Yes, there was a cemetery at St. Michael’s Orphanage in Hopewell. And no, we do not know much about it, except from a few brief references and a few memories. So please do contact us if you have additional information about the cemetery.
The St. Michael’s cemetery was located in a tree-lined lane set back from the south side of the building, where an estimated several hundred infants and children were buried. After the orphanage was closed and the building demolished in 1973, the children’s remains were reinterred at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Trenton. Several other people also were interred separately at St. Michael’s and removed to St. Mary’s.
== View the St. Michael’s Cemetery Brief (PDF) ==
St. Michael’s Cemetery
The cemetery at St. Michael’s is described in New Jersey Graveyards and Graveyard Inscriptions Locators – Mercer Co. by Edward J. Raser, 2000. It was located south of the main building, in a 50-foot-wide lane between two rows of trees. The lane was set back 400 feet from Hopewell-Princeton Road, and continued some 300 feet to near the end of the row of trees, roughly at the back line of the building.
The rows of trees are still somewhat visible, and now form the boundary between the current wooded area nearer to Hopewell and the open fields beyond the main parking lot, where the “Awakening” statue now is located.
Former St. Michael’s schoolchildren report little memory of the cemetery, as they were told to stay away from it. Some locals remember the cemetery at this location, with a small number of gravestones, and a cross placed toward the street end of the lane.
The St. Michael’s Cemetery Children
The clearest description of the use of the St. Michael’s cemetery from a 1973 newspaper article that was based on interviews with the sisters conducted at the time of the building’s closure:
There are hundreds of babies and one priest buried in the cemetery at the edge of the home’s grassy land. The cemetery is now weed-covered and the grave markers were removed years ago.
In those earlier years, there were no wonder drugs, and diseases often killed the foundlings in batches, such as the pneumonia and intestinal epidemics in 1926, 1934, and 1944.
Records show that 221 babies were buried there, mostly under a few years of age, the oldest only six, between 1920 and 1944. How many died before 1920 is not remembered. The years were hard. [Central New Jersey Home News, 6/24/1973]
After St. Michael’s closed, the children in the graveyard were reinterred in St Mary’s Cemetery & Mausoleum on Cedar Lane in Trenton, a 35-acre cemetery near Olden Lane. The remains were marked by a Celtic cross placed in the open area at the entrance to St. Mary’s off Cedar Lane.
One side of the base of the Celtic Cross has an encryption memorializing the children of St. Michael’s:
“In memory of the infants and children of St. Michael’s Orphan Asylum and Industrial School, Hopewell, N.J., who died during the years from 1920 to 1942.”
The date range in the inscription, “1920 to 1942,” is interesting because the newspaper reference uses 1920 to 1944 as the dates for which there are records of burials, but notes that there were burials in the cemetery before that.
Bishop Michael J. O’Farrell (1832–1894)
St. Michael’s Orphanage was planned by the Rev. Michael J. O’Farrell, the first Bishop of Trenton, who made the initial purchase of the 464-acre Van Dyke farm just south of Hopewell Borough in 1893.
After Bishop O’Farrell’s death in 1894, his body was placed temporarily in a vault in St. Mary’s Cemetery. After St. Michael’s was opened in 1898, and the chapel was constructed in his honor in 1905, O’Farrell’s remains were removed from St. Mary’s and placed in a slate-lined crypt in the chapel sanctuary.
When St. Michael’s was closed and scheduled to be demolished in 1973, O’Farrell’s remains were removed and interred in the Bishop’s Circle at St. Mary’s Cemetery:
Before Bishop O’Farrell died April 2, 1894, at the age of 61, he had written in his will that he wanted to lie at St. Michael’s. Trenton undertaker James J. Murphy buried him in St. Mary’s cemetery. When the home’s chapel was built in 1905, Murphy had died, so his wife Catherine moved him “by carriage and four” to Hopewell, where he was placed in a slate lined crypt in the chapel wall. On the 11th of this month, the Murphy’s grandson, Henry B Murphy, moved the bishop back to St. Mary’s. [Central New Jersey Home News, 6/24/1973]
Col. Daniel E. Morris (1819–1898)
Col. Daniel E. Morris was born in Ireland and was educated at Trinity College in Dublin. He came to America in 1849, and began work as a civil engineer, surveying state railroads in Pennsylvania. He moved to Atlantic City in 1854, and became a major developer in real estate, investor in local companies, and benefactor of charitable activities.
When the building fund for St. Michael’s was established, Col. Morris made a donation of $50,000.
Col. Morris died in 1898 in Atlantic City. His will included 17 specific bequests for Catholic hospitals, orphanages, and scholarships in New Jersey and the Philadelphia area. The largest bequests were $40,000 to found a “home for the aged,” which became Morris Hall in Lawrenceville, and $25,000 of additional funding for St. Michael’s. Both St. Michael’s and Morris Hall then received an additional $21,000 from the remainder of the will.
In 1899, Col. Morris’s remains were brought from Atlantic City and reinterred in a vault on the front lawn of St. Michael’s, marked by a large Celtic cross. The side of the cross that faced the St. Michael’s building had a plaque that is visible in photos, but unfortunately is not readable.
Reportedly in 1987, Col. Morris was reinterred at St. Mary’s cemetery along with the Celtic cross, placed in the open area at the entrance to St. Mary’s off Cedar Lane, facing the diagonal driveway to the mausoleums and office. The cross at St. Mary’s appears to match photos from St. Michael’s, but the base now has inscriptions on three sides (including for Morris) instead of the original plaque.
Rev. Neal McMenamin (1844-1925)
The inscription on the third side of the Celtic cross at St. Mary’s names Rev. Neal McMenamin (1844–1925), who is listed as chaplain at St. Michael’s. This may be the “one priest” that the 1973 newspaper article reports was buried at the St. Michael’s cemetery.
Unfortunately, there are no known supporting records that list Neal McMenamin as a chaplain at St. Michael’s, or that support any association between him and St. Michael’s or with the Hopewell area in general. In particular, the St. Michael’s 50th Anniversary Golden Jubilee booklet contains a list of all chaplains up through 1948, but does not mention McMenamin.
There are newspaper reports of McMenamin from 1877 through 1894 reporting transfers between assignments to different churches in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. By 1896, Father McMenamin was an assistant at the Church of the Sacred Heart in Trenton, N. J. He then came to the attention of local newspapers with two different stories that drew on his mechanical background: helping to save the 2200-pound copper bell at Sacred Heart after its supports broke, and demonstrating and patenting an “Electric Bell Chiming Apparatus” that could ring the church bells when a button was pressed.
Unfortunately, by 1902, Father McMenamin developed a mental condition “of a nervous character” and was relieved from pastoral duties. There are a irregular reports of him up to his death in 1925, but still no connection to Hopewell or St. Michael’s.
== View the St. Michael’s Cemetery Brief (PDF) ==
Please contact us if you have additional information about St. Michael’s and the cemetery.
More on St. Michael’s Orphanage
St. Michael’s Orphan Asylum and Industrial School operated for three quarters of a century (1898 to 1973) just south of Hopewell, providing support and education for abandoned and neglected children.
Presentation
- Main page – St. Michael’s – History, Presentation Video, Media, and References
- Talk – St. Michael’s Orphanage: A Visual History – Wed., May 8, 2024
Posts – and History Briefs
- Post and Brief – St. Michael’s Orphanage
- Post and Brief – The St. Michael’s Cemetery – and Celtic Cross
Posts – Photos
- Post – Photos of St. Michael’s Kids
- Post – St. Michael’s Photos – Behind the Building
- Post – St. Michael’s Orphanage Photo Collection
Posts – Records and Documentation
- Post & docs – St. Michael’s Orphanage – Census Records (1900-1950)
- Post & docs – St. Michael’s School & Mission Annual Reports, 1940s-1973
- Post & docs – St. Michael’s Orphanage – Farm Report – 1914
- Post – Investigating History in Hopewell Maps – St. Michael’s Building
Resources
- St. Michael’s School pages from the Pennington Borough Historical Website
(History, photos, 1900 census, memories)
Media
- Images – View the 200+ St. Michael’s images on the History Project site
- Video – Songs and Prayers of the Children of St. Michael’s Orphanage – 1930s
- Video – A Home in the Country: The Story of St. Michael’s Orphanage, by Jack Koeppel, 2016 Hopewell Public Library presentation
