A cemetery with a paper trail

Forest Hill Cemetery was incorporated in April 1870. Its own record trail begins with burial lots on May 19, 1870. Single grave entries followed on May 26, 1872.

The books recorded names, ages or birth dates, places of birth, causes of death, sex, and notes. They also kept material from burial permits and undertaker certificates. When entries conflicted, gravestone inscriptions sometimes helped settle the record.

Transfers in the records

The surviving Forest Hill transcription runs through December 1931 and repeatedly points outside the cemetery gates. Entries include bodies moved to and from Dunmore Cemetery, Hyde Park Cemetery, Hyde Park Catholic Cemetery, Pine Brook Cemetery, Pittston Avenue Cemetery, Washington Avenue Cemetery, and other local burial grounds.

The transfer notes keep later changes visible. Graves were moved, older burials were identified again, and the cemetery’s records tied Forest Hill to Dunmore, Hyde Park, Pine Brook, Pittston Avenue, Washington Avenue, and other burial grounds in names, lots, dates, and places.

Scranton in the burial books

About 18,000 people are buried at Forest Hill. Its public names include Joseph A. Scranton, Congressman William Connell, Congressman Charles R. Connell, and former Scranton mayor Robert H. McKune.

The larger roll goes well beyond those public names. It includes hundreds of Civil War veterans, Vietnam War veterans, miners, immigrants, African American and white families, coal operators, and people whose connection to Scranton survives mostly in cemetery records.

Norma Reese and the maps

Norma Reese kept another kind of record in use: maps. The Forest Hill maps on Lackawanna County PAGenWeb came from Reese and were scanned in 2007. The old roads and lot numbers had not changed.

In 2021, Reese, Forest Hill’s caretaker and archivist, hosted a Jane Jacobs Walk at the cemetery. The walk began at 1830 Jefferson Avenue and used Forest Hill as a way to read Scranton through the people buried just over the city line in Dunmore.

For families and researchers, the useful Forest Hill details are often small: a lot number, an old road, a transfer note, an undertaker certificate. Together they make the cemetery one of the places where Scranton’s family history can still be followed on the ground.