This will be my entry for the theme of “Thankful” and it should become clear why I am thankful as this story unfolds.  A few days ago I was finally able to do something that had long been on my genealogy wish list. My husband accompanied me to Mount Moriah Cemetery in Philadelphia to look for his Hartley family. I had long been aware that the family had a plot there as early as 1868, which is when Frederick Hartley, Senior, died. I had found his final resting place among the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Death Certificates database on FamilySearch.org. Thanks to Find-A-Grave, I knew that a number of Hartleys were buried at Mount Moriah. Here are the 11 who are listed:

HARTLEY   Frederick 1868 FEB 15 203 50 N. E. 1/4
HARTLEY   Janet 1867 APR 26 203 50 N. E. 1/4
HARTLEY   Rebecca 1874 NOV 17 203 50 N. E. 1/4
HARTLEY   Timothy S 1884 APR 6 203 50
HARTLEY   Frederick 1911 SEP 18 203 50
HARTLEY   Margaret 1907 JUL 25 203 50 NE 1/4
HARTLEY   Mary A 1893 JUN 2 203 50 NE 1/4
HARTLEY   Ruth 1906 OCT 13 203 50 NE 1/4
HARTLEY   William G 1906 DEC 10 203 50 NE 1/4
HARTLEY   Fred N 1954 JUNE 2 203 50 NE 1/4
HARTLEY   Frederick 1902 AUG 2 203 50 NE 1/4
HARTLEY  Mary C Walker 1911 SEP 15*

*Not listed but funeral directive states that she was to be placed by Timothy S Hartley

The problem with making a visit to the cemetery is that it had been virtually abandoned even before the last known member of the Mount Moriah Cemetery Association died in 2004. The sad tale of Mount Moriah Cemetery was told September 2014 by Allison Meir at the website Atlas Obscura. It wasn’t so much what Ms. Meir said that made me apprehensive about visiting, but it was the photos. My husband was even more cautious. He did not think I should go there and certainly not alone.

More recently, however, we were encouraged by news that Mount Moriah is undergoing a cleanup. A September 2015 article by Matthew Christopher in Subaru’s magazine Drive gave credibility to the restoration in my husband’s eyes.   I looked online and located the website for the Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery and learned that they have a Facebook group, which I immediately joined.

Facebook group for Friends of Mount Moriah (Click the photo to go there)

We were visiting family in the Philadelphia area over the holidays, when my husband asked me if there was anything special I wanted to do during our visit. I quickly responded, “Yes, I want to visit Mount Moriah Cemetery.” He was still a bit hesitant.  I promptly added that I could check with the Facebook group to see if it would be safe and find out the details about where and when to go.  I did this and had an immediate response from volunteer Ken Smith. He suggested that we meet him there on Wednesday morning, “the earlier the better.” I felt bad about taking up his valuable time. After all, I had a map and the section and plot number for the graves. Was a guide really necessary? Nevertheless, I accepted the generous offer.

My husband and I arrived at the cemetery and met Ken Smith at the Kingsessing Avenue gate at 7:50 a.m.

Gate on Kingsessing Avenue

Looking back through the gate

The rules

We used the address 6201 Kingsessing with our GPS and had no trouble finding the location. Ken was waiting for us as promised, and we followed his pickup to the road nearest to the Hartley plot, parked and walked a short distance. The weather was gray and the temperature about 45 degrees. I think this made it a good time of year to visit. We encountered no ticks, which I understand are thick in the area. Also, a lot of the vegetation has died back and it is easier to see the markers.

I have to say that we were glad we took Ken up on the offer to show us where to go. I am pretty sure that we would never have found the plot on our own. First, it is pretty small in scale to the overall size of the section. Ken told us that the dimensions are 16 feet by 26 feet. Second, the area is really overgrown with vines, brush, bushes and small trees. Ken had already checked out the plot and cut the brush using a heavy duty weed wacker before we arrived. He located two gravestones for the dozen or so people buried there.  Here is a view of Section 203 from the road:

Section 203 of Mount Moriah Cemetery from the road

The bad news is that two gravestones were all that could be found and one was unreadable.  The one that could be read was for Fred N. Hartley, 1875 to 1954.

Fred N. Hartley Tombstone

The other was a simple marble monument which had snapped off at the base and was lying face up. Because of this unlucky circumstance, all of the writing on this marker has been obliterated. Ken even rinsed it off with some water, but nothing is readable. He explained that the marble is softer than granite and that marble deteriorates just from exposure to the elements.

Worn and unreadable Hartley Stone

My husband’s camera doesn’t take geo coordinates, so he did this separately with his phone, so we can find the plot again.

Geo Coordinates

We could discern the approximate area of the plot by reading the names on the monuments in the surrounding area. This photo shows a step to a monument that borders the Hartley plot. We know from the name Givin that this is one edge of the lot 50.

Givin monument step

Ken, then, used a metal rod to probe the ground in the Hartley plot. He unearthed a marble fragment, but there was no identification on it. It could have been from our plot or an adjacent one.

Ken Smith Probing for Buried Stones

Since I told Kathy Watson Freeman that I would look for Freeman family and collateral surnames, I asked Ken where plot 51 would be. He pointed me in the right direction and it was extremely overgrown. There was not even a path through the thick brush. After Ken left us, I waded into the heavy growth looking for stones that might be visible.

Me Looking for Lot 51

I didn’t find anything that gave me an orientation that I was in the Freeman plot. I couldn’t say if there are any markers or not, but I couldn’t find them. I photographed some stones with my phone, but I didn’t have gloves, so I couldn’t do much about the vines other than to push them aside with my boots. I wouldn’t go back without work gloves, even though the volunteers have tools. Some of these vines may be poison ivy.  I lost my hairband and my hair came down from the little knot I had tied it in.  On my way back I found the hairband dangling from a branch!

We drove around the cemetery for a while keeping our GPS unit on. This was helpful, because all the roads are on the GPS map, so we could tell where we were going. We saw other people who were visiting and members of the Friends organization who were working. We did not feel unsafe at any time, nor did we see anyone who looked out of place. We finished up by 11 a.m. and as my husband said, mornings are not a time of heavy activity for people with criminal intent.

The contrast between the areas that have been reclaimed from nature and those that haven’t been is striking. You really have to commend the volunteers who are taking on this massive project.

Ken Smith and Cheryl Hartley

Reclaimed

Unreclaimed

And, what did I learn about Fred N. Hartley? Since he has the only surviving marker in the Hartley plot at Mount Moriah, I will give a summary of what I know about him here. His full name was Frederick Norman Hartley and he was born 9 April 1875 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Timothy Suttcliffe Hartley and Mary Walker (although Fred’s death certificate gives his mother’s name as Mary W. Conner). This appears to be an error since Timothy S. Hartley married Mary C. Walker at All Saints Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 25 March 1874. Perhaps Mary’s middle name was Connor and the informant on Fred’s death certificate transposed the information.

Frederick’s father, Timothy, was the older brother of my husband’s paternal great-grandfather, George Dix Hartley; his grandfather was Frederick Hartley who emigrated from Yorkshire, England to Philadelphia. Probably because George Hartley also had a son named Frederick, Frederick Norman became known as Fred N. Hartley. Fred married Clara V. McCune in and they had two children, Rebecca (born 1900) and Walker (born 1906). As often happens as families grow, they also grow apart. I don’t think that anyone in my husband’s family stayed in touch with this branch of the family. With my husband’s father deceased, I have no one that I can really ask about them. I am also thankful that the family decided to place a granite memorial for Fred N. Hartley. It is the only way that we were sure we had correctly identified the Hartley burial plot at Mount Moriah.  Here is a general view of the Hartley plot as we left it on the morning of December 30, 2015.

Section 203, Lot 50, NE Quadrant