Soldier or Indian Burial Ground?

UM Road Return #1029, 1829

A road return is a report filed with (returned to) the county by a surveyor after a road was laid out, altered or vacated. They can be pretty fascinating, some show buildings and landowners for a particular time frame. Here's road return 1029 from 1829, showing River Road being laid out south of Taylorsville in Upper Makefield. Prior to this, Taylorsville Rd was known as River Rd, as it was the closest road to the river  

If you look closely, there is an interesting notation on the return. I have a different version of this same return and it also makes the note.

Some old Soldiers and others buried here about 50 years ago.

Another road return showing "Soldiers graves"

Forgotten soldier's graves from the 1770s? Well that certainly seems like something I'd be interested in rediscovering. With little to go on, I set out to find more.

BCHS Papers Volume 3 “Reminisces of Pineville and Vicinity” Mathias Hall, January 19, 1904

There were some Revolutionary soldiers buried on the river bank on the VanHart farm below Taylorsville, north of and near a small stream of water that empties into the river there. (p. 337)

J. Wallace Hoff – Circa 1909 “Description of land, roads, buildings, etc. in area of Washington Crossing, and account of the crossing, Dec. 26, 1776 “

About a mile and a half to the south, on the river bank, old inhabitants will tell you of another revolutionary burying ground, near the head of Willis Island, now grass grown and covered with stones carted from adjoining farms. 

Next, I came across an article saying that the graves were found in 1922 when straightening the road, which includes an interesting backstory. 

Trenton Evening Times, Dec 26, 1922 Remains of Five Revolutionary Soldiers Unearthed During Repair of Road to Washington Crossing

Mr. Townsend, however, recalled that at one time Samuel Scully, of Philadelphia, had told him that if the bend were ever straightened, some bodies would be found.

Mr. Scully was communicated with, and his story, which is perhaps the only record obtainable explaining this small cemetery was handed down to him by his forefathers, is as follows:

As a boy he had lived in that section of Lower Makefield Township that Washington’s ragged Continentals had been quartered in a century before, and he remembered, on drives along the Delaware with his grandfather, having a peculiar bow in the road drawn to his attention by that old gentleman. His grandfather had built the road and told him that the bend was built in order to miss a small cemetery which otherwise would have been in the direct line of the highway.

Both before and after the battle of Trenton, soldiers had been quartered on the farm of Abdon Buckman, great-grandfather of Mr. Scully, located three miles back from the crossing point. The men numbered about 20, and spent almost the entire winter there. During their stay, three of their number died, and they were taken to a place along the river bank and buried. Later two additional bodies were added to the small plot, being two of Washington soldiers that had died on a farm at the foot of Jericho Mountain. This accounts for the remains of five bodies recently unearthed. Quite likely wooded crosses marked the graves for a time, but if so, had been obliterated. 

All of the remains of those found buried were carefully collected, and sometime in the near future will be reinterred close to the spot along the Delaware from which they were disturbed. It is also planned to have the location marked by an appropriate monument.

All was not settled yet. A year later we see an article in the Enterprise questioning whether the skeletons were soldiers or Indians.

Newtown Enterprise, December 22, 1923 “Were Likely Skeletons of Indians”

A word in regard to some skeletons that were exhumed near the river bank on the Kirkbride farm in the lower corner of Upper Makefield township when widening or straightening the Lower River road, at that place, in 1922. 

It was generally supposed that these skeletons were those of Revolutionary soldiers, but on closer examination of the manner and form of burial at least some of them were believed to be those of Indians beyond any reasonable doubt. Almost any person of average intellect, with a little thought will be convinced that a bed of argillite chips or flakes with sharp edges, such as can yet be seen where these skeletons were found, was not placed there by nature or by the white men. Besides, the writer, picked up three pieces of Indian pottery, which are now in the Mercer Museum at Doylestown. Perhaps more pottery was broken by the plow, and covered in the dirt removal, unnoticed by the workmen, besides the white men had better implements for digging and would bury their dead deeper than did the Indians.

Then if some of the skeletons were those of Indians, it is just possible that they were all Indians, and, that the Revolutionary soldiers’ graves there are yet undisturbed.

That certainly makes it sound like the graves were Indians and not soldiers. This begs the question, are the soldiers graves still there? 

Here's a few more sources. Nobody seems to know what happened to the bodies once they were determined to be Indians and not soldiers. 

Brownsburg Estates Phase 1B Archaeological Survey

“No Spot in This Far Land is More Immortalized” Peter Osborne 2014

This graveyard [Revolutionary Was Soldiers graves at Bowman's] was not the only one near the Crossing’s location. In 1922-1923, as Route 32 was built, the remains of what were thought to be five Continental soldiers were found near the junction of Mount Eyre Road and the new highway. They were uncovered as a dangerous curve was being straightened. The commission took possession of them and decided that if they proved to be Continental soldiers, a special casket would be purchased and they would be given a proper burial. It is not known what happened to them. 

Washington Crossing Park Commission 1917-1997, Vol 1. p. 85

The Secretary stated that about the first of December when straightening the River Road opposite Mount Eyre, the workmen of the State Highway Department found the remains of five bodies, evidently those of Continental Soldiers. A number of the bones which were not destroyed, are in the possession of the Secretary. Upon motion of Mr. Williams seconded by Mr. Fackenthal, the secretary was instructed to preserve these bones for a further investigation and Mr. Baldi stated that if these were found to be the remains of Continental Soldiers, he would present a steel casket and have proper burial at a place to be selected by the Commission.

Unknown Source

It is doubtless not known to many of your that in 1922, the State Highway Commission, in straightening out the River Road, 1.8 miles below Washington Crossing, at a point where the road from Dolington enters the River road, unearthed a number of bodies, supposed to have been those of soldiers who lost their lives by exposure and otherwise at the battle of Trenton. Five of these bodies were carefully removed and placed in boxes, with the thought of having them interred elsewhere;

Oddly, there's a grave stone right in the vicinity of where the graves were found, on the creek bank. It's for a pet, though. If the found skeletons were indeed Indians, then the soldier's cemetery remains undisturbed in the spot it always was.