Skeleton discovered on New Haven Green
Leave a CommentThe flooding, power outages and broken bus stops weren’t enough to satisfy Sandy’s rage. Before she departed, she left one memento — our very own skeleton — to make sure the Elm City wouldn’t forget that Halloween is just around the corner.
The skeleton was discovered at around 3:15 p.m. Tuesday in the roots of a tree located near the corner of College and Chapel streets, the New Haven Independent reported. The tree had been blown over by Hurricane Sandy, exposing the human bones inside.
Mason Shefa ’15 was at the scene around 7 p.m. and said he saw the back of the skull, the socket of the right eye and a portion of the ribs. According to Shefa, the chief of the police unit overseeing the tree said the force is currently quarantining the area until the state investigator arrives to remove the bones.
The tree fell on Monday around 6 p.m. A stone marker near its foot claimed it was a Lincoln oak and had been planted in 1909 on the 100th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s birth.
It’s possible the skeleton once belonged to an early New Haven resident, as part of the Green was originally used as a burial ground for the early New Haven colony. When the Green became too full, the headstones were moved to the newly-built Grove Street Cemetery — but the bodies were left to rest underneath the grass.
Until now.