Well that is what Mount Moriah Cemetery in Pennsylvania is like. It is over 400 acres in size and in complete disarray with crumbling tombstones, weeds and thick vegetation.
Mount Moriah Cemetery is a historic cemetery in southwest Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, along Cobbs Creek. It was incorporated on March 27, 1855. It is thought that over 80,000 are buried in this cemetery.
Some interesting documents can be found at Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery.
Read more at Pennsylvania’s oldest abandoned cemetery is the size of a small town
Surely there must be some relatives (even distant one) still living in the town. It is a BIG SHAME that people ignore the ones who have departed this life ahead of the others of this town.
ReplyDeleteActually it appears there are plans underway to rehab this huge site, incorporating all kinds of groups such as runners, Masons, veterans, etc. The following are just a few of the clips linked to the Friends of Mount Moriah website. It'll no doubt take a long time to achieve a restoration but I've had some good luck finding ancestors buried there through the help of Findagrave.com volunteers. They don't seem to have any trouble locating graves so there must be records of some sort available, though possibly not for every single grave.
ReplyDeleteTwo from Philly.com: Posted on September 25, 2014
A Philadelphia Orphans’ Court judge has appointed a receivership to rehabilitate the neglected 200-acre Mount Moriah Cemetery.
Note that it's listed as half the size claimed in the article, 200 acres instead of 400. Also...
Posted on September 25, 2014
Hidden City Philadelphia weighs in on the Mount Moriah Cemetery Preservation Corporation taking over stewardship of the cemetery.
And WestPhillyLocal.com has this: Posted on June 13, 2014
“Saving Mount Moriah: Trying to bring back Philadelphia’s largest cemetery” — The cemetery and upcoming fundraising events with West Philly Runners and Fishtown Beer Runners are featured in this June 12, 2014 article.
It appears that all the articles are from 2014. Any updates as to what is being done to restore it?
ReplyDelete