The eight stone markers are in a jagged row about 300 feet from North Hills Community Church. No names are engraved, but church folk know the cemetery in the woods belonged to the Davis Walker family.

Now they want to find Walker descendants because they want to move the graves away from the parking lot they are building to accommodate their new education wing. Rarely are graves moved, said Charvis Gray, a funeral director with Watkins-Garrett & Wood Mortuary.

"Most are done for medical reasons or if a family wants to move one grave," Gray said. He has never moved a grave in his three years as a funeral director, but the mortuary has done some in the past.

Ross Robinson, North Hills pastor, said once the parking lot is built, the little wooded graveyard would be too close.

"We can leave it where it is and do everything we need to do, but we want to do whatever we can to be sensitive," he said.

Church officials want to move the graves to another spot on the property or put a wall around them because they feel it wouldn't be respectful having a parking lot a few feet away.

State law requires that Greenville County officials agree to the removal provided 30 days notice is given to known relatives. The church would pay for the removal, which must be supervised by a licensed funeral director, according to the law. County Attorney Jay Tothacer said if someone objects to the move, the county will create a three-person panel to find a solution.

Robert Fells, general counsel for the International Cemetery and Funeral Association, said grave moving is rare even though many forgotten grave sites are found when new construction occurs in once rural areas.

"Generally they build around it," he said. "It is very strange. You go to a housing development and there will be these little wrought-iron fences."

Most removals are simple, he said. They get complicated with historically significant graves, such as Native American burial grounds.

"The general law is rest in peace," Fells said. "A grave site should not be moved unless there is a compelling reason."

The Greenville News reported two years ago that the remains and burial artifacts, unearthed during the construction of roads, buildings and lakes across South Carolina, were being held in a secret location in compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, a federal law passed in 1990.

State legislators responded by setting in motion a process that for the first time it would give American Indians state recognition.

"Much of what is in there is long decomposed," Fells said. "When dealing with old graves sites, it is a matter of being respectful."

And it's not really known who is buried in the Walker cemetery, Robinson said. The cemetery long ago belonged the Davis Walker family, he said.

A square headstone marks the grave of Minerva Walker Bates, who died in 1935. A few years before her death, she had a larger stone erected honoring her parents, Davis Walker and Elizabeth Edwards, her uncle and his wife, Lynn Walker and Grace Green, and her grandfather, John Edwards. However, Robinson said Walker and Green are buried near Roper Mountain Road and Edwards is buried off Wade Hampton Boulevard.

No one knows why Minerva Bates put their names on the headstone, Robinson said.

Robinson said church officials knew about the cemetery when they bought the land in 1997, but cleared only enough of the 17 acres to build their church and parking lot.

They are hoping to talk to Walker family descendants to get their opinions on what should be done.

"We would like to do something that would be a positive to the people connected to those buried there."

http://greenvilleonline.com/news/2003/10/12/2003101216722.htm