Digging Up History Read online

  I had jotted down a number of references when my cell phone rang. It was James and he was waiting downstairs, so I went down to let him in.

  “Hey there,” I greeted him. “We found Dylan—he was hard at work trying to pull together all the Featherstone books in one place. I told him you were bringing food. Let’s eat in the break room—I live in terror of getting greasy fingerprints and crumbs on any parts of the collections.”

  “Sounds good,” he said.

  I turned and led him up the grand staircase to the second floor. “Detective Hrivnak was going to check with the authorities in the city about what to do with the bodies?” James asked on the way up. “And what the timeline will be?”

  “That’s what she said. I’m sure she doesn’t want that big patch of bodies in her backyard, so to speak, and they can’t just leave them there the way they are.”

  “She didn’t seem exactly fascinated by the history of the place.”

  “No, she’s a very pragmatic person—but she does get the job done. I’m glad she’s willing to keep us in the loop.”

  “She’s a useful friend to have, given your track record.”

  “Too true.”

  James and I joined Dylan and Marty in the break room at the back of the building and ate quickly. “Dylan, do you know where the donor and member files are kept?” I asked. “If not, I can show you and give you the Featherstone file so you can look through it. Although I warn you—most of the comments are about financial status and potential donations.”

  “Thanks, Nell,” he said. “I don’t expect any amazing discoveries, but at least I’ll have a sense of the person behind the collection.”

  “My mother used to play bridge with her, years back,” Marty volunteered. “Which doesn’t tell you much about her personally, except that she could keep track of cards. And she stayed active until the end.”

  “You never know what will turn out to be important,” I said in a mock-serious tone. “Are we finished eating? Because I don’t think I’ll last more than another couple of hours, and I’d like to get at least something done.”

  “I’m ready,” Marty declared. “I’m going to pull the relevant maps and see if I can match them up with the 1790 census. Yeah, I know, people moved around a lot back then, especially early on when the city was growing fast, and I wouldn’t swear to how complete or accurate the censuses are, but it’s a place to start.”

  “Happy hunting!” I told her. “James, do you have something to keep you busy, or would you rather go home? I can take the train back.”

  “I’ve always got paperwork at the office. Give me a call when you’re ready to leave.” With a backward wave, he left.

  I went back to my office to make more lists of source materials. When I had collected a handful of call numbers for books and manuscripts in the Society’s collections, I went wandering in the stacks to hunt them down. Two hours later I was definitely getting bleary-eyed, until I looked at the last couple of sources I had pulled off the shelf and realized that I held the answer in my hand. Or rather, two answers. Number one: the missing church had been the First Baptist Church, founded in 1698. The congregation had moved around for a while until they took over a meetinghouse at Second and Market street—which would have been half a block north of where the orphaned cemetery was found. That church had been rebuilt more than once, then relocated to a different location in 1900, and it finally merged with another church.

  So, bottom line: the church that the original cemetery had belonged to was long gone physically. What had happened to the cemetery?

  And then I realized I also had that answer in front of me, in the form of a small newspaper announcement dating to 1860, which declared that the church had made “arrangements for the removal of the dead from their old burial ground, Second Street, below Arch, to their new ground (Mount Moriah Cemetery).” It seemed from the clipping that the church committee was still hanging out at the original site in case anyone wanted to remove their loved ones or buy a new lot in the other cemetery.

  But the transfer had never happened, or only some of it had. It appeared that many of the burials had indeed been moved to Mount Moriah, where they occupied their own section. I had to wonder what the original total of the burials had been, if “most” were moved but a couple hundred had been left behind. I also wondered if the church records had moved along with the church at one time or another, or if they had found their way to one or another library, or if they’d been lost altogether. Of course, there was always the chance that once a major part of the transfer had taken place, the church ran out of money and energy and conveniently lost the paperwork on the rest, meanwhile shoveling dirt over the remaining burials. That had remained the church’s dirty little secret—yes, a bad pun. Was it legal? I was getting spacey, and it was time to call it a day. There was no doubt more research to be done, but it could wait for one more day.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Even though I was pretty much seeing cross-eyed, I felt proud. I’d actually solved one part of the mystery: to which church did the old cemetery belong? Of course, that had revealed another mystery: why had only part of the cemetery been moved to its new location? Had the church forgotten about hundreds of bodies? Run out of time and money? But how could they have callously just paved over them? But the church itself had changed locations and been rebuilt more than once. Still, it was troubling. I wasn’t sure whether I hoped the solution turned out to be simple neglect, not deliberate malfeasance—if, say, the option to purchase the lot for other purposes was about to expire, so a few lies were told or a few palms greased in the 1860s. I had to suppose that there were no Civil War deceased in the town site. Maybe those who still had family members associated with the church had buried them all at Mount Moriah—I’d have to check sometime.

  But that wasn’t really my problem, was it? Should I go digging through city records to see if there was any more information? From what little I’d read, the city had been rather casual about old cemeteries and hadn’t really looked into legal responsibilities, once the church had abandoned their burial ground. Separation of church and state? Or just basic confusion?

  James had left after lunch and finally called after six. “You ready to go?”

  “My brain has turned to mush, so I guess the answer’s yes. Where are you?”

  “Downstairs.”

  “Have you seen Marty or Dylan?”

  “No, but I just got here.”

  “I’ll see if I can find them and send them home. This place is closed tomorrow, so we can come back and put in a few more hours. Maybe by then the detective will have sorted out what the police and the city want to do about this mess.” Before he could protest, I added, “I know, I know, you have one of those normal day jobs, so you can go to work. We’ll manage without you.”

  “Thank you—I think.”

  I think one of my feet had gone to sleep, and I sort of stumbled when I stood up. When I could move without limping, I made a quick pass at the map room, and there were Marty and Dylan, working side by side in silence. We were clearly gluttons for punishment, for here we were, hard at work on a weekend.

  “Gang,” I said, “I can’t see straight, and James is waiting for me downstairs. I vote we call it a day and get an early start tomorrow. Marty, you can stay if you want—you’ve still got a key, right?”

  “Yes, but I feel like a zombie. Anything to report?”

  “I think I’ve nailed down the church, although there are still some mysterious elements about what happened to the cemetery. If it wasn’t on the up and up, I doubt there will be any records. You?”

  “I’ve been trying to match up the old maps and the 1790 census, plus whatever city directories I can find, but they’re kind of patchy. But I’m not done.”

  “Dylan?” I turned to him.

  “I’m kind of new to genealogy, but I think I can put together Ms. Featherstone’s history. Tomorrow should do it for a basic outline—or do I mean tree?—and you can tell
me which holes I need to fill.”

  “Excellent work, troops! Does nine o’clock work for you?” When everybody nodded wearily, I added, “Then we’re going home. Marty, you want to lock up?”

  “Will do. Can we leave everything spread out here?”

  “Of course—at least until tomorrow.”

  When I walked out of the building, the air was cooler—it was a lovely early summer evening in the city. Except that my head was still mired in the eighteenth century. It was so interesting reading about what things had looked like over two hundred years earlier. The cityscape would have been a lot more open, I surmised. I was looking forward to seeing what Marty reconstructed about who lived where. We still weren’t any closer to figuring out who that outlying body was, or whose house he’d been buried under. Maybe someone had wanted him to be buried with the others in the big lot across the street but he hadn’t been a member of the church or otherwise eligible, and someone had kind of piggybacked the burial, maybe in the dark of night. Or maybe that singleton was not connected at all, and someone had seen a convenient place to hide a body. Maybe the medical examiner could help us. I had a feeling that the man hadn’t died of an illness.

  “Uh, Nell? Here’s where we parked,” James’s voice broke into my reverie.

  I pulled my scattered thoughts back together. “Oh, right. I was trying to visualize this part of the city two centuries ago. You could have seen the river from here, right?”

  “Plus a lot of ships. That must have been an amazing sight.”

  “It’s easy to forget Philadelphia was a major port. I’ve seen enough old maps to know that the docks were stretched out for a good ways along the riverfront, and were fairly close together. I can’t imagine maneuvering a sailing ship.”

  “There weren’t many women ship’s captains,” James commented.

  “I’m not surprised. Home?”

  “We’re running out of food,” James pointed out.

  “We can shop tomorrow. Tonight I’ll settle for scrambled eggs and toast.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  • • •

  When I woke up the next morning I realized I was kind of enjoying our shared search to identify the unknown body. How many more might there be under parking lots in the city? Maybe I’d get a local reputation as a Body Hunter, although I was pretty sure that once was enough, and I had a historic library to run. Not to mention the board report to finish, but at least I had a good excuse if it was late.

  I wondered if Marty had heard from Barney. I wondered what had happened to Barney, and how he’d feel about what we were in the process of discovering. Apparently bodies were not what he had expected when he planned his apartment building. But I for one was glad that he had reported it, not just covered it all up. Of course, many of his construction workers might have objected to that.

  I wandered down to the kitchen to find James dressed and ready to hit the road. “You driving or taking the train?” I asked, and I scrounged up an English muffin.

  “If you’re ready in less than fifteen minutes we can drive in together.”

  “I think I can manage that. I don’t know if I’ll be in the city all day, but I can always get the train back.”

  “What’s your plan for the day?”

  “I’ve identified most of the cemeteries in the immediate vicinity, and I know that a lot of the burials from that batch that Barney found were transferred to Mount Moriah Cemetery. Or at least, that’s what the newspaper said at the time. I’m not convinced, and I’m horrified that so many were left behind and nobody noticed. Think there was anything illegal there?”

  “Unlikely that anyone left a paper trail, if there was,” James commented.

  “That’s more or less what I thought. Marty said she’d looked at the maps and street listings, such as they were, so we’ll go over that today. Dylan was looking into our donor Harriet, both her family ties and the collection she left us. It would be fun to find some more hidden letters and such, but I’m not counting on it—maybe that one we did find was a fluke and doesn’t really mean anything. I wish I’d spent more time talking with Harriet—she might have had other secrets. Marty said her mother used to play bridge with Harriet, but that doesn’t help much. We already knew she’d lived in Philadelphia all of her life.”

  James stood up and took his cup and plate to the sink. “You now have six minutes to get dressed.”

  “Yes, sir! I’m on it!”

  Since we were planning to do more grubby work today I didn’t bother to dress up, and just threw on a shirt and jeans and hurried downstairs.

  As James drove toward the city, he commented, “You seem awfully cheerful for someone who’s investigating a city lot full of bodies.”

  “I don’t take it personally, I guess. I don’t know any of them, and I probably don’t know any of their descendants. So absent any personal connection, it’s just a big interesting puzzle. Of course, it bothers me that all those bodies were just forgotten, but at least I can do something about it, in a small way. Marty’s body is a bit more complicated, because it was deliberately concealed, so nobody will have left a note saying, ‘check out the body under the fifth house from the corner.’ And records were a bit patchy then—they could be garbled or lost, or maybe the smaller streets changed names. But if anybody can figure it out, Marty can.”

  “You think it was a murder?” James asked.

  “I’ll let the medical examiner decide—there must be some physical evidence, even this long after. But I refuse to believe anyone just stuffed a body under a house in that neighborhood and then just walked away. And nobody’s found it since? Except Marty, and finding it scared her into silence for decades.”

  “You’re enjoying this,” James stated.

  “I am. Is that wrong? We ought to find out who the man was—it seems only right. And it may provide some insight into the history of the city. What’s not to like? Don’t tell, but it’s much more interesting than balancing the Society’s budgets and wheedling money out of rich donors.”

  James dropped me off in front of the Society building and went on his way to his job, where he did serious, important things. I had to smile at my own comment then: I was doing similar things—finding bodies, solving what may have been crimes—if in a slightly less serious vein. I had nothing to apologize for.

  Marty was sitting on the steps. “Waiting for me?” I asked, dropping down next to her.

  “Just enjoying the weather. I almost wish it would rain—I could get more work done that way.”

  “True. But think of the mess it would make of the old cemetery. Any word from Barney?”

  “The answer is still no. Maybe he decided to do some more exploring on his own and a building fell on him. Or maybe he’s a fake and doesn’t have any rights to the property at all. Or maybe he’s a treasure hunter looking for antique jewelry in the old cemetery. Or maybe he’s a crazy genealogist hoping to find his eighteenth-century family members.”

  “Stop,” I protested. “Can’t we assume he’s exactly what he appears to be? He’s an ordinary guy.”

  “Sure. Fine,” Marty grumbled. “I’ve known of him for years, but not well. I could show you other buildings in the city that his company has built. It’s not large—I mean, he can’t compete with people building skyscrapers around here—but he does good work, and delivers on time. I want to believe he was as surprised as anyone by what he found at the site. And if we don’t get things figured out, he’s going to lose money waiting.”

  “Hey,” I protested. “I’ve got nothing against him. I just wondered why he seems to have disappeared at this particular time.”

  Marty sighed. “I don’t know.”

  “You have anything good to share from your research yesterday?”

  “I do, or at least a start. You?”

  “I told you, I’ve got the church nailed down, I think, although I’d like to see what your maps show. There’s a bit of a mystery involved, but it’s more about why these par
ticular bodies got left behind than about who they are. And the church has been through so many changes that I doubt anybody knows what happened. Plus, I doubt it has anything to do with your body. I hope I didn’t overwhelm Dylan—he’s never claimed to be a genealogist, and he hasn’t worked in a place like this, so I hope I didn’t ask too much from him.”

  “He’s a smart kid, and he seems to like this kind of work. The two of us can’t handle all the details, particularly not on a short schedule, so it’s good that we have Dylan to help. You ready to go in?”

  “I am. I want to see how all our pieces fit together. And we may hear from Detective Hrivnak today, so I’d like to be able to give her some answers.”

  Marty stood up and waited for me to stand. “Lead the way. I want answers too.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I let us in and locked the door behind us. If Dylan hadn’t already come in, he had a key, so he could let himself in. Marty and I headed straight for the map room, and yes, Dylan was already there. Marty had left the materials she’d collected scattered on one of the big tables, so we were ready to get to work.

  “Hi, Dylan,” I greeted him. “How’s it going?”

  “It’s coming along. I’m trying not to get too excited before I show you what I’ve got.”

  “That’s fine. As I told Marty, I expect to hear from Detective Hrivnak sometime today—she’s usually pretty good about keeping us in the loop, and I’m sure all of us want to see this whole thing cleared up quickly, so Barney’s construction can move forward.”

  “Nobody’s going to argue to turn the land into a cemetery again?” Dylan asked.

  “That seems pretty unlikely, and from what I was reading yesterday, if the city or a church did that for one site, there are apparently a whole lot of other buried cemeteries in the city that might lobby for equal treatment. Let me start at the beginning and lay out what I know.”