N.H. African Burial Ground Discovered Below Downtown Streets

[Rose Siding]

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. -- Amateur historian Valerie Cunningham was sure she knew what lay buried beneath Chestnut Street.

Forty years of combing through old documents for clues about this small seaport's black history told her what physical evidence did not _ that a few blocks from the trendy downtown shops, buried and all but forgotten below the brick and asphalt of Chestnut Street, lay the remains of Portsmouth's earliest black inhabitants, freed and enslaved.
....
Then, on Oct. 7, 2003, contractors repairing a sewer line hit a pine coffin....
In the following days archaeologists identified 13 sets of remains, removing eight that were damaged by sewer runoff. Some of the coffins were stacked, leading researchers to estimate that as many as 200 bodies could be buried in the block-long space.
....
The discovery has been an uncomfortable reminder not only of slavery in Portsmouth, but of more recent racism, or at least callousness. The excavations showed the 19th century workmen not only "disturbed" the graves, but punched pipes through at least two coffins.

....Plans are not final yet, but the city intends to close Chestnut Street to traffic and create a memorial park there.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/01/AR2006040100938.html

[MADem]

1. WOW

At least the municipality isn't turning a blind eye. I hope they do something tasteful and appropriate. Portsmouth is a fascinating place--I often thought I wouldn't mind living there.

[bee]

2. This was years ago. & Just hitting the news now?

I remember thinking how odd it was that they paved back over it. The street was open for a long, long time though. Itll be interesting to see how it works out. Living here I can tell you that closing Chestnut street wont be as easy as they make it sound. We have like two roads through downtown. People will whine.