Skeletal remains found in Saint John may be connected to old TB hospital, say police

Saint John police are investigating after skeletal remains were discovered on the old Willett Foods property on the city's east side on Monday.

Gulf Operators was doing some excavating on the WillettAvenue property, now owned byIrving Oil,when the bones were found, said Insp. TanyaLeBlanc of the criminal investigation division.

The bones were loose and "quite deteriorated," she said. "They appeared to have been there for quite some time."

Based on consultation with the coroner's office, investigators believe the bones may beconnected to the former Tuberculosis Hospital, said LeBlanc.

But Harold Wright, who has made a career of delving into local history,suspects the bones are more likely connected to the former Saint John Almshouse, which used to sit on the WillettFoods site and had its own burial grounds.

"To me, that makes sense," said Wright.

The almshouse,which datesback to the1850s, housed people with no income.

"That was the institution where we put people on today what we would call welfare or social assistance," he said.

"Sometimes peoplewere there for a short time, sometimes people were there for a very long time years."

Several of the graves were exhumed and relocatedduring the1960s and '70s,when the formerdry dockwas expanded and Bayside Drive was rerouted, Wright said.

The TB hospital, which dated back to the 1930s and was demolished in the early 1980s, would have been located hundreds of yards southeast of the almshouse, he said.

It did not have its own graveyard and the burialsof anyone who died there are all documented, Wright said.

Another possibility, he said, is that the remains date back to when the land was farmland. It was common for families to bury loved ones on their property.

An anthropologist is working with police to determine the age of the bones,LeBlancsaid.

She could not say how long the process might take.

"Once this information is verified through the coroner's office, arrangements will be made for a dignified reburial," she said.