The city of Decatur, the Georgia Historic Preservation Division and the nonprofit Wellroot Family Services are investigating the discovery of a possible burial vault in Legacy Park, the site of a former orphanage that opened there in 1873.
City contractors were grading to pave a long-anticipated multiuse path from the park’s north entrance to the East Decatur Greenway, which in turn links to the trail connecting Atlanta to Stone Mountain. Near the north entrance, they struck a brick vault that was 2 feet by 4 feet by 2 feet, Assistant City Manager of Public Works Cara Scharer said. The vault was about a foot from the top of the graded land, she said.
The vault’s top had come loose, allowing workers to see glass and metal pieces inside, Scharer said. They immediately stopped construction and called the Decatur Police Department to file a report, she said. City officials notified the state historic preservation office, which visited the site two days later and determined the box had a “high likelihood” of being a burial vault, Scharer said.
The city then commissioned a ground-penetrating radar scan to detect any human remains; the scan was conducted late last month, and the city is awaiting results, she said.
“If a cemetery is identified, we would come up with a solution for avoiding it, and so prioritizing dignity and respect for human life,” Scharer said.
Legacy Park was formerly the United Methodist Children’s Home, an orphanage founded in Norcross in 1871 for children abandoned in the aftermath of the Civil War. The orphanage moved to Decatur two years later after a fire destroyed the original home.
Over the decades, the orphanage evolved into a group home that also provided foster care and family services. The city of Decatur bought the 77-acre property eight years ago and turned it into a park, preserving the chapel and many other historical buildings. The United Methodist Children’s Home moved to a new space in Tucker and changed its name to Wellroot.
The news outlet Decaturish first reported the vault’s discovery.
After hearing about it, Wellroot employees contacted city officials and were told the vault contained a small placard, a handle and broken glass, said Lee Ann Else, Wellroot’s vice president of external relations. It is unclear what, if any, words are on the placard.
The orphanage buried at least some of its dead in the Decatur Cemetery, Else said. A 1900 article in The Atlanta Constitution said only one death had occurred at the orphanage up to that point. There are some marked graves on the property, including that of the orphanage’s founder, Jesse Boring, who died in 1890.
All of the orphanage’s historical documents are in a library at Emory University, Else said. A Wellroot employee will work with the city to review them for clues concerning the vault, she said.
“We would love to learn more and make sure the story of our property is complete,” she said.
Meanwhile, construction on the path has shifted to the park’s south entrance about quarter mile away.
“We’ll continue to keep the community up to date,” Scharer said.
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