In this story, it mentions that family members were responsible for moving
loved ones remains when the city kept moving cemeteries in the name of
progress. It would seem to me to be the responsibility of the genius who
thought up these moves! Another final resting place story that is not
final.
UPDATE: Bones not evidence of crime by Justin Scheider
July 30, 2008 Anderson Herald Bulletin newspaper
Anderson police say bones found near downtown Anderson are not considered
evidence in a crime, and the department will step aside to allow a group of
researchers to excavate the site.
Forensic pathologists could begin the work Thursday.
The remains - a femur and a fractured pelvis - were found Tuesday at the
southwest corner of 12th and Brown-Delaware streets during the replacement
of gas lines by Miller Pipeline.
The bones underwent preliminary examination Wednesday at Ball Memorial
Hospital in Muncie. Experts determined that the remains are consistent with
burial in the 19th century; the scene was part of the Tharp or "Tharpe"
graveyard from 1839 to 1863.
"The remains have been taken to Ball and examined," said Madison County
Coroner Ned Dunnichay. "They're believed to be at least somewhere in the
area of the 1800s."
Sgt. William Casey of the Anderson Police Department said Anderson Emergency
Management would take over monitoring the site. Meanwhile, the Indiana
Department of Natural Resources is assembling a team of forensic
pathologists from Indiana University that is expected to begin excavation
Thursday.
"It's human remains, we've confirmed that, but there's no cause for
alarm
from anybody," Casey said. "The bones are very old, and it was a shallow
grave. It has been determined that it was a temporary burial site while the
city looked for a permanent cemetery."
Casey said it was the responsibility of friends and family members to exhume
bodies and transport them from Tharp graveyard (called "Tharpe Cemetery" on
a city historical marker) to what would become West Maplewood Cemetery,
north of downtown Anderson. Some were left behind.
"Moving bodies was common practice in those days, and it's not a stretch to
think that, when they exhumed the bodies, they left some behind," said
Madison County Historian Stephen T. Jackson. "Not all graves were marked at
that time."
Collins Tharp donated land for the cemetery - Anderson's second for white
settlers - to Methodist Church of Anderson in 1839. The first city cemetery
was behind St. Mary's Church, Jackson said, but bodies were exhumed and
moved to make way for a railroad line.
In 1863, the newly formed Anderson Cemetery Association closed Tharp
graveyard to make way for residential development and transported its
contents to what would become West Maplewood Cemetery. An earlier burial
site of the Delaware tribe was located on the current site of the Anderson
City Building.
The bones were exposed, Jackson said, because bodies were buried in wooden
caskets in the 19th century or in no casket at all.
"It could have been either," he said. "A wooden casket easily would have
disintegrated. At West Maplewood Cemetery, you can see depressions where
caskets or coffins returned to dust."
Dan Brinduse once owned properties at 1117 and 1119 Delaware Street from
1985 to 1995 and said he did not understand the fuss over the bones. He said
the previous owner told him that bones were found while digging the
foundation for the buildings in the 1950s.
"Of course there are bones; there used to be a cemetery there," Brinduse
said. "That's part of Anderson's history." Anderson city cemeteries
. In 1932, the Bolivar or City Cemetery was established on Bolivar Street
(now Ninth Street) as the first of Anderson's city cemeteries. Then, in
1939, Collins Tharp donated the land that would become Tharp or "Tharpe"
graveyard along Brown-Delaware Street between 11th and 12th streets. Bodies
from Bolivar Cemetery were exhumed and reburied at Tharp to make way for
railroad construction. In 1863, the newly formed Anderson Cemetery
Association ordered Tharp cemetery closed and the bodies moved again, this
time to West Maplewood Cemetery, to accommodate residential development.
Found near the corner of Grand Avenue and Alexandria Pike, Maplewood
Cemetery still exists today. Madison County Cemetery Commission.