The First Baptist Church of Philadelphia’s Burial Ground: "moved" in 1860; "excavated" in 2017.

Summary

In November of 2016, the Philadelphia Inquirer published an article about bones found at a construction site at 218 Arch Street. As a private project, no city office would take charge of the human remains despite the fact that construction equipment was exposing and damaging them. The Mutter Institute, as a collaborative research organization associated with the study of historic human remains, approached the property developer with an interest to learn more about the bones found at the site. What ensued was a race-against-time excavation of a portion of the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia cemetery, supposedly moved in 1860. This presentation will provide an overview of the initial salvage excavation, what was discovered about the site during the early days of the project, and the recent work of our multi-disciplinary team as we attempt to harness research potential out of a less than ideal situation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20532