Lafayette Cemetery was a

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...

in the

Passyunk Square Passyunk Square is a neighborhood in South Philadelphia bounded by Broad Street to the west, 6th Street to the east, Tasker Street to the south and Washington Avenue to the north. Passyunk Square is bordered by the Bella Vista, Hawthorne, Centra ...

neighborhood of

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. It was established in 1828 and originally intended for 14,000 burials but over time fell into disrepair and became overcrowded with 47,000 burials. In 1946, the cemetery was condemned by the city of Philadelphia. The bodies were disinterred in 1947, transported to the Evergreen Memorial Park (now Rosedale Cemetery) in

Bensalem, Pennsylvania Bensalem Township is a township in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The township borders the northeastern section of Philadelphia and includes the communities of Andalusia, Bensalem, Bridgewater, Cornwells Heights, Eddington, Flushing, Oakford, S ...

, and reinterred in a

mass grave A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of execution, although an exact ...

. The former location of the cemetery was repurposed by the city of Philadelphia as the Capitolo Playground.

History

Lafayette Cemetery was established in 1828 on the block between Federal and Wharton Streets and 9th and 10th Avenues in what was then Passyunk Township, later renamed the

neighborhood of

. The Honorable Joel Barlow Sutherland was one of the founders. Lafayette Cemetery was a part of the

United States National Cemetery System The United States National Cemetery System is a system of 164 cemeteries in the United States and its territories. The authority to create military burial places came during the American Civil War, in an act passed by the U.S. Congress ...

during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

with a leased lot within the cemetery for soldiers that died in nearby hospitals. The cemetery contained the graves 28 Union soldiers, many of which were reinterred to the

Philadelphia National Cemetery Philadelphia National Cemetery is a United States National Cemetery located in the West Oak Lane neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was established in 1862 as nine leased lots in seven private cemeteries in the Philadelphia region. ...

in 1885. See p. 233. The cemetery was originally designed to hold 14,000 bodies and was surrounded by an iron fence. By 1946, it was in disrepair and overcrowded with 47,000 bodies. The city wanted to close the cemetery as early as the 1920s but the Great Depression and

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

delayed the process. In the 1940s, the city condemned Lafayette Cemetery to transform it into a playground. The city contracted with Thomas A. Morris to relocate the remains to 40 acres at Evergreen Memorial Park in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. The agreement was for Morris to provide caskets, bronze markers, roadways and perpetual care at the new cemetery location. Morris had also agreed to build a statue to the

Marquis de Lafayette Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette (6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), known in the United States as Lafayette (, ), was a French aristocrat, freemason and military officer who fought in the American Revolutio ...

in the new cemetery. Morris received full title to the cemetery property, assessed at $166,000, and immediately sold it back to the city for use as a playground for the price of $200,000. There are no records of the removal and reburial of the bodies since they were not required by the state until 1953. Evergreen Memorial Park went out of business and became part of Rosedale Cemetery in 1960. In 1988, construction near Rosedale Cemetery unearthed two concrete burial vaults containing several unidentified bodies. Further examination of the Evergreen Memorial Park site revealed that Morris had not honored the agreement but instead the bodies were reinterred in wooden boxes stacked in 32 mass grave trenches with no markers, roads, or statue of Lafayette.

The former location of Lafayette Cemetery is used by the city of Philadelphia as the Capitolo Playground.

Notable burials

* Charles Deakin (1837-1865), Medal of Honor recipient *

Matthew McClelland Matthew McClelland (November 1832 – January 30, 1883) was a United States Navy sailor and a recipient of the United States military's highest decoration the Medal of Honor for his actions in the American Civil War. Military service Matthew McC ...

(1832-1883), Medal of Honor recipient * Edward B. Young (1835-1867), Medal of Honor recipient

References

Citations Sources * {{cite book , last = Keels , first = Thomas H. , year = 2003 , title = Philadelphia Graveyards & Cemeteries , publisher = Arcadia Publishing , isbn = 0-7385-1229-X , url = https://books.google.com/books?id=rzNvCR4_-2YC&q=pauline+oberdorfer+minor

External links

Philadelphia Parks & Recreation - Capitolo PlaygroundLafayette Cemetery
at Find A Grave
The Cemetery Traveler - The Condemned Lafayette CemeteryRosedale Memorial ParkTemple University Libraries - Temple Digital Collections - Lafayette Cemetery
1828 establishments in Pennsylvania 1947 disestablishments in Pennsylvania Cemeteries established in the 1820s Cemeteries in Bucks County, Pennsylvania Cemeteries in Philadelphia Former cemeteries Mass graves Municipal parks in Philadelphia Passyunk Square, Philadelphia United States national cemeteries