First of all, there is no law to stop anyone in SC from selling a cemetery right along with the land it sits on. There is a law that makes it a felony to disturb or vandalize or destroy a cemetery, but I have never heard of it being enforced. However, this is NOT what's happening with the "Ray" Cemetery as recently posted to the Dillon Cemetery Webpage. I just sent a message to Victoria with this information, but I see it has already become a subject of concern on the list. So here is the information I just sent to Victoria: This morning I called Lloyd Meekins & Sons Realty & Auction Company of Dillon, the company that owns the land on Joan Road near May Hilltop, designated as the "Ray" Cemetery on the Dillon Cemetery Webpage. I spoke to Mr. Roger Meekins, a most helpful young man. According to Mr. Meekins, the cemetery land is NOT for sale, not for mobile home lots or anything else. It has been designated as "cemetery lands" on the Dillon County Tax Map - about 1/4 acre, an area much larger than the little cemetery itself. I know this is not an easy out for Meekins, as I initially led him to believe I wished to purchase the cemetery lot, and he immediately informed me that it was NOT for sale. Actually, this cemetery looks much as it has looked for the past 17 years, since I moved back home. I stopped over there this morning. The lot Meekins laid out for the cemetery is much larger than would have been required, and the stones do not appear to have been disturbed in any new, significant fashion at all. That is not to say it's not overgrown and some stones have not fallen over. But the posting makes it sound much, much worse than this particular situation warrants, in my opinion. Would that timber companies and farmers had enough concern about old cemeteries to designate them all as cemetery lands in the tax office, rather than destroying them. It is a shame that this old farm was busted up and sold for lots. But so it goes, nothing to be done about that. But the lots are not tiny, the trailers and homes that have been built around there are comely, and for the most part attractive and well kept. The people who have purchased the lots do not seem to be riff-raff. And when I spoke to the people in the mobile home across the road from the cemetery, they seemed genuinely concerned about it's fate. I suggested to Mr. Meekins that since they now own the cemetery, it would be a great public relations act in the local community, and in the genealogical community, if they cleaned it up. He didn't seem enthralled at the prospect, but I drilled him with the idea. We'll see if it bears any fruit. :-) Jo Church Dickerson

Thirty years ago, we moved into a new development in Greenville with what apparently was a family burial ground on the lot next to ours. It did not have tombstones, just rocks with names and initials carved on them. A lady from the Historical Society got in touch with me and told me that if they ever tried to build on the lot to contact them immediately. They had an injunction to make the contractor move the graves before he built on the land. I understand that, some years later, they did move the graves before they built on it. I also heard that most of the walls in the house cracked within a year or so! It sounds like something can be done legally to prevent destroying cemetaries. I hope it is so because too much of our history has already been destroyed. Betty Jo Stewart