The first clue to the density of graves in Vick Cemetery came in response to my September 2019 request for public records related to the Lane Street cemeteries. A map, prepared by F.T. Green and Associates [now Green Engineering], showed the location of every grave observed by contractors clearing the cemetery in 1995. The resolution of the copy the City sent me is awful, but close inspection revealed that what seemed to be little marks were actually numbers. Each grave was numbered as it surveyed, but the city cannot locate its copy of the key to these numbers.

I recently had the chance to examine a cleaner print of this document, and it broke my heart all over again. The image below is a close-up of just a section of the map. I had counted 1491 of the little marks; I was off by about 35. But the contractor was off by more than 2700. We now know there are 4,224+ graves in Vick.