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| Oxen Pulling a Large Load - NE 11th St and Washington Ave - no date |
Photo: Find a Grave, Langenberger Familien
G.M.Hopkins Philadelphia 1875 Atlas
The Philadelphia Inquirer
July 22, 1894
MACHPELAH'S DEAD TO BE REMOVED
Proposed Abandonment of Down-Town Cemetery Likely to Create Trouble.
Descendants Who Will Forcibly Protest Against the Exhuming of Bodies.
Peaceable Overtures by the Officials Rejected by Those Who Want the Grounds at
Tenth and Washington Avenue to Remain as They are.
A contest is brewing between the relatives, descendants and friends of the
dead buried in the Machpelah Cemetery, at Tenth and Washington avenue, and the
officials of the cemetery, who are determined to move all the bodies now
buried there to the new ninety-acre grounds on Baltimore avenue, just west of
Mount Moriah Cemetery.
The Machpelah Cemetery is the second oldest in town, being opened in 1830,
and the descendants of the persons originally buried there are among the
oldest and most conservative families, and they have determined to invoke
every aid the courts can give them to prevent the raising of their dead.
Others who are less conservative, at least in the methods they propose to use,
threaten to resist by force any attempt to disturb the remains of their
ancestors.
Yesterday, in response to an appeal sent out by E. M. Allen, secretary of
the corporation owning the ground, a number of lot holders called at the
cemetery, and selected the positions they desired in the new cemetery. Others
flatly refused to accept the terms offered, even through they were tendered
larger lots in fee simple in the new cemetery, whereas they now have only
privilege of burial without any ownership of the ground. In these contested
cases a representative of the company explained that when the consent has been
obtained of as large a number as possible the work of exhuming the dead will
begin, and those who desire to do so may apply to the courts for injunctions.
A MENACE TO HEALTH.
The condition of the old cemetery on the north side of Washington avenue,
extending from Tenth to Eleventh streets, has been a source of worriment to
the Board of Health for some time. From the small size of the grounds, their
long use for burial purposes, and the fact, as one member of the cemetery
company expressed it, that the bodies of the dead are sown there as "thick as
herring," the cemetery has been considered a greater menace to public health
than any other, and since 1890 burials have been prohibited. For the same
reasons greater restrictions have been placed about the work of exhuming than
in any other cemetery, and while elsewhere the work may be done through five
months, in the Machpelah it is confined to the months of December, January and
February.
All work in the cemetery which involves any disturbance of the
earth must be done, also, under the supervision of the Board of Health, and in
the case of one or two recent removals Medical Inspector Taylor has
officiated, and has liberally sprinkled the earth, as it is thrown up, with
chloride of lime.
THE FORGOTTEN DEAD.
A great many of the lots contain the bodies of persons long dead and
forgotten, whose friends and relatives have drifted away and for whom no
claims will be presented. Among the number is the grave of John Augustis
Stone, the ??gitted author of "Metamora." Above the grave is a marble shaft,
last falling into decay, which bears an inscription telling that it was reared
to the memory of Mr. Stone by his friend, Edwin Forrest, in 1836.
In Pursuance of their determination to clear the ground, with or without the
consent of all the lot-holders, the cemetery company hopes to vacate by the
first of next year, and the ground will then be offered for sale to the city
to be transformed into a small park and children's play ground.
The Philadelphia Inquirer
November 21, 1894, Page 2
SANITARY MEASURES.
Bodies to Be Removed From Machpelah and Union Cemeteries.
On the renewal of the application of Secretary C. A. Quinby the Health Board
resolved yesterday to permit the removal from Machpelah Cemetery of the 13,000
bodies now lying there to a new burial ground in Delaware county.
Disinterment will begin on the 1st of December, under the supervision of Chief
Medical Inspector Taylor. Twelve or thirteen bodies of Chinese men, whose
remains are to be sent back to their native land, are also to be removed from
the Methodist Union Ground.
All the bodies are to be placed in hermetically sealed cases and transported
in closed cars on the Pennsylvania Railroad from the cemetery to a siding
adjoining the new grounds. The time consumed in the operation will be about
sixty days.
Inquirer 7 Dec 1894
Inquirer 23 Jan 1895
Inquirer 15 Jul 1895
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