The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-04-11
MAY BE GEN. aREsNs's REMAINS.
a Rich Coffin Exhumed West Of the
Old Cemetery.

SAa
During the progress of the excavation for
the Abercorn street sewer, portion Of the
homes Of thirty-seven skeletons have been
exbumed. Several human bones we're dis
Inferred yesterday in the excavation be-
tween South Broad and Hull streets, and
all the way from Perry street lane 20 South
Broad the excavations has been made
through what it would seem was once a
portion of the old cemetery.
Several skulls have been disinterred in
which the coins placed over the eyes OF the
dead were found imbedded in that portion
of the skull where they had been placed
when the bodies were ''lsid out"
Two copper coins were found in skull
day before yesterday and one yesterday;
the coins being badly corroded, but with
the figures we'll enough preserved 20 show
that thew were coins of the last century.
J. L. Fox, employed in the sewer work,
and living at 3415 Brougnton street,
has one Of the coins found yesterday and
one of them found the day previous. The
coin found yesterday is in better state OF
preservation than the one previously found,
and appears to be the coinage Of a foreign
country of the date of 1772.
All Of the c)ffins but one appear to have
been fiue collins. One, a walnut coffin, al
luded to in W ednesday's MORNING News,
evidently contained the remains of a noted
parsonage. as the fragments Of the coffin
show that it was not only Of black walnut,
rare and costly casket at the time. put the
trappings show that il had been casket of
expensive finish.
There are those who are inclined TO be-
lieve that it is none other than the coffin and
remains of the revolutionary soldier and
hero Gen. Nathaniel Greene.
The remains Of Gen. Greene, who died on
his plantation, Mulberry Grove, in 1886,
were buried in the vault Of the Graham
family. which, having been dispossessed of
its lands aud rights, secretly removed the re-
mains and buried them ia an unmarked
spot. The Graham vault still remains, and
is just inside the cemetery wall
near the Abercorn street gate.
la 1870 search was made
for Gen. Greenes body in order that it
might be given burial fitting the exalted
position which he occupied in his life, but it
was not to be found. In secretly removing
the remains from the Graham vault they
would not naturally have been taken far,
and it is not at all improbable that
the rich coffin betokening person of
wealth and station which was exhumed In
Abercorn street may have been that which
contained the remains of the great hero.
carried few yards distant from the vault
where they wore originally placed, just be-
yond the cemetery Enclosure and buried in
an unmarked grave.
While Abercorn stree. seems unmistak-
ably TO have been a cemetery at some time,
the old maps OF the city going back more
than century, do not show that the old
cemetery proper ever extended further west
than the present wall or very nearly the
line upon which il is built. The space west Of
the old cemetery was an oDen space to what
is now the west side of Floyd street until
the middle of the present century, when the
row of buildings from Firemen's hall south
to Liberty street was built and Floyd street
was created. The open space was evidently
at some time an annex to the cemetery, al
though there does not seem to be any record
of its use as such.