Nashville Warehouse Co. project, with planned 10-story residential building at top right, and Nashville City Cemetery to the right
Months after developer AJ Capital found human remains at one of its project sites in Chestnut Hill, a Nashville court has granted the company permission to move the remains to the adjacent Nashville City Cemetery.
AJ Capital and archeological monitors it hired identified human skeletal remains in May and June of last year at the Fourth Avenue South site where it is building a 10-story residential building as part of the Nashville Warehouse Co. development.
In August, the company petitioned the Davidson County Chancery Court for permission to move the remains. Late last week, Chancellor Patricia Moskal granted the request.
“Since discovery, we have worked closely with the state, specifically the Tennessee Division of Archaeology and the Tennessee Historical Commission, Metro Historic and our archeologists on site to ensure we followed the appropriate guidance for activity on site and immediately preserving the remains," says Pablo David, AJ Capital's vice president for government affairs and community relations. "Now that the court has approved our reinterment plan, we will continue to work closely with Metro Historic to safely proceed with reinterment.”
Work has continued on the site in the months since the discoveries in cooperation with the archaeological consultant and government offices.
Kelly Hockersmith, an archeologist hired by AJ Capital, initially told the court that the remains were estimated to date to the early 19th century and are not of Native American origin. Learotha Williams, a Tennessee State University professor and member of the master planning committee for nearby Fort Negley, told Scene sister publication the Nashville Post last year that it was unlikely that the remains belonged to enslaved people due to the presence of coffin materials.
The company published legal notices in The Tennessean in September and October seeking a response from descendants of the unidentified people. A notice about the findings was also posted on a state website. According to a filing by AJ Capital attorney Junaid Odubeko, no descendants responded to the notices. At a December hearing, Moskal asked the company to submit additional information about its efforts to identify the remains.
In a supplemental document filed late last month, Hockersmith wrote that she believed that the Nashville & Decatur Railroad Company acquired the property in 1867 and moved approximately 250 graves from the site to the adjacent City Cemetery. The property was then developed as a railroad depot and “was no longer intended for use as a burial ground,” she wrote. The identities of the “isolated, abandoned burials” are, Hockersmith added, “unknown and not ascertainable.”
According to court filings, the Metropolitan Historical Commission has identified two burial plots at the southern end of the City Cemetery as a reinterment site. AJ Capital's archaeological consultant has maintained possession of the remains.
Construction is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year.
This article first ran via our sister publication, the Nashville Post.
