The number of buried, century-old sets of human remains dug up behind the Cornish Town Hall had grown to eight Wednesday, and more could be discovered Thursday when excavation resumes for the installation of a drainage pipe, a York County official said.

The first bones were unearthed Monday in an area that had once held a small cemetery that was believed relocated before the Town Hall was built in 1925. Thirteen Cornish residents, all of whom died in the late 1800s, had been buried in the cemetery.

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Excavators working behind Cornish Town Hall found graves containing bodies. The remains found in the unearthed graves lie next to the excavation site Wednesday.

William L. King Jr., chief deputy for the York County Sheriff’s Office, said Monday that it appeared one grave had been missed when the rest were relocated to the Riverside Cemetery on Maple Street in Cornish. But it now appears that only the grave markers were moved, and that the contractor failed to exhume the remains themselves almost a century ago.

“It is upsetting and horrible to think that in 1920 they didn’t move the remains,” King said. “We think they only moved the headstones.”

All the remains unearthed so far have been sent to the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Augusta, which will try to determine the gender, race and approximate age of each individual. The remains will then be returned to Cornish and reburied at Riverside Cemetery, likely at town expense, said Selectwoman Nancy Perkins.

But it appears unlikely that individual sets of remains can be linked to the correct grave marker at Riverside, because investigators have been unable to locate any artifacts – such as watches or jewelry – that might identify individual bodies, King said.

On Monday, workers from PY Estes & Son of West Baldwin uncovered what appeared to be human bones, as well as pieces of wood that appeared to be parts of a casket, as they began work installing the drainage pipe. The contractor stopped digging and notified the sheriff’s office.

Initially, officials believed they had unearthed the remains of one individual, but an examination by the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office revealed that the contractor had actually dug up two sets of remains – only one skull was found – on Monday.

On Wednesday, the contractor discovered the remains of an additional six individuals, King said. He said the site is definitely a cemetery and the remains are human.

“We’ve been finding caskets and pieces of wood that are badly deteriorated,” he said.

Perkins said the remains buried at the old cemetery – which is unnamed as far as she knows – were supposed to have been moved in the early 1920s to allow the town the space it needed to build a new Town Hall on the property. But Perkins and other town officials agree that the job apparently was not completed.

Perkins said townspeople were “surprised” but not shocked by the discovery. There are more than 40 cemeteries in Cornish, several of them small, privately owned family lots, she said.

Attempts to reach the Cornish Historical Society were unsuccessful.

After each set of remains has been examined, they will be returned to the custody of the town. Perkins said she is confident that the Board of Selectmen will take the steps necessary to ensure that the remains receive a proper burial at Riverside.

“The state told us that placing the remains in the cemetery was the right thing to do,” she said. “They were Cornish citizens. We will do everything we can to honor their memory.”

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