Bones may have come from 1800s family cemetery

From the Daily News:

The past doesn’t stay buried for long in Queens.

The human bones unearthed Tuesday by a construction crew on a routine dig in Richmond Hill may have come from an old cemetery near the farm of a prominent Queens family, a borough expert said.

Historian Carl Ballenas believes the 108th St. property near Jamaica Ave., where five skeletal fragments were found, used to be part of the Napier farm, run by patriarch John B. Napier in the 1800s.

“I know from research over time that there was indeed a family cemetery in that area,” the member of the Richmond Hill Historical Society said.

The farm was located just north of the strip of land bounded roughly by what are now Jamaica Ave., Atlantic Ave., 108th and 110th Sts., Ballenas said.

An analysis of archival maps appeared to confirm the location of the Napier farm in the area.

Still, authorities are remaining mum on the origin of the dusty fragments.

The city medical examiner’s office is investigating, a spokeswoman said.