Historic Philadelphia Burial Places Map

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Philadelphia Archaeological Forum Historic Burial Places Map

About the Historic Burial Places map and database

The Philadelphia Archaeological Forum’s Historic Burial Places Database represents an important tool for helping to preserve the City’s many unmarked cemeteries, grave yards, and burial sites. It is hoped that by making this information publicly available future inadvertent and unintended impacts to these sites can be minimized or completely avoided.

The information included in this database represents more than 10 years of effort and research carried out by multiple researchers dedicated to the preservation of these sites. Much of the burial ground data presented here was drawn from the earlier groundbreaking research of historian Charles Barker, in the 1940s, and University of Pennsylvania graduate student Rene L.C. Torres, in the 1990s. Other information was gathered from available historic maps of Philadelphia, published histories, city directories, archaeological reports, and online newspaper archives. Much of this additional information was collected by archaeologist Kimberly Morrell. She was also responsible for creating the original map on which this database is constructed.

While we have endeavored to make this database as inclusive and accurate as possible, people utilizing this resource should at all times keep in mind the following important caveats and considerations:

This database is a work in progress, and will be updated with additional burial places and expanded information as more data is collected. Inaccurate information that may have been inadvertently included in the database will be corrected as it is identified or brought to our attention.
In many instances the PAF possesses, or is aware of, additional information pertaining to specific burial sites included on the map as well as others that may not yet been entered into the database. Anyone having questions about particular cemeteries should contact us at the email address listed at the bottom of this page to determine what, if any, additional information PAF might have.
There is no way for this database to encompass or contain information about every burial place that has ever existed in Philadelphia. An unknown number of burial sites— such as those created as private family cemeteries, those established by socially marginalized groups or communities, or which were in use for only short periods of time— may not have been well documented while they were in use, and therefore cannot be easily re-located and mapped today.
Historic burial places have been mapped and represented as accurately as possible in the database; however, the location and boundaries depicted for individual burial sites should not be considered to be definitive or absolute. In many instances historical information is limited, inaccurate, or conflicting , and, therefore the true location, size, and boundaries of specific burial grounds may not be known with certainty.

When using this database it is critical that users keep the following points in mind:

Information in the database indicating that human remains were relocated from specific burial grounds in the past should not be taken to mean that there are no longer any intact burials contained in that site. It is our experience, and it has been well documented historically, that past attempts to relocate a cemetery rarely, if ever, result in the recovery and removal of every burial on that site. The reasons why burial places frequently are incompletely relocated, and why multiple burials were missed or left behind during earlier relocation efforts, are too numerous and varied to discuss in detail here.
The fact that property used as a burial ground has been redeveloped and built upon should not be taken as proof there are no longer burials contained in that ground. Many burial grounds in Philadelphia extended deep into the ground, so it is possible that intact burials could still be preserved below existing foundations and basement floors. Some cemeteries in the City have been documented to contain burials as deep as 15 to 20 feet below the current ground surface. The First Baptist Church Burial Ground, near the corner of 2^nd and Arch Streets, contained burials that extended to 22 feet below the present ground surface. Burials can also be preserved in small spaces within a property that were never built on. In the case of the 2^nd Presbyterian Church Cemetery, at the site of the National Constitution Center, one small space (measuring just 5 X 25 feet) and preserved between later foundations, was found to contain 49 intact burials.
Human burials are not property that can be indiscriminately dug up and disposed of by land owners or others. Under current Pennsylvania law, unmarked burials and burial grounds are protected under the legal authority and jurisdiction of the Orphans’ Court Division of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. Historic burials contained within a given parcel of land can only be removed to a new burial site after the property owner petitions the Orphans’ Court and receives written permission to do so.
This database includes hundreds of properties and represents countless hours of research. But given the number of properties involved the time spent on researching each individual burial site was limited. It is the responsibility of property owner to complete comprehensive research before excavating or developing a property known or suspected to have contained a burial site. This database is only a starting point.

How to use the database map viewer and access burial ground information

You can explore the geographical database of historic burial places using the following instructions. The information applies to the use of the small version of the map at the top of this page as well as the larger version accessible by clicking the View map link under the embedded map at the top of this page.

The burial ground information is display over an OpenStreetMap layer. Left click and drag with your mouse, or use the scroll bars, to move the map. You can zoom in or out by using the + or – button in the upper left, or by using the scroll wheel on your mouse. Individual burial grounds are depicted as blue polygon shapes on the map. Left click on a specific burial ground to access a pop-up data table with information related to that site. The following data fields are associated with each burial place (although information may not have been entered for all of those fields at this time – but we’re working on it!):

id: lists the identification number assigned to each cemetery in the database.

name: provides the name by which each cemetery was historically, or is now known.

affililatio: organization or entity that owned or operated the burial ground.

open date: The exact or approximate year in which the burial ground or cemetery started receiving interments.

close date: The exact or approximate year in which the burial ground or cemetery was closed to new interments.

moved: indicates whether or not information exists that past efforts were made to relocate a burials from this site; either Yes or No.

moved mod: a modifier for the entry in the moved date field. Common possible entries are > which indicates the date of the move is at or sometime after the listed date, < which indicates the date of the move is at or sometime before the listed date, or c. which indicates that the listed date of the move is approximate.

moved date: year in which past efforts to relocate a burial ground were initiated/completed.

new loc: the name of the cemetery to which a burial ground was reported to have been relocated.

source: documentary sources where information about the existence, location, and details of a burial place were obtained.

curr use: predominant manner in which a burial place is used today.

curr add: the current address or intersection of the property.

comments: any additional relevant information about a burial ground or cemetery.

remains: years in which human remains/burials have been found in association with a historic burial place; normally these represent past instances where construction/excavation activities impacted a burial place. If there is information included in this data field it is a particularly strong indicator that intact burials could still be preserved in the site

Direct all questions, comments, or corrections to phillyarchaeology@gmail.com.

by Jed Levin