(PA) Fight to save historic graveyard threatened by warehouse development

On a rise in a rolling Berks County farm field nearly a mile from the nearest road, a scattering of forlorn gravestones stands inside a crumbling brick wall beneath the shade of two trees. For nearly 300 years this spot of austere beauty has been the resting place of some of Maxatawny Township’s earliest settlers. It stands as a link to the region’s three centuries of German-American heritage, the nation’s revolutionary past and a reminder that the practice of slavery existed even in the enlightened north.

Now, as the region continues its decadeslong shift from a farming economy to a hub in the future of commerce, the graveyard faces a threat. An Illinois land development company is seeking approval for a planned logistics center that places the cemetery in the footprint of a 1-million-square-foot warehouse. Duke Realty introduced its plan in June to construct five warehouse buildings with a total of 2.7 million square feet of space on farmland.

Four descendants of Capt. George Kemp, who served in the Revolutionary War and established the family burial ground, are fighting Duke Realty’s plan. They’re challenging a Berks County Orphan’s Court order giving the company permission to disinter at least 14 bodies and move them with the remaining grave markers to another yet-to-be-determined cemetery.

https://www.mcall.com/news/pennsylvania/mc-nws-pa-maxatawny-warehouse-kemp-family-burial-ground-20210327-omg6eumpnvbb3nicyaekz62r4i-story.html

Capt. George Kemp, served in the Revolutionary War and established the family burial ground in the 1820s.
(Lara Thomas / Handout)