Bones In The Dirt

From “The Evening Herald” (Philadelphia), Friday, 15 August 1890

BONES IN THE DIRT

Residents of Allegheny Avenue Object to a Graveyard before their Doors. Sergeant Reed, of the police station at Belgrade and Clearfield streets, was notified, on Tuesday night by residents of Allegheny avenue. In the vicinity of the Aramingo Canal, that during the day carters had been dump­ing dirt along the marshy flats on the canal bank at Allegheny Avenue, and that among the dirt had been found human skulls, ribs, arm and leg bones. The carters had told some of the people who made inquiries about the stuff that they were hauling it from the site of the abandoned Union Burying Ground at Vienna [now Berks St.] and Belgrade streets. Sergeant Reed, after gazing on the skulls and piles of bones for himself yesterday morning, reported the discovery to Police Captain Quirk, who said it was a case that should be reported to the Board of Health. As the cemetery is located in the Eighteenth Ward, in Lieutenant Tuttle's district, Cap­tain Quirk And Sergeant Reed interviewed him about the bones at roll call at City Hall. Lieutenant Tuttle informed them that the work of removing the soil from around the old burying ground was being done by the Highway Bureau. The fence that once surrounded the grounds on Bel­grade, Vienna and Gaul streets and towards the Montgomery Avenue end had long ago disappeared. The grounds are higher than the sidewalk on Belgrade street. There are no walks on Gaul street or Vienna street. Between the western end of the yard and Montgomery Avenue a row of dwellings has been built on the old Gaul Estate, and on Montgomery Avenue, running up to the Old Malt House. There are houses on the upper side of Gaul Street, opposite the cemetery, and on Vienna and Belgrade Streets. The residents, thereabouts, have been complaining for years that the mud from the banks of the graveyard washed down and constituted a nuisance, and that the upper side of Vienna Street had no footway. There appeared to be none of the Trustees of the Old Union Burial Com­pany alive who would redress the matter. The Highway Bureau had finally stepped in and was about to lay footways on Vienna street, where there never had been any and to replace the one on Belgrade Street. To do this, it was necessary to out down considerable earth on Vienna street and as the bodies had been piled on top of one another in the graves in the process of interment, and all recollection or their identity had been lost long ago, the only thing left to do was to haul away dirt and all.

Post note; Union Burying Ground was located in Northern Liberties/Kensington Section of Philadelphia and was also known as the West St. Grounds and Malt House Grounds.