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Archiver > NYBROOKLYN > 1999-06 > 0928454626


From: Joy Bold <>
Subject: [NYBROOKLYN-L] Potter's Field--Hart's Island NY
Date: Thu, 03 Jun 1999 17:03:46 PDT


This is an article which I copied a good many years ago. Saw several
inquiries about it, and decided to submit it.

Potter's Field

The City of New York has undertaken the responsibility of laying to
rest the bodies of those in the City who died indigent or
unbefriended,since the early part of the 19th century, when they were
interred at Washington Square in Greenwich Village. In 1823, these
remains were removed to Fifth Ave. and 40-42 Sts, Manhattan. When this
site was selected for a reservoir, the remains were again removed to
Fourth Ave and 50th St, this ground being later granted to the Women's
Hospital. In 1857, the remains of 100,000 paupers and strangers were
transferred to Ward's Island, 75 acres of which were allocated for
this purpose.
The laws of 1868 authorized the Commissioners of the New York
City Depts. of Public Charities and Correction to purchase and take
title to any plot of ground, convenient and accessible to the City
and large enough for a public cemetery, under custody and management
of the Dept. of Charities. In the same year, the City of New York
acquired Hart Island from John Hunter and son for $75,000. During the
yellow fever epidemic of 1870, the southern part housed diseased
persons confined to isolation.
Forty-five acres on the northern tip of the 101 acre Island were
designated as a burial site, or Potter's Field, on April 20, 1869.
Louisa Van Slyke, an orphan who died alone in Charity Hospital at the
age of 24, became the first to be buried there.
In 1895, the Dept. of Correction acquired the Hart Island
institution and established a Branch Workhouse for aged and infirm
men, narcotics addicts, and short-term inmates. In 1905, the Dept also
established a reformatory at Hart Island for young offenders known as
a "Reformatory for Misdemeanants." This was transferred to another
location off the Island in order to rectify the lack of segregation
between adolescent and adult inmate programs.
In 1941, the bodies of the Civil War vets who had been buried in
the Civil War Cemetery on Hart Island were disinterred and removed to
Cypress Hills Nat'l Cemetery. After World War II, the US Army was
allotted 10 acres of the City Cemetery to build a Nike base. This was
abandoned by the Army on June 30, 1961, and returned to the City.
In 1950, the Board of Estimate adopted a resolution authorizing
the release of Hart Island to the Dept. of Welfare to be used for the
rehabilitation of homeless men, on the assumption that Rikers Island
facilities would sufficiently accommodate the steadily increasisng
inmate population. During the early part of 1954, when increased
inmate population made the capacity of housing on Rikers Island
inadequate, custody of Hart Island was returned to the Dept of
Correction.
Depts. Involved--Laws

Since 1941, NY State Social Welfare Law NO. 141(now called Social
Services Law No. 141, as per 1967 amendment) has made it compulsory
for the City to provide for the burial of the dead, or to reimburse
friends or relatives of the deceased for the costs of the burial, in
whole or in part, if legally responsible relatives of the deceased
were not able to do so.
Present laws of the City of NY authorize joint jurisdiction over
Potter's Field by the Dept of Correction and the Dept. of Welfare.
Section 603-10.0 of the Administrative Code states that "the
Commissioner of the Dept of Welfare shall have charge of the Potter's
Field and power to lay out additional Potter's Fields when the
necessity shall arise, and from time to time to enclose and extend the
same, to make enclosures therein and to build vaults therein, and to
provide all necessary labor and for interments therein. The Potter's
Field on Hart Island, however, shall remain under the control of the
Dept of Correction, and the burial of deceased paupers therein shall
continue under rules and regulations established by the joint action
of the Depts of Welfare and Correction, or in case of disagreement,
under such regulations as may be established by the Mayor."

End of Part I

Hart's Island, Part II

Records and Burial Procedure

Any citizen who becomes aware of the death of any person is
required by law to report the death to the local Police precinct, who
nitifies the Chief Med. Examiner. If a person dies in a City hospital
or institution, and his body is not claimed within 24 hours from the
time mailing notice of his death is received, the Dept of Hospitals is
authorized to allow his burial at Potter's Field.
The body of a deceased pauper is sent to the county morgueof the
county in which he dies, and the medical examiner applies to the Board
of Health for a burial permit. If the body is unclaimed, the burial
permit and the deceased are sent to the central morgue at Bellevue
Hospital on E. 29 St, Manhattan.
There, services are said for the deceased by a Catholic or
Protestant clergyman. Rabbis do not say services, because indigent
members of the Jewish faith are not taken to Potter's Field. The
Hebrew Free Burial Society provides for their interrment. In 1960, two
Catholic societies began to do the same thing. The Chinese also
usually provide for the private burial of their own people. Actually,
no one knows the religion of many of the strangers buried in Potter's
Field, but the authorities do their best to notify the proper agencies
when a member of one of these groups comes to their attention.
At the morgue, the bodies of the deceased are wrapped in shroud
paper and sealed in pine coffins which are lined with waterproof
paper when necessary. Unknowns are fingerprinted and photographed, and
are interred with all their clothes and belongings, so that they can
be identified later. Inside the coffins and on top of them are placed
the duplicate and triplicate, respectively, of the burial certificate,
chemically treated so that they are legible even after 25 years.
The bodies of the deceased are then taken to the City Cem. at
Hart Island via a Dept of Hospitals morgue wagon, which operates twice
weekly. It is transported from the Bronx to the Island by a ferry run
by the NYC Dept of Marine and Aviation.
The morgue wagon driver is stopped at the entrance to the Island
and checked in by the dock security officer. During the rest of his
drive, along the bumpy country road to the cemetery, he passes fields
of high grass and blue asters in the summer. No one else stops him
until he reaches the burial site; there are no living persons at
Potter's Field except for the inmate burial detail and the correction
officers. At the burial site, the driver presents the burial
certificates to the officer in charge. A team of inmates, dressed in
gray, remove the coffins and inscribe them with the names of the
deceased in indelible crayon.
The coffins are placed in trenches 15x40 ft. dug 7-8 ft. deep.
The adults coffins are piled in stacks of three deep.
(a skip in pages from 4 to 8)
Babies and children are placed in rows according to alphabetical
order.Although the entire burial ground is consecrated, Catholics were
buried in a separate section prior to 1960, when they ceased to be
buried in the City Cemetery. There are no individual tombstones, but
plot and section markers indicate the location of the coffin, by a
numerical system.
Necessary data pertaining to the deceased has been recorded in
the interment registers since the first burial at Potter's Field.The
individual record books now in use contain 400 pages and last for
about 6 months each. The entry for each body includes permit #,
section #, plot #, grave #, age of the deceased, date the permit was
issued, date of death, cause of death, signature of the medical
examiner, place of death, and date of burial. Careful records are also
kept of disinterments, of which there are about 150 a year.
There are about 600,000 dead buried at Potter's Field, approx.
two thirds of them infants and stillborn. Of the 8,000 burial a year,
1500 are infants. Despite the large # of burials, the 45 acre area of
the cemetery is in no danger of being exhausted. Custodial forces are
authorized to reuse burial ground after 25 years. Currently, they are
using ground which has not been used for forty years.

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