Most Endangered Historic Properties List

Mount Moriah Cemetery was placed on Preservation Pennsylvania's Most Endangered Historic Properties List in 2004.

The Pennsylvania At Risk 2004 The Annual Listing of the Commonwealth’s Most Endangered Historic Properties

Mount Moriah Cemetery, City of Philadelphia and Yeadon Borough, Delaware County

Significance

Established by an Act of the Legislature in 1855, Mount Moriah Cemetery was touted as Philadelphia’s “great rural cemetery ... forever secure against disturbance from opening of streets or the growth of the city.” The cemetery featured an elaborately designed gatehouse and entrance opening onto orderly graveled avenues that led to lots of considerable natural beauty, surrounded by a high stone wall for security. Today the cemetery is located on 380 acres along both sides of Cobbs Creek with land in both southwestern Philadelphia and in Yeadon Borough. Mount Moriah is the final resting place for many early leaders of Philadelphia as well as over 5,000 veterans from the Civil War, two World Wars and the Korean conflict. A ten-acre plot, purchased by the United States government in 1864, became the burial site for residents of the Naval Asylum, later known as the Naval Home, and remained in use until 1976.

Threat

Mount Moriah Cemetery is neglected, deteriorating and dangerous. Most of the cemetery is not mowed regularly, hundreds of historic gravestones are broken, leaning, sunk into the ground or indistinguishable amid waist tall grass and garbage and trash abound. The Romanesque brownstone gatehouse and entrance, designed 1855 by Philadelphia architect Stephen D. Button (1813-1897), is boarded-up, vine covered and under- maintained. Ownership of Mount Moriah Cemetery is not clear but it may be family owned through a non-profit corporation. The Pennsylvania Department of State has no annual reports on file for the non- profit corporation and there are currently a number of outstanding City code violations. The care, management and protection of historic cemeteries is complex and is often best handled with a cooperative partnership of owners, volunteers and community and governmental support.