Bensalem

Unknown

Number of burials: Unknown
First burial:
Last burial: Unknown

Unknown

Location unknown

Evergreen was split into two separate cemeteries in the early 50's: King David Memorial Park (Jewish) and Rosedale Memorial Park (non-sectarian). The remains from Lafayette and Franklin Cemetery were moved to land next to Rosedale Memorial. Please see all four cemeteries. Excerpts from a Philadelphia Inquirer article dated 10/9/1988. Four decades ago, Thomas A. Morris, president of Evergreen Memorial Park in Bensalem Township, was contracted to dig up 47,000 sets of remains from the run-down Lafayette Cemetery in South Philadelphia. The bodies were to be buried again on 40 of the 156 acres owned by Evergreen, complete with caskets, drainage, new bronze markers, roadways and perpetual maintenance of the grounds. Morris estimated his costs at $105,000. In return, Morris received clear title to the old cemetery property, bounded by Passyunk Avenue and Ninth, 10th, Federal and Wharton Streets. It was assessed at $166,000. Now, 42 years later, that seemingly straightforward transaction has become the focal point of a story so complicated it may never be completely told: The story of those bodies, and 21,500 more Morris was paid to dig up from two other city cemeteries and rebury elsewhere. The bodies from Lafayette were dumped in unmarked trenches that Bensalem officials say bare little resemblance to a cemetery blueprint that shows individual, numbered lots. "No one really watched Morris to see that he . . . did what he was supposed to do," said the Rev. Canon J. Perry Cox, president of Lafayette Cemetery. The tale began to unravel late last month, when two anonymous callers told township officials that a pair of unmarked graves had been uncovered inadvertently at the Bensalem cemetery during a construction project. The cemetery is on Neshaminy Boulevard, across from Neshaminy Mall. Although those two bodies, as it turned out, had been buried more recently, township officials said it soon became apparent that none of the remains transferred from the old Lafayette Cemetery had been reburied in marked graves. After digging test shafts at the site, officials said they had uncovered what probably are 32 trenches, each 300 feet long. Inside the trenches are stacks of wooden boxes, presumably containing most of the remains. Officials do not intend to dig up all the boxes to find out. But some of the remains and clothing scraps found in the trenches will be sent to an archaeologist to determine their age, according to Bensalem police Detective Kenneth Hopkins, who is heading the investigation. Based on accounts from longtime township residents who said they had watched as trucks delivered the remains, officials believe that some also were dumped into the nearby Poquessing Creek. In 1947, records show the court also approved a plan under which the city paid $95,000 for Morris to remove 8,000 bodies from 2,400 graves in Franklin Cemetery, located at Elkhart and Helen Streets in Kensington. According to newspaper accounts, the remains were to be reburied in a three-acre Franklin section of Evergreen Memorial Park with perpetual care and markers. I. Alan Cohen, whose family owns Rosedale Memorial Park - part of the Evergreen property before Morris went bankrupt in 1959 - has told police that he believes only 3,000 of the Franklin remains were transferred to Evergreen. According to Hopkins, Cohen, whose family bought the Rosedale property in 1960, said the 3,000 were reinterred on what is now the adjoining property - King David Memorial Park. Cohen said he believed the 5,000 other bodies were buried in Sunset Memorial Park in Feasterville, according to Hopkins. In an interview Friday, the Sunset office manager, who asked not to be named, said no Franklin remains were buried there. And Jack Livezey, manager of King David, said he knew "for a fact" that they weren't at his cemetery, either. Cohen could not be reached for comment. Hopkins said the Cohen’s had told him that they had almost no records from Lafayette. Raymond Reinl, a lawyer who represented Lafayette Cemetery in the 1960s, said in an interview that he recalled a meeting in that decade at which the Cohen’s were given records. Until the unmarked graves were found, the Cohen’s were moving an office and mausoleum building from one site to another on the cemetery property and had a Bucks County Court order from Judge Leonard B. Sokolove permitting them to reinter elsewhere any remains they found. But the township, which has issued a cease-and-desist order, is going back to Sokolove on Oct. 26 to ask that he rescind his order, Hopkins said. The township now wants the Lafayette property, and whatever bodies are there, to be left undisturbed. Both Lafayette and Franklin were eventually condemned by the city as part of a multimillion-dollar playground-building project. The Lafayette playground (Capitolo) is across from two of the city's famous food landmarks, Pat's and Geno's cheese steak emporiums. In 1951, the Securities and Exchange Commission began to look into Morris' dealings - particularly his apparent habit of selling large blocks of Evergreen cemetery lots to speculators with the promise that the investors would be able to sell them for huge profits. The sales, according to the SEC, were in the same category as sales of securities, and Morris was not registered to sell securities. Morris began to pile up debts, with the federal government filing tax liens against Evergreen Memorial Park. In 1958, the Pennsylvania Securities Commission asked that the courts appoint a receiver for Evergreen. In 1959, Evergreen filed for bankruptcy and was eventually divided into the King David and Rosedale Memorial Parks. In 1961, Morris - once hailed as a tireless fund-raiser for a variety of charities - pleaded no contest in U.S. District Court to charges that he had misrepresented Evergreen's financial condition while selling two bond issues to finance his cemetery business. He was fined $3,000 and received a suspended sentence plus five years' probation. To Bensalem officials, who now are obliged to deal with what Morris left behind, the history is fascinating, but frustrating. Detective Hopkins said he had been inundated with calls and letters from outraged citizens.