Monday, January 21, 2002
Disturbed graves
By ERICH SEAN-PAUL SPIVEY
Special to The Sun
High Springs
Doris Wright knows exactly where most of her family is buried. The graves of her mother and father are flanked by those of other relatives, all identified by clearly marked headstones at Pine Hills Cemetery.
With one of many worn-away grave markers in the foreground, area residents meet at Pine Hills Cemetery to construct an accurate map of the more-than-100-years-old resting place. LEE FERINDEN/Special to The Sun
After noticing the ground was slightly disturbed next to her cousin's burial site, Wright did a little research and discovered that a baby was buried there without any markings.
Longtime residents of High Springs say the unmarked grave was part of a trend many years ago of families burying people in the cemetery without checking with the black community that owned the land. They said this process disregarded historic plot reservations, and it possibly disturbed bodies buried in the late 1800s.
"The baby is not related to us," said Wright, a 63-year-old lifelong High Springs resident. "We are stressing to people to put a marker on the graves so your children can get the family's history."
Wright is president of the Pine Hills Cemetery Committee that started the tedious task on Saturday of mapping the cemetery's four acres, grave site by grave site. The project will try to locate unmarked graves and confirm family plot reservation lines that have been passed from generation to generation by memory.
Holding an aerial photograph of the cemetery and a Global Positioning System receiver, High Springs City Commissioner Bill Coughlin walked through the cemetery off U.S. 441. Six of the town's elders, who represented churches in High Springs, helped Coughlin lay out the area Saturday afternoon by recalling bits of information about the cemetery's history.
"The cemetery is over 100 years old, and there's never been an accurate plot done," Coughlin said. "We are going to accurately map this and indicate the gaps so that someone who needs a burial permit can know what space is available and where it is."
Coughlin and the committee members have no idea how many people are actually buried at Pine Hills Cemetery. He estimated that 100 to 150 families have a "historical right" to be buried there.
"They have an expectation to be buried among their family members and not bump into somebody else," Coughlin said. "But if there's an area with any questions, we're going to set that aside. . . . We're not going to take any chances of un-interring people."
The cemetery dates back to the late 1800s. High Springs resident Esther Hill Thomas said her grandfather gave two-thirds of the cemetery to local churches as a burial ground for members. Because of financial constraints, Thomas said, many families marked graves only with small metal plates provided by funeral homes.
Esther Alexander looks at a row of graves to help Commissioner Bill Coughlin draw an accurate map of who is buried there. "There has never been an accurate map done," Coughlin said. "Some people were just buried in pine boxes that have disappeared over time." LEE FERINDEN/Special to The Sun
"If we didn't follow up and get something permanent, over time it would rust and fade away," Thomas said. "It's a possibility that some people have been buried over because of the containers they were using years ago without any markers."
Coughlin said the mapping process will take up to three months. He said ground-penetrating radar may be used to sweep over the large expanses.
The committee mapped the northwest corner of the cemetery on Saturday, locating four unmarked grave sites and some unused space.
"We want the city to have an electronic map so they can tell if the plot is open or not," Coughlin said. "There's a chance in this older part that a number of burials aren't marked and have faded into memory."