Laboratory technicians are studying the bones of 10 Mormon pioneers before the skeletons are reburied in the same cemetery in Tooele where they were originally laid to rest.
"We ended up with three teenagers or adults and seven younger children or infants," said Everett Bassett, archaeologist with the environmental engineering consulting firm, Dames & Moore/URS, Salt Lake City.
The skeletons were in unmarked graves in a cemetery about a mile south of Tooele. Because the cemetery was disturbed by cable and water lines and road construction, and because the road could be enlarged again, city officials decided to have some graves moved.
Tooele was settled in 1849, two years after pioneers arrived in Salt Lake Valley. The town had its first death in 1850, and the cemetery was used sporadically from then until an official city cemetery was established at another site in 1867.
Archaeologists used a backhoe to scrape a layer of soil from a swath through the earlier cemetery, which is called the Tooele City Pioneer Cemetery and Memorial Garden. The scraping, 40 by 300 feet, showed where burial plots were located, by the difference in soil color, but did not uncover the actual graves.
Locations of the graves may have been marked with wooden headstones that eventually decayed. According to Bassett, in those days people may not have been as interested in permanent stone grave markers.
"If you believed in an afterlife, what happened to your body wasn't all that important," he said.
Specialists disinterred the skeletons on Saturday and Sunday and took them to a laboratory at the University of Utah.
Two plots were empty. Settlers "moved bodies early to the new cemetery," explained Shannon Novak, forensic anthropologist at the U. Also, earlier road work apparently disturbed a plot, she said.
Among the burials excavated were those of a "young female who had an infant coffin placed on her abdomen," she said. The double grave was tragic evidence of the danger of childbirth in the middle 19th century.
Also showing the dangers of those times, by far most of the skeletons are those of children and infants, including newborns.
Little was recovered other than the bones, which were in good shape. Some coffin wood was present, most of it waterlogged and fragile.
Wood that could be identified at first examination seems to be pine, which argues against the theory that the pioneers used their handcarts to make coffins. Handcarts would have been made of hardwoods, such as ash, hickory or oak.
Some of the wood will be examined by microscope to learn more about its type.
The coffins' shape could be deduced from the hollows left behind. They were hexagonal, with broad shoulders and narrow feet. Nails, plus buttons made of glass, metal and shell, were the only other artifacts.
Researchers will compile reports about the age, sex and possible pathologies of those buried. If they died of certain diseases, the bones may tell the story. If they broke limbs, the fractures may still show.
In addition, bones of adults may carry "activity markers," Bassett said. Women who spent years spinning cloth may have notched teeth from holding thread in their mouths. Farmers and millworkers had muscle attachments on their bones that were different from those of store clerks.
Age and other indications may help identify bodies, based on lists of those buried in the cemetery.
James L. Bevan, Tooele, a past president of the Settlement Canyon Chapter, Sons of Utah Pioneers, said the Utah Department of Transportation wanted a bigger area cleared for possible road work.
"We were trying to hold firm on not moving any more than was absolutely necessary," Bevan said. In the end, both sides compromised.
"Of what could have happened, we think this is the best option." UDOT agreed not to let anyone dig new utility lines on the side of the road where the cemetery is, Bevan said.
Once the scientists finish with their examinations, the bodies will be reburied in the same cemetery and a new plaque will mark the place. This should happen by or before July 24, the anniversary of the pioneers' reaching Salt Lake City.
You can reach Joe Bauman by e-mail at bau@desnews.com