Human remains unearthed in Yorkville identified as woman who died in 1848

Human remains that were accidentally unearthed in May by a contractor crew doing utility work in the 200 block of Park Street in Yorkville have been identified as belong to a woman who died in 1848.

Lucy M. Crater of Bristol was born around July 1828 and died on Sept. 13, 1848, according to a news release from Kendall County Coroner Jacquie Purcell.

The contractor crew in May inadvertently unearthed her remains from a former cemetery that had been located on the site in the 1840s and 1850s.

During the initial investigation, the Kane County Coroner’s Office and the Yorkville Police Department were contacted by the Kendall County Historical Society and multiple community members, who identified the site as the former location of the Bristol Burying Grounds, a cemetery from the mid-1800s which had been converted to a residential neighborhood.

Anne Grauer, of the Loyola University Chicago Bioarcheology Lab, in late June provided the Kendall County Coroner’s Office with a comprehensive report of her anthropological analysis, which indicated that the remains belonged to a woman who was between 18 and 25 years at the time of death. No evidence of trauma or foul play was found.

Crater’s extended family also has connections to multiple notable Kendall County families, including the Beecher and Sanders families, according to the release.

With the consent of her living indirect descendants, Purcell has determined that Crater’s remains will be moved to the Elmwood Cemetery in Yorkville in keeping with the tradition of reinterment of many of the original Kendall County pioneers from the Bristol Burying Grounds.

For more information on the investigation, go to https://bit.ly/LucyCrater.