Where The Bodies Are Buried (Downtown Pittsfield Edition)

Just about every downtown building between Park Square and Fenn Street is built over the unremoved remains of Pittsfield’s early settlers. That’s a fact of city history that was made ghoulishly clear over and over again in the late 19th century, as every foundation dug and water pipe laid seemed to bring some skeletal remnant of previous residents to the surface.

The Old Burying Ground in downtown Pittsfield began with a grant of land surrounding First Congregational Church, from Rev. Thomas Allen (the “Fighting Parson”) in 1764. This extended from approximately the center of Park Square to the North side of the original Baptist church, which used to sit on North Street between School Street and Fenn. A 2nd burial ground was begun a half century later, approximately where the Pittsfield Common is now situated (see also: Grave Robbing at the Pittsfield Common).

In 1790, a portion of the first cemetery was taken by the town for the north half of Park Square. More was soon taken to build the old Town Hall (now owned by Berkshire Bank), then West’s Block (at the corner of East Street and North). The town informed families they needed to remove their dead (at their own cost) to the new burying ground (from which they would later be relocated again, to Wahconah Street). At first, this was done with some measure of diligence. By the time the Baptist Church was granted a portion of cemetery formerly devoted to the poor in 1827, things became more lax, and the church was simply built over the un-removed remains.

This haphazard handling resulted in a number of grisly discoveries in the coming decades.

In July 1860, while laying the water pipe under School Street, “a considerable number of skeletons were disinterred in parts.” These bones were relocated to the newer 1st Street cemetery. Nearly a year later, in June 1861, workers digging the cellar for the Dunham Block on North Street blasted a big rock on the southeast corner of the lot. The blast hole revealed “a well-preserved coffin, about six feet down.”

“Every time they scratch the ground in the vicinity of the Baptist church, human skeletons are thrown up from resting place,” the Berkshire County Eagle wrote in 1874, after more digging around water pipes on School Street turned up another complete skeleton, ragged clothes still clinging to it.
1879 saw “quite a number of ghastly relics” unearthed when Pittsfield began digging the foundation for its police station (the current 1931 police building sits on the same site). Most were loose bones, but one full intact skeleton was found from an unidentified woman- apparently young, from the pristine condition of the teeth. The teeth promptly disappeared, along with some of the bones, as “relic hunters” made off with them from an open box.

In 1888, more human bones and some bits of coffin were unearthed when digging a trench for a sewer pipe at West’s Block. Another skeleton was found 3 feet beneath the sidewalk there, when Berkshire County Savings Bank was being built in 1895.

The finds continued into the 20th century. Frederick Barnes came across leg bones while cleaning out rubbish in the Baptist Church; in 1916, a skeleton was found while excavating to build St. Stephen’s Church.

Are there still skeletons under the first block of North Street? Given that the remains relocated and those discovered since only account for a portion of the total burials in town during the half century of the old burying ground, it’s a mathematical certainty there still are. It’s a problem that would also reoccur after the city abandoned the 2nd burial ground, replacing it with the town’s Common and later adding Plunkett School. Both have seen finds of bones in the past- and within the past decade, according to some unverified accounts.

Graphic in the Berkshire Eagle, 1925

Nowadays, the discovery of any humans remains, regardless of their age, usually triggers a whirlwind of bureaucracy and very costly project delays. As such, there’s no incentive for contractors or developers to report such finds; anecdotes of bones discreetly disposed of at work sites are common, and probably not all folkloric in nature.