Our feature OKI Wanna Know tackles your questions ranging from "how do they?" to "who was?" and "why does?" This time WVXU's Bill Rinehart returns to a topic you might have thought was dead and buried.
Leah Hayworth of Northside found an old article mentioning Union Terminal is on some land that used to be called Lincoln Park. Before that, it was a burial ground.
"The remains from the pauper's cemetery were buried in an unmarked grave in Lincoln Park, and so I'm curious if there are still bones left over from that unmarked grave under the parking lot of Union Terminal."
There's a lot to unpack there.
First, let's define a pauper's field. It's also commonly called a potter's field. That term refers to land where clay had been dug up for ceramics. The plot wasn't suitable for building, or for agriculture, so it was used for burials: mostly people who were outcasts, or too poor to afford a funeral.
Cincinnati's first public cemetery was built Downtown, according to the Manager of Reference and Research at the Cincinnati History Museum.
"And that got crowded pretty quickly," Jill Beitz says. "Then there were a lot of smaller burial grounds also within the city limits, and then as the population built up, this wasn't ideal."
Beitz says a lot of those were owned by different congregations.
An 1819 map from the Cincinnati Hamilton County Public Library's collection shows a Presbyterian burial ground on the south end of what is now Washington Park, and a public burial ground where Music Hall now stands. An 1831 map indicates Episcopalians started burying their dead with the Presbyterians, while Baptists and Methodist burials were at what is now the corner of Court and John Streets.
The dead were taking up valuable land, so they were exhumed, and moved to other cemeteries, in Price Hill and Walnut Hills.
Eventually, Cincinnati set up a public cemetery outside the city limits, in what is now Queensgate. It's labeled as a potter's field on an 1838 map. It's on Freeman, between Hopkins & Kenner Street.
"The city set up the potter's field out here because it was really far outside of the city limits." Beitz says. "It was a burial place for indigent people, travelers who happened to die when they were in Cincinnati, and just unknowns."
Cholera epidemics in the 19th century claimed a lot of lives in Cincinnati, and before long, this potter's field was full and had new, living neighbors.
"The population had expanded this direction and, again, didn't want a cemetery near their homes," Beitz says. "The new Potter's Field up on Guerley Road opened in 1852. When they moved the bodies from this cemetery up the hill, they moved about 4,000 bodies."
That new cemetery was on the north side of Guerley Road and is today an undeveloped wooded area. The south side of the street was also used for burials and is now Rapid Run Park.
The abandoned Queensgate potter's field was also turned into a park.
"It was originally called West End Park. It was actually a very large park. It had a lake in the middle," Beitz says. "After Lincoln's assassination it became Lincoln Park. You can find pictures of it online. It was a gorgeous area."
So, the potter’s field was replaced by Lincoln Park, which was also home to some athletic fields, hosting the Union Cricket Club, Cincinnati Cricket Club and members of a new team sport, the Cincinnati Base Ball Club.
Eventually, those teams left for other fields, and Beitz says by the 1920s, "the park was really in bad shape."
Ground was broken for Union Terminal just west of this Lincoln Park in 1929, and the park was converted into a landscaped approach to the new train station. In 1980, much of that landscaping was torn up, and paved over to provide the parking lots east of today’s Cincinnati Museum Center.
So, with all of that explained, Leah Hayworth asks: are there still graves under the parking lot of Union Terminal? "I haven't found any other references. I think it's entirely plausible that there might be some remains there," she says.
So, what does Jill Beitz say?
"You hear stories about every time Music Hall is renovated, they find bodies, but I've never heard anything about finding them when they built Union Terminal, so, maybe?"
The land has been repurposed a couple of times, which might make you think there's nothing left behind, but, consider a couple of other former cemeteries in Cincinnati.
When Washington Park was renovated in 2011, several graves were found, and their occupants relocated. The local chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution believe there are some veterans of that war still buried in the park.
In an OKI Wanna Know in June, we learned about an Avondale burial ground that's now a baseball field.
Tom Bittner with the Walnut Hills Cemetery says the First German Protestant Cemetery was the final resting place for a lot of cholera victims, some of whom were buried in secret.
"We do feel safe in stating that that field still has several bodies resting underneath."
So, it's possible there are still remains under the parking lot at Union Terminal. The question is: will anyone look for them?
Read more:
