Back to Wilkes-Barre Cemetery History

The old Wilkes-Barre Burying Ground, purchased in 1772 for £9 10d, extended from Canal (Pennsylvania Ave) street to Washington street and from East Market street half way to Union.

About three acres in area, this site was held sacred by the early settlers who hoped it would remain dedicated to the memory of the dead for all time to come.

As the town of Wilkes-Barre grew from a village to a borough and the population began increasing, it was found that the old grave yard would be entirely inadequate to the needs of the community. When Wilkes-Barre became a city a plot of land in North Wilkes-Barre along the river was purchased and set aside as a city burying ground. From that time on no further interments were made in the old burying ground.

Property values in the vicinity of the old Burying Ground began very rapidly increasing in value as it was seen that East Market street was to become the chief business street of the city and that plot of ground was too valuable to remain a burial ground. It was then decided to remove the bodies to the new City cemetery so that the old cemetery plot could be used for building purposes. The bodies were to be carefully taken up and reinterred in the present city cemetery. All graves which were marked by head stones in the old plot were similarly marked in the new.

The work of taking up the remains was begun in 1869 and was continued during 1870 and 1871. There were over 1000 bodies removed during these three years. Although the work was carefully done and it was thought that all the bodies had been removed, skeletons were unearthed at nearly every building excavation at later dates.

Among the skeletons unearthed in August 1899 on the site of the B. I. A. Building was one of a woman, the head of which was covered with a mass of luxurious brown hair and was preserved as if it had been growing on a living head. When discovered, the skull appeared natural and life-like framed in the long brown locks, but after being exposed to the air a few minutes the hair fell away from the skull. It was gathered up by some of the workmen and placed in a box. At the rear of the building where it was placed it was then viewed by hundreds of curious people. (Wilkes-Barre Times - August 19, 1899)


Edith Brower wrote:
My father, on one of his yearly visits to the North—his last visit it was, for the Civil War broke out the following year and he died before the war was over—, superintended the exhuming and removal of our own family dead.

Several strange tales he told us of the condition of some of the bodies. A little cousin of mine who years before had died at the age of two, had in that time grown hair more than a foot long. Before opening the coffin of one of my uncles, hair was perceived sticking out through the cracks along the cover. Inside, they found the casket fairly packed with hair, enough to fill a bushel basket. This caused great amazement, for no one hereabouts then knew that hair is a vegetable growth.

Also my father told of how in a lot elsewhere in the grounds, the exhumers were hardly able to raise a certain casket, breaking several ropes in the attempt. When at last they brought it up, the body of a woman, it was discovered to have been petrified, possibly due to the soil in that spot being of a silicious character. (from Little Old Wilkes-Barre as I Knew It)