Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainA parking lot paved over the graves of 2,000 Newark founders in 1959—until the 2005 Prudential Center construction unearthed two sealed iron coffins containing the mummified remains of a Civil War-era captain and a Victorian woman.
25 Lafayette Street, Newark, NJ 07102
Research updated June 2026
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All Ages
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Free
The Prudential Center plaza is publicly accessible; the cemetery no longer exists as a physical site.
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Urban plaza surrounding the Prudential Center arena.
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Est. 1666 · Over 2,000 graves of Newark founding families paved over as parking lot in 1959 · 2005 Prudential Center construction discovered the intact cemetery · Two sealed Victorian-era iron coffins with mummified remains found — Captain William Pollard (d. 1854) and Mary Camp Roberts (d. 1852) · Remains examined at the Smithsonian Institution in 2009
The First Presbyterian Church of Newark traces its founding to 1666, making it one of the oldest congregations in New Jersey. The church's associated burial ground near its original location in central Newark accumulated interments across two centuries, incorporating the graves of prominent colonial and early American families who shaped the city's development. By the mid-20th century, the congregation had relocated, and the building on the cemetery site was demolished in 1959. Rather than relocate the estimated 2,000 burials, the site was paved over as a municipal parking lot, a practice not uncommon in mid-century American urban redevelopment.
The parking lot sat undisturbed for 46 years. When construction began on the Prudential Center arena in 2005, excavation crews encountered the cemetery. Forensic archaeologist Scott Warnasch was brought in to assess the site. Warnasch's team found that most burials had degraded significantly over the intervening centuries, but two had not: a pair of sealed cast-iron coffins of a type produced in the mid-19th century as airtight burial vessels, intended to preserve remains for transport or viewing.
The coffins were removed intact and transported to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where they were opened in 2009. Inside the first was the mummified remains of Captain William Pollard, who died in 1854, his identity confirmed through surviving church records and a plate on the coffin. The second contained Mary Camp Roberts, who died in 1852. Both individuals were preserved well enough for forensic examination — a consequence of the iron coffin's airtight seal.
The Smithsonian examination documented Pollard and Roberts's physical characteristics, likely causes of death, and period-appropriate funerary preparation. Neither was reburied in a documented public location. The remaining undisturbed portion of the cemetery was preserved in place beneath the arena's foundation.
Sources
The Newark mummies of 2005 occupy an unusual place in New Jersey's dark-history canon: they are not ghost stories or paranormal claims, but documented archaeological discoveries that are inherently disquieting — the literal exhumation of people the city paved over and forgot.
The Weird NJ community picked up the story early, framing Pollard and Roberts as representative of the thousands of Newarkers whose remains remain undisturbed beneath the arena that replaced their burial ground. NJ Monthly's investigative coverage in 2009 asked what had become of the two individuals after their Smithsonian examination and found no clear answer — their reburial destination, if any, was not publicly documented at time of reporting.
The broader question — what became of the 2,000-plus other burials that were not in iron coffins and could not be removed intact — has no satisfying resolution. They remain in situ beneath the arena. Ghost tour circuits in Newark have referenced the site in dark-history contexts, though the location functions more as a monument to institutional erasure than as a traditional haunted venue.
Notable Entities
The site of the First Presbyterian Church cemetery — where more than 2,000 of Newark's founding families were buried — is now beneath the Prudential Center arena and its surrounding plaza at 25 Lafayette Street. No physical markers of the original cemetery survive at ground level. The visit is a dark-history point-of-interest for those interested in the 2005 mummy discovery or the history of urban development over historic graves.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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