Forgotten dead resting under common ground

"Hark! From the tombs a woeful sound," chanted dozens of New Haven residents--most of them descendants of the settlers of the Elm City. They celebrated, on the morning of June 25, 1821, the beginning of a massive removal of bodies and gravestones from the New Haven Green to a new burial ground, the Grove Street Cemetery.

For the living, the move meant a chance for loved ones to rest in a place that was not "in a condition of total neglect and going to ruin, in a manner inconsistent with the religious and moral sense of the community." For the people buried in the Green--left there in neglect, at the mercy of the cattle, dogs, and children who roamed among their remains--the move meant a chance for peace. On that bright June morning, the people of New Haven, living and dead, celebrated a rebirth that was a century overdue.

What started on that warm summer morning never came to completion. Cattle do not pasture on sacred ground anymore. Instead, local residents and Yale students play football, throw frisbees, and picnic on what once was an eternal resting place. Yet while the gravestones are now lined up against the north wall of the Grove Street Cemetery, anywhere between 500 and 2,000 bodies still lie, in the silence unique to death, below just a few feet of dirt in the New Haven Green.

The burial ground was a concern for New Haven citizens from the beginning. In 1659, when barely 100 people were buried in the Green, Henry Newman, governor of New Haven colony, expressed concern about the health threats of bodies lying in shallow graves in the middle of town. Newman proposed the construction of a fence to protect the dead, but one year after his suggestion, Newman passed away and was himself buried in the Green. It was not until 1775, 116 years later, that an octagonal red fence appeared around the cemetery in a map drawn by Ezra Stiles. By that time, more than 800 people were buried in a "haphazard, sprawling manner" in the area between Center Church and Phelps Gate, which is today the center of the Green.

At the end of the 18th century, heavy rains flooded the recently fenced-in area of the old burial ground. Because of poor drainage in the Green and because the fence was not enough to stop curious creatures from "rooting up the ground," some of the bodies reportedly surfaced. At the same time many respected citizens fell victim to an outbreak of yellow fever that decimated the town. With dozens dying every day, the town looked desparately for a solution to the decaying bodies buried in the Green.

James Hillhouse, a young New Haven lawyer, had buried his father in the New Haven Green. Dismayed at the condition of the cemetery, Hillhouse took it upon himself to find a new plot of land where the dead could rest undisturbed. In the middle of the yellow fever plague, Hillhouse purchased eight acres of land between Grove and West Street to be used as a "solemn and impressive burial ground." On Oct. 30, 1797, the Proprietors of the Grove Street cemetery held their initial meeting, and five days later, Mary Townsend became the first person to be interred in the new burial ground.

Removed from the heavy traffic area at the center of town, the Grove Street Cemetery proved to be an ideal place for eternal rest. Lots cost between five and 10 dollars, and the President and Fellows of Yale College and prominent New Haven residents, received their own plots as a gift.

In contrast to the "unorganized and random" graves in the Green, the Grove Street Cemetery was a pioneer in cemetery design, the first in the world to be divided by family plots that were separated by ample paths. The burial ground was run by a charter and corporation that is still in existence today.

At first, the Grove Street Cemetery did not completely replace the old burial ground; burials took place in the Green until 1812. In 1815, amidst a fervent religious revival in New Haven, Center Church was moved from its original position on the Green to its current site along Temple Street. Despite strong opposition, the church was built on top of a recorded number of 139 graves and 134 gravestones. Builders were forbidden from digging more than three feet into the ground so that they would not disturb the dead.

After the construction was completed, residents complained of the poor condition of the graves that still remained in the area of the Green behind the church. It was at this time that the Grove Street Cemetery began to encounter problems of its own. Like its predecessor, the new cemetery lacked a protective wall and was plagued by trespassers who persisted in "performing strange and immoral acts, and by desecrating some of the stones." In 1821, New Haven decided to moved all of the bodies that were in the Green to the new cemetery rather than trying to build walls around both burial grounds. The move was heralded with celebrations and sermons. Finally, the fathers of New Haven were to sleep in peace.

According to the historical record, almost all of the bodies interred in the Green were moved to the Grove Street Cemetery. In the late 18th century, however, the Grove Street Cemetery, like the Green a century before, was in desperate need of space. To avoid the problem of overcrowding, all of the old gravestones that had been brought from the Green were lined up against the north wall. But where were the remains of those named by the stones?

An excavation in 1849 of 12 square feet on the Green yielded 16 bodies, pointing to a different reality from the one expressed in the historical record. Their findings were supported in 1990 when a group of architects, hired by the Center Church to renovate the crypt below it, uncovered more evidence that the move to the Grove Street Cemetery had been far from complete.

According to their studies, anywhere between 400 and 1,700 bodies lie under the Center Church alone, in unmarked graves which the builders of the Church and the people who had moved the bodies to Grove Street failed to take into account. How many graves then remain beneath the open area behind the church? A conservative estimate would suggest that more than 1,000 people still lie in the New Haven Green.

"To such be it a consolation, that the graves are to give up their dead...and that in the twinkling of an eye, the dead shall be raised incorruptible." With these words, the minister consecrated the Grove Street Cemetery on that day in 1821 when hundreds of bodies were moved from the Green. But some of the city's dead gave up only their gravestones and still await that glorious day when they shall be raised, not spiritually, but physically, so that they can join their sons and daughters several blocks up the street. In the meantime, they can only echo the epitaph of a man whose gravestone is along the north wall of Grove Street Cemetery while his body lies in an unmarked grave on the Green below: