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Taphophilia (dot) Com...
A repository of morbid curiosities:
Thanatology and Taphophile Issues, Cemetery,
Funeral Industry and Death Related News.
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West Springfield Massachusetts: Stories Carved in Stone by Rusty Clark features information on early New England gravestone carvers with more than two hundred photos and illustrations. Please visit the Dog Pond Press website.
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Battle over raising the dead |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Saturday, 16 July 2005 |
By ERIC STIRGUS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
07/12/05
It was not your typical burial service.
A developer, funeral home officials and relatives of three dozen long-dead people gathered at a Henry County cemetery last year, watching solemnly as a single casket was lowered into the ground.
That casket held tombstones and soil removed from the deceased's original resting place, a 19th-century cemetery eight miles away.
Now, some county officials are saying the developer didn't follow state law in moving the headstones and dirt from the old graveyard. One county commissioner wants the tombstones moved back. And an archaeologist suspects that remains — minus the tombstones — might have been left behind.
Across metro Atlanta, as the construction boom continues, local governments are increasingly challenged to protect older cemeteries that receive little care.
Four years ago, Gwinnett County officials accused a developer of improperly clearing land some residents say contains Indian mounds. Cobb County officials have sought volunteers to adopt and maintain older cemeteries. In Henry County, the most recent debate focuses on a pre-Civil War cemetery near Crystal Lake, about two miles east of the Clayton County line, where green grass is gradually being replaced by the bricks of subdivisions.
The cemetery's oldest grave, according to county records, belongs to Anderson White, who died in 1826. The last burial is believed to have taken place in 1914.
Most of the people buried in the old cemetery, which goes by several names, are Fosters or Whites — longtime Henry County families who built log cabins, plowed farms and still maintain strong ties to the county.
The old cemetery is on land owned by a development group led by David Black, who is building a luxurious golf course community in the area. Home prices will range from $350,000 to more than $1 million.
Black won't say what, if anything, might someday be built on the site of the old graveyard. But in April 2004, Black hired a funeral home company, which moved the headstones and soil from 35 graves at the old cemetery to Haisten at Eastlawn Memorial Gardens, a modern cemetery in McDonough.
Most, though not all, of the tombstones taken from the old cemetery were placed in one casket and buried in the new graveyard. Other tombstones moved from the old graveyard were erected at the new cemetery. Soon, a marker will be placed on the site where the casket containing the tombstones is buried.
State law, however, requires that an archaeologist remove human remains from a gravesite, not a funeral home. Also, the local county commission must give permission to anyone wishing to disturb a burial site.
In this case, county government officials say they did not give the go-ahead. Black said he thought he needed only probate court permission.
As if all that weren't enough, an archaeologist said the old cemetery might still contain remains of those buried there.
Several people recently contacted county officials, worried that the work was not done properly.
"It is [our] professional opinion that none of the human remains were removed during . . . disinterment efforts," wrote Larissa Thomas of TRC Associates, an Atlanta-based archaeological firm hired by the county last month to study the site.
Elizabeth "B.J." Mathis, the county commissioner whose district includes the cemetery, said she wants the tombstones returned to the site and access provided to the cemetery for the families of those buried there.
Black maintains that any human remains had already decomposed.
"We tried to do the best we can to do everything the proper way," he said.
Jeremy Head, who said one of his ancestors was buried on the site, called the excavation efforts a "desecration" to the memory of those buried in the cemetery.
"They only took one scoop of dirt off those graves," he said. "I know those bones are still there."
But Hamilton Foster, who believes he has five relatives buried in the old cemetery, isn't that upset.
Foster said he couldn't visit the old graveyard because it had been fenced. Now, he said, he can pay his respects at the new cemetery. "We've got a lot more access to it now than we did before," he said.
Black said he is willing to adhere to any recommendations from the county on what to do with the gravesite. Thomas recommended that the site be professionally excavated and any remains reburied.
In the meantime, Jim Steele, a former Henry County commissioner, said he'd like to see the county government do more to protect older gravesites. "These people were here long before the developers were," he said.
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/henry/0705/12graves.html |
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Taphophilia?
taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)
ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"
DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries
Quote Repository
“If we don't know life, how can we know death?” Confucius
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