The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1894-12-22
Exhuming Bones in the Bay
Cemetery for Shipment
to the Celestial
Kingdom.
FORTY GRAVES TO BE oPENEB
Every Ghinaman Who Dies in This
Country Expects to Have His
Bones Sent Home.

The New York Bay Cemetery, Green.
vile, proved an unusually attractive
place yesterday to a large number of
citizens of the Celery district. During
the past two days an informal Chinese
Resurrection has been in progress
there, all the bones of the departed
sons of the Flowery Kingdom being ex-
humed in accordance with an order
from the Chinese Legation at Washing
ton. In the cemetery there are seven
plots reserved for dead Cinnamon and
these are owned by Woon Tong, the
Chinese Company Eenetong, and A. Pax
ton & Company all of New York. The
first Chinese funeral at the cemetery
was that of John Chady, wealthy tea
dealer who died in New York in 1858, at
the age of twenty-five years. The last
Chinese body was inferred in 1883 and
from John Chadys funeral up to that
time there were forty Chinese buried
there
The work of exhuming the remains was
in charge of Chung Wah-. and Kung
Saw of New York, representatives OF
the Chinese Legation, and a prominent
member of the Chinese Company Eene-
tong was accompanied by two labor
srs, also sons of China and to these
men the ghoulish work was assigned.
The regularly employed grave diggers
of the cemetery dug up the plots, ex-
posing to view the collins in which rested
the bones. The cemetery grave diggers
were not allowed to touch the bones, this
part of the work being sacredly reserved
for the Chinese laborers. AS soon as
coffin was exposed to view. laborer No.
/ broke open the lid with pickaxe and
h.
bones. These were placed in dirty
bag and carried to the tent which had
been erected near Chapel avenue and
the Central Railroad.
PACKING THE BONES.
Here laborer No chad built a fire in
small charcoal stove awaiting in the
meantimes the bones When com-
plete skeleton arrived he went to work
The bones were placed on a small piece
of wire netting and dried over the stove.
Another cleaning with excelsior and the
remains We're ready for the employe of
James Naughton. the undertaken who
has the contract for boxing them for
shipment. The small bones of the hands
and feet were tied up in a piece of
white linen and all the bones were then
placed in zncHned yellow pine boxes.
measuring two and one half feet by one
foot When coffin plate accompanied
the remains, it was cleaned so that it
could be read The name of the de-
ceased was transferred in Chinese char
acters to the cover of the pine box by
Chung Wah Kung Saw and when no
coffin plate was found the box was
simply marked ''unknown.''
TWENTY BOXES TAKEN AWAY.
Yesterday twenty boxes were filled, and
today the remaining skeletons will have
10 be removed, as ordered by the Trus-
tees of the Cemetery.
Chung Wah Kung Saw, although an ex-
pert linguist, refused TO speak about the
matter to a reporter of THE Jersey
City News yesterday, but Mr. Thomas
w. Tilden, the Superintendent of the
Cemetery, who seemed we'll posted re-
garding the customs of John Chinaman,
was a willing informant. THE removal
of the remains said he. sis a custom
which is always followed by the Chinese.
AS 1 understand it, all Cinnamon who
leave their native land and die in for
eign countries have their remains taken
back. A record of the deaths is kept
by the Chinese Societies and subscrip-
tions are solicited for the removal of the
remains. AS over $4,000 has been raised
for this purpose, there is to be a general
cleaning out throughout the country
OF the forty removal permits granted
by the County Board of Health, all but
a few of them show the cause of death
to have been PhthiSis.