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Question:
I continue to hear the term “Potter’s Field.” Can you explain what that means?
Answer:
This is a sensitive issue and one that the Memorial Doctor will attempt to finesse. “Potter’s Field” is a term used for locations in cemeteries where the indigent, or people who are either unknown or without financial resources, are buried. The term comes from Matthew 27:7, found below in the King James Version of the Bible.
Reviewing the website for the remarkable Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia, http://www.oaklandcemetery.com/, I found that the site explains that before 1900, those who were without funds were buried on a private lot in Oakland Cemetery at city expense. In the archives, the term “unassigned” indicates that a person was buried in Potter’s Field. Typically, graves in Potter’s Field are unmarked, though many were originally marked with wood markers that no longer exist. Interestingly, Oakland Cemetery’s website indicates that an archeological study approximated that “17,500 people were buried in Potter’s Field” in that cemetery alone.
Sadly, if you find dead ends in your historical or genealogical search, it may be due to deaths that resulted in burials in Potter’s Fields in cemeteries across the United States and beyond.
Matthews, Chapter 27, King James Version
Mat 27: 1
When the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death:
Mat 27:2
And when they had bound him, they led [him] away, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor.
Mat 27:3
Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,
Mat 27:4
Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What [is that] to us? See thou [to that].
Mat 27:5
And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.
Mat 27:6
And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.
Mat 27:7
And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in.
Mat 27:8
Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day.
Mat 27:9
Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;
Mat 27:10
And gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me.
Proper preneed planning will assure that you and your loved ones never end up in a Potter’s Field.
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