An access dispute has St. Helena residents mounting a fight for historic Gullah cemetery

Big House Cemetery on St. Helena Island is at the center of an escalating access dispute that has long-time islanders worried about losing an entry point into the graveyard with important historical and spiritual significance. The owner of the property where a gate was locked, however, said it was never a legal access to the cemetery — despite what residents may have believed — and that she’s just trying to prevent more damage to her land.

Seaside Road-area residents feel as if they’ve been illegally blocked from visiting loved ones or even burying family members at Big House Cemetery in recent months. At meetings at an area church, they’ve started gathering to discuss how they can regain access to the revered cemetery.

“We are in this fight because we’ve been in this community,” says Mary Mack, a long-time resident with family buried at the well-known community cemetery. “We live here, we play here, we grew up here. We just want to see the right thing done.”

Approximately an acre in size and once part of a cotton plantation, the 165-year-old cemetery is located between Seaside Road and the Harbor River. Burials have occurred dating back to the Civil War, and it’s still in use today. It had been accessed from a two-track dirt road named Everest before a gate at that location was locked sometime this spring.

Mack, 72, says many waterfront cemeteries like Big House are considered “precious to the African American people.” Those cemeteries were purposefully placed near the water, says Mack, because of the Gulluh-Geechee belief that the spirits of their ancestors who “came across the water unwillingly” would transcend back over water to their home countries after they were buried.

Terri Aigner, who owns land residents had been crossing to reach the cemetery, feels as if she has been made out as the bad guy in the rift. But Aigner, who moved to the area four years ago, notes that she provided access to the cemetery for years as a courtesy, even though her property has no legal public access to the graveyard. She only decided to change the code to the lock on her gate after she says thousands of dollars in damages were caused to her property during a March funeral procession that also left the property littered with garbage.

“I’m so tired of being villainized,’ Aigner says.

Aigner also argues that Jimmy Pope, a long-time resident of the area, owns the cemetery and therefore should be providing access to it. The cemetery adjoins his property, which is located on Pope Estates Way, Aigner says.

Ownership of the cemetery is an important point because a state law requires property owners of private cemeteries to provide proper road and parking and allow families with graves to have access.

But Jimmy Pope denies that he owns the cemetery and property records do not show his name on either of the parcels receiving the cemetery deduction on their property taxes. In a search of Beaufort County’s property records database, the area is chopped up into multiple smaller plots. It is unclear which plot the cemetery sits on but Shelia Middleton and Samuel Pope are listed as the owners of two properties near the river that currently receive a tax deduction for having a cemetery on their parcels.

Pope and others who live in the Seaside area are adamant that nobody owns the graveyard. Rather, they describe the peaceful plot of land shaded by live-oak trees that includes at least one headstone of a Civil War soldier as a community resource that is available to anyone with a family connection to it.

Aigner says Jimmy Pope is arranging burials at the cemetery while she is bearing the brunt of providing the access to it.

“You can’t operate a public cemetery like that and use other people’s property,” Aigner says.

As far as the process of getting buried in the Big House cemetery, Jimmy Pope says, no money is exchanged. If your family is buried there, it is implied you will be granted a space. It is only necessary to give the funeral parlor information about where the body will be buried and when, he says.

“It’s just wrong,” Jimmy Pope says of Aigner locking the gate.

Community members say there was no trouble with accessing the cemetery from Everest Lane until Aigner bought the property.

“It’s unbelievable,” says the Rev. Leroy Haynes of the Nazareth Baptist Church says of the situation. “All of us have family members, parents, aunts and uncles there. We have no other place besides Big House Cemetery. There are families that have no other place.”

The Rev. Jack Ladson, 89, the pastor at Scottsville Baptist Church, says residents plan to fight. “We’re going to see what the judge says about it,” Ladson says.

Historically, every plantation had a community graveyard, Ladson says. It was land that the slave master gave to slaves to bury their dead. “As time went on, the people that live in that community took that for their burial spot,” Ladson says.

Cemeteries carry rich history

Larry Rowland, professor emeritus of history at the University of South Carolina Beaufort and co-author of the three-volume history of Beaufort County,” says graveyards were hallowed places from the earliest days of slavery. It’s well known in the Lowcountry, says Rowland, “you can’t mess with a graveyard.” White and Black people, he noted, had different burial traditions, and those traditions were later enshrined in state law. “If you look at state law, it is very strict in not interfering with graveyards,” he said.

The dispute over Big House Cemetery situation speaks to a much bigger issue in St. Helena about access to historic cemeteries, Haynes says.

On Mother’s Day May 12, community members realized that the code had been changed at the gate so they couldn’t visit their loved ones.

The boiling point for both sides

The current dispute came to a head following a fiery May 31 three-car crash on the island’s Sea Island Parkway that claimed the lives of five local residents: 26-year-old Raymone Dagin, of Beaufort; 46-year-old Mary Seabrook of Beaufort; 31-year-old Henry Watson of St. Helena; 31-year-old Tiera Seabrook of St. Helena; and 4-year-old Jaycean Perry of St. Helena.

Families of three of the victims encountered difficulties in arranging burials at Big House Cemetery, residents said.

“They are already traumatized because of the death of a person and (when) you can’t bury a person in their burial plot it’s even worse,” says the Rev. William Allen Galloway, the owner of Allen Funeral Home in Beaufort and Ridgeland, who has buried many people at the Big House Cemetery.

Chickquetta Coaxum wants to see that access restored. Her nephew, Henry Watson, died in the May 31 car crash. Coaxum said Henry grew up “right down the road” from the Big House Cemetery. That’s where his mother wanted to have him buried. But he ended up being laid to rest more than 20 miles away in a cemetery at Seabrook. The fatal crash and being unable to have Henry buried in the local cemetery, Coaxum said, was like a “double hit” to the family. “She deprived us of our rights to have our loved one buried,” said Coaxum.

Aigner is standing her ground. She’s well-researched on the law regarding cemeteries and who his responsible for access and says it is not her. She’s had Beaufort County GIS and right-of-way experts out to inspect her land. According to her, there is no written easement on the books or public road across to the cemetery. The cemetery, she says, is located a half-mile from her gate. She says several of her neighbors also are experiencing trespassing problems too and have also hired an attorney. Aigner plans to seek a cease and desist order to stop Jimmy Pope from sending people to her property.

“This is private property,” says Aigner.

The newspaper’s reporter and photographer tried to take a look at the headstones and upkeep of the cemetery but all land surrounding the plot is private and requests for access were denied by local residents.