

Last week a good friend sent me the following one-line email: “Since you like cemeteries … a brother of a friend did this.” Attached was a press release announcing the world premier of a film called, The Lonely Bones. Apparently Dave knew the film maker’s brother, and although Dave didn't realize it, I knew the film maker.

Evergreen Cemetery, Camden, NJ

A year or so ago I drove into the pseudo-abandoned Evergreen Cemetery in Camden, New Jersey, only to find a man and a teenage boy (turned out to be his son) near the entrance working a video camera on a tall tripod. Given the fact that during recent visits to Evergreen, I’ve either avoided drug dealers or have been propositioned by prostitutes, this was a welcome change. 

Johnson Cemetery "Park"

Curious, I introduced myself and briefly asked what they were up to. The man, Kevin Walker, explained that he was making a documentary about another abandoned Camden cemetery – Johnson Cemetery on the other side of town – and he needed some background footage. I wished him luck and was quite appreciative that he told me about Johnson, which he referred to as “Needle Park.” Subsequently, I made two visits to the Johnson Cemetery which you can read about in my two blog postings: Abandoned Cemetery ... or just Repurposed?  and Lost Civil War Graves of the Johnson Cemetery. 

Jacob Johnson marker

After seeing Johnson, I realized why Mr. Walker needed background footage – Johnson no longer looks like a cemetery. This former burial ground for African-American Civil War veterans had fallen into such a sad state of disrepair that Camden, um, turned it into a park in the early 1980s. Graves were supposedly moved to other area cemeteries and the land planted with grass and park benches. The thing that really weirded me out was the fact that the old headstones were lying flat in the grass face up, like so many paving stones in a garden walkway. The only upright stone was this rectangular marble hunk with "Jacob Johnson, Died 1890" engraved on it.

Trash, dirt, leaves, and empty liquor bottles covered most of the flush headstones I found during my first visit. When I returned a couple weeks later, I met two women who were uncovering and cleaning off the stones. They actually dug them out of the ground, scraping an inch or so of soil and debris off each one. All they had was a plastic windshield ice scraper, and their camera battery had died. They asked me if I would photograph the names on the stones and send them the images, which I did. They were doing genealogical research, looking for links in their ancestral tree.

Civil War Veteran Headstone at Johnson Cemetery Park

As we cleaned off the stones, we noticed a dual arc pattern in which the stones had been laid, which made it easier to predict where to unearth the next stone. In all, I think we found about thirty. I was extremely curious about the cemetery and why it was turned into a "park," but information on the Internet is rather sketchy. This is why I so look forward to seeing Kevin Walker's film. When I contacted him, he was quite gracious and provided me with certain information you'll read in this article. Have a look at his movie trailer on YouTube, “The Lonely Bones: The Official Trailer.” I think you'll agree the movie needs to be seen.

The Lonely Bones will have its world premier at the Garden State Film Festival in Asbury Park, New Jersey, on March 25, 2012. Here's a bit of Kevin's promotional information:

"The Lonely Bones ... focuses on tiny Johnson Cemetery in East Camden.  Johnson holds the remains of over 120 members of the United States Colored Troops, the African American soldiers who fought valiantly for the Union during the Civil War.  Instead of being an object of veneration, however, the long-neglected cemetery has become a needle park -- a site strewn with bottles, debris and the discards of the drug trade.  'Unfortunately,' says Walker, 'what has happened to Johnson Cemetery is symptomatic of the broader problems facing Camden and urban America in general. I have tried to use the cemetery as a kind of trope to examine those issues.”

Camden Radio and Film Works

presents

“The Lonely Bones”

... A struggling city tries to reclaim its past …

When the nation called, they answered. Nearly 200,000 of them -- freemen and emancipated slaves -- flocked to the Union cause. Known as the United States Colored Troops, they fought valiantly during the Civil War.  They dispelled racial stereotypes and, in the view of many historians, helped propel passage of the 13^th, 14^th and 15^th Amendments, conferring civil rights on black citizens.

 

But today, the memory of scores of black Civil War veterans from New Jersey -- their legacy -- lies buried on another battlefield.

                                The Lonely Bones, Kevin Walker’s 30-minute documentary, focuses on tiny Johnson Cemetery in East Camden.  Johnson holds the remains of over 120 members of the United States Colored Troops.  Instead of being an object of veneration, however, the long-neglected cemetery has become a needle park -- a site strewn with bottles, debris and the detritus of the drug trade. A small group of activists and historians want to change that.  They see in Johnson’s salvation, the salvation of an entire city.

I look forward to seeing Kevin’s film. Personally, it might provide insight as to why I am drawn to abandoned cemeteries.

Further Reading:

Purchase tickets to see The Lonely Bones at the Garden State Film Festival
YouTube link to: “The Lonely Bones: The Official Trailer.”

Johnson Cemetery blog postings by Ed Snyder on The Cemetery Traveler:
Abandoned Cemetery ... or just Repurposed?
Lost Civil War Graves of the Johnson Cemetery

The Lost Civil War Graves of the Johnson Cemetery

The photographs that accompanied the blog related to my initial visit to the abandoned Johnson Cemetery were not my best (see link below). I know that’s like the cardinal sin of the public speaker—apologizing that he had a memory lapse and left something out. Regardless, after that first visit to this abandoned/repurposed Cemetery “Park” in Camden New Jersey, I lost one of my camera’s memory cards. The images on that card were better than the ones I published. So with a heavy heart (and much profanity), I returned a week later in an attempt to recreate those better photos and slip them into the first article without you noticing. As I found out, you really can’t step in the same river twice, as they say. My second  Johnson experience was radically different.

No drug deals going down this time, just a pair of homeless guys hanging out at the ersatz main entrance. As it was late in the day, I went right to the headstones laid flush in the grass to get some better shots of them. I noticed that some of the stones had the surrounding dirt brushed away, as with a broom. I kicked some booze bottles out of the way and shot about five images, when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed two figures in overcoats moving quickly toward me with what looked like machetes.

Bracing myself, it turned out to be two women, maybe in their late thirties, each well-dressed and brandishing a long ice scraper/snow brush—the kind we northerners use to scrape the ice and snow off our automobile windshields on winter mornings. They came up to me and asked if I could take some photos of the tombstones for them! Guess I watch too many horror movies.

They said they were doing genealogical research and were looking for members of their family tree. One had a point-and-shoot digital camera, but she said the battery died. I said, sure, I’d shoot some images for them. They had just been to the dollar store to buy something to sweep off the stones and came back with these brush scrapers. The devices turned out to be quite the archeological tools with which to excavate many of the UNSEEN headstones! I hung out with them for about an hour while they continued sweeping off the exposed stones. During my prior visit, I counted about 20 partially exposed grave markers.

At one point I think it occurred to all of us at the same time that there was a pattern to the way the stones were laid out, sort of in a long, gradual curve, from the northeast corner of the cemetery toward the center. There were spaces between some of the stones so one of the ladies flipped her instrument over and began using the ice scraper end to dig through the dry, grassy dirt. About an inch or so down came the unmistakable sound of plastic on stone! The soil was so thin, it was relatively easy to scrape it away. I watched and photographed with amazement as they unearthed about six additional stones--it was like finding buried treasure.

Periodically people would walk by, entering or exiting through the mangled cyclone fence that separated the cemetery from the projects. They seemed to pay us no mind. The two homeless guys kept their vigil on the bench near the road the entire time. One of the ladies told me about her research and visits to many south Jersey cemeteries, and finding hundreds of relatives to fill out her family tree. She was quite excited to find the Johnson graves and told me about some small old churchyard burial spots in Mt. Laurel (NJ) that I may need to locate.

It’s my guess that wind and rain covered most of the Johnson headstones with dirt and debris over time; according to the fragmentary information available, over a hundred people are buried here. Two of the more decorative stones uncovered today are shown above, perhaps the first time anyone’s seen them in a decade or more. They are decorative to a degree, that is--the elaborateness of a grave marker being directly proportional to the affluence (and sometimes influence) of the deceased. I couldn't help but contrast in my mind these meager, sad stones with the opulent monument to (presidential candidate) John and Elizabeth Edwards'  teenage son, Wade. I had photographed this ten-foot high contemporary marble sculpture (below) at Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina some years ago. The angel that cradles the lost son seems to elevate the value of that life over that of say, African-American veterans of the Civil War (the main inhabitants of Johnson Cemetery--see previous blog link below for detail). It's a skewed way of looking at things, but we often remember those with the biggest monuments, don't we?

Wade Edwards' Monument, Raleigh, NC

After a while, I counted the headstones, 30 in all, when one of the women made an astute observation—it looked as if there were actually TWO curved rows of stones! It was getting dark and chilly at that point and my camera battery had just died. I told them this project looked like it should be continued at some later date and was about to excuse myself. We traded contact information and said our goodbyes when I realized they had every intention of staying! Hmmm. Either they’re twin spectres of (Sir Walter Scott’s) “Old Mortality” or just naïve. I looked up the hill at the homeless guys and suggested the ladies not stay there much longer. They looked around and realized we were standing at the bottom of a gully beneath a grove of pine trees, not in plain view of the road—not the safest area to be after dark. The fact that they were well-dressed, drove an Acura SUV, and were not from the area, I assumed they didn’t know the place was nicknamed “Needle Park” and so I merely suggested they not remain there too much longer. The cold hard light of reality broke their genealogical reverie and they quickly followed me up the hill.

As we passed the benches at the entrance, the two homeless guys got up and hustled down to the benches close to where we’d been working. Apparently they had dibs on these as sleeping quarters--that’s why there were flattened beer case boxes laid out on the benches. These gents were about to enjoy the dead man’s sleep,  above the remains of a hundred forgotten and battle-scarred Civil War infantry and naval servicemen. As I drove away, I thought of the recent popular song “In the Room Where You Sleep,” by the band Dead Man’s Bones, and these lyrics in particular:

"There's something in the shadows
in the corner of your room.
A dark heart is beating

and waiting for you.

There is no open window, but the floors still creep.

In the room where you sleep.

In the room where you sleep......"





Further Links of Interest:

First Visit to the Johnson Cemetery

Listen to the song “In the Room Where You Sleep,” by the band Dead Man’s Bones 
Dead Man’s Bones’ Website

Abandoned Cemetery ... or Just Repurposed?

People tell me I’m nuts for banging around abandoned cemeteries in Camden, New Jersey. “It’s dangerous!” they say. Well, for the record, Camden no longer tops the FBI’s list of “Most dangerous cities in the U.S.” In a report issued this week, the Associated Press tells us that for violent crime, St. Louis, in fact, holds the No.1 spot. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Camden only drops to No.2! So off I went.

Prior to visiting Camden’s Johnson Cemetery, I knew nothing about it apart from what a filmmaker told me a few weeks ago. I met him (of course) in an abandoned Camden Cemetery (see "Scary Cemeteries" link at end) where he was getting background footage for a proposed documentary on the restoration of the abandoned Johnson Cemetery, which he referred to as, “’Needle Park’ …on the other side of town.” While pretty much ANY part of Camden is ‘the other side of town,’ the maps show it to be literally that--bordering Pennsauken, at 38th and Federal Streets. It’s in a mixed commercial/residential district, replete with Dominican grocers, Mexican Taquerias, and rescue missions—all tied together by a seemingly endless line of chrome wheel-intensive vehicles. This is all just up the road from Petty’s Island, the notorious pirate hangout in the Delaware River (Ahrrr, from the times before yer slots parlors existed, matey).

I was surprised to find that Johnson Cemetery isn’t so much abandoned, as repurposed! It’s a city park, for God’s sake! -- a park with benches, trees, and paved walkways. Lest I paint too pristine a picture,  there were empty liquor bottles all over, general scattered trash, and flattened cardboard beer boxes on the benches where the homeless sleep. You would never know it was a cemetery if you didn’t set foot inside (though you’d really have no reason to do so unless you needed to score some drugs). The park is about the size of a football field and the grass seems to be kept mowed. There’s a quirky weatherbeaten sign behind some trees that says “Johnson Cemetery Park.” I called the phone number, and it was disconnected.

I had actually driven around the cemetery twice, while scrutinizing the map to see how I could possibly be missing it—but all I saw was this field sandwiched between Federal Street and the projects. I ended up ditching my car a block away near “Modern Liquors” to get a better lay of the land. As I walked down the block, I asked a guy whose house bordered the park if he knew of a cemetery nearby. With a snaggletoothed smile he looked up from his old Buick’s head gasket repair and said, “Not many people know that park used to be a cemetery.” I thanked him and walked on.

If you’ve been around old graveyards, you know the telltale signs—marble pedestal bases sticking out of the grass on the perimeter, fragments of rusty fence embedded in old trees. This is about all I saw at Johnson, except for a couple guys in hoodies sitting on a bench close to the main road. Periodically, someone would wander up to the pair, and after some light conversation a trip would be made to the blue conversion van parked on the street nearby. An interaction of some sort would occur between the visitor and a woman in the passenger seat. The visitor/customer would then walk away. At one point I walked up to one of the dealers and asked if he knew of any gravestones in the place. He was a bit put off (I had a camera, remember), but pointed off in a direction away from the action, at what appeared to be paving stones in the grass. Upon closer inspection, they turned out to be HEADSTONES! Flush with the ground, these randomly scattered stones were the only definite evidence of Johnson Park having been an actual cemetery.

Kicking my way through the empty liquor bottles and beer cans, I found about 24 flat stones in all, mostly in the northeast section of the park. This being a windy day, the fallen autumn leaves were blowing around. Oddly, none would accumulate on any of the headstones. It was almost as if they were continually being swept away, or the stones themselves proudly did not want to be covered and forgotten. Who would even know these graves were here, if they didn’t actually go looking for them? Shouldn’t there be a little more reverence? A little less squalor?

I wondered about the history of the place, and if the stones had originally been upright then laid to rest when they built the “park.” Did they just landscape over the interred bodies as they did with Capitolo playground (formerly Lafayette Cemetery) in South Philly (near Pat’s and Geno’s cheesesteak emporiums)? Or did they do what Philadelphia’s Temple University did in the 1950’s—dig up Monument Cemetery (the city’s second rural cemetery) and build a parking lot. According to writer and historian Thomas H. Keels, “Thousands of those interred there were transferred to a mass grave in the suburbs. Their monuments were dumped into the Delaware River, where they are still visible today.”  Keels says we seem to have as many ways of dishonoring our ancestors as we do of honoring them.

Beneath the newspapers and empty gin bottles, the Johnson Cemetery headstones provide glimpses of life in the past lane, specifically the American Civil War. On some of the stones, you can just make out the engraved words “U.S. COLRD TROOPS” and “COLORD VOLS,” along with names of U.S. Navy warships on which at least two of the deceased served—the U.S.S. Ticonderoga and the U.S.S. Princeton. From what little I could find out about Johnson Cemetery, most of its hundred or so inhabitants are African-American Civil War veterans--people who made our history what it is. At one point, I noticed the only standing stone in the cemetery (above, with laundromat in background), what I initially took to be a bollard. It’s an unusual piece about 2 feet high and a foot square, engraved with the name of Jacob Johnson, who, along with Anthony Collings and Luke Derrockson were the original owners of the cemetery (according to a deed dated 1854).

Walking back to my car, I passed the guy working on his Buick. After I thanked him for his help, he offered,”They said they moved all the graves to [one of the cemeteries in the nearby town of] Mount Ephraim. I don’t believe it. I was digging in my back yard some years ago to put up a fence and I dug up grave markers and wooden coffin parts.” As I drove away, the musician Chuck Prophet was singing on the stereo, “When you barely exist….who’s gonna miss you when you’re gone?”

Links: 

Scary Cemeteries of Camden 

Rest in Pieces: Philadelphia's Lost Cemeteries

Camden Crime 2009

AP Report on 2010 Crime Statistics


Thomas H. Keels' Books: