Originally published on October 29, 2020.
Our September 3rd article for the 200th history spoke about the deceased who were buried in the crypt of St Paul’s and then moved elsewhere. In the September 17th article we started to answer the question of who was reinterred at Mount Hope Cemetery. It was a complex question to answer in such a short article. My research started with an Excel Spreadsheet created by a researcher, Marlene Meyers, between 2012 – 2016. I do not know if she ever completed her research, and I do not know how complete the research is. Marlene started to comb through our records to compile a list of those individuals buried in the tombs of St Paul’s, and tried to document where many of them were transferred. Her research revealed many of the names of the deceased who were reinterred in one of the 76 graves that make up the plot at Mount Hope Cemetery. Here is where it gets interesting. Not all graves at Mount Hope are occupied, and, we have more than 76 remains interred in the graves that are occupied.
The earliest reinternments at Mount Hope Cemetery were not full size caskets, but rather, smaller charnel boxes for the bones that were removed from the tombs under St Paul’s. It appears that some or those boxes contain multiple family members/children. Since these boxes did not require a full grave, two burials could occupy one grave. As burial practices changed and cement liners (vaults) were required, those liners started to take up more space than what had been allocated for the 76 graves. In a note dated June 1969 from an unknown source it is recorded that there were six vacancies in Lot 5000 and “Cements Liners are now required, so they probably can only get 4 graves out of graves #72 – 76…” The note goes on to mention “(and #76 is available for 3 more urns of cremated remains.) The last burial in plot 5000 was, April 23, 1988 for Rev. Luis Herrera. An exception was even granted for the placement of a marker for Rev. Herrera, but no such marker exists at the cemetery as of today. Only the solitary Celtic cross installed in 1927 stands as a sentinel to those we love and no longer see. As we approach All Saints Day we offer this prayer from the burial office of the 1789 Book of Common Prayer ALMIGHTY God, with whom do live the spirits of those who depart hence in the Lord, and with whom the souls of the faithful, after they are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and felicity; We give thee hearty thanks for the good examples of all those thy servants, who, having finished their course in faith, do now rest from their labours. And we beseech thee, that we, with all those who are departed in the true faith of thy holy Name, may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in thy eternal and everlasting glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Necrology linked here.
Excel Spreadsheet with names of former tomb occupants at St Paul’s and re-interments at Mount Hope Cemetery.