Forgotten in the 1800s, unearthed decades later, 7 ancestors put to rest by Neville Public Museum

GREEN BAY - It was just before noon on a cool, breezy day in late October 1963 when a construction crew installing telephone conduit pipes in Baird Place struck and unearthed a cast iron casket the likes of which had not been seen for a century.

Work stopped.

The crew found they unearthed the remains of five more people, six total. The other five were in pine boxes lined up in a row in the terrace between South Webster Avenue and the sidewalk. Such occurrences, while not frequent, happened.

The Neville Public Museum’s archaeologist at the time, James Quinn, would date the iron casket, a Fisk Metallic Burial Case , and the woman’s remains in it back to the early 1850s. It was the best casket available at the time and cost $100, roughly $4,000 in today's dollars and 50 times the price of a pine box 170 years ago. The casket looked like an Egyptian sarcophagus with a glass window on top.

Their remains, like any human remains unearthed for decades before, were transported to the Neville for investigation and testing. Like many ancestors before them, their de facto final resting place became the Neville.

Sixty-one years would pass before the Neville staff and Green Bay’s tight-knit funeral services community worked for 1½ years to find for those six European ancestors — and one more European ancestor whose remains were unearthed in 1954 at a site off Chestnut Avenue — an appropriate, final resting place.

“These ancestors have been in our care for too long,” said Beth Kowalski, the Neville’s executive director. "We want to make sure they're home. This has been a long time coming."

Their effort and time paid off when on July 18 a small, solemn group attended a reinterment ceremony at Woodlawn Cemetery to pay their respects to seven people whose identities have been lost to history.

'Everyone here is looking to do the right thing'

The reinterment service says something about the Green Bay area, its businesses and government leaders, and their commitment to do their part to do right by these seven individuals and their families.

Three generations of funeral directors from Malcore Funeral Home & Crematory — Dan Malcore, his son Matt Malcore and funeral director apprentice Hayley Pittman — volunteered their time to transmit the remains from the Neville to Woodlawn.

Woodlawn Cemetery Executive Director Jamie Ireland and the cemetery staff worked to find a suitable location near other ancestors buried at Woodlawn in the mid-to-late 19th century. Nature's Best Floral and Boutique owner Josh Kozlowski prepared and donated a memorial wreath. A local vault company donated two vaults.

"Everyone here is looking to do the right thing," said Matt Malcore. "We all took that call. Everybody wanted to do whatever they could to get these folks to their final resting place."

Brown County Executive Troy Streckenbach and Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich both signed off on the request. State, regional and local anthropologists, historians and burial site administrators reviewed the Neville's request to reinter the remains. Several of those attended the July 18 ceremony.

These seven European ancestors have been laid to rest once again, yet they did leave behind an unsolved mystery or two that puzzled museum staff for 60 years.

These individuals are almost as old as the city of Green Bay itself

The six "row-mates," as the Neville staff came to call the people unearthed in 1963, are older than the city of Green Bay. They bore witness to some of the city's earliest days, when it was still the borough of Green Bay, and would ultimately become victims of the subsequent 170 years of growth and expansion.

The condition of their remains and the distinguished cast-iron casket helped Neville staff date the row-mates back to the early 1850s. Quinn, the Neville's archaeologist in 1963, put it at 1853, a year before Green Bay incorporated as a city.

Their original place of rest was likely the original City Cemetery, designated as such when John J. Astor's American Fur Company originally laid out the town of Astor in 1835. Records indicated some remains in earlier cemeteries were transferred to City Cemetery, located at Webster Avenue and Mason Street, after its establishment.

It would be the public burial ground for the Green Bay area until Woodlawn Cemetery was established after the Civil War. The cemetery would be renamed Baird Place in 1869 and the remains in it relocated to Woodlawn between 1867 and 1892, according to a sign placed in the park .

Kowalski said Neville staff did not have records to determine how crews might have missed the row-mates as they relocated burials from City Cemetery to Woodlawn in the late 19th century.

The woman in the cast iron casket

The Oct. 30, 1963, Green Bay Press-Gazette carried a brief story about the prior day's incident along South Webster Avenue. After striking the sarcophagus, crews found the five pine boxes. A photo of the cast iron casket would appear in the Oct. 31 Press-Gazette.

Quinn, the Neville's director at the time, told the newspaper the elaborate casket was the very finest one could buy at the time. Atlas Obscura wrote about them in 2013 and said that even in the 1850s some people thought them " creepy as hell ."

"From the casket, it was obvious someone was concerned about giving this girl the finest of burials," Quinn told the Press-Gazette in 1963. "The other caskets were pine boxes, badly decomposed."

Almond Dunbar Fisk, a New York inventor, patented the metallic burial case in 1848 and began production in 1849, though a fire would soon after destroy the factory. Atlas Obscura and The Brownstone Detectives both note Fisk caskets were designed to preserve bodies when someone died far from home, but their airtight design also prevented the spread of communicable diseases.

Fisk licensed production to two companies in Ohio and Rhode Island and endorsements from renowned personalities at the time helped generate publicity for the casket. Fisk would die in 1850, but successors would take over and rename the company multiple times before it folded in the late 1880s, according to the website Coachbuilt .

The Press-Gazette story noted the Neville took custody of the six people and the casket "pending a decision on what to do with the remains." It's not clear from Neville records whether any decision was ever made and so they remained at the museum.

Until Louise Pfotenhauer decided to retire.

'Museums are being called on to do the right thing'

Pfotenhauer worked as the Neville's collections manager for 36 years. In early 2023 she told Kowalski she intended to retire in 2024. (Her last day was July 1.) Kowalski asked Pfotenhauer if she had anything unfinished she wanted to before she retired.

Pfotenhauer told her about the seven European ancestors in their care, the six row-mates and the person from Chestnut Avenue.

"If it wasn't for Louise, this wouldn't have arisen," Kowalski said.

Like museums across the U.S., the Neville has human remains in its possession, ancestors of both European and Indigenous descent. Sometimes it they arrived through incidents like the one that exposed the six row-mates. Other times, they became part of the collection for less-savory reasons in decades when non-Native Americans felt it was acceptable to dig up remains and artifacts.

Indigenous tribes' efforts to secure the return of their ancestors have helped drive a cultural shift in attitudes about past museum practices. At the Neville, for example, the woman's coffin, minus her remains, was displayed in past seasonal exhibits. Kowalski said for many years museum staff didn't talk about the moral and ethical implications of such practices.

"Museums are being called on to do the right thing," Pfotenhauer said. "I'm glad we are."

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 forced museums to acknowledge they possessed human remains and burial artifacts, to inventory them, and to take steps to return those remains and any funerary objects to the appropriate tribes. A new federal rule announced in December further required museums to seek the tribes' permission before they displayed any Native American remains, funerary objects or artifacts.

The Neville began the process in 1993 when it sent samples of human remains in its possession to the University of Chicago for forensic testing. The test results showed whether any remains in the museum's possession had Indigenous DNA or whether they were of European descent. Those tests helped put the Neville staff in a position to act when Pfotenhauer brought up the seven European ancestors.

But Kowalski and Pfotenhauer learned it is not a simple process. There are rules, determinations and procedures to follow. Kowalski said the experience with the Neville's seven European ancestors helped the staff learn and understand the process so they can begin to return the Indigenous remains in the museum's collection to the appropriate tribes.

An 18-month effort begins

Kowalski and Pfotenhauer began in summer 2023 by talking with both the Wisconsin Historical Society and the Brown County Medical Examiner's office. Since others originally buried in City Cemetery/Baird Place had been reinterred at Woodlawn, they decided that was the logical place to reinter these seven people.

The Neville hired Jordan Karsten, an associate professor in UW-Oshkosh's department of anthropology, global religions, and cultures, to examine the remains and formally review the 1993 forensic test results. He determined the woman in the Fisk Metallic Burial Case was an adult woman age 34-85 who was somewhere between 4 feet 7 inches and 5 feet 2 inches in height. The five row-mates included three men and two children, one of which was estimated to be between 3 and 5 years old. The other child's age was unknown.

The woman in the sarcophagus had one feature that indicated she could be part Indigenous, so the museum in March presented her information to the Wisconsin Inter-Tribal Repatriation Committee who asked whether the six row-mates could be returned to their prior resting place. Because they could not, Kowalski said the committee gave her permission to reinter them at Woodlawn.

In late March, Mayor Eric Genrich approved the plan to reinter the seven European ancestors at Woodlawn, as did the Neville's governing board and Woodlawn's board of directors. Woodlawn staff members began to contact funeral services businesses whether they would help. Everyone contacted said "yes," Ireland said.

"With all the parties involved, everyone has been more than supportive. It's been, 'Absolutely! What can we do to help and how can we help you move this forward?'" Ireland said. "They’ve really been tremendously wonderful."

Kozlowski, of Nature's Best Floral & Boutique, called the effort a neat opportunity to be a part of and a bit of a challenge, too. No one knew anything about them, who they were, what they liked or didn't. How do you commemorate them? Kozlowski tried to think about their what their lives might have been like 170ish years ago as he prepared the arrangements the day before the ceremony.

"I wanted to do something with fresh flowers to tell their story," he said.

'This is respect, honor, dignity ... and right'

The recent run of heat and humidity broke just in time for the ceremony. July 18 turned out perfect: Sunny, not too warm and a soft breeze.

The Malcores and Pittman arrived at the Neville that morning to survey the seven people they would care for that day. Matt Malcore said the casket and the task was one neither he nor his now-retired father experienced in their combined 60 years in the funeral services business.

"What a neat opportunity for two generations from a family funeral home to serve our European ancestors and the Green Bay public for that matter," Matt Malcore said.

Kowalski and several Neville staff members led them into the storage room where the five row-mates' remains were already wrapped individually and boxed together. The person unearthed on Chestnut Avenue was in a separate box, too. The woman's remains were loosely wrapped in a cloth inside a long box.

Dan and Matt carefully opened the damaged iron casket. It was the color of rust and missing the glass window in the lid. Several large chunks had broken when it was unearthed, but it was still heavy. A rectangle on the lid casket lid likely once held a nameplate identifying the woman, but it was not present.

The Malcores laid a white sheet in the bottom of the casket while Pittman carefully prepared the woman's remains to be returned to her sarcophagus. The trio slowly, delicately slid her back in and replaced the lid before transporting all seven ancestors down to a hearse.

Ireland and the Woodlawn staff greeted the attendees, most of whom were involved in the effort, as they arrived at the cemetery in Allouez. Kozlowski's wreath was placed at the front of the two burial sites: bright yellow, orange and white flowers adorned with a ribbon and seven butterflies.

The Malcores placed the seven individuals in two vaults provided by a local company whose workers carefully sealed the vaults and lowered them into the sites.

"This is respect, honor, dignity ... and right," said Dan Malcore.

When it was time for the service to begin, Kowalski fought off tears as she thanked the people, businesses and governments who helped bring about this "emotion-filled day." County Executive Troy Streckenbach said the community effort put seven people back to rest with the respect, care and reverence anyone there would have wanted.

Kowalski read " Poem of Life " by an unknown author and finished with a brief-yet-powerful sentiment felt by everyone there. The tears began; she wasn't the only one.

"Ancestors, now you can truly rest in peace. Godspeed."

A couple of mysteries remain

The reinterment ceremony laid these seven ancestors to rest, but questions historic records cannot answer still remain. And while it might be a long shot, the Neville would like any information you might be able to provide about the woman in the casket or her row-mates.

There's the question of how crews relocating City Cemetery graves to Woodlawn in the 19th century missed the six caskets.

The big question, though, is who were these seven individuals, especially the woman in the cast iron casket? Pfotenhauer and Kowalski said the woman's ornate, top-of-the-line casket would have been custom made for her and shipped to Green Bay by rail because of its weight.

Forensic anthropological reports indicate they would have died in the 18th or 19th centuries, which makes dental or anatomical identification impossible, and that genetic testing would not likely result in identification. Genetic genealogical testing might have been able to identify living descendants, but it would have been cost thousands of dollars to test each individual with no guarantee of results.

"It would be nice to know who they are, but I think just letting them rest, now getting them reinterred, is better," Pfotenhauer said.

Contact Jeff Bollier at (920) 431-8387 or jbollier@gannett.com . Follow him on Twitter at @JeffBollier . Contact Sarah Kloepping at skloepping@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Forgotten in the 1800s, unearthed decades later, 7 ancestors put to rest by Neville Public Museum