On Saturday, March 14, 1903, astonishing reports in various papers across the nation boasted the findings of skeletons in chains during construction in Upper Manhattan. Workmen discovered this burial ground while cutting away at a knoll between 211th and 212th street at Tenth Avenue in Inwood for grading material (Society, 1905:42).

The papers claimed the bodies were buried upright with balls and chains around their limbs (Wall & Cantwell, 2004:99). The bodies were described to have huge proportions, one identified as over seven-feet tall. The report continues to tell of children making toys out of the skulls (Fort Wayne Sentinel, 1903).

These news outlets printed their report after receiving a misinterpreted telegram that was issued based on a New York reporter’s initial statement in a New York Times article (right).  The human remains as well as Revolutionary War remnants were dug up, including a cannon ball found nearby, but no iron chains. While no skeletons were actually found in chains, the discovery of the remains held true.

Surprisingly, this was not the first time the Inwood African burial ground gained recognition in the papers. On March 6, 1903, about one week prior, an article appeared in the Fall River Daily Herald in Fall River, Massachusetts. This is presumably written by W.L. Calver, an amateur archaeologist in Inwood, as the text is nearly verbatim to his chapter in the 1919 Valentine’s Manual of Old New York.

The article describes the possibility of the presence of a slave burial ground in Inwood near the Dyckman and Nagel cemetery. Calver’s article confirms the awareness of the burial ground and the speculation amongst him and locals that it possibly belongs to the enslaved of Inwood. He states,

“For many years antiquarians have had an eye on some row of rude stones which mark ancient graves on a rising ground near the junction of 212th street and Tenth avenue, up at Inwood, and much conjecture has been indulged in as to whose remains the graves contain.
     There is tradition that the graves contain the remains of negro slaves. No one can be found nearby who has any real information concerning the graves, but the slave theory is probably correct” (Fall River Daily Herald, 1903).