Civil War P.O.W. Cemetery

Confederate burial trenches

Rest on embalmed and sainted dead
Dear as the blood ye gave
No impious footstep here shall tread
The herbage of your grave 

– from "Bivouac of the Dead", by Theodore O’Hara (1820-1867)

Military cemeteries have never held my interest, photographically. Call it a flaw in my personality. Sure the tombstones create interesting patterns being all the same size, shape, and color (white marble, typically), spaced equally apart, but I’m more about entropy. And statuary. I’ve tried to photograph military stones, but the images just look clichéd. So imagine my surprise when I came upon “Finn’s Point National Cemetery” – certainly the strangest military cemetery around.

I was actually headed for Salem, New Jersey, driving south on Route 49 from the Delaware Memorial Bridge last fall. There’s a quaint churchyard cemetery in Salem, New Jersey where I hoped to make some fall foliage photos. A few miles from the center of town, I saw the sign for “Finn’s Point National Cemetery,” within Fort Mott State Park. What the heck, I had the time, and maybe being right on the bay, the place is all picturesque, who knows? So I headed down the road toward Fort Mott.

I drove miles through the rural farmland (which is actually in Pennsville, Salem County) until I almost gave up. No signs, nothing. Couldn’t even see the Delaware Bay. The woods and fields were beautiful, though, with their changing colors. One of the few times I actually pulled the car over to get out and make some photographs, another car slowed down, checked me out, and pulled off the road about 100 yards ahead. A guy with one leg got out of the driver’s side, went to the trunk, opened it, and took out some sort of election sign on a wooden stick and proceeded to hammer it into the ground. As I drove by, I glanced at the fellow in the passenger seat, and he was dressed in a white suit, sitting there all satisfied with himself like Boss Hogg from the old Dukes of Hazzard TV show! Small town politics.

And this area surely is small town America. Or has been since the early 1900s when the fishing industry collapsed. Throughout the 1800’s, oysters, sturgeon (for caviar), and blue claw crabs were overfished and as a result, entire industries disappeared. Now the sparsely populated coastal bay area subsists mainly on retail and farming, that is, until you get further south to Cape May where beach tourism takes over. I made the photo above in a small churchyard cemetery in Pennsville, NJ.

So the cemetery is smack dab in the middle of all this. You drive through the little Jersey towns of the Delaware Bay area and you’d swear John Prine had it in mind when he wrote the song, Paradise: "it’s a backwards old town that is often remembered, so many times that my memories are worn." This, to me, describes Salem perfectly – a place that’s been in existence since 1730 and whose main claim to fame is that it was on the steps of the Salem courthouse in 1820, that Colonel Robert Johnson proved the edibility of the tomato. Before 1820, Americans often assumed tomatoes were poisonous (ref.).

P.O.W. Cemetery on the Delaware Bay

As I drove through Fort Mott State Park (nature preserve) to get to the cemetery, even this jaded photographer was taken by nature’s charms. A forest of brightly colored trees lined the road to the right, while dense foliage almost hid an old canal to the left. When I arrived at the cemetery, I was surprised that it was so small (less than 5 acres). The area is all swamps and marshland, with retaining walls on two sides – very enchanting, yet desolate. There was a parking lot for about 5 cars, in which a solitary empty pickup sat. A groundskeeping crew of a few men were cutting grass around the old office building. Everything was locked up, even though this was the middle of a weekday. Obviously not a popular tourist destination. Look at the photos on the Fort Delaware website and you can see how remote this place is.

  Fort Delaware, built in 1817 on Pea Patch Island in the bay opposite Finn's Point, and was used as a prison camp during the Civil War (1861 - 1865). Both Confederate and Union dead who had died at the prison were buried here at Finn's Point. The fact that it’s a Prisoner of War (P.O.W.) cemetery distinguishes Finn’s Point from other military cemeteries. As I read the informational signage overlooking the bay, I found that 2,436 Confederate POWs are buried here, along with 135 Union soldiers. The fact that both Union and Confederate soldiers are buried within the same cemetery makes it quite unique. In a small separate section of the cemetery (shown below), you'll also find the graves of Russian and German P.O.W.s from WWII. Very odd indeed. The Germans and Russians had died while prisoners at Fort Dix, NJ.

German and Russian P.O.W. graves

Finn’s Point National Cemetery resides within Fort Mott State Park. Fort Mott was part of a three-fort defense system designed to protect the ports of Philadelphia following the Civil War. The other two forts in the system were Fort Delaware and Fort DuPont in Delaware City, Delaware. According to Wikipedia:

Originally purchased by the federal government to build a battery to protect the port of Philadelphia, the land became a cemetery by 1863 for Confederate prisoners of war who died while in captivity at Fort Delaware. One hundred and thirty five Union soldiers who died while serving as guards at the prison camp are also buried here. The death toll among prisoners of war and the guards was high, especially in the latter part of 1863 and throughout 1864. By July 1863, there were 12,595 prisoners on the island at nearby Fort Delaware which was only about 75 acres in size. Disease was rampant and nearly 2,700 prisoners died from malnutrition or neglect. Confederate prisoner interred at the cemetery totaled 2,436 and all are in general unmarked graves. - Wikipedia

You read dry statistics like that, and you're distanced from the actual pain and suffering. Think about that – 2,436 soldiers died while in prison. In addition to captured Confederate soldiers and sailors, convicted federal soldiers (Company Q), and local Southern sympathizers, most of the Confederates captured at Gettysburg were imprisoned here. R. Hugh Simmons, a member of the Fort Delaware Society adds a touch of humanity to the story:

The prison was built to house 10,000 POWs, and the barracks were divided to hold about 2,000 officers and civilians in one compound and about 8,000 privates and enlisted men in the other. "So you had 3,800 (Confederate) prisoners suddenly appear on the doorsteps," he says. "These guys were sick as dogs. They were badly treated en route, and the Union officers have testified to that. When they arrived here, they started dropping like flies." With little space on the island, Soldiers Burial Ground at Finns Point was pressed into service. There are 2,436 Confederates buried in seven parallel pits at Finns Point that run east to west, Simmons explains. They were buried in wooden coffins stacked three deep. Names plates were put on each coffin and covered in leather for future identification. But no records were kept, and it was impossible to identify anyone after the war. In 1875, the year the ground was designated a national cemetery, the Corps of Engineers exhumed the remains of 135 Union soldiers and 187 Confederates on Pea Patch Island and reburied them at Finns Point.

- www.dryl.org

Confederate Monument

Within the cemetery are two monuments – an 85-foot high obelisk (at left) dedicated to the Confederate dead, and a smaller memorial dedicated to the Union soldiers buried there (below). During my visit, the tall obelisk was encased in scaffolding, so I used a photo of it from Interment.net. The names of the 2,436 Confederate military prisoners who were interred in the mass burial trenches and pits at Finns Point appear on the 12 bronze memorial tablets placed around the base of the monument.

Union Monument (L. M. Nichols, NJ.net)

Another interesting memorial is the series of seven metal plaques overlooking the end of the Confederate burial trenches (which you can clearly see in my photo at the top of this article – kind of chilling, isn't it?). On each plaque is engraved a quatrain from Theodore O'Hara's poem Bivouac of the Dead, the first of which is quoted at the beginning of this article. (If you go to Sheena Chi's Flick'r Photostream, you'll see individual photos of the plaques as well as many other fine photos from her well-documented visit to Finn's Point.) 

Reading this poetry as you walk quietly along the trenches, you assume its been solemn and peaceful like this since 1864: "No impious footstep here shall tread, the herbage of your grave." Almost as a mockery to O'Hara's poem, spree killer Andrew Cunanan committed one of his murders here on May 9, 1997, killing cemetery caretaker William Reese and stealing his truck. Cunanan had murdered at least five people, including fashion designer Gianni Versace, during a three-month period in 1997. If I had known this at the time I visited the cemetery, I probably wouldn't have even gotten out of my car.

Up until the end of 2009, Finn's Point National Cemetery had been allowing burials of U.S. military veterans from all wars after the Civil War. Over the past several years, the marshy ground has become an issue due to the high water table, so all burials, caskets as well as cremains, have ceased.  



For Further Reading:

Fort Delaware website

Fort Mott State Park/Finn's Point Lighthouse

Discover Salem County, NJHistory of Fishing in the Delaware Bay

Fort Delaware Society/Finn's Point National Cemetery
An interesting history of Finn's point Cemetery
Pea Patch Island Documentary
Bivouac of the Dead article and poem
Fort Delaware Video Tour
Delaware River Forts

One Year Anniversary of The Cemetery Traveler!

Hard to believe it’s been a full year since I began writing this blog. Since May 2010, I’ve posted 67 of these buggers. My original goal was one per week, but I got a bit carried away.

A friend once asked me what I like best about Robert Burns’ poetry. My answer was ‘mainly, the words.’ Words are things I’ve only recently attached to my photography – words don’t come naturally to artists, it seems. I’ve always had difficulty writing artist’s statements, for example, and I dislike giving titles to my work. But people will ask, “Where was this taken? Why do you photograph cemetery statues? Have you ever been to XYZ Cemetery?” So I started writing about my work.

A blog became the perfect vehicle, because it could be nothing more than an informal travelogue, punctuated with particular photographs I made in a certain cemetery. This is how Mark Twain began writing novels, by the way – his first two bestsellers were travelogues.  It was only after he began making attempts at an actual novel that he realized how difficult it was!

I began The Cemetery Traveler thinking I’d mostly reminisce about my decade of wandering through graveyards photographing the monuments and statues. Writing about my travels never occurred to me at the time, so I rarely took notes. Although history has a way of merging fact with fiction, my writing does not suffer on that account. Like Twain said, my memory’s so good I can remember things whether they happened or not.

But frankly, I’m thrilled by the interest and attention paid to the blog by followers, subscribers, Facebook  friends, and email friends. Heck, in addition to all my virtual readers, I even know actual people who read my work! So I thank you all. Knowing there are folks out there who like what I write makes it all the more enjoyable to do.

Is it Curtains for The Cemetery Traveler?

Have I run out of material? Exhausted my trove of experience and now my blog will suck? Heavens, no − I can go on and on. This is just a way of stopping to catch my breath. You may have noticed that my recollections have been punctuated with new adventures. Not only has writing about past travels become a sort of catalyst for new ones, but I’ve found people who are more than willing to accompany me on cemetery trips. Ten years ago, people just thought I was weird.

I do welcome suggestions and comments on the blog, as they often spark an idea for a new topic. For instance, I have one vigilant reader to thank for the suggestion to write about photographing mausoleum stained glass windows, and another to thank for (inadvertently) prompting me to visit a cemetery I hadn't seen in eight years.

In addition, as I go through my archives of thousands of graven images to post on my Facebook site, Ed Snyder's StoneAngels Photography, I’m reminded of experiences I had while making those photographs. Since I’ve barely begun to scan the negatives from my first six years of cemetery photography, I have plenty of material. Like the time I impressed a girlfriend when my car broke down in a Syracuse cemetery 300 miles from home. Or the time my friend John and I drove two hours to Baltimore only to find our destination cemetery locked up and surrounded by police, with a wanted killer holed up inside (so to speak).

New Adventures

As I’ve said, I started writing the blog with an eye toward reminiscing about my past cemetery travels. I didn’t plan to continue to have new adventures to write about. But the process of recounting my experiences seems to have triggered the urge to continue the forays. For instance, it never occurred to me a year ago that I’d become so interested in abandoned cemeteries. But then, you can’t really do anything without experiencing something new. In addition, comments and questions from readers spurred me revisit cemeteries I hadn’t seen in years. A pleasant result of such an instance was when I returned to Philadelphia’s Knights of Pythias Cemetery to find that it was no longer abandoned, but in the process of being restored!

Too Revealing?

Spoken like the true psychotherapist she is, my wife said to me the other morning, “I had the weirdest dream last night. Want to hear what it meant?” Personally, I’m not quite so introspective. In fact I used to brag about my profound inner shallowness.

The blog, however, has kind of forced me to dig in and find out more about what I do and why I do it (which I still can’t succinctly explain). Sporadically, I’ve revealed some very personal things in The Cemetery Traveler, and have been surprised by the outpouring of emotion and support from readers. I’ve learned a little more about myself and a bit more about people in general.

I also have new adventures planned. On the docket for this summer is to visit my Mom, and the cemetery in which her two brothers and sister are buried. Until about six months ago, I thought she was an only child.

Social networking via Facebook and blogging has helped turn my morbid fascination with cemeteries into a healthy sense of wonder about people’s views on death and dying. Though I’ve written a lot on these subjects for my StoneAngels website, the experience is very different – websites don’t actively invite feedback.

Abandoned Graveyards

Some surprising feedback I've received has to do with my investigations of abandoned graveyards. They're fascinating to me, but can be a source of real anguish to others. It really seems to suck all the joy out of cemeteries for them.  Here’s one comment I received:

"ed this story upsets me so much. i can't BELIEVE nobody has done anything about this..."

I’m always asked the question by perplexed people, “How does a cemetery become ... abandoned?” That’s a topic for another blog post, but it has become evident to me that many are appalled by the idea. Hey, sorry, that’s how we roll, people – sometimes we just don’t care. Although such places are inner city and a bit dangerous, it isn’t just about thrill-seeking for me (okay, it started out that way). It’s a fascinating real-time exercise in demographics, history, and the changing attitudes of a population. As Benjamin Franklin put it, "Show me your cemeteries and I will tell you what kind of people you have."  (Thanks to writer and cemetery photographer John Grant for that quote.) 

A positive outcome of this is my growing interest in Philadelphia’s notorious Mt. Moriah Cemetery, which is leading me toward becoming a member of the Friends of Mt. Moriah, a volunteer organization dedicated to saving the cemetery. Can it be saved? There are best and worst case scenarios to compare. Looking to the past, the city's Monument Cemetery was allowed to decay to the point where it was plowed over and turned into a parking lot in 1956. But then Laurel Hill was in the same condition in the 1970s. Luckily enough people with the wherewithal slowly resurrected it from the garbage and graffiti to the wonderfully restored Victorian cemetery it is today.

Inspiration

Angelo Bruno's Headstone

Okay, I feel a little guilty about this, voyeuristic, really. Sometimes I get ideas for blogs from reading other people’s Facebook comments or viewing their photographs of cemetery statuary. For instance, I’m presently working on a blog about a cemetery in which several organized crime notables are buried. I got the idea from a Facebook friend who has an entire photo page of mobster’s gravesites. I began thinking, huh, the mob’s always been pretty active in Philly – I wonder where they’re buried? Turns out that many of them are planted in the very cemetery near my old house where I began making cemetery photographs in 1997!

But let’s rationalize. This from Keith Richards autobiography, Life, regarding where ideas for songs come from:

“the other thing about being a songwriter … is that to provide ammo, you start to become an observer, you start to distance yourself. You’re constantly on the alert….Which, in a way, makes you weirdly distant. You shouldn’t really be doing it. It’s a little of Peeping Tom to be a songwriter.”

So that kind of brings me full circle—I began my cemetery photography at this very same cemetery 14 years ago, I learned something new about it, which made me want go back and do some research. I never used to go to cemeteries looking for anything but angel statues. Facebook has helped me to expand my horizons, to appreciate cemeteries as continual sources of interest and inspiration.

Readers Reactions

I’m humbled that people with such seemingly disparate backgrounds have an interest in The Cemetery Traveler. Photographers and other artists, ghost hunters, horror enthusiasts, genealogists, funeral home directors, even morticians reading and commenting on the work has helped me develop the blog into more than I originally intended it to be. At some point in the near future, I hope to coalesce it into book form. Perhaps it will include readers’ favorites, with sections on Getting Locked in a Cemetery, Zombie Attacks, Abandoned Graveyards, etc. The cover idea I owe to a reader who noted that a photo (below) I posted on my Facebook site “Screams ‘book cover!’”

As I’ve accumulated readers, I’ve also lost some. Some have disagreed with things I’ve written. Some have shied away when a friend or relative died this past year. I may wonder why someone’s stopped reading and shoot them an email. You have fun around cemeteries and you forget about its raison d'être – death.  It’s like the time I lost my cell phone in a graveyard once. Some days later, a woman called a friend of mine, whose number was stored in my phone (she called the stored numbers trying to locate me). When I got the message, I called her, thrilled that she had found my phone. Like an idiot, I asked, “Did you just find it walking through the cemetery?” She said, “No, it was on my son’s grave.” Sometimes even I am rendered speechless.

Drawing the Shades

As the preacher said last week at the funeral service for my friend’s Dad, ”know who you are and know where you’re going.” As I continue to write this blog, I may eventually find out who I am and why I take pictures in cemeteries. So on this one−year anniversary of The Cemetery Traveler, let me again thank my readers for putting up with the highly subjective accounts of an itinerant cemetery explorer. There are still tales to be told, mourning art to be shared, cemeteries to visit, and lessons to be learned.

How Monument Cemetery was Destroyed

Concrete crypt being removed from Monument Cemetery, 1956

By the summer of 1956, the job of clearing Monument Cemetery was well under way. Bodies had already been removed from one section of the old grave yard. At that time, the University referring to it as PROGRESS, stated that "the old cemetery...will provide much needed parking space by fall." - Things that Aren't There Anymore

Betsy Ross Bridge in background

After my photo excursion to find the last remains of Philadelphia’s Monument Cemetery, I was overwhelmed with questions – my own as well as those posed by my readers. Questions like, how could some entity (Temple University, in this case) just buy a cemetery and build a parking lot over it? Was the cemetery actually abandoned?  Supposedly, all the bodies were removed, but how did they do that? And the families were okay with it? When this happened in 1956, the cemetery was over a century old – did they contact the relatives of the 28,000 people buried there? Why were all the monuments and headstones dumped into the Delaware River? I get a weird feeling now whenever I drive over the Betsy Ross Bridge, like its somehow sacrilegious that granite tombstones are part of its foundation.

They say the universe is finite, contained, and searchable, so, in an attempt to find answers, I paid a visit to the Pennsylvania Historical Society in Philadelphia. I knew from past visits here and to the Library Company of Philadelphia next door, that they had certain records related to area cemeteries. Once I got into the Historical Society to begin my research, I was amazed to find hundreds of bound volumes (handwritten as well as copied) of burial records and tombstone inscriptions from more cemeteries than I thought existed, along with all their original deeds, charters, and annual reports. There were also vintage brochures and guidebooks (c. 1850) printed by the large Victorian garden cemeteries for advertising purposes. You can actually peruse these wonderful parchment-like and very fragile volumes from the Laurel Hill, Woodlands, and Mt. Vernon cemeteries in Philadelphia. Wonderful lithographs of monuments, chapels, and gatehouses adorn the pages, many of which are either no longer in existence or are so weather-worn as to be barely recognizable. It’s obvious that such documentation is necessary for accurate restoration of cemetery sculpture and monuments. After about half an hour of searching, I came upon a three-volume set of documentation related to Monument Cemetery.

In the set of burial records were tombstone inscriptions, an alphabetical listing of those interred, and legal documentation for the property. At the end of Vol. I, there were dozens of copied newspaper clippings related to the battle to close the cemetery (mid-1950s). As I read through these clippings, certain things became clear – I better understood how a cemetery could be made to disappear.

In a nutshell, the cemetery had not been abandoned, it was destroyed. Bodies were reinterred elsewhere and most of the tombstones and monuments were dumped into the Delaware River, to be used as foundation rock for when the city built the Betsy Ross Bridge. In my previous blog, “The Watery Remains of Monument Cemetery,” I wrote about my excursion to find the stones, which are visible at low tide. Visible with a bit of work, that is. You can’t just look down into the water and see them as you drive across the bridge.

How did Temple University acquire Monument Cemetery?
 

As the universe expands, so do universities. In the 1950s, Temple was developing itself into a commuter school, and needed more parking – and those 15 acres across the street were just being wasted on a cemetery. They’d actually been trying to acquire the cemetery since 1928, but continually met with resistance from the cemetery’s owners. 

 

Nearly bankrupt cemetery railroaded into oblivion?

According to records, the owners of Monument Cemetery only had about $11,000 in assets by 1953. This was barely enough income for the owners to provide necessary maintenance to the buildings and upkeep to the graves. With no new plots sold since 1929, there had been little income for 24 years (the only available burial space was in lots that had been previously sold). The cemetery had been in business for 114 years, and its 15 acres were filled to capacity with 28,000 graves. As a result, the cemetery physically deteriorated to the point where it invited vandalism. The owners were actively trying to sell it, but were “insensed” at potential buyers’ (including Temple) plans for the land. Eventually Temple lobbied the city government to condemn it, and ended up acquiring it after that occurred. According to the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin of May 28, 1953, public hearings were held in which “a number of persons” testified that “the cemetery was now a haven for rats, criminals, tramps, and sex offenders.” (Kind of sounds like the North Philly that we know today.)

It appears that legal title passed from the owners of Monument Cemetery to the City of Philadelphia, but I could find no record of the amount the owners were compensated. Once a government determines that private property is needed for the completion of a public project (Temple is a public, i.e. state school), that property is likely going to be lost (ref). The property owner is entitled to fair compensation for the loss, but it appears that Monument’s owners received far less (if anything). Kind of like when my grandmother's house was taken through "eminent domain" by a local municipality so that a playground could be built. 

Estimated value of the land in the part of Philadelphia in which Monument Cemetery was situated was about $40,000 per acre, making the cemetery’s 15 acres worth about $600,000. Temple had previously stated that it could not afford to buy the land at that price. As Lawnview Cemetery (in Rockledge, a Philadelphia suburb) was later awarded a $700,000 contract by the city for “the transfer and perpetual care of the bodies,” I find it hard to believe the city paid Monument’s owners anything for the land.

 
Did they actually remove the bodies?

Well, if you can believe the newspapers, yes. But who knows? The crane in the top photo shows a concrete crypt being hoisted out of the ground, but what of the thousands of older burials that only had wooden coffins? I began to wonder what sort of notifications were sent to families whose loved one were buried there… eviction notices? Did they board up the periphery of the cemetery so people couldn’t see the coffins coming out of the ground? Did people care? I had to find out, and as I could find nothing on the topic online, I hoped the Historical Society would provide. 

The dozens of newspaper clippings mentioned above cover the final two years of the cemetery’s existence – from 1954 (when its fate was mired in political intrigue) to 1956 (when the cemetery was condemned, given to Temple, and dug up). During the time that the cemetery’s owners were trying to sell it in above-board fashion, Temple had made low offers, and was turned down. In its relentless quest for the land, Temple resorted to political tactics to have the ground condemned, while maintaining an air of empathy by declaring that if it acquired the cemetery, it would also have to dig up Temple's founder, Dr. Russell Conwell, and his wife, who were buried there. In the end, they moved those graves across the street near Conwell Hall (where I used to go to pay my daughter’s tuition).

How were lot holders notified?

Apparently, the majority were not. But first, let’s do some math. In 1954 when the cemetery owners sent out mailings to lot holders announcing the likelihood that graves would have to be moved when the cemetery was sold, they only had reliable contact information for 748 families - out of 28,000 burials. Of these 748, only 400 lot holders responded to mailings – 300 of whom met to vote on which cemetery they would want their ancestors moved to. Two cemeteries bid on the contract − Lawnview Cemetery and Philadelphia Memorial Park in Frazer, PA. Lawnview was chosen after a nine-month debate, mainly because it was closer to Monument Cemetery (more convenient for the lot holders) and it would charge less for removal of the bodies.  

So only 300 family plots were moved to Lawnview along with their monuments and headstones. I would assume that some of the remaining 100 of the contacted lot holders had their loved ones moved privately to different cemeteries at their own expense. But the vast majority of the 28,000 bodies, it seems, went unclaimed! 

In order to clear the land of human remains and stonework, 28,000 bodies had to be re-located, about 20,000 of which were unclaimed. These 20,000 – a staggering number − were the ones that were quietly dumped into a large mass grave at Lawnview Cemetery. Their monuments and any of the elaborately carved stonework that hadn't been claimed by relatives were sold to developers, and hauled to the river to be used as part of the foundation to build the Betsy Ross Bridge (construction was completed in 1976). Monuments, including major works of art by 19th century sculptors, were dumped into the river to be used as “riprap” (granite or concrete rubble from building and paving demolition commonly used to protect shorelines from water or ice erosion).

Did the public care what was going on?

Historian Tom Keels says, “…in the 1950s it was, 'This is an old moldy Victorian cemetery. Who cares.'"

“The way cemeteries and their occupants were treated after World War II was shocking. The city was in flux. It was losing jobs, it was losing people and there was a decision early on that the city was going to redevelop at least its central area. It was going to reinvent itself as a neo-colonial city. Society Hill and Independence Mall were constructed, while hundreds of Victorian buildings were razed ‘because 18th century was good, Victorian was bad.’ Unfortunately, this extended to many Victorian cemeteries. – Tom Keels

Forgotten graves?  Not totally.

But what of the people whose loved ones were buried at Monument, who were not aware of its closing? Many of my current readers are appalled by what happened to this cemetery, shocked by the callousness of a modern society. Looking back, it seems that it all occurred precisely because of the modernism of our society and how we value “progress.” It all sounds like Temple and the City of Philadelphia tied up Monument Cemetery in a neat little package and everyone was happy. Today, it’s a different story, as I come upon these chilling posts on the reader forum of Geneology.com:

"they say there is a mass grave .. where is it and where are the babies that were buried there as there was so many of my family buried there too..why didn't anyone fight it and how could they get away with this? i can't believe the things i read about it as i look for my family .."

"hello thank you i went to find a grave and lawnview and typed in my family name but nothing..came up. do they have a list from monument and where all the people from monument were reburied. at least they could have done that. so many of my family was buried there. a lot of babies from years ago. a few made it to arlington but not many. thank you and i don't know how they could do things like this ..isn't anything sacred..? i sure appeciate your help. thank you again  -alice"

"Monument Cemetery. This is where my ancestors-Wareham- had a large family plot. It was removed and built over by Temple University. What a shame ! If you are connected to this family, please reply. Jeanie "

More about the 1956 dumping of tombstones into the river.

As I mentioned in my previous blog posting, “The Watery Remains of Monument Cemetery,” my friend Leo and I trekked out to the river last month and found the site of the discarded tombstones from Monument Cemetery. We only actually found about 50 exposed whole grave markers, so the rest must must be either buried, drowned, or reduced to rubble. When you think about it, roughly twenty thousand bodies were unclaimed, so there had to be several thousand gravemarkers discarded.

Sartain Monument (Univ of Penn)

Supposedly, John Sartain's Egyptian-style monument was dumped into the Delaware and is now part of the bridge. Sartain was one of the original designers of Monument Cemetery; he and his family were buried there. Sartain’s is not a name with which I was familiar, but to whom the literary world owes a debt of gratitude. He was Edgar Allen Poe’s friend, colleague, and publisher while Poe lived in Philadelphia.

John Sartain was a true renaissance man – publisher, engraver, artist, and architect. He was responsible for the design of Monument Cemetery’s gatehouse and the cemetery’s immense (over 70 feet high) central monument to George Washington and General Lafayette (seen at left being dismantled). According to Sartain’s autobiography, The Reminiscences of a Very Old Man, “Monument Cemetery” derived its name from this monument. Sartain’s own memorial (seen above in front of the base of the Washington monument in a 1954 photograph) lives with the fishes - supposedly dumped as unceremoniously as the rest of the stones.

Sartain's Union Magazine featured the first publication of Poe’s haunting poem, Annabel Lee, which is about a rivalry that resulted in a watery death. Makes you wonder what horrors Poe could have conjured with the idea of unearthing 28,000 graves and dumping their tombstones into the river. But then he probably would never have conceived of anything so bizarre – or did he?

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea. 

- from Annabel Lee, by Edgar Allan Poe



 

References for Further Reading:

The Watery Remains of Monument Cemetery

Temple University Photo Archives

Pennsylvania Historical Society Monument Cemetery For Sale

Geneology.com

The Reminiscences of a Very Old Man, by John Sartain (1808-1897)

Things that Aren't There Anymore - Temple University Edition

John Sartain Bio, Encyclopedia Britannica 

End of the Road-Philadelphia Graveyards