The adventures along the rivers of Philadelphia continue: this weekend, I and my good friend and fellow gentleman trespasser David explored a stretch of shoreline along the post-industrial shoreline north of Tioga Marine Terminal. After scrambling for a few hundred yards through heavy undergrowth and spooking some urban deer (yes, North Philly deer also have neck tattoos), we found what we were looking for.

It was high tide when I visited this spot near the Betsy Ross Bridge during my summer expedition, but during today’s low tide we could finally see the discarded tombstones of Monument Cemetery, a large Victorian cemetery once across from Temple University that held the remains of 28,000 people. In the 1950′s (not surprisingly, since so much Victoriana was destroyed around this period), this 19th century cemetery was removed, and the gravestones of those deceased who didn’t have living kin to claim them were discarded. What lies here at the mouth of Frankford Creek are the slowly eroding, mute remnants of many extinct Philadelphia families.

The muddy riverside is completely covered in ceramic shards and broken glass, which give a gentle tinkling sound when boat wakes reach the shore. This lovely sound came as a sort of comfort, as reading the scattered, forsaken monuments of forgotten lives put me in a heavy, melancholy frame of mind. Oh, and we found a truck in the mud.

To see more images of this strange place, visit my flickr photostream. For those interested in learning more about this doomed cemetery, visit this gentleman’s blog, or read Tom Keels’ book on Philadelphia’s lost cemeteries.