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One day in late November, six people met under some oak trees on a hill in Stafford County's England Run North subdivision. Two were angry, four conciliatory.
All agreed that the 40-foot by 40-foot square of land they stood on was a slave cemetery belonging to the antebellum Ellerslie plantation.
But Charles H. Price and Joyce Withers, members of Stafford's Cemetery Advisory Committee, were certain the slave cemetery had once been much larger. They insisted that parts of the cemetery had been bulldozed to create neat, level surfaces for two suburban back yards. And not only was dirt removed, Price claimed, so were several uninscribed fieldstones that might have served as grave markers.
But the boundaries of slave cemeteries or other long-abandoned burial grounds can be difficult to delineate without expensive archaeological surveys that look for human remains, indentations and soil stains that indicate decomposition. No such study was legally required or done voluntarily in this case.
The Ellerslie slave cemetery disagreement illustrates the continuing pressure on historic ground as the area changes.
These days, Stafford County planners can negotiate for formal studies of cemeteries and other historic and environmental sites before property is rezoned. But in the case of older rezonings, such as that of the Ellerslie tract, preservation advocates must rely on remembered history, visible remnants and the developers' good will.
The cemetery site is in a part of England Run North off Plantation Drive in Stafford.
That day in November, Price and Withers were joined by two members of Stafford County's Planning Department, Aaron Shriber and Kathy Baker. From the Silver Cos., the subdivision's developer, were engineer Dave Bridge and a company vice president, Richard Tremblay.
Withers took notes of the conversation and transcribed them that night. She provided a copy to the newspaper last week.
Price, 79, is a longtime county resident who in 1995 helped form and became the first chairman of the cemetery committee, a volunteer advisory group that reports to the Board of Supervisors. Using written records, oral histories and personal inspection, the group has documented more than 350 old cemeteries in Stafford.
By the time everyone arrived at the Ellerslie slave cemetery that November day, Price was hot under the collar. He pointed to the oak trees' branches, stretching well over the recently graded area toward two brand-new vinyl-sided homes.
To protect the remains of long-dead slaves, he contended, the subdivision's developer should have left intact all land underneath the oaks' broad canopy, an area he called the drip line. It's about 105 feet by 75 feet, by his measurement.
Tremblay, Silver Cos.' vice president for planning and development, told Price and Withers he felt the cemetery had been adequately preserved at 40 feet by 40 feet. When the burials took place more than 140 years ago, the oaks--and thus the drip line--would have been much smaller, he said.
No stones were removed, Tremblay said, and no bones were discovered when a contractor excavated the surrounding hillside. The Silver Cos. fenced the area around the trees and declared it a common area to be owned by the subdivision's homeowner association.
Withers' transcript shows that the others on the hilltop that day insisted no wrong had been done. The dirt removed couldn't be put back, they said, because it was by now part of lots that had been sold.
Still, Price bristled. Gesturing to one of the vinyl houses, he asked, "Would you like to ask the homeowner down there if he has ghosts at his Halloween party?"
After the meeting, Price felt unsettled about the matter. He wrote a letter to the editor of The Free Lance-Star, published last week, contending that the developer destroyed part of the cemetery and removed stones.
But the original size of the cemetery isn't documented in county records. In the mid-1990s the cemetery committee did register the presence of the cemetery on the land, but no measurements were recorded.
Under "distinctive features," someone wrote in the words "trees" and "rock." Today, one rock is visible under the trees--a weathered fieldstone sunk into the ground within the fenced square.
No archaeological review was done before grading around the cemetery began, but Tremblay said the contractor was told to be on the lookout for anything that would indicate a disturbed grave.
The Silver Cos. has fenced off cemeteries in other residential developments, Tremblay said. Generally their size was equivalent to that of the land set aside in England Run North.
As far as the Ellerslie site is concerned, Tremblay said, "We're totally satisfied that we did what was normal and customary with cemeteries that don't have defined limits."
In her 1997 history, "They Called Stafford Home: The Development of Stafford County, Virginia," Jerrilynn Eby wrote that Ellerslie was established about 1748 by Scottish-born physician Michael Wallace. He named it for his ancestral estate in Scotland.
His descendants owned the Ellerslie house and surrounding lands until the beginning of the 20th century, Eby said in an interview.
It's unclear how many slaves would have lived on the property over the years, but the 1830 census shows that an Elizabeth Wallace owned 28 slaves, Eby said.
Today, Stafford Supervisor Mark Osborn lives in the refurbished plantation house with his family. At least two Wallaces are buried in an unfenced but well-maintained yard near the home. Their inscribed gravestones are visible.
Despite the hazy history of the slave cemetery, and though he doesn't approve of how preservation has been handled, Price still has hopes for its future.
He'd like to see a wrought-iron fence around it in place of the sturdy green chain-link fence the developer has provided.
He'd like to see a sign placed there, too, to remind people to treat the small patch with respect.
