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Daughters of the Confederacy seek to protect graves from Wal-Mart
By MARTHA BRYSON HODEL
Associated Press Writer
May 30 2004
FAYETTEVILLE, W.Va. -- From a slight knoll at the center of 59 acres of rolling meadow, it's easy to imagine the thoughts that have teased Geraldine Workman over the decades she has tended the graves of about two dozen Confederate soldiers from Virginia.
Workman's battlefield visions have nothing to do with shopping 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But that may well be the destiny of the Fleshman/Clark farm. A small piece of the Fayette County that once was, it is now surrounded by the Fayetteville that is.
The farm, which some believe was a Civil War battlefield as well as a resting place for a few of its casualties, is about to become a new kind battleground in a contest between preservationists and a developer with his eyes on the dollars a new Wal-Mart will bring, a war drawing headlines of late from Vermont to California.
And as in many Civil War era border-state towns, Fayetteville - population 2,754 and growing - "is split right down the middle," Workman said.
"Half wants it and the other half doesn't."
Fayetteville's town council has approved the rezoning, which is due to become law on July 1.
A spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, Mia Masten, said her company is working with Paramount Development Corp. of Myrtle Beach, S.C., to plan construction of a Wal-Mart Super Center and a Lowe's building supply center. Paramount spokesman Joe Paramore was not available Friday to talk to a reporter, according to a woman who answered the telephone in the company's offices.
Fayetteville Town Manager Ralph Davis said the developer has agreed to preserve the cemetery and build what he called "a buffer zone with a fence and $50,000 in landscaping" around it.
Alice Todaro, who like Workman is a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, scoffs at the idea.
"How can you have a historic shrine in the middle of a parking lot?" she asked.
Fayetteville's downtown district, dominated by a 19th century red brick courthouse, has been declared a national historic district, and the town sits on the edge of the New River Gorge National River.
"We're trying to keep that small-town feel, and make everything blend together," Davis said. But he also said his town needs a Wal-Mart. It has only a Ben Franklin variety store and a locally owned grocery store, Daniels' Market in downtown Fayetteville, and Davis contends neither considers Wal-Mart a threat.
New development is springing up along the new four-lane highway that goes by the edge of the historic district.
But smack in the middle of all that development is what was _ until about a decade ago--a family farm.
The only disturbance at the cemetery now is the rumble of tractor-trailers moving down the highway just out of sight behind a row of far-off trees on the edge of the property. The headstones are on a slight rise with a broad view, watched over by an ancient walnut tree, a lone sentinel in the midst of the rolling field.
Davis said there will be a complete archaeological study before construction begins. While historians have confirmed that the farm is the burial site of some Confederate soldiers killed in action during the Battle of Fayetteville that began Sept. 10, 1862, assertions that the farm was the battlefield itself are less certain.
"There are 24 soldiers buried there, but no one is 100 percent sure who they are," Davis said.
Workman, who has been tending the cemetery since 1971, disagrees.
A well-regarded local historian, now deceased, began interviewing Fayette County residents about their family recollections of the battle and reviewing the historical record early in the 20th century. The historian, the Rev. Shirley Donnelly of Oak Hill, concluded there were 13 to 17 graves at the site, although at the time only one grave was marked.
The family of William S. Morgan erected a stone shortly after his death, identifying him by name, birth date, and the legend, "Killed in battle at Fayetteville, Sept. 10, 1862."
After reading Donnelly's work, Workman and another member of the UDC devoted one summer to identifying the soldiers. They researched original Civil War records held by the West Virginia Department of Archives and History to determine who might be buried on the site.
"When we finished, we had identified 24 soldiers of the Virginia Militia, all of them boys between the ages of 18 and 25 ... who marched in here from Narrows, Va.," Workman said.
Armed with the 24 names and the dates of their deaths, Workman went back to the farm and began trying to locate the graves.
She used a technique called "dousing," a skill that is a holdover from West Virginia's agricultural past and is most commonly used to locate a spot for drilling a water well. Still in use today in rural areas, its practitioners are often known as "water witches."
Workman uses her skill, however, to find graves.
She uses two metal rods some 3 feet long and bent 90 degrees at one end for gripping. She holds the rods loosely in her closed fists, careful to keep them parallel with the ground and one another, and walks over the site until the rods react.
"When you cross a grave, they cross one another," she said.
Workman once demonstrated the technique to a group of Civil War re-enactors.
"They'd never seen anybody use those rods," Workman said. "I'll tell you, some of those boys got really skittish."
After locating graves, Workman began installing small flat marble markers in the 1980s.
She does not claim to know who is buried where. Other than the original stone placed by Morgan's family, names were arbitrarily assigned to the markers. Because Morgan was a private, the privates' markers were grouped near his, the officers' stones placed a rank or two away.
Masten, the Wal-Mart spokeswoman, said a representative of West Virginia's Department of Archives and History has informed her company that the state cannot confirm the site as a battlefield. West Virginia's historic preservation officer, Susan Pierce, did not immediately return a reporter's telephone calls.
According to Masten, the company still must complete Fayetteville's building permit process and win approval from the state Department of Transportation before construction can begin. She said the company will continue to look into the historical significance of the site.
"We want to be sensitive to that," she said.
Copyright (c) 2004, Daily Press
By MARTHA BRYSON HODEL
Associated Press Writer
May 30 2004
FAYETTEVILLE, W.Va. -- From a slight knoll at the center of 59 acres of rolling meadow, it's easy to imagine the thoughts that have teased Geraldine Workman over the decades she has tended the graves of about two dozen Confederate soldiers from Virginia.
Workman's battlefield visions have nothing to do with shopping 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But that may well be the destiny of the Fleshman/Clark farm. A small piece of the Fayette County that once was, it is now surrounded by the Fayetteville that is.
The farm, which some believe was a Civil War battlefield as well as a resting place for a few of its casualties, is about to become a new kind battleground in a contest between preservationists and a developer with his eyes on the dollars a new Wal-Mart will bring, a war drawing headlines of late from Vermont to California.
And as in many Civil War era border-state towns, Fayetteville - population 2,754 and growing - "is split right down the middle," Workman said.
"Half wants it and the other half doesn't."
Fayetteville's town council has approved the rezoning, which is due to become law on July 1.
A spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, Mia Masten, said her company is working with Paramount Development Corp. of Myrtle Beach, S.C., to plan construction of a Wal-Mart Super Center and a Lowe's building supply center. Paramount spokesman Joe Paramore was not available Friday to talk to a reporter, according to a woman who answered the telephone in the company's offices.
Fayetteville Town Manager Ralph Davis said the developer has agreed to preserve the cemetery and build what he called "a buffer zone with a fence and $50,000 in landscaping" around it.
Alice Todaro, who like Workman is a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, scoffs at the idea.
"How can you have a historic shrine in the middle of a parking lot?" she asked.
Fayetteville's downtown district, dominated by a 19th century red brick courthouse, has been declared a national historic district, and the town sits on the edge of the New River Gorge National River.
"We're trying to keep that small-town feel, and make everything blend together," Davis said. But he also said his town needs a Wal-Mart. It has only a Ben Franklin variety store and a locally owned grocery store, Daniels' Market in downtown Fayetteville, and Davis contends neither considers Wal-Mart a threat.
New development is springing up along the new four-lane highway that goes by the edge of the historic district.
But smack in the middle of all that development is what was _ until about a decade ago--a family farm.
The only disturbance at the cemetery now is the rumble of tractor-trailers moving down the highway just out of sight behind a row of far-off trees on the edge of the property. The headstones are on a slight rise with a broad view, watched over by an ancient walnut tree, a lone sentinel in the midst of the rolling field.
Davis said there will be a complete archaeological study before construction begins. While historians have confirmed that the farm is the burial site of some Confederate soldiers killed in action during the Battle of Fayetteville that began Sept. 10, 1862, assertions that the farm was the battlefield itself are less certain.
"There are 24 soldiers buried there, but no one is 100 percent sure who they are," Davis said.
Workman, who has been tending the cemetery since 1971, disagrees.
A well-regarded local historian, now deceased, began interviewing Fayette County residents about their family recollections of the battle and reviewing the historical record early in the 20th century. The historian, the Rev. Shirley Donnelly of Oak Hill, concluded there were 13 to 17 graves at the site, although at the time only one grave was marked.
The family of William S. Morgan erected a stone shortly after his death, identifying him by name, birth date, and the legend, "Killed in battle at Fayetteville, Sept. 10, 1862."
After reading Donnelly's work, Workman and another member of the UDC devoted one summer to identifying the soldiers. They researched original Civil War records held by the West Virginia Department of Archives and History to determine who might be buried on the site.
"When we finished, we had identified 24 soldiers of the Virginia Militia, all of them boys between the ages of 18 and 25 ... who marched in here from Narrows, Va.," Workman said.
Armed with the 24 names and the dates of their deaths, Workman went back to the farm and began trying to locate the graves.
She used a technique called "dousing," a skill that is a holdover from West Virginia's agricultural past and is most commonly used to locate a spot for drilling a water well. Still in use today in rural areas, its practitioners are often known as "water witches."
Workman uses her skill, however, to find graves.
She uses two metal rods some 3 feet long and bent 90 degrees at one end for gripping. She holds the rods loosely in her closed fists, careful to keep them parallel with the ground and one another, and walks over the site until the rods react.
"When you cross a grave, they cross one another," she said.
Workman once demonstrated the technique to a group of Civil War re-enactors.
"They'd never seen anybody use those rods," Workman said. "I'll tell you, some of those boys got really skittish."
After locating graves, Workman began installing small flat marble markers in the 1980s.
She does not claim to know who is buried where. Other than the original stone placed by Morgan's family, names were arbitrarily assigned to the markers. Because Morgan was a private, the privates' markers were grouped near his, the officers' stones placed a rank or two away.
Masten, the Wal-Mart spokeswoman, said a representative of West Virginia's Department of Archives and History has informed her company that the state cannot confirm the site as a battlefield. West Virginia's historic preservation officer, Susan Pierce, did not immediately return a reporter's telephone calls.
According to Masten, the company still must complete Fayetteville's building permit process and win approval from the state Department of Transportation before construction can begin. She said the company will continue to look into the historical significance of the site.
"We want to be sensitive to that," she said.
Copyright (c) 2004, Daily Press
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