A Fate Not Worth Dying For—the Story of Franklin Cemetery

My current genealogy research is focused on locating the cemeteries where my ancestors are buried. The task was not too difficult on my mother’s (Smith) side of the family. I was fortunate to discover an extensive genealogy database of a small area of Yorkshire, England, where many Smith relatives had lived, The Kildwick Parish Church cemetery and several other nearby church cemeteries might very well be filled to overflowing with Smith ancestors and their families, or so it seems since I have traced my roots back to the thirteenth century in Yorkshire.

Finding the burial locations of some of my McAdoo ancestors has proven to be a challenge. My branch of the McAdoo clan immigrated to Philadelphia from Donegal, Ireland between 1845 and 1852. There were three families, and according to the 1860 U.S. Census, they lived on the same street in the Fishtown section of Kensington. There were several cemeteries and a Presbyterian church in the immediate area where I could begin searching for information.

One of burial grounds was Franklin Cemetery, where I discovered six McAdoo relatives had been buried, including my great-great-great-grandparents, Alexander and Martha, and one of their sons, Alexander, a civil war veteran. The cemetery opened about 1800, had become dilapidated, and no longer existed. The cemetery records had been lost or more likely destroyed. A playground had been built on the site in the 1950s.

The story that I uncovered could become the plot for a horror movie. In 1947, a real estate developer and cemetery owner struck a deal with the city that granted him the titles to two decrepit cemeteries, one being Franklin Cemetery. He planned to build apartments on the land and agreed to move the bodies to individual graves with individual markers in a new Bucks County cemetery.

According the writer and historian, Thomas H. Keels, in his book, Philadelphia Graveyards and Cemeteries, he writes that the deal became the source of a major political scandal prompting the city to take back the land, condemn it, and turn both sites into playgrounds. "In all the political fuss, the location of the bodies was forgotten," he said.

So what happened to the 8,000 bodies removed from the 2400 graves at Franklin Cemetery? The ugly reality is that no one really knows and no known records survive. It is thought that the 8,000 bodies were reinterred in mass graves at one or more Bucks County cemeteries. It is suspected the gravestones became landfill or dumped in the Delaware River.

Allowing cemeteries to fall into such decay and disregard that the owners and the community become indifferent to their continued existence is criminal. Unfortunately, we often tend not to have a visceral reaction to such happenings until we learn that it has happened in our own family. I experienced such a reaction when I learned what had occurred to some of my relatives, particularly my 3X great-grandparents’ son Alexander.

Alexander McAdoo fought in the Civil War from 1862 to 1865 as a private in the 68th Pennsylvania Regiment, Infantry Company F. The regiment fought in numerous battles including Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and the siege of Petersburg. The regiment lost 10 officers, 61 enlisted men were killed, and 51 died as a result of disease during the war. He returned to Philadelphia, married, was the father of seven children, and died when he was 48 years old.

When I think about young Alexander, an immigrant from Donegal, Ireland, enlisting in the U.S. Army at age 25, and fighting in some of the major battles of the war, I am reminded of the lines from the poem, When the Regiment Came Back, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox—

“Oh, the splendor and the glitter of the sight.
As with swords and rifles new and in uniforms of blue,
The regiment went marching to the fight.

“Oh, the sorrow and the pity of the sight.
Oh, the weary lagging feet, out of step with drums that beat,
As the regiment comes marching from the fight.”

Family history is important to me. Perhaps that is one of the reasons I have become involved in the work of the Old First Historic Trust in Elizabeth, NJ. The Trust was established in 2005 to restore and develop the campus of the historic First Presbyterian Church (1664), its burial ground, and Parish House into a significant site of historic interest and relevant community and cultural activity. The colonial burial ground is one of New Jersey’s historic treasures. It contains the largest collection of surviving legible colonial grave markers in the state, dating from the late 1600s through to the early 20th century, and commemorates the lives of many colonial Elizabeth, and America’s leaders. I can’t change the past, but perhaps I can work toward assuring that what happened to Franklin Cemetery does not happen to the burial ground at the First Presbyterian Church in Elizabeth, NJ.