Developer finds human remains near Nashville Civil War fort

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A developer has unearthed human remains that could be two centuries old while excavating to lay the foundation for a new project in Nashville not far from a Civil War fort and cemetery that dates from 1822.

For Nashville, the discovery marks the latest intersection of economic boom times and the city’s rich and sometimes troubled history, where new conveniences spring up on or near land where people settled, fought or toiled long ago. time, then died and was buried, often with little record of its final resting places.

In a court petition earlier this month, AJ Capital Management noted that the discovery occurred in the neighborhood near Fort Negley while the company was working on its Nashville Warehouse Co. mixed development, which will include apartments and commercial space.

The fort, built by runaway slaves and freed blacks for the Union, has in recent years become a critical point in Nashville’s long journey from a center of the old Confederacy to a vibrant, modern city trying to cope with rapid increase. It is located about a half mile from the multi-building project, which is partially completed and flanked by a giant guitar sign and construction crane in a rapidly developing neighborhood with businesses, bars, and restaurants.

The company is asking a Nashville Chancery judge for permission to move the remains, which include skeletal parts and thin wood fragments believed to be from coffins, to the adjacent 200-year-old Nashville City Cemetery.

An archaeologist hired by the company wrote that her team discovered remains in May and again in June, describing them as not of Native American origin and “estimated to date from the early 19th century,” which could place them before the Civil War. .

The archaeologist wrote that they are likely “isolated burials and not a more extensive distribution in the cemetery,” and said the remains were only found in two of the 53 4-by-6-foot excavations made to work on the foundations. Both were found about 15 feet underground, give or take a few feet. State archeology officials, local police and the county medical examiner’s office were notified.

A part of each burial and the remains were not exposed and were preserved at the site, the archaeologist wrote.

A spokesman for AJ Capital did not respond to a request for additional comment.

Who these potentially centenarian people might have been is an open question, according to Learotha Williams, a professor at Tennessee State University who specializes in African-American, Civil War and Reconstruction studies.

He wouldn’t rule out that the remains could be Native Americans, early settlers, Civil War soldiers or black workers at the fort, though that seems less likely since there was evidence of coffins, he said, and that was a level of respect not normally accorded blacks at the time.

Williams said he would feel “a lot more comfortable if maybe an academic unit came” to study the area where the remains were found. He described Nashville’s “patchy record” of resolving the friction between growth and historic preservation.

Williams said things are “changing a little bit,” but there’s still “a long way to go” when it comes to Nashville’s sensitivity to the stories of marginalized people.

Most prominently, a multi-year effort to build up the area right next to Fort Negley drew enough scrutiny that it was shelved because it was later discovered that the lands below were likely burial grounds.

Next to the fort, the developers had planned to build a housing and entertainment complex where Nashville’s old minor league ballpark had been, near the foot of the fort.

After opposition grew, the city ordered an archaeological survey which in January 2018 determined that there are likely still human remains buried there, possibly from enslaved people who built the fort.

the plans stopped, and in its place, the city envisioned a park commemorating the fort and the people forced to build it. The city has demolished the ballpark and has been holding public meetings about the reform. A final draft of a master plan is expected to be released this summer.

After Confederate forces surrendered to Union soldiers in Nashville in 1862, the Union took more than 2,700 runaway slaves and freed blacks from their homes and churches and forced them to work at the fort, where they lived. in “smuggling camps”. Although they were promised money for their work, few were paid. About 600 to 800 of them died.

The fort deteriorated over the years. The Works Progress Administration rebuilt it in 1936 and reopened in 1938, but the fort fell into disrepair again. The Ku Klux Klan met there in the Jim Crow years, and separate softball fields were later built nearby, according to the late author Robert Hicks.

The new development where the remains were found this year is farther from the fort, across the train tracks from where the ballpark used to be.

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