Rescued Woodin Street Cemetery stone number 55, which marked the grave of Edward Thorpe.
Bill MacMullen has restored and preserved libraries, lighting systems, even an armory. Now he’s rescuing a forgotten potter’s field — and restoring the eternal resting places of 1,101 bodies.
Those 1,101 bodies reside at the Woodin Street Cemetery, a two-acre, rectangular, currently unfenced field across the brook from the housing authority’s Rockview development facing on Woodin Street on the Hamden border.
The municipal cemetery for burials of indigent New Haveners was created in 1927. No one has been buried there since 1985. Since then, all the markers, just granite slabs with a metallic plate and a number, have sunk far below the grass line.
So much so that over the years, kids have played ball on what appeared to be just a grassy field, and the occasional motorists has pulled in to check an engine.
Now MacMullen (pictured above), city government’s facilities and capital projects coordinator, has teamed up to rescue the cemetery with Deputy Community Services Administrator Rick Kaiser, whose portfolio includes taking care of the burial ground.
Kaiser with MacMullen holding stone number 55.
Over the years, local Hamden homeowners fronting the cemetery registered complaints about maintenance. So have local Hamden officials. The grass was mowed, but no major restoration or repair work has been done since the cemetery got some ( now deteriorated) fencing in 1954 and a large granite cross down by the brook. The cross is still standing, although the brass plaque at its base is long gone.
People perhaps could be forgiven for not noticing the remains of the pauper’s field’s metal gate facing Woodin Street. Or the broken letters on the arch above — which if all the words were there, would spell out “Unto To The Least Of These.”
MacMullen and Kaiser are preparing to build a proper ceremonial fence, restore the ornamental gate to its original form, and restore the rest house, or “mort house,” at the far end of the property where bodies were kept until the hard winter’s ground softened to permit interment.
They also plan to use ground radar to detect all of the sunken grave markers, raise them to the surface so the cemetery looks like what it is, sacred ground, and give their known names back to the dead.
“To me, these people grew up, had friends,” MacMullen said on a tour of the site.
“They may not have been president, but they had a life, with some impact. Everyone does, and then people forgot.. At least they should have stones, with numbers, and names so they’re not totally lost. People look at this and think it’s a field. No. It’s where people repose. It’s sacred ground.”
#55, Edward Thorpe’s Marker
Rescued Woodin Street Cemetery stone number 55, which marked the grave of Edward Thorpe.
The story began when MacMullen was working on the restoration of 316 Dixwell Ave., which has become the Community Services Adminstration’s (CSA) New Haven Empowerment Center, overseen by Kaiser. MacMullen noticed a large granite square looking like an imposing bookend with a metal plate bearing #55, sitting on Kaiser’s desk.
Kaiser explained that the slab had sat on the desk of Kaiser’s predecessor in the job, Carolanne Curry.
Curry took an interest in the cemetery in part because back in 1954 one Anna Fitch Ardenghi had contributed $20,000 in an irrevocable trust for the perpetual maintenance of the city’s municipal cemetery on Woodin Street.
New Haven has another municipal cemetery for the indigent, also known as a potter’s or pauper’s field, on private grounds in the cemetery bordered by Whalley, Blake, and Osborn streets in Westville. Woodin Street Cemetery, with its 1,101 bodies, was the overflow, Kaiser said.
Contributed Photo
“At that point [in 1994] the trust had grown to about $50,000,” said Kaiser. Curry worked with the lawyers handling the trust to alter its portfolio. The purpose was to create enough capital both to maintain the grounds and to train local people, the homeless and others down on their luck, with the landscaping and other skills to do the maintenance work. But city government was downsizing. Curry left. The plans never came to be.
Roll the clock ahead to 2015, and Kaiser has begun to implement the vision. He has retained Liberty Community Services, through its Project Respect homelessness diversion program, to take over general maintenance of the grounds.
Much long-delayed maintenance remained to be done, especially of the capital kind.
Enter MacMullen, a history lover, collector of historical memorabilia, a serious historical reenactor, and a U.S. Navy veteran.
Allan Appel Photo
“I’m on the Hamden Veterans’ Commission,” said MacMullen. “I deal with guys coming back who have problems. You realize you’re only here for a short time. You often forget that. But your life, any life, has an impact on somebody, and shouldn’t be forgotten. When you’re reduced to a number, at least there should be a cross reference [to a name].”
A record book with those references sits in Kaiser’s office. During an interview, as Kaiser checked documents in the cemetery trust’s file, MacMullen read at random some of the numbers and names attached to them, which he is committed to restoring:
“1962, No. 905, unknown male,” he said. “1937, Baby O’brien, No. 392. 1932, Nos. 157, 175, 179, and 182, unknown babies.”
When Kaiser “told me there were veterans among the unmarked dead, I was all in,” said MacMullen.
The only visible grave in the entire field, with additional marker added in about 1960.
And Macmullen means all in.
By Monday he expects bids to be returned on the first stage in the restoration, the creation of an appropriate fence on Woodin Street. Then will come the restoration of the gate, and the rebuilding of the “mort house.”
He also wants to work on the preservation of the cross, made of Stony Creek granite, which also went up in 1954, along with the initial fence as part of the creation of the trust.
The cross is close to the brook where MacMullen, along with then Assistant City Engineer Larry Smith, had gone about six years ago to check out a potential erosion issue. MacMullen remembers Smith mentioning in jest that if the erosion problems weren’t solved, land at the adjacent cemetery might give way, and bodies come rolling out.
That problem never happened, as the grading of the land and the piping at the new housing authority developments arrested any further erosion.
Contributed PHoto
The cemetery’s trust, up to about $300,000 now, will pay for the entire project, MacMullen said. No city funds involved, except for his time, dedication, and love.
Before he left Kaiser’s office, MacMullen also asked Kaiser to be in touch with some of the area high schools, in particular, the New Haven Academy. Students at that school, which has a curriculum based on Facing History and Ourselves and social justice, just might be interested, he told Kaiser, in helping him to to do the historical research to identify each of the individuals once their names, numbers, and markers are elevated.
Great story. Thanks, Allan, for shining some light on these unknown or neglected areas of local history. I've been by this cemetery many times and had questions about; glad to have some answers.