which are now lost, with William P. Brown and James F. Brown, whereby they also claimed an interest in the tract.⁵⁴ In addition, at some time the proprietors had sold any interest they retained in property which had belonged to the proprietors' association to Lyne Starling and Gustavus Swan, whose executors were also pulled into this case over the Kerr tract. According to Lee's history, the city's attorneys denied

that the borough of Columbus had taken possession of the Kerr tract under the deed of 1821, and claimed that in June, 1816, prior to the Kerr ownership, James Johnston, then owner, had deeded the land to the borough for a graveyard. . . .Pending determination of this suit. . . John M. Kerr, proposed to the City Council to relinquish his claims to the ground provided the city would pay him $600 cash, and an annuity of the same amount during his natural life. After this proposition had been before the council for some time Mr. Kerr gave notice of its withdrawal, but the council insisted that it could not be withdrawn, and on August 25, 1873, unanimously adopted it. Mr. Kerr persisted in refusing acceptance, and finally sold his reversionary interest for $3,000.⁵⁵ [to James M. Westwater, on Feb. 10, 1874].⁵⁶

Westwater's ownership of the land was confirmed by the Common Pleas Court and then in the District Court, where a mandate was issued on April 12, 1881. According to the mandate, the City of Columbus held the land in trust and must turn it over to Westwater since the trust was ended, but he was not entitled to receive the land "until the remains of the dead interred in said grounds are suitably removed therefrom and decently reinterred" with their monuments and tombstones. John Graham was again appointed Master Commissioner to select and purchase in the name of the city a suitable place of re-interment and to see to the removals.⁵⁷

The work of clearing the Kerr tract was begun in November and completed on December 2, 1881. The greater portion of the graves in the tract had been removed by families and friends and those removed in 1881 were nearly all unknown. In all, 867 were removed at this time, of which over half were children. "The fragments exhumed of this great number of bodies filled but sixty-six boxes, none of which were of as great capacity as an ordinary coffin. In fact, the boxes used were generally ordinary shoe-boxes, in each of which was placed an average of thirteen or fourteen bodies." Eight or nine of the bodies were identified. One man had been buried with the belt of the Fame fire company, which had been active in the 1850's. The unearthing of this belt caused quite a stir as the newspapers tried to determine his identity. At first he was thought to have been James Collins, a brakeman on the Cleveland railroad who was killed on the job in 1854; others thought him to be Henry Foster, who had been

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