Thursday, April 8, 2021

Graveyards of Easton, PA that were moved

St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church on 4th & Ferry Sts. In 1870 the church had most of the graves dug up and the bodies were reburied in Easton Cemetery. There were quite a few that remain and are under the building that the church added. These are known as the cellar graves.  

Trinity Episcopal Church on Spring Garden St. Many if not most of the remains that were on the yard of this church have been re-interred to Easton Cemetery. 

 First Reformed Church on N. Third St. This cemetery was one of the oldest in Easton. It was located on Church Street between 5th & 6th Sts. Interments in this cemetery were prohibited by ordinance for many years (1850’s?) and many people buried there had been taken to resting places in other cemeteries, most of them to the Easton Cemetery. For years the First Reformed Church was blamed for the neglect and poor condition of the graveyard and the tumbling stonewalls that surrounded it. It was sold to the Easton School Board in 1901 for the construction of a free Public Library. An announcement was put in the papers for people to exhume and move their loved ones. Not all bodies were claimed. The graves that were where the Carnegie Library was going to be, were put into the cemetery's vault and eventually closed off. Currently, there are still some who are buried on the library property. Two notable graves are William Parsons and Elizabeth (Mammy) Morgan. This is not a cemetery anymore.

 First Presbyterian Church on 2nd & Bushkill St. This church merged with Brainerd Presbyterian in 1941. The church was abandoned and all the graves were moved to Easton Cemetery.

 Easton Jewish Cemetery 6th & Pine Sts. and “Hebrew” Cemetery In or about July 1888, the old burying grounds of the Covenant of Peace, at 6th & Pine streets was sold to E. A. Jacoby, proprietor of the Mount Vernon Hotel. Jacoby, after exhuming the remains, built a stable for his hotel. Among the old tombstones was that of Michael Hart, died March 25, 1815, aged 75 years and his wife, Leah, died July 4, 1786, aged 32 years. This cemetery may have been started and owned by Michael Hart, and Leah’s tombstone would have the cemetery starting at least in 1786. The remains were moved to what was described as the “Jewish burying ground, in the western part of the city”. From the book, Consider the Years by Joshua Trachtenberg, page 137, we learn this cemetery was at Butler Street, running back to Washington Street on 12th Street. This property was bought in 1850 and was 280’ x 33’8’. In 1853 the short lived Congregation of Emanuel, (a split from Covenant of Peace), purchased a small plot in the Easton Cemetery. By 1854 the congregation ended and they gave everything to Covenant of Peace, including the cemetery plot. In 1889 they made an agreement with Easton Cemetery for a permanent section in the Easton Cemetery. By October 1925, the Congregation Covenant of Peace had sold the property at 12th and Butler Sts.

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