Taxpayers To Pay Up to $2 Million to Move 1,300 People Buried In County Cemetery

If there's no rest for the weary, there certainly won't be any rest for up to 1,300 poor people buried in unmarked graves near Froedtert Hospital.

A paupers' cemetery will be moved to make room for Froedtert's expansion, but the move will cost Milwaukee County taxpayers up to $2 million, according to Patch's media partners at WISN 12 News.

A state hearing examiner ruled that the county will either have to pay for the graves' removal upfront or Froedtert could subtract the cost from its lease payment to the county, the Journal Sentinel reported.

Froedtert Hospital's plans for a new 480,000-square-foot building to house expanded surgical, inpatient and outpatient care is proposed to stand atop what is now a cemetery containing the remains of at least 1,300 people.

They were the poor and indigent of Milwaukee County, who died in its care at the public hospital and the almshouse and were buried on the grounds, dating back well over a century before the practice was halted in 1974.

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Froedtert’s plan calls for digging up their remains, but the hospital is not responsible for the decision on their disposition. That lies with the state, which has separated the issues of the disturbance of the burials from their final resting place.

The remains could be turned over to the Anthropology Department of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for study.

That was the fate of almost 1,700 paupers whose remains were dug up in earlier Froedtert expansions, given first to Marquette University where they languished for about 10 years before being transferred to UWM.

There, the remains are being studied as the nation's largest collection of mid- to late-19th through early 20th Century remains of an indigent population. Only a few have been identified and reburied after study.

Among those buried on the new Froedtert expansion site is thought to be Herman Borghardt, a Civil War veteran who was at the First Battle of Bull Run. Veterans advocates adamantly want to see Borghardt's remains sought, identified and reburied with military honors in a national cemetery.