To all recipients, Below are three news articles regarding the actions now taking place in Hanover County with regards to the bodies being removed in the Pebble Creek Subdivision. Two are from this week and one is from October, 2001. My questions to present to each of you are these: 1. In what newspaper was it "advertised" that these remains would be removed, asking for family members to come forward, and how to contact those in charge of this? When was this done? Why hasn't this information been shown in any television interviews? 2. In what way is a mortician an experienced or trained person to use in the identifying of gravesites? They are experienced in the preservation or treatment of bodies once they have become deceased, but not in locating graves over 100 years in age. 3. Why wasn't the State Archeological Dept. notified or contacted? Dept. of Historic Resources? 4. Approx. 2 + years ago both my husband and myself were contacted by a representative of PebbleCreek asking for information on who to contact with regards to locating graves. It was at this time we put them in touch with a former Coast Guardsman who does thermal imaging photography. This type of photography clearly shows the size of gravesites, the number of graves, etc. Why was this method not pursued? They obviously knew a large gravesite was in this area or they would not have called. 5. Why was the information on these plots showing gravesites removed? Why did some of residents know & some didn't? 6. Why wasn't this process stopped after finding more than "a few" family members? The body count was over 130 early last night. How many more times will bodies be shuffled around Hanover County? What will happen to our cemeteries now in 150 years? 7. Have any of those directly involved in this process taken into consideration the health hazards that the work crew and the families of residents of PebbleCreek may now be exposed to? There are certain causes of deaths for which bodies may NOT be exhumed. There are now concerns of arsenic in the soil due to the types of caskets used & found during this digging. The work crew have found whole skulls, jewelry, broken glass-topped caskets, dust, many portions of bones, etc. There is quite a bit more involved than just scooping these remains up into plastic trash cans & then dumping remains into vaults. Was this investigated? 8. How many other family cemeteries has Hanover County allowed to be destroyed recently? There is one involved in the sewage treatment plant, one under the Wal-Mart parking lot, and one in the line of fire for the new stripmall/subdivision plan from Pole Green Road to Studley Road. That's four in a matter of a few years that family members HAVE been vocal about and that BofS members and Planning Committee members knew about. 9. In less than 24 hrs I was able to find out the following information. Why didn't the Planning Committee, Board of Supervisors, Builders, etc. do this much homework? There are two cemeteries located at the PebbleCreek Subdivision site. One is a white cemetery and one is a black cemetery. The last interment occurred in 1970 for Emma Green. The graves date back as far as the early 1800's. This property was once part of the Sydnor plantation. Several Mechanicsville/Hanover County residents knew identities of those buried in these cemeteries. Much of this was recorded in a local newspaper. Property deeds dating that far back are available at the Hanover Courthouse for those who wanted to look and see if there were in fact any graves on the property and approximately for how long and one could even get a good idea as to how many. 10. Is Hanover County looking for the same negative publicity as the crematory in Georgia is receiving? Why aren't all the news media in & around Hanover County covering this story? It is time for the truth to be seen that we have some serious problems in our government in Hanover County that would allow this to happen. For other information, I strongly suggest you refer to the Virginia State Laws regarding private/family cemeteries. This information is available on the internet as well as the VA State Library. Thank you. Sheri Millikin Hanover, VA February 26, 2002 Bones Unearthed - WTVR - Channel 6 http://www.wtvr.com/Global/story.asp?S=681250 125 Bodies, dating back to the 1830's have been unearthed in a Hanover County Subdivision. Construction crews have been digging up the bodies in the Pebble Creek community to make way for new homes. It may seem disrespectful but it's perfectly legal to remove remains and transfer them to another location. Hanover County officials says there are a lot of other gravesites in the area, but many of them are sold old and the land has been sold so many times that it's hard to know exactly where they are. The bodies taken from the Pebble Creek Subdivision will be laid to rest in another plot of land. http://www.herald-progress.com/herald-progress/myarticles.asp?H=1&S=490&P=264851&PubID=4965 Remains in Mech graves to be moved By LINA PENALOSA H-P Staff Writer October 18, 2001 - More than 18 months after human remains were discovered on two lots in the Pebble Creek subdivision of Mechanicsville, the process of disinterment and re-internment will begin. Individuals with relatives located in the abandoned graveyard have until Nov. 13 to take necessary action regarding the remains. Following that deadline, PMG-One, LLC, owner of the land in the Pebble Creek development, will apply for a permit to remove and rebury an unspecified number of remains. Some of the remains were first unearthed on Feb. 2, 2000 when Rock View Homes, a Powhatan-based contractor, began working on the site. The unmarked gravesites were part of a 322-acre farm previously owned by Mechanicsville resident Oscar Via, who inherited the property from his father. "We want to see if there are any family members that have people there," said Todd Rogers, manager of PMG-One. Tommy Naumann, vice president of Burruss Burial Vaults, Inc., would probably oversee the disinterment and reinterment, said Sam Beale, representative for PMG. "[He] will do some probing and he'll be able to tell how many burial sites there are," Beale said. "There may be nothing there but dust and dirt, but he'll know what was there. You probably won't find any casket handles or belt buckles or anything like that." Whether or not casket handles and buckles are found, Naumann said, everything including the dust of the decaying casket will be removed for reinterment. "We have backhoes that we bring in," he said. "If we find a vault, then that vault is lifted out with cables, put on a truck and carried out to where it is going to be buried. If we find no vault, then we have to put men in there and dig by hand. And we have to get all of the remains. Anything that belongs to the grave, wood from the casket, cloth from clothing, casket handles, has to be taken out and reintered. Even the black dirt that is the remains of the casket decomposing." Removing one set of remains can take anywhere from half an hour to an hour and a half, depending on whether the remains are in a burial vault, burial liner, or neither. "A burial vault is a sealed concrete container," Naumann said. "A grave liner is a container that is not sealed. It is not meant to afford any protection to the remains." Instead, it is used to keep the ground from sinking after the casket decomposes. Despite the lack of tombstones or markers at the grave sites in Pebble Creek, Naumann said it will not be difficult to pinpoint the number of sites and their locations. "If you go out and count the tombstones, that has nothing to do with the number of graves," he said. "Tombstones are a very modern thing. You do want to search the overall area. Usually, it takes a couple hours [to inspect]. Typically people are buried in a cluster, but you get people that are buried away from the cluster." Visual cues are important to locating possible burial sites, Naumann said. "People used to love to put cedar trees on cemeteries, old walls or fences, or flowers that are not naturally occurring." An eight-foot sounding rod, however, is the most important tool in locating remains. "The ground never re-packs the same," Naumann said. "You can go down there and tell exactly where a grave is. [A sounding rod] goes through the dirt like butter. When you push it into the ground that has not been dug up, you can hardly push it in. "They can give you a very reliable count. The only problem is with infant graves because they are so small. And even a good rod man can find them quickly. Once you go in there, it's very rare that we don't know exactly how many graves are in there." The disinterment and reinterment process must also be overseen by a licensed funeral home, Beale said. "They have to observe you digging them out of the ground and reintering them," he said. "It's a hands-on eyes-on type thing." PMG originally sold the property to a builder, Rogers said, that Wachovia closed on. Rock View Homes then purchased the property and began developing it when the remains were unearthed. PMG once again owns the property. When the remains were first uncovered, Rogers said, PMG and Rock View Homes entered a dispute trying to define, in part, responsibility for the gravesites. The matter was resolved in an undisclosed settlement. Representatives of Rock View Homes declined to comment. At this time, Rogers said, Rock View Homes will not be the company to develop homes on the lots. Construction is slated to begin sometime next summer. Excavation startles residents Hanover subdivision site of 111 graves http://www.timesdispatch.com/vametro/MGBO48955YC.html BY BOB PIAZZA TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Feb 26, 2002 The excavation of more than 100 unmarked graves in part of an affluent Mechanicsville subdivision has some residents crying foul. Workers for a Hanover County burial-vault company, Burruss Vaults, said yesterday that they were under a court order to move the remains. The remains, in what was apparently a small graveyard, are being moved from the Pebble Creek subdivision off U.S. 360 to a nearby cemetery. "When you get a blanket order to move a cemetery, you move everybody in it," said a Burruss representative, who would not identify himself. He said no one responded to a published advertisement seeking information about those buried in the graves. Todd Rogers, a manager for PMG-One, the subdivision developer, said that before lots were sold, the company checked to see if there were any cemeteries on the site. He said none was found in what was then a 200-acre field that had been farmland. "If we would have found the remains while we were doing the roads or whatever, we would have taken the same steps that we are taking now," Rogers said. Still, some residents are upset that they were not told about the graves. "The people around me as neighbors are very upset because nobody has told us about the grave sites," one homeowner said. "When you have $200,000 to $300,000 invested in a home, it's like you want the best, and you turn around and here you are on top of grave sites." Burruss workers were digging with shovels and heavy equipment yesterday at two lots near the intersection of Lake Haven and Green Haven drives. Rogers said a builder found the skeletal remains of two people on the two lots more than a year ago, and PMG-One then obtained a Circuit Court order for the removal and reburial of any remains found on the lots. Rogers said the workers have been at the site for about two weeks and have found 111 graves. He said the excavation should be finished soon. He said he had no way of identifying the remains. The area saw heavy activity during the Civil War, but Rogers said no indications were found that the graves belonged to Civil War soldiers. Hanover Deputy County Administrator John Hodges said it is not unusual to find unmarked grave sites in rural areas. He said that when builders come across graves, they typically leave them alone or get a court order to move them. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contact Bob Piazza at (804) 559-8408 or [email protected]