We don't think of the management of cemeteries - and the general disposal of dead bodies - as a function of local government, but it is. An important one too. Here's a look at how the issue developed in New York City.
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The development of New York continued without pause for the dead, even in times of epidemic. Greenwich Village, still very much a village in the early 19th century, became a destination for Lower Manhattanites fleeing the “infected districts” during outbreaks of yellow fever. Nonetheless, as the population soared and available space shrank, residents and local leaders alike knew that the city needed to address the bodies, ceaselessly piling up. In the burgeoning metropolis, even Manhattan’s underground was quickly becoming a real estate commodity.
While the odor of decaying bodies was unpleasant enough, New Yorkers also worried that the smell was quite literally making the people of the city sick. When the city suffered its five outbreaks of yellow fever between 1798 and 1822, the cause of the disease was still unknown. (Not until the late 19th century would doctors prove mosquitoes to be its carrier). In a desperate attempt to locate and stop the source of the 1822 epidemic, prominent New York doctors and city leaders noted that the fever’s first case was but a block away from Trinity on Washington and Rector streets. And until the outbreak ended with the first frosts of November, the disease would remain mostly concentrated in the neighborhood just west to the graveyard. Miasma, or polluting vapors that might arise from filth or decay, was long thought to be the cause of disease. The decaying bodies in Trinity churchyard, many of which belonged to victims of yellow fever, and the “noxious air” they produced, might very well be sickening local residents. Manhattan’s burial crisis became a public health crisis too.
