Was founded in 1849 and located at 24th & Diamond Streets considered at that time "a rural area" inside the City of Philadelphia. Odd fellows catered to the middle class. A 19th Century Fraternal Organization known as the "Odd Fellows Lodge" bought up several burial plots for its own members.
In order to compete with the areas 20 other "rural cemeteries", Odd Fellows hired Thomas Ustick Water, Designer of Girard college and the Dome of the United States Capitol Building, to build an Egyptian Style Temple Gatehouse at the cemetery's entrance.
The cemetery was popular during the Civil War for its interment of all the soldiers who died from their wounds and/or subsequent disease when hospitalized at the Chestnut Hill Hospital known as Mower and the Nicetown hospital known as McClellan.
Between the years 1850 to 1900, Philadelphia's general population went from 409,000 residents to 1.3 million residents. Therefore, residential and industrial expansion took place at a rapid pace and all those cemeteries that were once "rural" quickly became "very urban". The neighborhoods surrounding these "so called rural cemeteries" became densely populated.
By the 1870's, government began to make and pass a series of laws that prevented interments in private cemeteries, restricted the creation of new cemeteries in urban areas and removed any cemeteries that they thought to be neglected. In addition, new laws were passed to allow churches to eliminate their inactive graveyards.
According to history, Philadelphia went through three large periods of time (1865-1895) (1910-1926) (1945-1970) when government (many corrupt) closed, removed and reinterred (and sometimes just built over the graves) the bodies of those buried in certain cemeteries as the city's progression moved forward with the building of streets, houses and industry. Family of the deceased were given two choices, remove their loved ones to a cemetery of their choice or have the city dispose of the bodies as they pleased (in mass burial plots) in cemeteries of the city's choice and trash their headstones.
In the case of Odd Fellows, the cemetery fell in disrepair during the 1940's. The city bought the cemetery in 1950. In 1951, 65,000 bodies were dug up and reinterred in Odd Fellows Rockledge location known as Lawnview and their other Philadelphia location known as Mount Peace. (one of those bodies was of my gg grandfather Alexander Mervine) The city built the Raymond Rosen Housing Project on its site. In 1999, when the Housing Project was torn down, caskets and remains of those who should have been removed & reinterred in 1951, prior to the construction of the Project were discovered.
6 comments:
Pat, Thank you for posting this. I just learned that quite a few of my ancestors were buried in that location, in United American Mechanics Cemetery. I suppose these cemeteries were next to each other or somewhere within the same sections where the housing project was built in 1951. Like you, I'm horrified they would do such a thing, and not at all surprised that many were still buried under those buildings and not removed as they were supposed to be to Philadelphia Memorial Park in Chester County. I'm heartsick over this, too.
Would you happen to know if there are any records of the interments and where I can look for them? My family is also from that area and was supposedly burried there.
It is sickening that this happened. Just goes to show money and power can ruin any mans decency.
Hi Anonymous, dcole57 and others. The American Mechanics Cemetery was exhumed and re interred in Chester County. I've helped a couple people who wanted to find their loved ones,... and even placed a flag this Memorial Day on the grave of a friend's GGGrandfather, who was a Civil War veteran.
Call their office in Frazer, PA, or the Chester county Historical Society in West Chester, PA. They received the original records, while PMP has a card for each known person re interred in the cemetery. AMC was kept together with markers from the original cemetery when possible.
Worth the call and the drive. I wish you luck and regards.
David
Apparently the records of the United American mechanics Cemetery have been found!! Look on ancestry.com in the forum on Philadelphia and.or www.findagrave.com for this cemetery. A partial listed has been transcribed there.
My ancestors were moved to Lawnview as well. 12 sets of remains were fit into two caskets, including the remains of Peter F. Cross, who was the assistant to James B. Longacre, chief engraver of the Philadelphia Mint. Just a tiny brass plaque remains at that gravesite, and it has sunken into the ground over the last 60 years.
I have a gg grandfater that was burried their in the late 40s and moved but no one knows where he was moved because he died when my great grandparents were young. Someday I hope to find out who he was and find out what happened to cause his sudden death at a young age.
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