All gravestones at Fair Hill Burial Ground are the same shape and size, reflecting the Quaker belief in the equality of all people
Burials at Fair Hill likely date back to within a few years of the building of the next door Meeting House in 1703. The original cemetery, much smaller and slightly to the east, is lost to history. The current property, bounded by Germantown Avenue, Cambria Street, Indiana Avenue, and 9th Street, was fenced in as Fair Hill Burial Ground in 1842.
In May of 1843, a 19 year old tuberculosis victim named John Hare was the first person to be interred in the newly expanded burial ground. Eight others were interred that year.
The rules of the burial ground included guidelines for ‘simple’ funerals and specifications for the size of headstones — no more than 18 inches wide, 9 inches deep, and 10 inches out of the ground. This practice was in keeping with the Quaker tradition of simplicity.
The burial ground became mostly inactive by the end of the 1970s, although the records show some ashes being added to family plots as late as 1981.
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