Hudson County Burial Grounds

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Hudson County Burial Grounds are also known as the Secaucus Potter's Field and Snake Hill Cemetery and it is located in Secaucus, New Jersey. The cemetery was cleared of bodies to make room for the Secaucus Transfer Station between 1992-2003. The bodies were reburied at the Maple Grove Park Cemetery in Hackensack, New Jersey. The last body was removed from the cemetery on October 31, 2003. The remains of 4,572 were transferred. The Register of Burials listed interments between December 31, 1880 and April 12, 1962, but those within the removal area were from between 1920 and 1962. The cemetery served the insane asylum and the poor house.

1 Snake Hill
2 Archaeology
3 Plaque
4 See also
5 External link

[edit] Snake Hill

The Snake Hill region of Secaucus, New Jersey was the location of the Old Bergen County Poor Farm in the late 1700s. In 1845, Bergen County split into what became Passaic County, New Jersey and Bergen County, New Jersey. Hudson County purchased the land and placed their Insane Asylum and Alms House there.

[edit] Archaeology

The Berger Group which performed the removals wrote:

A total of 113,532 artifacts or non-skeletal objects were recovered of which over 50 percent were coffin nails. Other personal effects or "grave goods" included dentures, glass eyes, coins, clay smoking pipes, embalming bottles, whiskey/wine bottles, combs, over 4,500 buttons, over 500 ceramic fragments, clothing remnants, shoes, hats, jewelry, military medals, religious items, and medical devices or prosthetics. ... Using historic maps, original hand-written burial ledgers, osteological examination, background research, and artifact analysis, Berger's team was able to determine possible identities for approximately 900 of the disinterred remains. Of particular note, positive identifications were established for two interments who have living linear descendants. The remains of a woman who died in 1928 and a man who was buried in 1949 were returned to their respective families for private ceremonies and reburial - ending the search for their long-lost grandparents.

[edit] Plaque

In 2003, the remains of 4,569 of these individuals were removed from the Potter’s Field in [Seacaucus] and brought to [Maple Grove Park Cemetery, Hackensack] to be honored and remembered. May this site serve in perpetuity as their final resting place and a sanctuary of peace.