Greenwood (Knights of Pythias) Cemetery is a historic cemetery in the Frankford neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It was established in 1869, is 43 acres in size and contains approximately 20,000 graves. It was established by the Knights of Pythias to provide burials for their members. Over time, the cemetery suffered from abandonment and vandalism. The cemetery became a site for illegal dumping and the rear portion of the property became wildly overgrown. In August 2000, the cemetery was added to the list of Philadelphia Register of Historic Places. The Friends of Greenwood Cemetery and Greenwood Holdings have been successful in cleaning up the cemetery and renovating the house on the property. In 2008, approximately 1,500 bodies were reinterred from the rear portion of the cemetery to a mass grave near the front of the property to allow construction of a parking lot for the adjacent Cancer Treatment Centers of America. History The cemetery was established on December 9, 1869 on on the estate of Commodore Stephen Decatur, Sr. known as "Mount Airy". The cemetery was founded by George Chandler Paul of the fraternal organization, Knights of Pythias, for the interment of its members and others. It was originally chartered as "The Greenwood Cemetery Company of Philadelphia", but the charter was changed to the "Knights of Pythias Greenwood Cemetery Company of Philadelphia" on March 18, 1870. Portions of the historic house at the entrance date back to 1750–1775. Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, lived on the farm in the late 18th century. In the early 19th century, a major addition to the house gave it the appearance of a vernacular federal structure. Recent evidence, however, dates the construction of the house to the 1830s or later. Greenwood Cemetery was modeled after cemetery designs created for the United States National Cemetery System established to bury soldiers from the American Civil War. Designed by architect Thomas S. Levy, the plans for the cemetery were very grand with rolling hills, naturalistic plantings, pathways arranged in a spoke-and-circle pattern, an artificial lake and a large gatehouse. The gatehouse and lake were never realized. Behind the house is a receiving vault emblazoned with Knights of Pythias insignia and inscribed with a date of 1870. The cemetery contains about 20,000 graves. The oldest grave is unknown, as there were many burials before the cemetery was chartered in 1869, and early