Calvary Cemetery - Cherry Hill / Pennsauken, NJ

Calvary Cemetery

2398 Marlton Pike W., Cherry Hill, NJ

The highlights of this cemetery are as follows:

• Cool creepy old fashioned KIDS SECTION
• Camden serial killer link (victim's grave)
• Early 20th century period era creepy photos on graves
• My great-great grandfather Leopold Bonaparte Ricot - Spanish American War veteran of Camden, NJ and Philadelphia, PA
• My great-grandfather Richard G. Haehner of Camden, NJ

Previously unknown to me until I looked up the famous graves in this cemetery, a serial killer Howard Unruh went on a rampage which would later be known as the "Walk of Death".

The veteran was an aspiring pharmacist after being honorably discharged from active service in Rhineland (WWII).  He quit pharmacy school.  After this he was noted as having an on-going feud with a neighbor, who coincidentally was a pharmacist.  

During the incident Unruah killed 13 people and injured 3 in the matter of 12 minutes.  When the police could not get him to exit his home, a reporter called him on the phone and the dialogue was chilling.  He spent his life in a psych ward and before dying in 2009 gave his last public words, "I'd have killed thousands if I had enough bullets".

This devastating event seems to be swept under the rug in history as I have lived in the area my whole life, and watch a whole lot of true crime, and never heard any reference to this Camden killing spree which I'm sure impacted many individuals who are still alive.

I found that many of the surnames in Calvary Cemetery were of Italian origin (South Jersey so it makes sense).  Especially the graves featuring photographs.

Myself and my boyfriend slowly realized that a plot of the land in the cemetery, or a section, was entirely made up of children and infants.  We both agreed we had never seen that in a cemetery before and it was curious as this isn't even mentioned on any of the cemetery maps.

The age of the cemetery was relatively old.  What had originally brought me to the cemetery besides my relatives was that while I was at the Camden Historical Society (which is a goldmine of resources).  I had heard that even before Harleigh people from Camden were burying their dead in Calvary.

After spending quite some time here I am not sure if this was true as I did not see very many 18th century graves at all and not an overwhelming amount of 19th century either.  I will try to follow-up with more information - or message me if you have any!

Last but not least, I found my relatives, I will update the post with more on them later.  BUT I do have a great hint for anyone else out there that is a "grave hunter" like me!  On the billion graves app and website it will drop a pin DIRECTLY on the grave if it has it in the system, and we used that as a sort of GPS to get to the grave.  It was absolutely incredible.  Especially for when you don't have a section, range, plot or grave number, or a map marked with your relatives grave site.

RIP G-G-G GRANDPOP!