For current Bethel Burying Ground Name Directory: Please click on BBG Name Directory
Bethel Burying Ground Name Directory
The following is an alphabetical directory of some of the African American Philadelphians who were buried at Bethel Burying Ground from 1810 to 1864. Currently, 2,486 individuals have been identified through City of Philadelphia death records and historic newspapers. Research is ongoing to identify the remainder of the 5,000+ estimated to be buried on Queen Street in old Southwark.
Please click on – BBG Name Directory
Check the link below for the updated Bethel Burying Ground Timeline.
Bishop Benjamin Tucker Tanner
One hundred forty-six years ago, Bishop Benjamin Tucker Tanner, Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the editor of the Christian Record, called out the leadership of Bethel A.M.E. Church over the mismanagement of the Bethel Burying Ground. The trustees of the church had rented the graveyard to a local factory to be used as a storage yard for its wagons and barrels. This newspaper was the official organ of the AME Church.
The Christian Recorder
Date: August 3, 1872
More than a fortnight ago, we called attention to the miserable and most disgraceful condition of this consecrated ground; and then promised more “next week.” We now fulfill our promise, if not in regard to time, certainly in regard to the matter itself.
As we said then, it cannot be possible that Bethel church knows the condition of these grounds. If she did, we feel sure that she would rise up in her might, and right the wrong, by putting away the disgrace. Her disgrace! It is nothing less. Is not the son disgraced who refuses to pay the funeral expenses of his mother? Is he not disgraced if he gives her not decent interment? And would he not be doubly disgraced, if he were to barter away for pelf, the family burial ground; and at the same time, be too mean to remove the bones of his dead ancestry? All the Christian world would give a most hearty affirmative to each and all these interrogatories.
It is almost precisely thus with the few men who led Bethel into this affair of bartering away Old the (sic) Burial Ground. In that ground, lay the dead fathers and mothers of our Israel, and their children of this generation have made traffic of their bones. For the paltry sum of five hundred dollars a year, they have disgraced themselves, disgraced the Church; we might say, disgraced the race.
Visit that ground today, perfumed with the sweet odors of the dead, and which ought to be perfumed with sweetest flowers, and what do you see? A most shameful spectacle-old hogshead, and barrels and lumber of every conceivable shape. Not a gravestone unbroken, not a grave to be seen-all is confusion and shame.
Who led Bethel-the first to recommend it we mean, into this Slough of Contempt, we know not; we possibly may know by the time we write our next article. Whoever he is, he ought to be made do forty days penance and wear the deepest sackcloth. In the meantime, we invite the friends to take a walk down to the ground, on Queen St. between Fourth and Fifth, and view it for themselves.
In our next edition, we hope to give the names of some of the venerable dead there interred with a little more comment.
Below is the link to the current Bethel Burying Ground Name Directory.
BETHEL BURYING GROUND NAME DIRECTORY
(Revised August 2, 2017)
The following is an alphabetical directory of some of the African American Philadelphians who were buried at Bethel Burying Ground from 1810 to 1864. Currently, 2,491 individuals have been identified through City of Philadelphia death records and historic newspapers. Research is ongoing to identify the remainder of the 5,000+ estimated to be buried on Queen Street in old Southwark.
Those names that are in bold type have short biographical sketches at https://bethelburyinggroundproject.com/.
Click on:
BBG Name Directory (pdf)
Below is the link to the current Bethel Burying Ground Name Directory.
BETHEL BURYING GROUND NAME DIRECTORY
(Revised March 22, 2017)
The following is an alphabetical directory of some of the African American Philadelphians who were buried at Bethel Burying Ground from 1810 to 1864. Currently, 2,489 individuals have been identified through City of Philadelphia death records and historic newspapers. Research is ongoing to identify the remainder of the 5,000+ estimated to be buried on Queen Street in old Southwark.
Those names that are in bold type have short biographical sketches at https://bethelburyinggroundproject.com/.
Click on:
The following is an alphabetical directory of some of the African American Philadelphians who were buried at Bethel Burying Ground from 1810 to 1864. Currently, 2,482 individuals have been identified through City of Philadelphia death records and historic newspapers. Research is ongoing to identify the remainder of the 5,000+ estimated to be buried on Queen Street in old Southwark.
(click on)
BBG Name Directory (click on)
In Memory of Amelia Brown
Who Died April 3rd 1819
Aged 26 years
Whoever live & believeth in me
Thou we be dead
Yet shall we live
Presently, there are 2,490 individuals identified out of the approximately 5,000+ buried at Bethel Burying Ground.
To view the Directory please click on –
Bethel Burying Ground Project 