Iron Coffin Lady documentary airing this week

From the NY Post:

On the afternoon of Oct. 4, 2011, a backhoe dug into an excavation pit in Elmhurst, Queens, and struck iron. Construction workers assumed they had hit a pipe. But when the claws of the backhoe emerged from the ground, it was dragging a body clothed in a white gown and knee-high socks.

Scott Warnasch, then a New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner forensic archaeologist, initially viewed the finding as a recent homicide. “It was recorded as a crime scene,” Warnasch, 52, told The Post. “A buried body on an abandoned lot sounds pretty straightforward.”

It turned out to be anything but. The almost perfectly preserved body was actually that of a woman born decades before the Civil War. She had been buried in what was once the grounds of a church founded in 1830 by the first generation of free African-Americans. Now a new documentary, “The Woman in the Iron Coffin,” premiering Wednesday on PBS, provides the woman’s identity.

The Post can reveal that researchers believe her to be Martha Peterson, who worked for a local white man with abolitionist leanings.

Controversy over rebuild of Flushing's Macedonia AME Church

From the Times Ledger:

In the midst of the $1 billion Flushing Commons project on Union Street in Flushing, community members are worried about the fate of the Macedonia African Methodist Episcopal Church and the human remains they believe are buried on the property.

Dr. Richard McEachern, the minister, told a Community Board 7 meeting on Nov. 9, 2015 that the church would be torn down and replaced by a new, but not “oversized” church, according to the meeting minutes. No construction plans have been disclosed publicly or at quarterly church meetings, however, according to church members. McEachern is a member of the community board.

Jim Driscoll, a member of the Queens Historical Society, said he is concerned about the human remains mentioned in an archeological report, originally created in 1988 and confirmed in 2006 by Historical Perspectives Inc., a firm that conducts cultural and archeological research.

The extensive report determined that “current A.M.E. Church property must be considered sensitive for possible human remains.” It also recommended a 15-foot perimeter around three sides of the church to prevent disturbance of potential grave sites connected to Flushing’s historical African-American community.

Iron Coffin Lady is laid to rest

From the Times Ledger:

Saturday’s featured speaker was archeologist Scott Warnasch, who was working out of the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office identifying 9/11 remains in October 2011 when he was called to the construction site at 90-11 Corona Ave. to investigate a homicide.

“The operator of a backhoe shattered the coffin and dragged the body out,” Warnasch said. “The construction crew headed for the hills and called us and that’s where I came in. She was so well preserved, we discovered lesions on her skin.”

The archeologist knew the woman had died from smallpox and he was intrigued by her casket, which resembled an Egyptian sarcophagus. Warnasch knew it was the type of coffin that was very expensive and used to bury elites the likes of Dolly Madison, Daniel Webster and President Zachary Taylor, not an African-American woman in her 20s or 30s.

Warnash began years of research and discovered from an 1850 census on Newtown that the woman, who was likely named Martha Peterson, did domestic work in the home of the man who produced the special caskets in a Woodside foundry.

“Clearly the Iron Coffin Lady was loved by her community and was given everything she needed for a proper burial despite the fear of smallpox,” Warnasch said. She was buried in the cemetery at the original location of St. Mark, and Rev. Detherage was determined to pay her back for the indignities of her unearthing.

“She reminds us of where we come from and where we are going as a people and a community of faith,” Detherage said. “When people don’t know their own heritage, they are discounted.”

AMEN.

Local church will bury 150-year old mummy

St. Mark

African Methodist Episcopal Church

95-18 Northern Blvd., Jackson Heights, New York 11372

Phone: 718-899-3306             Fax: 718-899-1636

E-Mail: STMARKCHURCH2@verizon.net

Rev. Kimberly L. Detherage, Esq., Pastor

After almost five years of testing, investigation and research, the 150-year old mummy, the Iron Coffin Lady, uncovered at a construction site that was once the graveyard on the first site of today’s Saint Mark African Methodist Episcopal Church, will be commemorated, memorialized and buried on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, November 5th, 6th and 7th. The officers and members of St. Mark have planned a memorial reception, traditional funeral and burial befitting this historic figure who is a past parishioner of the church.

The memorial reception will commence at 11am Saturday, November 5th and feature exhibits and presentations that interweave the history of African American burial grounds and the church’s history with the possible story of the Iron Coffin Lady’s past life. Donations to offset the costs of the burial, memorial park creation and maintenance are encouraged and greatly appreciated.

Speakers will include archaeologist Scott Warnash, PhD, who was working out of the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office identifying 9/11 remains when he was called to the site in Queens to examine what was thought to be a murder victim’s remains. Warnash, who has made an extensive study of iron coffins and the remains found inside them, will speak on their history as well as the possible identification of the Iron Coffin lady through her DNA and artifacts.

Sandra Arnold of the Periwinkle Project, named for the flower found in many ancient African American burial grounds and operating out of Brown University, is an ongoing documenter of African American graveyards will address the commonalities and peculiarities of these graveyards as well as the database she is compiling of these sites.

Professor Gerald Conlogue, PhD, of Quinnipiac University, who has extensively studied and scanned the mummified remains, will relate his findings on the Iron Coffin Lady. There will also be a report of research findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The traditional funeral will be on Sunday, November 6th at 4pm at St. Mark AME Church on Northern Boulevard and 96th Street in Queens. The Iron Coffin Lady will be eulogized by St. Mark’s Pastor Kimberly L. Detherage, Esquire, and the service will feature tributes from the church family as well as officials of the AME Church. The funeral follows the church’s morning worship service.

The Iron Coffin Lady will be buried at Flushing Cemetery in Flushing, Queens from St Mark Church. The procession will leave St. Mark on Monday, November 7th at 9:30 am, and the Iron Coffin Lady will be re-interred and her body finally laid to rest.
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They uncovered a slave grave site in Manhattan and it became a national park.
They uncovered one in Queens and it became condos.
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