Cemetery Thefts Disrespect EHC History

Excerpts
MULLICA TOWNSHIP — What bothered historian Mark Maxwell most about the thefts at the century-old Egg Harbor City Cemetery wasn’t just about the crime committed. Rather, it was that someone was “taking history.”

“It does bother me. They are taking history,” said Maxwell, 69, president of the Egg Harbor City Historical Society.

 The thefts of at least 400 metal pipes and assorted marble posts took place over multiple weeks at the end of summer, said the cemetery’s secretary, Meg Steeb.

The city-owned Egg Harbor City Cemetery is full of history. It serves as the final resting place for Louis “Commodore” Kuehnle, who politically controlled Atlantic City in the early 1900s, basketball hall-of-famer Frank Morgenweck, 1968 Olympian G. Larry James and peacetime Congressional Medal of Honor re-cipient Louis Fred Pfeifer.

More than 15,500 graves are in the cemetery, which is divided by Hamburg Avenue, Steeb said. The cemetery’s west side is in Mullica Township, and its east side is in Egg Harbor City. There is a mausoleum on the Egg Harbor City side that contains 160 crypts and 48 ashes, she said.

The cemetery’s oldest burial permits date to 1877, Steeb said. 

Most of the stolen metal pipes with their decorative sleeves, small metal gates, marble columns and other items have been returned, Steeb said. Ninety percent of the thefts came from their cemetery, she said.

Now, Steeb and Wayne Mangold, the cemetery’s caretaker, have the responsibility of matching the recovered pipes to the exact grave sites they were stolen from.




A lot more information and history at
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/pac/cemetery-thefts-disrespect-egg-harbor-city-history/article_f2183871-4a93-5e40-b343-ddd88f7f2f4d.html

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