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Catholic Church says cemetery didnt exist |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Sunday, 19 March 2006 |
by Annmarie Timmins, Concord [NH] Monitor
March 3, 2004
MANCHESTER - A parish priest said yesterday that he doesn't believe there were remains beneath the headstones that church officials removed from a Manchester cemetery because the church's backhoe excavation of the site turned up no human remains and almost no artifacts.
The Rev. John Gallagher, pastor of St. Augustine Church and the attached cemetery, said he also could not find a record of most of the gravesites in the parish's cemetery files. The two graves that were recorded appear to have been moved in the 1970s, Gallagher said.
At the same time, Gallagher could not explain why there would be nearly two dozen gravestones behind the parish but no human remains. But he was convinced, even after the backhoe turned up what may have been a coffin handle.
"It's like a mystery puzzle to put this together," he said. "You'd think if you excavated you'd come up with more than just a handle."
The situation has become more than just a mystery to a pair of local historians and a group of about 25 locals who are demanding the church return the headstones and apologize publicly for moving them. The group is trying to halt the church's plans to subdivide and possibly sell off the 12 acres where the headstones once sat.
In addition, at least two locals have asked the state attorney general's office to investigate whether the Diocese of Manchester violated state law by removing the headstones and digging up the land around them. Officials at the state attorney general's office could not be reached for comment yesterday.
"Returning these stones is the only way for the community to be put back at rest," said Richard Duckoff, who gives historical tours of the city, including its cemeteries. "Even then the city will never forget what the diocese has done. Why? Because everyone has an interest in their heritage."
Using city records and newspaper archives, Duckoff and Joe Labbe, another local historian, believe they have found clear evidence that disputes the diocese's conclusions.
Duckoff and Labbe found records at the city library that say the people named on the headstones were buried in the cemetery. And Labbe and his brother, Matthew, mapped and photographed the stones nearly five years ago, when most were still upright, in hopes of locating descendants of the people buried. During his research, Matthew Labbe noted depressions around the stones, fence posts around the graves and even silk flowers in the area.
"The acronym RIP is rest in peace, not rest in pieces," said Joe Labbe. "These people died 100 years ago and all they have is their dignity. That cannot be taken from them."
The land in question sits a few hundred feet behind St. Augustine's parish and its existing cemetery on South Beech Street. Church officials confirmed this week that they had moved the stones about six months ago to get the land under them ready for a subdivision and possible sale.
Gallagher said it was his idea to divide the land into two plots. The church does not need the entire 18 acres for its future cemetery needs, he said. He and the parish finance council won Bishop John McCormack's permission to cut off about 12 acres beyond the existing cemetery for a possible future sale.
The land can only be sold for house lots. The church has declined to speculate on its worth, but a local developer who asked not to be named said the property could be worth up to $1.4 million. Gallagher said if the land did sell, the money would stay with the parish and be used only to keep up the existing cemeteries.
Gallagher said he and parish staff sincerely tried to research the history of the two dozen headstones before the church moved them. (The stones now sit behind a parish maintenance shed, about two miles from where they were pulled.)
After the parish decided to divide the land into two plots, Gallagher walked the site and looked over the gravestones. He jotted down what names he could read and asked the parish secretary to find a church record of the burials or the cemetery.
The secretary found no record of the cemetery, he said. And she found only two of the names in the parish's cemetery files. In both cases, the church's records contained two notations that Gallagher didn't recognize: "spec" and "common." On the backs of both cards, someone had written dates of March 1970, the name of a funeral home and a dollar amount.
Gallagher guessed that the bodies may have originally been buried in the church's pauper or common grave and later disinterred and buried by family members.
In addition to a paper search, the church also looked over the land for remains, Gallagher said. Prodding the ground with a prodding stick turned up nothing, Gallagher said. The church also used a backhoe to dig up the land around the stones, minus the four stones crowded by trees, and found only the single handle, Gallagher said.
http://www.unknownnews.net/040305restinpieces.html |
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