Mount Moriah Cemetery (Philadelphia)

Mount Moriah Cemetery
The Mount Moriah Cemetery Gate, designed by Stephen Decatur Button in 1855
Details
Established	1855
Location	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Country	United States
Coordinates	39°55′47″N 75°14′08″W / 39.9297°N 75.2356°W / 39.9297; -75.2356
Size	200 acres[1]
No. of graves	150,000[2]
Website	Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery
Find a Grave	Mount Moriah Cemetery

Mount Moriah Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery that spans the border between Southwest Philadelphia and Yeadon, Pennsylvania. It was established in 1855 and is the largest cemetery in Pennsylvania. It is 200 acres in size and contains 150,000 burials. It differed from Philadelphia's other rural cemeteries such as Laurel Hill Cemetery and the Woodlands Cemetery in that it was easily accessible by streetcar; allowed burials of African-Americans, Jews and Muslims;^[3] and catered to a more middle-class clientele.^[4]

The cemetery is a part of the United States National Cemetery System dating back to the American Civil War. It contains two military burial plots that are maintained by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. The Soldiers' Lot on the Philadelphia side of the cemetery contains 406 burials and the Naval Plot on the Yeadon side contains 2,400 burials.

The cemetery closed its gates in April 2011 and had no owner when the last member of the board of directors died. It became wildly overgrown with vegetation, was a site for illegal dumping, and the buildings, graves and monuments fell into disrepair. A non-profit organization called The Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery formed to clear overgrown brush, maintain graves, stabilize the crumbling gatehouse and raise money for a petition to place the cemetery on the National Register of Historic Places. The Orphans Court of Philadelphia granted a second organization, the Mount Moriah Cemetery Preservation Corporation, a receivership in 2014.