place on those dates:
In the transfer of dead from the North Graveyard to Green Lawn, one gentleman was much chagrined to find that after a careful and reverential removal and reinterment in appropriate style, what he supposed to be the remains of his grandfather, some time ago, turns out to have been the body of a colored man. The remains of the grandfather have been found, and will be removed. (May 17)
Remains are being exhumed in the North Grave Yard from the "cholera row" of 1849. In many cases several bodies were buried in one grave, some without coffins. With the exception of Kerr's addition, the work will be completed in about a week. (June 5)
No report was made in the papers of the numbers of removals from this portion of the Doherty tract. Those moved from the common lots, not privately held, were moved to lots at Green Lawn which were purchased and are still held in the name of "John Graham, Master Commissioner." Very few tombstones remain on these lots.*
While these removals were in progress, the
city filed a cross-petition in the case, including as defendants John M.
Kerr (owner of the Kerr tract reversion rights), the Green Lawn Cemetery
Association (for the rights granted by lot owners under its proposal of
1864), James Doherty and the other Doherty heirs, the executors of Lincoln
Goodale, and the lot owners in the Brickell Addition, in an attempt to
convince the court to order that the removal extend to the other tracts in
the graveyarrd. The court refused such an extension in this case, but
docketed two new cases, one for the Kerr tract and one for the Brickell
Addition and adjacent strip of land.50
In the ultimate division of the Doherty
tract, the city gained 17.34 feet to widen High street, the CS&C
Railroad appropriated another thirty-foot strip on the south, the city
took many of the building lots as their share of the proceeds, and the
remainder of the lots were sold at auction.51 Besides the ownership of the lots it chose
to keep, the city netted over $71,000 from the railroad appropriations and
from the sales of building lots by the Master Commissioner over the next
several years.52
THE KERR TRACT CLEARED
The ownership of the Kerr tract was complicated by several transactions
which had been made over the years. On the death of proprietor John Kerr,
his reversionary interest in the land had become that of his widow and his
two children, John M. Kerr and Mrs. Mary Heffner. The widow and daughter
had sold their interest to the son, John M. Kerr.53 He in turn had made some agreement, the
details of
*Lots R/73 through 80; L/96-98, 100, 102, and
104; 27/74 and 75.
26