Memento Mori

Last March, we spent a weekend in Philadelphia PA for my husband's work.  Our friend Molly came along, and the two of us set out on sightseeing abandoned and unusual places.  It took some doing to find the entrance, but we eventually found our way into the Mount Moriah Cemetery.  It is a huge cemetery that has no official owner, so the land has fallen into disrepair and the woods have overtaken large swathes of the property.  It is located right along city neighborhoods and roads, like a bizarre time capsule.  In some places, the brush has grown over the tombstones so heavily that all you can see are the flat faces of the stones looking up through the dried grass. 

The inscriptions were varied, but the majority of them were placed in the late 1800s.  One stone, for a family named Sherlock, had an inscription on each side for the different family members.

 

Molly!

Molly and I took pictures, met some geese and a deer, and then ate lunch looking over the graveyard.

 Very strangely, at the edge of the cemetery, we found an operating beehive with empty glass jars littered around and bees buzzing in and out, even though it was a cold day.  A very curious discovery.

      It's such a shame to see this place basically crumbling away, but there are those dedicated to preserving the gravestones and the property (visit The Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery for more info).  In any case, it is a surreal experience to visit this place in the middle of the busy city.