Old City Construction Project Turns Up Historic Remains

It sounds like something from a horror movie: the homes build upon an old grave site, the disgruntled spirits of those disturbed dead rising up to wreak some supernatural vengeance. Now that I’m thinking about it, I think that was the exact plot of Poltergeist. There has to be more than that, but I’m not taking to IMDB to find out for sure. Anyway, if you believe in that sort of thing, it turns out there is a situation in progress in Old City that might concern you. If you are a reasonable person and/or a history buff, you might think that it’s kind of cool.

The remains are being respectfully reassembled for future reburial at a historic cemetery.

A construction project at 218 Arch Street in Old City turned up dozens of old coffins and human remains. The ground was being excavated at the site for the building of a new apartment complex back in November when a small amount of human bones were found. The site was once home to the First Baptist Church Burial Ground, established in 1707. It is recorded in Philadelphia history books that the cemetery was closed and all the remains removed to Mount Moriah Cemetery between 1859 and 1860. When the first remains were found, they were taken to Rutgers-Camden and analyzed, where they were found to be of historic significance. Then, recently, more remains were found, including several coffins. According to news sources, as many as fifty separate bodies have been identified.

Great care is being taken to remove the bodies respectfully. We’ll try to find out anything that these bones can tell us about who these people were in life,” Kimberlee Moran, an associate teaching professor and director of forensics center at the university, said in a statement. “This is a rare opportunity to learn as much as we can about the earliest residents of Philadelphia. Ultimately, we want to reinter them at Mount Moriah Cemetery with the rest of the remains from this time period.”

It’s hoped that the bodies will all be removed so that construction can resume over the weekend.