PORTSMOUTH
An 8-year-old boy's discovery of a human skull has again spotlighted the condition of a historic Portsmouth graveyard and an effort within the black community to step up the city's involvement in its upkeep.
Andrew Alexander, in town with his family from their home near Nashville last week, made the discovery playing in an expansive black cemetery near Des Moines Avenue, along the southern edge of Interstate 264.
Public Works Director Mike Morris said city employees examined the site on Friday to determine how to fix the structural damage to the grave.
"It's a little more involved than just putting more dirt on it," Morris said Monday. He said he hoped to have the work done by the end of the week.
At the site on Thursday, Andrew 's sister Hailey, 11, challenged him to find skeletons while his grandmother, aunt and mother were looking at the inscriptions on the tombstones.
When he breathlessly reported back that he had found a skull, his family didn't buy it.
"He's crying, Mom," Hailey interjected. "I think I believe him."
It was around 6:30 p.m. Seeing the skull required peeking into an opening where a stone slab has partly crumbled, but there it was - unmistakably human, with a full set of teeth - resting on the earth inside.
The Alexanders called police. The police arrived, the Alexanders said, but left, the grave still compromised.
Establishing ownership of - and thereby responsibility for - the graveyard is a complicated matter.
A sign reads "Mount Calvary Cemetery." But the 13-acre tract where the exposed skull was found is really three cemeteries, Morris said. They are Mount Calvary, Mount Olive and Fisher's Hill.
The disturbed grave belongs to Dr. Samuel Fisher, who died in 1907 at 32 years old.
In addition to Fisher, prominent black Portsmouth leaders interred in the cemetery include educator I.C. Norcom, teacher Ida Barbour and newspaper columnist Jeffrey T. Wilson.
Of the three cemeteries, Morris said, only Mount Calvary belongs to the city, as of 2003.
"These cemeteries were privately owned and abandoned by the corporations or individuals that owned them when the cemetery lots were filled, approximately in the early 1960s," he said.
The condition of Fisher's grave is not an anomaly. There are many sunken plots in the graveyard. Wood coffins inside were not set inside vaults, Morris said, s o the coffins rot in time, and the stone slabs atop them crumble.
Wood from coffins is visible in at least two plots. Water fills many graves.
"The cemetery is in deplorable condition," said Mae Breckenridge-Haywood, who wrote a book on the cemeteries - "Inscriptions in Triumph."
Morris said the condition of the cemeteries is better than 10 years ago, when the Sheriff's Inmate Work Crew began trimming overgrown vegetation.
In the case of the disinterred skull, Morris said, the city will follow standards set by the state Department of Historic Resources.
"In cases like this, we re-inter or cover with dirt so that no bones are showing, in respect to the deceased," he said. "That is the extent of repairs and maintenance we are able to handle."
Haywood has been lobbying the city to do more. S he said she plans to use the skull discovery as leverage.
"I think the public needs to know this," said Haywood, president of the African-American Society of Portsmouth. "It's an extreme example of what happens when a cemetery isn't kept up."
The cost of maintaining the graveyard would be prohibitive, Morris said. Even if the city
assumed ownership, he said, responsibility for tombstones would remain with heirs.
There are 35,000 grave sites in the graveyard, according to city records. That's not counting mass graves thought to be on the site, in a potter's field used during the yellow fever epidemic of 1855.
Portsmouth has come under scrutiny in recent years for the upkeep of its aging cemeteries. Virginian-Pilot articles have spotlighted trees growing out of plots at Olive Branch; the rut-filled roads at Oak Grove; the poor condition of veterans' graves at Cedar Grove.
"This is the worst, by far," said Deborah Sweatt, a member of both the African-American Society of Portsmouth and the Portsmouth Historical Commission.
"I have never seen a cemetery this torn up," said Cheryl Carlton, Andrew Alexander's grandmother, who also lives outside Nashville. "It looks like someone came through here with a bulldozer."
Haywood, who's spent hundreds of hours doing research in this place, agreed. She also sees it as something else.
"It's like a holy place," she said. "You can walk here and get the history of African Americans."
Staff writer Jim Washington contributed to this report.
John Warren, (757) 222-5114, john.warren@pilotonline.com
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
No way
People abandon cemataries all over the country. Here in Currituck it is not a rare sight to have crumbling gravestones in your yard. The idea that the goverment is responsible to maintain private burial grounds is a disturbingly socialist idea. it sounds like supporting mortgage bailouts. The goverment has no business of taking care of loose ends that private individuals FAILED to address. Linking to another ED on this site, perhaps people who think this way were allowed to move back into mommies house later in life.
Ira
I don't even know where my greatgrand parents are buried, and many of us don't. How would we even know where to maintain their burial site? There should be inspection, hold accountable who you can, but the bottom line, when all else fails, the cities need to step up to the plate.
I have it
Just get Sen. Lucas on the job. Personally, sinceI intend to never set foot in Portsmouth again, it's really unimportant. I nthe end, if the decendants are not interested in the up keep let it re-forest. It is up to us to take care of our dead family members place of rest and only if we choose to do so. If you cannot show an agreement for perpetual care it is up to the family.
Portsmout & all Cities/states
This is a serious issue and all cities and states need to stay on top of this problem. There IS NO excuse to allow the desecration of cemeteries. NONE at all!
successful example to follow
Cedar Grove has been restored and maintained through a joint effort of the sheriff, SCV, and a privately funded foundation set up to raise money. This situation should be handled in similar fashion. The sheriff is on board, now the Portsmouth African American Historical group can set up a foundation, hopefully funded by those who see this as an important piece of our heritage. Many groups are already in place, let them concentrate on this pressing need. To leave this in its current, deteriorated state and expect the city to do all the work is not an option, please follow the example of Cedar Grove---it is working there.
Vacation
Hey kids!! You ready for Vacation? We are going to historic Portsmouth, Virginia. You can play in a graveyard, it will be great fun!!!!
Children and supervision
An 11-yr-old is old enough to babysit. The mother and the daughter were both quoted for the article, so she was certainly old enough to know what was going on. Sounds like she entertained her little brother while her mother made some etchings. I don't see a thing wrong with that. It doesn't mean they were running around like hooligans. Cheers, MGM
Cemetery Maintenance
Absolutely amazing how some individuals deem their comments worthwhile! Stay on the topic people...it is not about you or how much you make an hour. Nor did the subject relate to parental supervision. The subject at hand is the care, maintenance and preservation of a cemetery and the individuals interred there. It is about the respect that each of us expects when we have been buried. Now let's find a way to make this happen!
you say ghost
i see dead people and only get paid $10 an hour with the city looks good to me
janep39630
Walking around and enjoying the history of the cemetery is one thing, letting your kids run willy-nilly with no supervision is another thing. The story very clearly states:
At the site on Thursday, Andrew 's sister Hailey, 11, challenged him to find skeletons while his grandmother, aunt and mother were looking at the inscriptions on the tombstones.
Sounds like the kids were playing games, not shadowing the adults in their historical interests.
BR, Orion
The story very clearly states that the children were in the cemetery because the adults with them were looking at the inscriptions on the tombstones. People have done this for years, many people do it, and there's nothing wrong with it. As for knocking Tennessee for no good reason, who would make five spelling/grammatical errors in two short sentences (not to mention more mistakes in the subject line)? Must be a Virginia thing.
I still want to know
I still want to know how this could happen in the first place. Every city should monitor cemeteries, especially older ones to prevent this from ever happening again. This is a sad shame.
Cedar Grove
Cedar Grove Cemetery was in a state of neglect and disrepair 15 years ago. The Stonewall camp Sons of Confederate Veterans with labor help from the Sheriff’s department took on the project of restoring the Cemetery. They repaired stones and crypts, made sure all the Veterans had stones, and had the location put on the Register of Historic Sites. It looks great now!
Why can't some of the fraternities or sororities who are so in need of a meeting place meet in the cemetery and do a little work. How about a Boy Scout Troop adopting a section of Oak Grove or another cemetery to keep the undergrowth trimmed and the stones set? What a good way to teach civic responsibility. It is the mind set of citizens both white and black to sit back and wait for the city to take action. It ain’t gonna happen.
Get off your backsides and give something back to the community.
This is so sad . . .
And I agree that Portsmouth will have many donors if someone there, black or white, sets up a private fund for donations to get this prominent doctor re-interred correctly (and any of the other leading citizens who were buried there, or anyone else buried there for that matter . . .). Virginian-Pilot, would you give publicity to a group or person who stepped up and pronounced themselves responsible to fix this, as a private person or group of citizens? If you run the address of a legitimate non-profit in the paper, this Virginia Beach gal will stroke a check. Cheers, MGM
Sometimes, it's just the right thing to do...
Plus...ever been to Boston? They have made their old, historic cemetaries an integral part of the city. I think it would be worthwhile, not to mention respectful, for the City to take ownership as well as responsibility...and utilize these cemetaries for their historic value.
Ownership and Taxes
Just to make this clear, tax records with the assesors office state that the City of Portsmouth took ownership of Mt Calvary, map 209 parcel 0030, in 2003. Mt Olive Cemetery, map 209 parcel 0020, is under the care of PRHA. The Fisher cemetery is listed as being owned by the "Fisher Cemetery" with an unknown owner/POC. All three cemeteries are non-taxed properties.
The city/sheriff prisoners are used for general grounds maintenance. This basically entails mowing, removing fallen limbs and emptying the one trash can. They do not do anything further such as righting headstones, filling in sink holes or clearing the ditches.
The city is in the process of taking ownership for Mt. Olive and Fisher. However, it is going to take a long time in order to complete searches for title owners as well as petitioning the court to take over the properties.
The request is not for the city to take on the entire burden of these cemeteries. The request is for the city to become involved, as well as what families are alive and living in the area. Many of the deceased within the 40 acres have no living family left.
Much of the money that will be required to make a difference within these gro
"Black" cemetery
Since this is a "black" cemetery perhaps Mayor Holley should get "his" people to help out!?!?
Portsmouth Cemetaries
I was just at Cedar Grove not long ago and it looked fine. I overheard people saying there were a group of volunteers working on it and evidently are continued to do so.
writing needs much improvement
The author of this article needs to work on their writing skills or perhaps have an editor approve the article before it's published. I haven't read a newspaper article containing numerous errors in a long time, and the mistakes I see in this article are almost offensive. Please do not skip on revising and editing!
Taxes on CEMETERY LAND?
I don't know how it is up in Virginia, (I haven't lived there in 35 years), but in North Carolina, when a land owner wants to set aside a parcel of land for a cemetery, he/she must have it surveyed, platted, and have the plat recorded by the local COURT CLERKS Office. It is then a binding document.
At the same time, that amount of land is deleted from the land owners original acreage total, for tax purposes. The area is legally designated as Cemetery Holdings, and is now TAX EXEMPT. The land owner is still responsible for the upkeep of said land, and the graves on it, and it can never be used for anything other than a cemetery.
I went through this first-hand with a donation of land from my own property in southeastern North Carolina.
I hope this helps with understanding of Cemetery ownership.
Not Surprised
I think this discovery is but the tip of the iceberg. There are several cemeteries in the Tidewater area similar to the one discussed in this article. I have relatives buried in the African American cemetery in the Deep Creek section of Chesapeake off of Cedar Road and I cannot access their graves because of the brush etc. The family should be responsible for individual upkeep but I also feel the city has a role in the over-all maintenance of the cemetery. I inquired about the upkeep of the cemetery several years ago and was told the property is not city owned. Who then has responsibility when there are no heirs to the property?
Taxes
If taxes are paid then ownership is known. You pay taxes on your house, car and income and the state knows where to send the bill.
Cboath and lw...
where did you learn that the owners of the two cemetaries are not paying taxes??? Your arguement is moot if the taxes are being paid. There is no obligation to a corporation or individual owner of a cemetary to maintain a private grave, only the common areas. Should they fail to do that, then the city can issue a ticket. Not to say this whole debacle isn't disgusting, but we should stick with the facts and avoid speculation.
Sheriff's Sale
When a property owner does not pay their taxes the locality ALWAYS seizes the property and sells if off. If the property is not sold it's ownership reverts to the city.
It's a portsmouth problem
Regardless of previous owners, it is now a Portsmouth problem and need to be address and resolved ASAP. You do not desecrate the dead. It's our history and not to be taken lightly. A cementary should never get in this condition to begin with. How does this happen with no one paying attention and nothing getting done?
Easy answer
Let the sheriff's work crews do even more work their. We have to pay for them to do some work somewhere in the city so why not there. A couple of weedeaters, lawnmowers and clippers with 7 or 8 inmates working three or four days a week for a couple of weeks would do wonders there.
Cboth, it is not a city problem
Cboth, you are mistaken! Just because a person or corporation stop paying taxes, it does not resolve that person or corporation the liability for whatever they placed upon the land. Many corporations have stopped paying taxes on land that they have burdened , only to be sued by Local,State, and Federal authorities. It is absurd to hold the notion that just because you stop paying the taxes, taking the properties off of the tax rolls,(unilaterally) that the City of Portsmouth (Citizens) have somehow become the (landlords), and are therefore responsible. Can you tell me one City that you know of that is in the real estate business? IF THE CITY OF PORTSMOUTH BOUGHT, and I UNDERLINE BOUGHT, THESE PROPERTIES from someone, ANYONE, then your argument would hold water.Call the real estate assessors office and see if The Portsmouth Citizens own these properties. I dont think so.
City Problem?
What exactly is the fair market value of an acre of "in use" and overgrown cemetery property on Des Moines Ave. in Portsmouth? Any appraisers posting here? I'm trying to get a grip on the tax base.
Who let's there kids play in
Who let's there kids play in a graveyard anyways? Must be a Tennesse Thing.
I fail to understand...
Why are kids playing in a cemetary?