Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-03-10
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.
The Troy Hill Cemetery Will Soon
be Marketable Real Estate.
WHY IT HAS BEEN ABANDONED.
"reminiscences About 1000 Interments in
Three Acres of Ground.
BURIALS THERE DURING THE CHOLERA

The work of removing bodies from the
Troy Hill Catholic Cemetery to the new
burial grounds out the Perrysville road has
commenced. The obliteration of land
mark is thus begun. But the condition Of
the graveyard. and the advance of the liv-
ing population, seem to demand the use of
the ground for other purposes.
The plot is scarcely three acres in area,
yet between 5000 and 1000 persons have
been buried there. It is an instance of the
almost shameful crowding of corpses. When
the property was first laid out as cemetery
an attempt was made to bury all the chill
dren in one corner and the grown people in
another. This custom was observed for a
number of years. But soon all the ground
was taken in. Then adults were inferred
between the children, and in this manner
some sections of the cemetery have been
gone over three times. Now the wooden,
metal or stone crosses, serving as tomb
stones, all stand so close together that they
look like a confused mass from the gate.
A SANITARY MEASURE.
AS the population of Allegheny in
creased, and Troy Hill began to build up,
the institution was regarded by many as
dangerous to the living from a sanitary
point of view. Now it is completely sur
rounded by dwellings, stores and manu-
featuring establishments. In warm weather a
stencil, almost unbearable, was complained of
by,many IN the neighborhood. The grounds,
rather insufficiently fenced in, because
of their isolation became a resort for
bad characters. Worse than that,
the wells and springs of ofresidenters on the
lower terraces of Troy Hill were pregrated
more or less with the putrifaction which a
graveyard imparts to Mother Earth. That
was decidedly unhealthy. Added to all
these objections was the fact that the signs
of neglect had begun to tell on the old vii
lsge of the dead.
"The cemetery was first opened about 45
years ago" said Mrs. Joseph Lofnk to The
DISPATCH reporter yesterday afternoon, as
she stood at her window and watched the
laborers exhuming another skeleton. This
lady is 65 years old and with her
husband, Squire Lofnk, was one of
the early residents of the
hill. Continuing, she said: "We moved
up here 43 years ago, and have been living
on this same spot Gacross the street from
the cemetery ever since. At that time
there were quite a number of bodies buried,
and 1 understand that before the ground
was consecrated few graves were already
there"
SOME GRAVEYARD STORIES.
Mrs. Lofnk pointed to one corner of the
crowded cemetery and said: 81 remember
well when those long rows of headboards
were erected. 1t was during the terrible
scourge of cholera in Pittsburg and ALLIE
gheny, over 30 years ago. People were
dying by the score. So heavy was
the mortality and so largely were
the number of funerals increased
that in this cemetery five grave
diggers were employed. They worked night
and day burying the dead. Single graves
were not dug. They simply dug long
trench or gutter, and into this at regular in
tervals were laid the coffins. 1 suppose
nearly $50 cofins were thus inferred. The
headboards were put up later.
"When we moved up here there were only
two other houses on Troy Hill. The whole
district was laid off in small farms, while
that end of the hill where the reservoir now
stands was forest. A brickyard lay to the
right of the cemetery. The road which
led up to the cemetery from the
city passed through this forest and past
the brickyard. The ground was full of
clay, as it is yet, and in bad weather the
horses hauling hesrses stuck on the road
below the brick works. Then the whole fu-
neral would be stopped. Invariably the
hearse had to be left there and the. coffin
carried the rest Of the way, while the mourn
ers walked behind
Several priests are buried in the cemetery.
Not a few soldiers of the War of the Re
bellion also rest there. In all likelihood
the tombs of people whose relatives do not
claim them will be left in unmarked graves
when at last the ground is sold for other
purnnSoc