Cemeteries, Unmarked Graves and Potter's Field

Cemeteries are physical places where bodies are laid to rest according to the laws, regulations, traditions, and rituals of their particular culture or religion and, typically, according to the wishes of family members or next of kin. Most burial places are marked in some way for perpetuity, the simplest markers bearing name, date of birth, and date of death. Lost in this conception of cemeteries are an unknown host of individuals who over time have been laid to rest in unmarked and later unknown graves, sometimes in mass rather than individual grave sites. These dead are unidentified, unknown, or unwanted in death as they likely were in life. Unmarked graves result from one of two sources. The first includes various kinds of natural or man-made disasters that claim lives in such numbers or in such form that the dead cannot be identified, for example, wars, hurricanes, [Page 179]floods, or fires, circumstances that can even dictate the necessity of mass graves. The second source of the unknown dead includes the outcasts of society or those who were so unimportant in life that they receive no notice in death. Such persons often die in public institutions, or their remains become public responsibility because they could not be identified or were unclaimed by family or friends, often for lack of funds needed to dispose of the body.

Some countries do not regulate disposal of the dead or may suspend regulations in times of national crises or disasters when bodies are buried in unmarked plots, sometimes in mass graves, or burned. In the United States and many other industrialized nations, municipalities or other levels of governance have found it necessary to maintain burial space for persons who die in their custody or care or whose remains are left to that entity by default. In keeping with the traditions of Europe and America, bodies have more often been buried than cremated, thus creating the necessity for public or paupers' cemeteries, sometimes known as potter's fields. The origin of the name is apparently located in biblical history as recorded in the Gospel of Saint Matthew (27:7). A contrite Judas, having betrayed Jesus, returned his reward of 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests who judged it illegal for “blood money” to be returned to the treasury. They decided to use the money to purchase a burial ground for “foreigners.” The land purchased is thought to be a site in the valley of Hinnom that was a source of potter's clay and sometimes referred to as “the potter's field.” Hence to the present time, public burial spots for the indigent or unclaimed are often known as “potter's field.”

Potter's fields have become the final resting places of those whose remains were never identified along with those who died in prisons, hospitals, almshouses, workhouses, orphanages, in isolated medical colonies or other public facilities that warehouse individuals. Some of the first municipal or institutional cemeteries, both in the United States and in Europe, were pauper's cemeteries where graves were unmarked or the markers did not stand the test of time. In some cases, cities, prisons, or other public agencies keep a record book containing plot and grave numbers as well as such vital statistics as were known about the deceased: age (or approximate), date of death, cause of death, place of death, and date of burial. Pauper's cemeteries were located on public lands that over time were often claimed for urban growth or municipal projects and the graves moved. The City of New York, modeling practices in England, had one of the earliest Pauper's Fields in at least nine different locations before purchasing Hart Island in 1869. The island now contains over three-quarters of a million unmarked graves prepared and maintained by prisoners from nearby Riker's Island who, without rites, bury coffins three deep. Records are kept by name (if known), sex, date, plot, and section in the event of future exhumation. The only marker in the Hart's Island cemetery is a 30-foot high monument in the center of the burial ground engraved with a simple cross on one side and the word “Peace” on the other.

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