A worker digging a water line for a new convenience store on the lot on Thursday afternoon discovered skeletal remains of one individual who had apparently been missed in the removal effort 86 years ago.
Historian Paul Auger was at the site on Friday to carefully remove dirt from the site, while others screened what he had overturned, finding what appeared to be bone fragments, some wood, and coffin nails consistent with a burial.
Auger, of the Sanford-Springvale Historical Society, said he hopes to confer with folks from the genetics department at the University of Maine to try and identify the remains.
The Sept. 17, 1931 edition of the Sanford Tribune and Advocate had noted at that point in time, that the remains of 72 people had been transferred to Oakdale. Municipal records from 1933 show that by the end of the removal operation, 77 remains had been transferred.
The cemetery was moved because it had fallen into disrepair and so a playground could be built there. Emerson School, had originally been a high school, but was converted for use at an elementary school.
The newspaper account said 100 family members of people buried at Woodlawn Cemetery signed quit claim deeds turning the lots over to the town of Sanford so the removal could take place.
The skeletal remains were found outside the foundation of the new convenience store being built on the site.
According to “The Bicentennial History of Sanford,” by author Albert Prosser, textile baron Thomas Goodall had recorded a plan for Woodlawn Cemetery in 1877. It said many lots were sold, and the cemetery was enlarged twice.
Auger on Friday said information he’s assembled show burials began around 1880 and appear to have ceased around 1906.
Correspondence on file at Sanford City Hall show that resident Newell Fogg undertook to have owners of the cemetery lots sign them over to the town so the remains could be disinterred and reburied at Oakdale Cemetery. The town appropriated $500 for the closure of the cemetery.
Work on the site was halted for a few hours on Friday morning at the behest of the Office of the Maine Medical Examiner to assure compliance with state statutes.
An October 7, 1933, letter from Fogg to a Boston attorney representing the parents of Gertrude May Hartley, who was among those remains were transferred from Woodlawn to Oakdale, outlined the care that was taken: “Their little one lies buried on a gently sloping hillside near beautiful pines, in the vicinity of the Dr. Burnham mausoleum,” Fogg wrote.
— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 (local call in Sanford) or 282-1535, ext. 327 or twells@journaltribune.com.
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