The Secaucus Potter's Field Cemetery

Results of the Investigations

On October 31, 2003, the last set of human remains was disinterred from Potter's Field cemetery. After almost nine months of intensive field efforts (approximately 186 field days), Berger's team of over 100 archaeologists, osteologists, and field technicians exhumed the last of 4,572 sets of human remains. As part of the disinterment activities, more than 20,000 cubic yards of soil were excavated, moved, and graded to allow for the identification of 2,686 grave shafts extending over a 2.0-acre parcel.

Secaucus Potter's Field, New Jersey

A total of 113,532 artifacts or non-skeletal objects were recovered of which over 50 percent were coffin nails. Other personal effects or "grave goods" included dentures, glass eyes, coins, clay smoking pipes, embalming bottles, whiskey/wine bottles, combs, over 4,500 buttons, over 500 ceramic fragments, clothing remnants, shoes, hats, jewelry, military medals, religious items, and medical devices or prosthetics.

The on-site osteological analyses at Potter's Field indicate that the causes of death of the interred individuals ranged from infectious diseases such as small pox, tuberculosis, cholera, and influenza; to pathologies including lesions, vertebral fusion, untreated fractures, and developmental defects; and to blunt force traumas. There also was evidence of a number of autopsies and amputations among these individuals.

Using historic maps, original hand-written burial ledgers, osteological examination, background research, and artifact analysis, Berger's team was able to determine possible identities for approximately 900 of the disinterred remains. Of particular note, positive identifications were established for two interments who have living linear descendents. The remains of a woman who died in 1928 and a man who was buried in 1949 were returned to their respective families for private ceremonies and reburial---ending the search for their long-lost grandparents.

Maple Grove Park Cemetery Entrance, Bergen County, New Jersey

The remaining 4,570 individuals exhumed from Potter's Field together with their personal effects were reinterred by Berger's archaeologists in Section K of the Maple Grove Park Cemetery located in the town of Hackensack, Bergen County, New Jersey. A total of 94, standard, triple-depth precast concrete burial vaults were loaded with the remains and objects recovered from Potter's Field.

In the Summer of 2004, a granite memorial monument with bronze plaques listing over 7,000 named individuals from the burial ledgers will be erected at Maple Grove Park Cemetery. This monument will stand as a permanent reminder for all those poor, diseased, or nameless individuals who were buried in the Hudson County Burial Ground. This site will serve in perpetuity as their final resting place and a sanctuary of peace.

Photograph Collections