The Topeka state journal., 1897-12-16
GRAVES OPENED.
Work of Removing 10000
Dead Bodies
From One Cemetery to Another
Begun in New York.
ROOM FOR THE LIVING
New Tenants Have Demanded
the Land
And the Silent Inhabitan is
Must Move Out.

OF SOOOO dead has begun, the grim exodus
that is to be the first step toward con-
verting the Union cemetery, Brooklyn,
from a city of tombs to a city of villas
and shops and tenements
Fifty Italians invaded the graveyard at
dawn and began blithely with their picks
and shovels to tear apart the earth that
had shielded for many years the decaying
remains of women and children and men,
As a spectacle the event appealed to
| the class of people who delight in attend
ing murder trials and a throng of sight
seers gathered to gloat over the mournfuI
relics thrown up by the spades of the
| laborers. This contingency had been an
ticipated by the contractor and a strong
Gordon of police was on hand to prevent
spectators from interfering with the
work.
The remains were reburied in Cedar
Grove cemetery. In most cases there is
very little to move-a bone or two a cof-
fin plate and few shreds of wood.
Inside of the next 60 days 80, ,OO0 bodies are
to be exhumed from their present graves
and reinterred i'll new graves five miles
away.
Such a task as this is gigantic and so
| full of complexities that one naturally
wonders how it is to be accomplished
without confusion, mistakes and desecra-
tion. 1t is a simple matter to exhume a
single body and remove it to a new place
of burial, but to handle 1900 in this way
is entirely different thing.
The bodies to be transferred in this
wholesale manner are at present buried
in Union cemetery, Williamsburg, an old
cemetery established in 1912, in which
buriaIs were prohibited by the state leg
fslature some four years ago.
Since then the property has been neg
FroI1
the tombstones. and the grass is high and
strong. 1t is a delightfully."- lonesome,
gruesome graveyard. One more uninvit-
ing never existed. But it will soon be
changed, for the graves must give place
to homes of the living. Henry Batter
man of Brooklyn has bought the grave
yard and will divide it into building lots
as soon the bodies are removed.
The trustees of Union cemetery have
purchased a plot of land in Cedar Grove
cemetery near Corona, L. L, to which the
bodies will be transferred. Before the
end of February each body will be in it's
new grave, with its tombstone above it,
marking with much certainty as a
present the identity of the bones that are
buried there.
The contractor who has this task be-
fore him will employ 200 men, divided in
to two forces. One force will be engaged
in exhuming the bodies at Union eeme
terry, while the other is at Cedar Grove,
reinterring them. Only fifty graves will
be opened at a time, two men working
at each grave.
AS soon as a body is exhumed it is
placed in a pine box similar to the boxes
used as a protection to coffins. Thirty |
thousand OF these boxes piled in orderly |
rows are in readiness, and their appear |
ance is too overwhelmingly suggestive of
death to be even grotesque. No matter |
in what condition the original coffin may !
be, it is placed in the box with the body |
just as it was found in the bottom of |
the grave. Then the lid of the box is !
fastened down and tagged, to show the |
name of the body, the lot number and
the location of the grave in the lot.
Large covered vans are used to trans |
port the bodies. The boxes, though piled !
in closely, are handled as carefully as
coffin, and the journey of five miles to /
Cedar Grove cemetery is made at a |
funeral pace" to guard against the |
chance of accident and desecrati
At Cedar Grove cemetery the plot of |
land to which the bodies transferred /!
is laid out precisely the lots in Union |
cemetery. So that each body as it is re- /
ceived from the van. tagged and identi-
fed beyond all doubt, is placed in a grave
corresponding exactly in location to the |
one it occupied in Union cemetery. The
at the same time the bodies are, and so
tagged and lettered that they can be set
in place over the new graves without con-
fusion or mistakes.
Watchmen are placed at both ceme-
teries day and night, to protect the bodies
from ghouls. But it doesn't seem likely |
that anyone will have the inclinati ton to
visit the neighborhood after dark. when
the ghosts of so many disturbed souls
will undoubtedly hold revel. How the
watchmen stand the ordeal remains to be
seen.
1t will cost $50 900 to conduct this unus-
ual removal-about $1.75 for each body.
a number of the lot owners do not like
the idea of the wholesale removal They
fear all sorts of unpleasant occurrences.
one of them came to the trustees very
much concerned over a rumor that the
bodies would be piled Unfortunately in
to wagons and hauled to Cedar Grove
Another. when she first heard that Mr.
Battern1an had bought the cemetery,we
to him with the fear that the property
might be plowed up without removing the
bodies. Some of the lot owners who do
not feel secure in the methods the trus-
tees are using will employ undertakers
There are ten acres in Union cemetery,
now providing homes for 30,090 individuals.
When Mr. Batterman has divided 1T into
10 building lots it will not accommodate
more that 5000 at the most
Selling Out