PhillyGraves.com - Philadelphia Graveyards and Cemeteries

The one frustration I experienced writing Philadelphia Graveyards and Cemeteries was sifting through thousands of fascinating images of monuments and burial sites and then forcing myself to select only the 225 or so allowed by the book format. The Unpublished Photo Gallery lets me share some of the images that didn't make the final cut, but are still worthy of attention.

Do you have any images of little-known or vanished gravesites or graveyards from the Philadelphia region that you would like to share? If so, please email them (.jpg format only, please) to tom_keels@phillygraves.com. I'll post as many as space allows and credit the lenders.

General John Forbes, buried in the chancel (the choir area near the altar) of Christ Church at Second and Market Streets, ended French control of Western Pennsylvania during the French and Indian Wars. Born in Scotland in 1710, Forbes became a lieutenant in the Scots Dragoons.

In 1757, he crossed the Atlantic to command His Majesty's troops fighting the French army and allied Indian tribes. Among those under his command was future president George Washington.

After a brutal passage over the Allegheny Mountains that ruined Forbes' health, his army claimed Fort Duquesne, abandoned and burned by the French. Forbes renamed the outpost Fort Pitt and the surrounding town Pittsburgh, after British Prime Minister William Pitt.

Forbes died two months after his return to Philadelphia. His interment within Christ Church on March 14, 1759, rather than in the adjacent churchyard or nearby burial ground, is an indication of the high esteem in which he was held by colonial Philadelphia.

This monument once marked the burial vault of two famous Americans: Revolutionary financier Robert Morris (1734-1806) and Episcopal bishop William White (1748-1836). Morris, a wealthy merchant, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution. Throughout the Revolution, he begged, borrowed, and possibly stole money and supplies to support Washington's army at Valley Forge and ensure the final American victory at Yorktown. Bankrupted by his real estate speculations, Morris died a broken man.

William White, Morris' brother-in-law, was rector of Christ Church for 57 years, before, during and after the American Revolution. He acted as Chaplain of the Continental Congress and later the United States Senate. As one of the first consecrated bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America, White played a major role in establishing and organizing the structure and Constitution of the church. Originally buried in the Morris-White vault, his body was exhumed and reinterred in the Christ Church chancel in 1889, the centenary of the establishment of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America. His name remains on the churchyard tombstone. (Photo courtesy of Christ Church Preservation Trust)

This panoramic photo of Laurel Hill Cemetery looks southwest down the Schuylkill River toward the city of Philadelphia. To the right is Millionaire's Row, an avenue of elaborate memorials commemorating Philadelphia's industrial and financial leaders of the post-Civil War period, such as P.A. B. Widener (trolleys), Matthias Baldwin (locomotives), and Henry Disston (saws).

To the left is the bridge over Nicetown Lane (today Hunting Park Avenue) connecting Central Laurel Hill with South Laurel Hill. This photo, taken c. 1910 for promotional materials, is actually three photographs pasted together with the seams hidden by trees. (Photo courtesy Laurel Hill Cemetery Company)

This unusual photograph shows a minister delivering the graveside elegy for Louisa Kunkel in Section T of Laurel Hill Cemetery on March 21, 1907.

The elaborate preparations for funerals in the late 19th and early 20th century extended to the burial lot. In addition to the lavish floral tributes covering the casket, the open grave was lined with evergreens and decorated with lilies and carnations.

Palm fronds camouflaged the mound of displaced earth. (Photo courtesy Laurel Hill Cemetery Company)

The poignant grave for Little Charly and Little Jenny at the Woodlands in West Philadelphia, with its twin lambs and heaven-pointed hand, is testimony to the high level of childhood mortality in 19th-century America.

According to some medical records, the average Victorian family could expect to see at least half of its children die before their fifth birthday, victims of smallpox, diptheria, whooping cough, and other now-vanquished diseases.

In the beautiful and serene atmosphere of a rural cemetery, grieving parents could console themselves with thoughts of reuniting with their departed children in Heaven. (Photo by L.M. Arrigale)

The most elaborate single tomb in Philadelphia may be that of merchant and philanthropist Stephen Girard (1750-1831), who bequeathed his fortune to found Girard College for orphans in North Philadelphia.

After his death, Girard was buried at Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church at Sixth and Spruce Streets. Once the Main Building of Girard College was constructed, plans were made to have Girard's body reburied there.

The body was disinterred in January 1851, but remained in a storage room at Girard College for eight months while his heirs protested its removal. On September 30, 1851, Girard's remains were placed in a marble sarcophagus in the south vestibule of the Main Building.

A marble statue of Girard carved by the French sculptor Gevelot was placed in front of the sarcophagus. Girard's wife Mary lies in an unmarked grave behind the Pennsylvania Hospital at Eighth and Pine Streets, where she died in 1815 after spending 25 years incarcerated there as hopelessly insane.

Philadelphia National Cemetery at Haines Street and Limekiln Pike in East Germantown was founded in 1885 by the federal government for Civil War soldiers. Most of its over 13,000 graves are marked by standard-issue government tombstones.

A more elaborate stone marks the grave of Galusha Pennypacker (1844-1916), who joined the Union Army at 16. Promoted to Brigadier General of Volunteers a month before his 21st birthday, Pennypacker still holds the record of being the youngest general officer in United States military history.

Pennypacker served at Drewry's Bluff, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, and Fort Fisher. Wounded four times, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

A memorial to Pennypacker, sculpted by Albert Laessle, was erected on Vine Street near Logan Square in 1934. (Photo by L.M. Arrigale.)

In colonial Philadelphia, many African-American slaves and servants were buried on the property of the white families they served. One African-American woman is credited with saving Stenton, colonial mansion of the Logan family, from destruction during the Revolutionary War.

After the Battle of Germantown, two British soldiers arrived at Stenton with orders to burn the mansion. Dinah, a freed slave who served as caretaker, watched helplessly as they entered the barn to get straw. Just then, a British patrol rode up and asked Dinah if she had seen any deserters. She immediately answered that there were two hiding in the barn. Despite their protests, the would-be arsonists were arrested and carried off by the patrol. Dinah died at Stenton, and was buried under an old pine tree southeast of the house.

In the early 20th century, a memorial to Dinah was erected in Stenton Park by the Pennsylvania Society of the Colonial Dames of America.

Founded in 1902 in Collingdale, Delaware County, Eden Cemetery is the oldest black-owned cemetery in America. Many members of Philadelphia's African-American intellectual and cultural elite are buried at Eden, including author, essayist and critic Jessie Redmond Fauset Harris (1882-1961), a leader in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.

As literary editor of the NAACP magazine, Crisis, Fauset promoted such artists as Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen. Fauset's own novels, such as There Is Confusion (1924), focused on the black middle class, ignoring the stereotypical black characters common to many of the white-authored books of the period. (Photo by L.M. Arrigale)

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia opened Cathedral Cemetery in 1849 at 48th Street and Lancaster Avenue in West Philadelphia. Besides providing an alternative to the city's parish churchyards, Cathedral also generated revenues for the construction of the Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul on Logan Square.

Open to all Catholics, Cathedral was favored by the Irish families who then dominated the city's Catholic society. An avenue of family vaults runs along the southwest corner of Cathedral Cemetery. While some are built of marble or granite, several are brick, indicating the importance of bricklaying and construction to the fortunes of Philadelphia's Irish. (Photo by L.M. Arrigale)

Founded in 1740 at Spruce and Eighth Streets, the first cemetery of Congregation Mikveh Israel holds the remains of Rebecca Gratz and Haym Salomon. In 1841, the Congregation purchased a second burial ground on Federal Street between 11th and 12th Streets (shown at left).

Among those buried here are publisher Alfred Hart; rabbi and educator Sabato Morais; Judge Mayer Sulzberger; and Alfred Mordecai, who served as assistant to the Secretary of War and the Chief of Ordnance during the 1840s. (Photo by L.M. Arrigale)