A descriptive analysis of the oldest burials in Pittsburgh’s Duncan Heights cemetery, reconstructed from death certificates, 1931-1935

Duncan Heights is an abandoned cemetery near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with known burials from 1931 to 1961. Parkview and, later, Lakeview were also used as names for this cemetery. The original records have been lost, and only a few dozen headstones are present and legible. However, I have used death certificates to partially reconstruct the burial records. This paper presents a descriptive analysis of known burials from June of 1931, when the cemetery opened, to June of 1935, when a Works Progress Administration (WPA) survey reported that there were 400 graves, including 10 veterans. My analysis, based on an extensive examination of Allegheny County death certificates, found that the number of people buried in that timeframe was more than double what the WPA reported. This examination revealed death certificates for 822 people, including all of the reported 10 veterans. Decedents were 66.2% Black and 33.7% white. The median age at death was 40. Infants 1 year and under made up 13.6% of burials. From these results, I identify three distinct populations of burials. One consists of mainly Black Pittsburghers buried by Black funeral directors. A second, much smaller, group consists of white decedents buried under the Parkview Cemetery name. Finally, the largest group is roughly 50% white and includes a high proportion of both stillborn infants and adult institutional patients.