This was in today's paper. State archaeologist: No cemetery on Wal-Mart site By: BEN BENTON Source: <A HREF="http://dpa.xtn.net/">The Daily Post-Athenian</A> 09-19-2002 A state archaeologist says the site thought to be a Civil War-era cemetery turned out to be depressions left by a felled tree that was part of a long-abandoned fence line on the property where Wal-Mart officials are planning to build a new “super store.” Tennessee Division of Archaeology state archeologist Nick Fielder said this week he found no indications a cemetery was ever located on the site. “I went up and looked at it, and I used an 1895 map, a 1944 map and a 1964 map for locations,” Fielder said. “They showed the road network and houses. I had a good feel for how it looked before. They (the maps) showed the fence line that’s up there and then I walked up and looked at the site where they found the alleged graves.” Fielder said he found no indication any graves ever existed on the site. He said he didn’t inspect the entire site, but said there were no other indications of a cemetery in the area. “In my opinion, that’s not a cemetery,” he said. “The depression they were looking at was from a tree,” he said. “That’s just an old fence line up there. I’ve looked at a lot of cemeteries over the years.” Fielder said he specializes in the location of old cemeteries and noted the lost cemetery was “supposed to be somewhere in the area.” According to Fielder, several depressions appearing there were more likely left by trees that were used as “fence posts” along the fence row which later fell and decayed, leaving the depressions. The location off of Congress Parkway and Decatur Pike is about three miles from downtown Athens, just as the missing cemetery is said to be positioned. Fielder said over past decades it was possible subsequent development of the three-mile perimeter of Athens could have disturbed or destroyed the old cemetery without notice. The cemetery issue arose when a Wal-Mart employee happened across the depressions in August while walking on the property, which is located on Layman Road behind the current Wal-Mart store on Congress Parkway. The property was once owned by the Layman family, according to records, and Stewart and McMinn County Historical and Heritage Society President Rex Moses speculated the site was that of the old Sivels-Vestal Cemetery which is supposed to be located somewhere in the area. The cemetery was in use during the Civil War and no one has been able to locate the exact site in recent years. The land in question now is listed in the name of First Mortgage Co., of Naples, Fla., in care of G.A. McHale of Fort Myers, Fla. Wal-Mart officials could not be reached for comment on the archaeologist’s findings.