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From: "Ernest E. Blevins" <>
Subject: RE: [APG] Family cemeteries as inholdings
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 22:32:02 -0400
In-Reply-To: <20060720020834.45088.qmail@web53507.mail.yahoo.com>


Is that Firehouse the one at Wappoo Cut on James Island (Charleston, SC)
that they eventually dumped the plans for it at that spot when the
cemetery (which many knew was there) was a slave and Gullah burial
ground (Gullah, for those not familiar, being a Lowcountry culture of
blended African and English tradition, believes, and language --
predominately spoken by blacks but also by many whites. My mom's first
words were Gullah from her nanny and I can understand it but I don't do
as well speaking it).

Ernie


Ernest Everett Blevins, MFA
Blevins Historical Research
110 Evergreen Way
Villa Rica, Georgia 30180
770-456-1876
http://blevinshistoricalresearch.com

Historic Preservation Consultant -- Historical and Architectural
Research -- Genealogical (Family) Research -- Preservation Planning and
Documentation -- House History

Member: Association of Professional Genealogists, Georgia Association of
Professional Genealogists, Ambassador of the New England Historic
Genealogical Society, Historian: Casimir Pulaski SAR, Registrar: Georgia
Society of Founders & Patriots, and member of numerous other lineage
and heritage societies.


-----Original Message-----
From: Langdon [mailto:]
Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 10:09 PM
To:
Subject: Re: [APG] Family cemeteries as inholdings

The status of cemeteries varies state to state. Under
common law, cemeteries remained the property of the
families buried there, no matter how many times the
land holding them changed hands. They were held like
a right-of-way, even when the owner's family died out.
As common law was replaced by statutes, this and the
practice of always allowing loved ones to visit the
graves died out. Many graveyards were destroyed in
the 20th century. Most states are passing laws that
graveyards can't be destroyed or disturbed, developers
must tell buyers when there is a graveyard on site,
and in some states, developers are subject to criminal
penalties when they destroy a cemetary or don't notify
the buyer. It is up to the developer to find out of
there is a graveyard on site. Some states require that
a developer remove bodies, not just the stones, and
pay for re-burial. Some states have made it a felony
to disturb a grave, rather than just using a vandalism
statute. It is not just developers who have been the
problem. Some churches have removed bodies, when
adding to church facilities.

A man in South Carolina bought a new house, with
several acres of land. He no sooner settled in, when
a woman came to his door and asked to visit the grave
of her son. He informed her that he knew of no graves
on the land. She informed him that the site had been
the burial ground of her people for generations, and
that there were at least 200 graves on his land. In
another case, when a new fire station was being built,
an entire graveyard was discovered, but not before
some of the stones were destroyed during the
bulldozing.

I have worked with a group of people trying to
document all the family burial grounds in the low
country of South Carolina, before any more are
destroyed. We noticed that the Geodetic Survey only
records a few of them. Most are not noted, probably
because they are still on private property, or there
are very few stones. In fact, some states require a
site contain at least 6 bodies before it is designated
a "graveyard".

Virginia passed a law that anyone can visit the grave
of a loved one on private property, if they give the
owners of the land reasonable notice. In Google, you
can search your state code, and from the state code
site, you can search *graves*. Unfortunately, a
search of newspapers will turn up a lot of the horror
stories about what has been happening to the
graveyards over the years.

Langdon Hagen-Long


-- Coddgenealogy <> wrote:
> Apropos of the thread on "Eminent Domain &
> Cemeteries," does anyone know
> the legal status of family cemeteries if the land
> surrounding them has
> been (repeatedly) sold? Often these are just a few
> dozen yards square
> and all but forgotten. Specifically, I am curious
> about laws in
> Kentucky, where I was told that the "owner" of the
> cemetery owned it in
> perpetuity!
> This seems odd, as in one case I know the "owners"
> have received no
> tax bills for the last 120 years. Do counties track
> private cemeteries?
> Are cemeteries tax exempt? Does it depend on the
> wording of the
> particular deed (although family cemeteries are
> mentioned as clauses in
> other deeds, do they have deeds specific to
> themselves)? Do cemeteries,
> maychance, have some privileged legal status?
> Right-of-ways? Can
> "owners," through neglect, effectively abandon the
> cemetery so that the
> inholding is subject to squatter's rights?
> (Obviously the squatter would
> probably have to move the graves at their expense,
> but over the long
> haul that's a lot better than having 11 graves in
> the middle of your
> best pasture that you have to mow around!
> Jonathan
>
> >


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