CUMBERLAND-RIVER-L Archives

From: Margy <>
Subject: [CRR] "Lost" Cemeteries Found In KY.
Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 11:02:07 -0500

Whose Cemetery Is It?

Frankfort, KY, April 9 - Bulldozers and power shovels leveling a city block
for a state office building have also dug up a mystery--dozens of unmarked
graves, perhaps 200 years old, within a stone's throw of the former state
Capitol.


So far, 162 sets of remains have been uncovered. The number increases
almost daily, as does speculation about their origin.

The old state penitentiary, razed in the late 1930s, once stood a
block away. Some theorize that the dead may include inmates.

Cholera ravaged Frankfort twice in the early 19th century. People who
died in epidemics were buried quickly, their graves often tenuously marked.

A work house, where debtors and petty criminals were sentenced to
labor like wretches out of a Charles Dickens novel, was known to have been
in the neighborhood. Could the dead have been paupers? Could they have
been slaves?

The archaeologist overseeing the excavation says it all makes for
entertaining speculation.

"You wonder who they were and what they did during their lives," said
David Pollack, staff archaeologist for the Kentucky Heritage Council and
director of the Kentucky Archaeological Survey, a collaboration of the
heritage council and the University of Kentucky.

But relatively little is known so far. Pollack said he and the rest
of his team think the graves probably date to at least 1850, perhaps to
1800. No headstones or other markers have been found. Nor is there any
record, or even anecdotal evidence, of a cemetery in the neighborhood.

"We don't have anybody coming forward to say, 'My ancestor is buried
up there.' That's another curious thing. With all the genealogical
research done in Kentucky, you'd think somebody would have come forward,"
Pollack said in an interview.

Compounding the mystery, Pollack said the site may be two cemeteries,
not one, and each of the popular theories has a hole in it.

Pollack said the remains appear to include "a fair number of
children," which would seem to contradict a prison-inmate theory. He said
he can tell from wood fragments and metal fittings that many of the dead
were buried in coffins, some fancier than others, which would not seem
typical of paupers or work house debtors.

With some of the graves, "they put a lot of effort into it," Pollack
said. Many were lined with limestone, forming a type of vault, which would
not indicate an emergency burial, such as in an epidemic, he said.

Nor does the site appear to have been a slave cemetery, Pollack said.

"The African-American community that was nearby dates later than the
cemetery does," he said. "There is no indication that this is a slave
cemetery, and the effort that went into it would suggest this is not."

The site, which had private homes and a Civil War-era warehouse, is
being cleared for construction of a headquarters for the Kentucky
Transportation Cabinet.

The site is two blocks from the Old Capitol, now a museum, where the
General Assembly met until 1910. And that invites another question: How
could so many graves, so close to the seat of government, have become lost?

"It's a disaster whenever that happens," said Nicky Hughes, curator of
historic sites for the city of Frankfort.

"It's a shame when [a grave] gets obliterated," Hughes said. "You
lose memory of the people, too. If nothing else, you have a nice marker.
But in this instance, Poof!--you're gone."

The graves were discovered March 11 after a construction worker
spotted bones in a truck load of dirt at a dump site. Franklin County
Coroner Mike Harrod and state medical examiners were summoned first.
Pollack's team, including university archaeologists Kim McBride and Gwynn
Henderson, soon went to work.

Pollack said two "clusters" of graves have been found, at different
elevations, possibly indicating separate cemeteries.

The upper site has evidence that more time and effort went into the
burials. It may also contain more children, though Pollack said "those
impressions may change" as work progresses on the lower cluster.

The remains will be reinterred, as required by Kentucky law. First,
however, they will be cleaned, cataloged and analyzed at the anthropology
department of the University of Kentucky. Pollack said the work could take
two years.

Ron Bryant, a Kentucky history specialist at the Kentucky Historical
Society, predicted that researchers eventually would find people from
several walks of life.

"More than likely it is a mixture," Bryant said. "A mixture of
convicts, mixture of the work house and probably some paupers, too...The
bones themselves are going to have to tell the story."

<http://www.msnbc.com/local/wlex/m169108.asp?cp1=1>;

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