LEWES, Del.- A recent discovery at the St. George AME Church cemetery in Lewes found 550 previously unidentified African American graves. Prior to the findings, the cemetery only had 82 bodies accounted for.
The oldest known headstone in the cemetery dates back to 1848 and the most recent was 1945, the year the cemetery closed.
The Greater Lewes Foundation, Edward Otter Inc., and Horsley Archaeological Prospection LLC, conducted the research on the .61 acre cemetery. The project was funded by two Lewes residents, Dawnell White and Pam Brown.
Edward Otter Inc. and Horsley Archaeological Prospection LLC surveyed the property using a ground penetrating radar (GPR). The GPR is not 100% accurate, but due to the cemetery's sandy soil and lack of rocks, the conditions are ideal for the GPR according to the report.
Lewes resident, Louis Riley, was ecstatic to learn more than 20 of his ancestors were buried in this cemetery.
"It's just so revealing to me to know that they can find out who some of my family are," Riley said. "It just, it just warms my heart."
Riley's great-great grandfather was buried in the cemetery and is the oldest known burial in the graveyard.
On site, the cemetery has a handful of head stones in the ground, most were marked, but overtime many of the names, dates and messages have deterred away.
Also within the cemetery are numerous pillars sticking out of the ground. Each pillar was numbered, but overtime some of the numbers have become illegible. The report suggest these pillars were used to locate individuals, but then records associated with these marker were lost.
Director of the Greater Lewes Foundation, Mike Rawl, says these findings is abnormal important and significant artifact to the African American history in Lewes.
"The cemetery was the only place to inter African Americans for about 100 years in Lewes and that makes it a very significant remaining artifact of the African American life in Lewes," Rawl said.
The report said the 550 burials discovered was just an estimate based on the radar. It is known that bodies were often stacked on top of one another, so exact numbers are unknown.
The Greater Lewes Foundation said the next steps for the research are to continue identifying the unknown burials and potentially find the relatives and stories of those buried in the St. George AME Church cemetery.