POTTSTOWN PA – Now that its recent beautification is completed, thanks to the efforts of volunteers, Pottstown’s Edgewood Historic Cemetery is ready to open its gates for tours of “The Infamous of Edgewood.”
The event features costumed re-enactors and interpreters who relate stories about or portray characters interred in the cemetery. The tour’s selected subjects are said to have been involved in unusual deaths, tragedies, and “true crimes.”
Tickets for Edgewood’s Halloween-season walking tour, the third in its series of Walk-To-Remember living history experiences, are available now online. They cost $20 for adults, and $10 for students and children. Tours are scheduled to start Oct. 19 (Saturday) at noon, 1 p.m., and 2 p.m. (click adjacent links for your choice) at the cemetery, 989 E. High St. Light refreshments are included.
A fourth tour time could be added if the first three fill to capacity, organizers say. A rain date of Oct. 26 (Saturday) also has been reserved if necessary.
Guests will learn about:
- A 1924 murder-suicide at the Pottstown YMCA, as portrayed by actors playing the mother of the victim and the local reporter who covered the horrific tragedy;
- Pottstown ghost stories (and visitors are invited to share their own, too!); and
- A true crime tale of “the Hungarian Love Triangle,” and the fascinating story behind the crime and interment at Edgewood.
For more information, call or text representative Kelly Fenstermacher at 610-506-7033, or send her an e-mail to kelly@historicedgewood.com.
An ambitious clean-up project
Volunteers turned out Saturday (Oct. 5) for the cemetery’s annual four-hour fall clean-up. It was documented by WPVI-TV community journalist Matteo Iadonisi for the station’s 6ABC Action News broadcasts.
The work group included volunteers from the Red Horse Motoring Club in Pottstown. It offered to tackle an overgrown bank of the grounds located along Keim Street, between High and Beech streets. Chipping services were provided by Find Solutions Properties LLC.
Additionally, Edgewood boosters welcomed residents who brought and operated weed-whackers, chain saws, rakes, and shovels in the community effort to beautify the grounds.
“The Edgewood cleanups have become bigger and better each year,” according to Cemetery Friends Board President Andrew Monastra, who also is a Pottstown Borough Council member representing its Sixth Ward. “Participants look forward to this high-energy day of giving back to Pottstown, and to the families of people buried on the grounds.”
Lunch was served through the generosity of local restaurants, including Little Italy and The Pourhouse in Pottstown.
Photos from earlier Edgewood clean-up efforts
An appeal for help
Edgewood Cemetery continues to display the effects of headstone toppling, and sinking of many plots, due to the natural passage of time, less stable burial methods, and “a serious groundhog-related destruction problem,” advocates explain. It has begun an “Adopt-a-Gravestone” fund-raising program to address these and other issues.
Potential donors interested in offering assistance can make contributions online; or call Fenstermacher at 610-506-7033, or send her an e-mail to kelly@historicedgewood.com.
Volunteers at the Infamous tour also will sell Edgewood Cemetery merchandise to benefit its mowing fund, as well as Adopt-a-Gravestone.
All photos provided to Travels With The Post by historic Edgewood Cemetery
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