1800s family laid to rest once more
Twenty-year-old Sheila Carter was first buried beside her family
members in 1889. Dirt and vegetation hid her tombstone until Brentwood homeowner Steve
Jones ran over it with his lawn mower two years ago. A team of seven archaeologists is now moving Carter's body and eight
others from the Jones' back yard into a small cemetery nearby. Nashville developer Pulte Homes, formerly Radnor Homes, is paying for
the removal of the bodies, an arrangement reached in Chancery Court last
month. According to state law, landowners cannot sell land with graves on
it without informing the buyer the bodies are there.
1800s family laid to rest once more
| | Christopher Hazel photographs the grave of a man who died in the
mid-19th century. Hazel, along with Chris Tuvy, top, and Brady Witt,
left, of DeVall and Associates, a private archaeology company, prepare
the body for reinterment in an adjoining graveyard. (Photos by Bill
Steber / Staff) |
| | Christopher Hazel uses a brush to clean the bones of a woman who died in the mid-19th century. |
By Emily Phillips / Staff Writer
Twenty-year-old Sheila Carter was first buried beside her family
members in 1889.
Dirt and vegetation hid her tombstone until Brentwood homeowner Steve
Jones ran over it with his lawn mower two years ago.
A team of seven archaeologists is now moving Carter's body and eight
others from the Jones' back yard into a small cemetery nearby.
The southern tier of Davidson County between Interstates 24 and 65 was
once pasture land where residents buried family members on their
property. Now it's bursting with commercial and residential development,
including the quiet cul-de-sac off Cloverland Drive where the Joneses
live.
As they add homes, stores and restaurants to land that had been used
only for farming, it's not unusual for developers to find hidden
cemeteries like the one where Carter was buried more than a century ago,
said State Archaeologist Nick Fielder.
Archaeologists could hear neighborhood kids playing in a nearby pool
this week as they worked meticulously with brushes and small paper bags
to preserve and remove the skeletons and caskets from 2 feet below the
lawn.
The Joneses called Fielder when they found the tombstone. He confirmed
that there were bodies buried in their yard and spent a day showing their
son's Boy Scout troop how to dig for evidence.
The remains behind the house didn't bother the Jones family. When they
bought their house in the early 1990s, they knew of an old graveyard
behind the back fence. Catherine Prentis Jones, a former history teacher,
said she finds the remains fascinating.
"The bad part is that they do have to be disturbed after all these
years."
The need to move bodies to the fenced graveyard arose when the Joneses
made plans to landscape their back yard and build a patio.
Fielder said he gets two or three calls a week about graveyard
remains, which are common in Middle Tennessee. The remains of 154 native
Americans were moved last year to make way for a new Wal-Mart on
Charlotte Pike, and 85 graves were moved to build the Brentwood library
in 1997.
"What's unusual about this situation is that it was unknown that the
graves were actually on this lot," Fielder said.
Nashville developer Pulte Homes, formerly Radnor Homes, is paying for
the removal of the bodies, an arrangement reached in Chancery Court last
month. According to state law, landowners cannot sell land with graves on
it without informing the buyer the bodies are there.
A Pulte Homes representative said in court the company did not know
about the graves, some of which were about 7 feet from the Jones house.
Calls to Pulte Homes were not returned yesterday afternoon.
Fielder said that if the developer had known about the sites, it would
have been illegal to build a house so close to them.
Christopher Hazel, an archaeologist from DuVall & Associates who was
helping to remove the bodies, was impressed by how well the skeletons had
been preserved in the soft clay behind the Jones' house.
The skeletons lay sprawled on the bottoms of their wooden coffins,
which were rotting away below and beside them. Some of the caskets had
glass viewing windows, which had shattered across the skull and rib cage.
One man was still wearing a decaying bow tie.
Hazel and his team dug carefully through the dirt first with a
backhoe, then with trowels and, finally, with brushes and dental picks to
inspect the bodies. They stopped frequently to photograph them.
They could tell by the people's decayed teeth that they had a lot of
sugar in their diets. Hazel knew from the bone structure whether they had
back pain or arthritis, and he could tell by the shapes of the bones that
they led vigorous lifestyles or had broken bones.
Hazel said he loves his work because he can rediscover people.
"People that have been forgotten are able, to a certain degree, to
say who they are," he said. "Their story's being told."
The Joneses ran classified advertisements looking for relatives of the
people in their back yard, but got no response.
But Catherine Prentis Jones said she is interested in finding the
remains of Sheila Carter, whose tombstone she and her husband first
discovered two years ago.
The day the Joneses and Fielder found the entire stone was July 17 --
the same day Carter died in 1889. Her large, gray tombstone is carved
with an ornate flower on the top.
A verse is carved at the bottom: "Asleep in Jesus, blessed sleep,
from which none ever wakes to weep."
"She's the one, I want to find her," she said. "She's special."
The Tennessean
http://www.thisweek-online.com/2000/october/27explode.html
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