Judge orders mediation in Charles Town grave-relocation dispute
CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. — A circuit judge on Friday ordered mediation to settle a dispute over a Charles Town, W.Va., church's plan to exhume about 60 sets of remains from a historic graveyard and relocate them to another cemetery.
The relocation plan by trustees of Charles Town Presbyterian Church, along with Edge Hill Cemetery Co., has prompted concern among descendants of the people who were buried. The remains are in unmarked graves on a grassy lot at the corner of South West and East Congress streets.
In a hearing held by 23rd Judicial Circuit Circuit Judge Steven Redding, Nancy Lutz and Daniel Lutz questioned the legality and ethics of the church's plans.
Nancy Lutz told the judge that she felt "blindsided" by the church's intentions and wondered how many of more than 100 other descendants might be unaware. She argued that people buried in the cemetery expected it to be their final resting place.
Lutz said she might support the relocation if the remains were subject to a deliberative DNA-identification process, recounting how Civil War soldiers in northern Virginia were recently discovered in makeshift graves, but still could be identified, then returned home to Massachusetts.
Redding scheduled another hearing regarding the matter for Dec. 20.
He told the parties that he would request an opinion from the Jefferson County Historical Society on the cemetery, which dates to 1787, when the church acquired the lot near Evitts Creek from town founder Charles Washington.
During Friday's hearing, Redding heard testimony from church trustee George E. Tabb and the Rev. John Bethard, the church's pastor, along with Brown Funeral Home director Robert Fields and gravedigger Timothy Walls.
Asked to explain the proposed relocation of the graves, Tabb said church leaders discussed selling the lot.
Tabb acknowledged that the proposal didn't serve a public interest other than making the property available for additional development in Charles Town.
Bethard testified that the cemetery has "no value to the church other than its history" and that it has has been an insurance and maintenance liability.
"There's no consensus that we would ever sell it," Bethard said later.
In addition to the testimony, the judge received a copy of the original deed for the cemetery. Nancy Lutz said it includes a "perpetuity" clause that she asserted clearly expresses the intention for the property's use by the church.
If the remains are allowed to be relocated to Edge Hill Cemetery, they would be reinterred in modern vaults within a specific location and the names of the people would be memorialized on a plaque, Tabb testified.
