{"id":1779,"date":"2020-03-02T16:33:30","date_gmt":"2020-03-02T21:33:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stgraves.churchsp.org\/?page_id=1779"},"modified":"2020-03-02T16:35:50","modified_gmt":"2020-03-02T21:35:50","slug":"18thcenturyremainsreinterred","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/stgraves.churchsp.org\/index.php\/18thcenturyremainsreinterred\/","title":{"rendered":"18th-century remains are reinterred at St. George&#8217;s"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>From Fox News<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Cf5yjkvJcHg\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>From the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fredericksburg.com\/local\/th-century-remains-are-reinterred-at-st-george-s\/article_e103ad50-9404-53e7-83f2-b465e7a1f385.html\">Free Lance-Star<\/a>, Nov 4, 2002<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>By JESSICA ALLEN <\/p>\n<p>In celebration of All Saints&#8217; Day, which honors all those who have departed in the Christian faith, St. George&#8217;s Episcopal Church yesterday welcomed home six nameless citizens.<\/p>\n<p>More than 40 people attended the church&#8217;s burial service for the 18th-century skeletal remains of three men, two women and a teenage boy unearthed last year.<\/p>\n<p>The last burial in the church&#8217;s cemetery on Princess Anne Street was in 1924&#8211;more than 75 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It seems appropriate to have the burial on the celebration of All Saints&#8217; Day, because we have a mystical connection to those who have died,&#8221; said the Rev. Charles Sydnor, rector of St. George&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<p>Archaeologists from Mary Washington College&#8217;s Center for Historic Preservation uncovered the bones during a dig beside the church in Fredericksburg&#8217;s Market Square in June 2001.<\/p>\n<p>During the 20-minute service, which began at noon, Sydnor read from an original 1690 Anglican Prayer Book and recited the prayer &#8220;An Office for the Burial of the Dead&#8221; in Elizabethan English.<\/p>\n<p>But Sydnor was not the only one who created a Colonial atmosphere yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>Seven members of the Rappahannock Colonial Heritage Society dressed for the occasion.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To honor their memory, we dressed in the time period,&#8221; said society President Trip Wiggins.<\/p>\n<p>Wiggins, who is also the junior warden at St. George&#8217;s, said it was to make the deceased feel at home.<\/p>\n<p>Many church members agreed that the lost remains were now reunited with the church.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They&#8217;ve come back home,&#8221; said Catherine Hicks of Fredericksburg.<\/p>\n<p>Hicks said the burial service completed the church&#8217;s All Saints&#8217; Day celebrations: St. George&#8217;s had held six baptisms earlier in the day.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is not only a day to remember those who died, but also a day of celebration&#8211;reminding us to strive to be saints in the way we live,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>St. George&#8217;s is the oldest congregation in Fredericksburg, dating to the 1700s, Wiggins said.<\/p>\n<p>At the time, most residents were buried in the church&#8217;s cemetery&#8211;the first was John Jones in 1752.<\/p>\n<p>The original church cemetery also included a section of what later became Market Square.<\/p>\n<p>St. George&#8217;s cemetery eventually was moved in 1959 to its current location on Princess Anne Street to make room for the church&#8217;s McGuire Hall, an educational wing with classrooms.<\/p>\n<p>But years before that, a wall had been built around what were thought to be all of the graves. Since the ones found last year were unmarked, it&#8217;s likely they were left out when the rest were moved.<\/p>\n<p>Archaeologist Josh Duncan, who supervised the MWC team, said he would have preferred that the bodies not be disturbed, but said it was unavoidable.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t regret excavating them because the area was going to be turned into a park,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The reburial, however, was handled well because the church, the Fredericksburg Area Museum&#8211;which adjoins Market Square&#8211;and the city Department of Public Works worked together, Duncan said. The museum and the city, which owns the site, financed the $500,000 excavation and Market Square restoration.<\/p>\n<p>The six people&#8217;s remains were placed in a single wooden casket, with white roses on top.<\/p>\n<p>The coffin was lowered into the ground after yesterday&#8217;s service.<\/p>\n<p>A headstone will be placed in the new plot, but no decision has been made as to how its inscription will read, Wiggins said.<\/p>\n<p>But after 300 years and two burial sites, the nameless citizens have found a final resting place.<\/p>\n<p>Or as Sydnor, quoting 1 Corinthians 15:26 during the service, put it: &#8220;The last enemy to be destroyed is death.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Fox News From the Free Lance-Star, Nov 4, 2002 By JESSICA ALLEN In celebration of All Saints&#8217; Day, which honors all those who have departed in the Christian faith, St. George&#8217;s Episcopal Church yesterday welcomed home six nameless citizens. More than 40 people attended the church&#8217;s burial service for the 18th-century skeletal remains of &#8230; <a title=\"18th-century remains are reinterred at St. George&#8217;s\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/stgraves.churchsp.org\/index.php\/18thcenturyremainsreinterred\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about 18th-century remains are reinterred at St. George&#8217;s\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1779","page","type-page","status-publish"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stgraves.churchsp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stgraves.churchsp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stgraves.churchsp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stgraves.churchsp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stgraves.churchsp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stgraves.churchsp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stgraves.churchsp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}