Lafayette Cemetery
Lafayette Cemetery was a cemetery in the Passyunk Square neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was established in 1828 and originally intended for 14,000 burials but over time fell into disrepair and became overcrowded with 47,000 burials. In 1946, the cemetery was condemned by the city of Philadelphia. The bodies were disinterred in 1947, transported to the Evergreen Memorial Park (now Rosedale Cemetery) in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, and reinterred in a mass grave. The former location of the cemetery was repurposed by the city of Philadelphia as the Capitolo Playground. History Lafayette Cemetery was established in 1828 on the block between Federal and Wharton Streets and 9th and 10th Avenues in what was then Passyunk Township, later renamed the Passyunk Square neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Honorable Joel Barlow Sutherland was one of the founders. Lafayette Cemetery was a part of the United States National Cemetery System during the American Civil War with a leased lot within the cemetery for soldiers that died in nearby hospitals. The cemetery contained the graves 28 Union soldiers, many of which were reinterred to the Philadelphia National Cemetery in 1885. The cemetery was originally designed to hold 14,000 bodies and was surrounded by an iron fence.