Hello from Spook Hill

Also known as Cabbane/New Prospect/Mayersville/North York (incorporated in 1899)

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"PENNY HEAVEN"........
The Story of Potter's Field/York City Cemetery
by Dave Gulden/First rendition 1998/First revision 2004/Second revision March 2008

A small stone marker sits at the entrance to York City Cemetery. While it memorializes the site as hallowed ground, it gives no indication of what lies within its three acres. The first burials were in 1897. Many of those at rest within its borders are unknown, were unwanted or died alone. The tales of woe of what used to be called Potter's Field are many, but the rememberances of them are few.

At one time potatoes were grown over the dead of the cemetery of the poor. A mother grieved over the wrong grave for years. The remains of twins found alongside a creek repose here also. Funds for upkeep were "lost." A 1930 attempt to map the cemetery contains inaccuracies. Today children roam unattended and dogs defecate on the graves of the poor and unfortunates who never had a chance.

There seem to be no restrictions, just as there is no gate, no flowers or a place of repose.

Old-timers have referred to the cemetery as "Penny Heaven," because those buried there had no money.

The county and city have always taken care of the poor, homeless abused or unwanted by providing burial when the need arises. When the site on Schley Alley was purchased, and many times since, both the saddest and the best of York County have come to the forefront.

As early as 1896 government wheels started to roll for developing a new cemetery for the poor. By 1897 a task of morbid necessity began in York city as the remains of hundreds of people were transported to the new plot in what was then known as Mayersville.

The bodies were removed from the previous potter's field site opposite Penn Common. City school board members were planning a school for the site. There was great concern over the health risks since many of the dead had been smallpox victims. Caldrons of "disinfectants are being freely used and the air in the vivinity is laden with their fumes."

The removal began in April 1897 and yielded many more bodies than anticipated. Through days of pouring rain and sloshing through the mud the bodies were loaded onto horsedrawn wagons and placed in rows at the new Potter's Field.

"At the same time began the digging of trenches for their burial in the new ground obtained for that purpose on Ocean Avenue," said The Dispatch.

"It is a significant evidence of the Christian humanity which characterizes this community that these remains of the pauper dead are, after a multitude of of years of burial, being removed with tender care and consideration."

Not all who were buried in Potter's Field were indignant. Would they find the remains of P. T. Barnum's alleged cannibal? Or the remains of three Revolutionary War soldiers shot on site for mutiny?

"The most illustrious preemptor of a last resting place in the old potter's field appears to have been one of Barnum's cannibals," said The Dispatch.

"Strange as it may seem, when this wild man was buried he was clothed with his native garb and had rings upon his fingers , ears and nose, also bracelets about his wrists, but to the disappointment of spectaors , when the grave was opened there was nothing to be found except the coffin lid."

Revolutionary War Soldiers Executed

When Revolutionary War soldiers were encamped on Penn Commons several soldiers objected to the method of pay. The Continental currency was virtually worthless. The three members of the Pennsylvania Line were tried, executed and buried in Potter's Field.

General "Mad" Anthony Wayne described the situation in a letter dated May 2, 1781 and reprinted in part in the 1897 York Dispatch.

"A few leading mutineers on the right of each regiment alled out to pay them in real money, not ideal money; they were no more to be trifled with," said Wayne, who ordered an immediate court-martial on the spot.

"The determined countenances of the officers produced a conviction to the soldiers that the sentence of the court martial would be carried into execution," wrote Wayne.

"Whether by design or accident the particular friends and messmates of the culprits were their executioners , and while tears rolled down their cheeks in showers, they silently and faithfully obeyed their orders without a moment's hesitation. Thus, was this hideous monster crushed in its birth, however painful to myself and fficers a most painfu scene."

The dad were stacked along the west and south sides of the field in rows measuring twenty-four feet in width. The rows formed a large "L" leaving the rest of the field for future use. There over 700 bodies placed in the field.

In June, 1903 a meeting of the city board of health revealed a funding problem after a great deal of discussion over the need for a fence at the field.

"The request of many of the residents of North York, praying for the board to erect a fence about the Potter's Field adjoining the Prospect Hill Cemetery caused much discussion, on account of a former appropriation not being accounted for," said The York Dispatch.

Several North York residents drew the ire of the city health board when it was revealed that Potter's Field was being farmed for potatoes. Several residents had presented a petition to the board advising them of the fact. The graveyard 'tater farmers would be evicted and no trespassing signs posted.

One of the saddest of the litte-known tales of woe of Penny Heaven took place in 1930 when a woman sought to exhume the remains of her infant. As a younger woman she had borne and then buried her newborn babe in Potter's Field. She had made regular visits to the grave, with was marked with a wooden cross that eventually rotted away. Years later, being of better means, she wanted the remains of her child reinterred in the adjoining Prospect Hill Cemetery.

When the grave she had mourned over for years was open it was an adult casket, as were several others that were opened. The mother gave up her search for the remains of her baby as hopeless. The ability to locate the child caused V. K. Dayhoff, the city park commissioner, to attepmt to lay out and chart Potter's Field.

"Up until the present time the city has kept no record of the location of bodies buried in Potter's Field. With the rotting of the small markers at time of burial, the bodies resting under the sod became lost as to the identities of the bodies they held," said The York Dispatch. (April 11, 1930)

The result was a chart that plotted the cemetery into just over 500 plots., with markings for pathways and measurements. The remains from the Potter's Field site on College Ave. formed a large letter L. A list on the side of the site plan contains nearly 200 names but only a few dates.

Lot #463 contains the remains of a male infant found at the sewage treatment plant. An unknown male, with a date of Sept., 1933 occupies lot 286. A number of the lots are marked "double occupancy" and some do not correspond to the list Next to many of the names is a small letter c or w.

Another of the saddest of the tales of woe filling Potter's Field took place in the late 1930's. It became public when two workers at the Loucks Mill Rd. paper mill made a gruesome discovery where what is now called Mill Creek enters the Codorus. Wrapped in burlap oilcloth and newspaper were the remains of two babes.

"At an idyllic spot at Funk's Run, near a small dam about one mile north of York, along Loucks Mill Rd., prematurely born twin children, a male and a female, were found yesterday," said a 1939 Gazette and Daily.

It turned out that a doctor and nurse had been attendants at a premature birth in which one infant was dead at birth and the other alive. The remains had been given to a man the doctor knew for "proper burial" at the Black Bridge, about a mile further north.

The case was announced as closed a few weeks later. A Gazette and Daily story said "A physician and visiting nurse were in attendance at the time of the premature births and there is no evidence whatsover of any criminal abortion. Burial was not made according to instruction."

The District Attorney was able to determine the names of all but charges were never filed. A few days after their discovery the twins were interred in Potter's Field, their location and identity unknown.

(Insert-the above story makes you wonder. Were there more burials at Black Bridge?)

In 1966 a burial took place that would cause concern and show that the neighbors of Potter's Fieldsometimes acted as its keepers. William Shelton died in late October and was buried in plot 472 at a cost of $350.PFC Shelto, a WWII veteran, had suffered from lung congestion and hardening of the arteries.

For years neighborhood resident Jerry Martin tended SShelton's grave, always feeliong that it wasn't right for a veteran to be buried in Potter's Field. In 1985 Martin was successful in his efforts to have PFC Shelton laid to rest in Indiantown Gap Military Cemetery.

A modern day tale of woe, abuse and poor parenting ended in 1989 with the burial of four-year-old Clashay Johnson. He died of heart and lung failure in a Baltimore hospital burn unit. As punishment for wetting himself his mother had placed him in a tub of scalding water. Bridgette Hollingsworth was sentenced to four to eight years upon conviction of third degree manslaughter. Clashay's name is spelled wrong on the plot map. A very small marker, near a recently placed American flag, reads "Clashay Johnson October 20, 1985, January 7, 1989."

It was the story of Clashay that inspired a group of YBI students to pledge, in 1995, to maintain the field in front of the school. They hoped to place a bench and erect a new fence and add a bench. (It wasn't until late 2007 that a new fence was erected, minus a gate.) Silbaugh Memorials monument company donated a small marker at the entrance to York City Cemetery that reads "In memory of Clashay Johnson and all those that rest in these hallowed grounds."

Today, 2009, there is a new generation of neighbors of York City Cemetery. They seem not to know or care that they are allowibng their children to sled on the grounds, that their dogs are defacating on the dead.

Whatever name used to refer to the cemetery; Potters Field, cemetery of the unknowns, or York City Cemetery, I doubt if many have said, just "bury me in Penny Heaven."

Researched and written by Dave Gulden