The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-01-16
Discovery of Human Remains In Cham
bers street, New York,


NEGRO CEMETERY OF 1878 UNEARTHED-INTE-
RESTING HISTORICAL "REMINISCENCES.
A striking reminder of New York in the old
times was yesterday uueartbed. While the
workmen were digging trenches for the pipes to
convey water into the new Court House on
Chambers street, their spades turned up two
human skulls, in a state OF quite fair preserva-
tion, and near by a portion OF two skeletons
were discovered. This was little more than
the spadesmen had bargarned for. 1t produced
considerable sensation, and every conjecture,
from murder to graveyard, was INDUCED by
the startled diggers. None could say of either
dead one that ''he knew him once,n and
though the workmen themselves were
fellows of infinite jest" the thought
that each "skull had tongue in it, and
could sing once" stopped their ''iokes and
iibes," and a deep curiosity, not free
from awe, pervaded the minds OF those who had
unconsciousy invaded the last, long rest of
those that had reposed in endless silence be-
meath the endless noise OF the city. The bones
were carefully collected by Captain Bracket of
the City Hall Police, and deposited in his Office
to await his disposition, without which they
cannot be removed. To the question, Whose
remains are they, and how did they come
there? an answer will probably be furnished
from the particulars given in the City Manual
OF MIR. Valentine. OF the scenes and incidents of
New York in olden times. Undoubtedly the
bones stumbled on were those Of buried negroes
"a suppOsition which the conformation OF the
skulls con6rms), who were inferred, says
Mr.. Valentine, "on the present Park enclo-
(p. 56OJ.
In regard to these interments and the then
cemetery, Mr. Valentine Up. 567) says Of the
place in those days:-
at was a desolate, unappropriated spot. The
negroes lin 1879 were prescribed and detested
race, having nothing in common with the
whites. Many were native Africans, imported
hithCr in slave ships and retaining their native
superstitions and burial customs, among which
was buryng by night with various mummeries
and outcIies. This custom was finally pro-
hiblted by the authorities on account of Its
dangerous and exciting tendencies among the
blacks. So little seems to have been thought of
the race that not even a dedication of their
burial-place was made by the church autho-
rities.n
The neighborhood of the City Hall, now so
valuable, was then and long after desolate and
forbldding, and the negroes were allowed to
bury their dead there by common consent and
Indifference, and not till after the Revolution,
as far on as 1896, was the land claimed by the
heirs of the former owners and then the city
took possession of the land and gave other in
exchange. The dead were removed farther
north on the Island. All were taken, it was
thought, but it seems not ALL for here l94 years
after the beginning of the time when the ceme
terry was founded, the bones of two of the buried
are thrown up, and very possibly mo- are hard
by. 1t is suggestive fact that Burton's Old
Theatre courted tragedy and comedy through
all its varied career right above the SPOT where
under the sheeted dead have been long resting,
! unnoticed and unknown by the surgtng thou.
sands hat laughed and cued by turns within it,
Walls.-N. y. Word.