October 2026
Thomas H. Keels presents
SINNERS AND SCANDALS OF LAUREL HILL CEMETERY
Date/Time: Monday, October 26, 2026, 7:30 to 9:00 p.m.
Location: Friends Free Library at 5418 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia, 19144. There is ample on-street parking on Germantown Avenue.
Presentation: Join us and historian Thomas H. Keels for an illustrated tour of the seamy, salacious side of Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery, based on his latest book. His talk will unearth such fascinating characters as Mabel Tinley, the Philadelphia girl who became one of the biggest grifters in Gay Nineties New York; Henry Morris Naglee, the Civil War general denounced in the press as “a slayer of innocence and a robber of chastity”; and Martha Drinnan, spinster daughter of the cemetery superintendent, whose grisly death was one of Laurel Hill’s mysteries for decades.
Presenter: Thomas H. Keels is a new member of the Science and Art Club of Germantown, as well as a Philadelphia author and lecturer who has been giving tours at Laurel Hill Cemetery for thirty years. He is the author of eight books on local history, including the recently released Sinners and Scandals of Laurel Hill Cemetery, as well as Philadelphia Graveyards and Cemeteries and Wicked Philadelphia: Sin in the City of Brotherly Love. Visit his website at www.thomaskeels.com.
RSVP: Click here.
Note: This presentation will be IN-PERSON only, and NOT on Zoom. It will be recorded for immediate posting on SaCG’s YouTube channel.