Not Your Average Pine Box: A Glimpse Into 19th Century Coffin Wood From The First Presbyterian Church In Kensington

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "“We the People”: Historical Cemetery Archaeology in Philadelphia" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In 1816, the First Presbyterian Church in Kensington purchased lots along Montgomery Avenue for use as a cemetery. The burial ground was active from 1818 to 1841, but the church obtained a relocation permit in 1857 and sold the land to the City of Philadelphia in 1861. Today, a section of the former cemetery parcel is contained within the boundaries of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s ongoing I-95 Girard Avenue Interchange Project. AECOM identified, documented, and relocated 53 nineteenth-century burials from the former cemetery (PA Site 36PH0202). During the relocation effort, archaeologists collected a total of 14 coffin wood samples toward the identification of materials used in coffin construction. The results of this analysis provide a glimpse into nineteenth-century burial techniques, and shed light on the social and economic standing of the First Presbyterian Church in Kensington’s congregation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• “We the People”: Historical Cemetery Archaeology in Philadelphia   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology