Hey Cuzn' :) I missed that, but thanks for posting it here! Hmm...Must have been some rich slaves, as the workers told ME, "This is no lower class cemetery. From the casket handles and glass-topped coffins we're digging, it's our 20+ year experience that this was an upper class cemetery. These people had NICE things....pearl earrings, porcelain buttons on their clothes, ornate, expensive caskets..." The fact is it IS a slave cemetery there, AND there is the Sydnor Plantation cemetery adjacent to it. One cannot readily tell where one ends and the other begins. I saw them, firsthandedly, digging up fancy casket fragments, and only a couple feet away, fragments of decayed pine boxes with no ornate fixtures, etc. What a shame, the media wants to sugar coat all this, for fear of upsetting the County officials. THAT is what NEEDS to be done..ultimately....an UPSET within the COUNTY OFFICIALS. I truly believe that if they "digged a little deeper" for info (pardon the unintened pun), they would uncover a series of incidents where a certain developer has removed the tombtones and markers from graves, hired someone to say there was no graves there, then have their plats of land amended at the County Courthouse. Read the "Letters to the Editor" at the Mechanicsville Local's site, (www.mechlocal.com) and you will find in this week's issue (2/27/2002) a letter from Linda Heath of Mechanicsville, referencing the graves at Wal-Mart. If the tombstones were present in the fly-overs PRIOR to the original developer (same one as Pebble Creek...?) yet, they were gone in the fly-over from right before development began....well DUH! It does NOT take a rocket scientist to figure out something is not right here. Same with the aerial photos of the Pebble Creek property PRIOR to the original developer's ownership. Put two and two together. Tombstones don't walk away...and those GRAVES they are diggin up NOW are PROOF they were INDEED there. **steps down off soap box** Thanks for letting me vent. ~Sandra >From: <[email protected]> >Reply-To: [email protected] >To: [email protected] >Subject: [VAHANOVE] "Story" on Channel 8 television, Richmond >Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 18:33:23 -0500 > >http://www.wric.com/Global/story.asp?S=683751&nav=0Rcw7aJi > >Work crews in Hanover County have unearthed nearly 150 bodies in what is >believed to be a slave burial site. The bodies, some of which date back to >the 1750's are being removed to make way for new development off Route 360 >in the Pebble Creek Community. > >Recovery crews are three quarters of the way through excavation. They are >under court order to dig up the remains and then rebury them properly. > >The developer, PMG1 tells 8News there was no written record of the burial >site. But local historians say it was common knowledge. > >Allan K. Smith, a Hanover resident, says, "We knew for many many years that >there was at least 100 - 120 people buried there, and we knew it was a >slave >burying ground." > >Hanover Planning Director, Michael Crescenzo, notes, "there's been no >evidence provided to my knowledge that there was anything on that property. > >The developer says plans will go forward to build two homes on the property >once all the bodies have been removed. > > > >============================== >To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, >go to: >http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 > _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.