Human Remains Found in East Flatbush Could Be From Historic Almshouse Burial Ground
Human remains found by workers repairing a sewer in East Flatbush could be from a 19th century potter’s field that occupied the same spot.
19th century sketch of the King County Almshouse. Image via The Civil, Political, Professional and Ecclesiastical History, and Commercial and Industrial Record of Brooklyn by Henry Stiles
The human remains found Monday by workers repairing a sewer in East Flatbush could be from a 19th century potter’s field that occupies the same spot.
Workers discovered human remains buried 13 feet under the ground near 781 Clarkson Avenue near East 48th Street in East Flatbush, according to reports. The site is located in front of what is now the Kingsboro Psychiatric Center and NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County (known as Kings County Hospital until quite recently).
In the 1830s, the property was the home of the Kings County Almshouse. The almshouse occupied about 70 acres of land in rural Flatbush, far from the center of the growing city of Brooklyn.
The first building was completed in 1832 and the institution served the poor and mentally ill. By the mid 19th century, the complex had grown to include a hospital, nursery and lunatic asylum, all surrounded by a large farm worked by the poorhouse residents.
Some of the land was used as a burial ground — a potter’s field with mass, unmarked graves.
By 1869, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle was decrying the conditions in which the poor were buried there, claiming that “in the past year, no less than 684 persons were buried.”
The burial ground dates from at least the 1840s or early 1850s, according to an archeological report conducted in the area for the CAMBA Gardens development nearby at 560 Winthrop Street. The graveyard was located on the eastern end of the property and, by the 1890s, extended from East 45th Street to Utica. By the 1920s, however, the cemetery no longer appeared on maps, said the report.
The NYPD Chief of Detectives said Tuesday the police believe the bones are most likely from an old grave.
“Right now we think this is a disinterment on the burial grounds. We have no leads as far as this is foul play at all. This looks like they’re old bones,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said Tuesday, according to DNAinfo.
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