Agenda - 11-03-1986 - Laserfiche WebLink

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DRAFT JOINT PUBLIC HEARING PAGE 14 Cemeteries, which as a group are currently un- recognized in the Land Use Plan, offer a wealth of historical data on county resident and early history. For early county residents it may be the F)PIN171. only record as vital records registration was not mandated until this century. State law offers some protection from desecration but the laws cannot be enforced if locations are not recorded. The intent of establishing cemeteries in the Land Use Plan as historically significant sites is not to preserve them at all costs. Rather, it seeks to prevent past abuses, the using of gravesites and dumping grounds for building construction or plowing under without recordation of the site. It asks that the integrity of the County's ceme- teries, many of which date back to the 1700 's be respected and, if authority of law exists to disinter, that its data be fully recorded. Sites of historical significance is also broadened to encompass more than buildings and cemeteries. It includes dams, functional or destroyed but still evident, at mill sites that once provided for the economic well-being of the County. It also includes sites of commemorative markers either placed by the state (such as that identify- ing the site of the hanging of the regulator leaders) or by private citizens. such as that memoralizing the site of the old Elm Grove School in northern Chapel Hill Township. Churches and rural community centers, including recreational sites. should be acknowledged in the Land Use Plan as important to the County and its planning process. Their existence imparts a cohesion and identity to rural communities. Even though the church buildings may be new and not of historical value, the same is not true of the communities and congregation. some of which have already celebrated their bicentennial. The majority of material within the appendix was taken from current registries provided by state - agencies including the Division of Archives and History and Archeology branch of the Department of Cultural Resources. the N.C. Wildlife Commission. and the N.C. Natural Heritage Program. The inclusion of other data especially that concern- ing cemeteries and mill sites, required extensive fieldwork and relied upon every available source for clues. from 90 year-old maps and minutes of Baptist Association meetings to handwritten fieldnotes of members on the Chapel Hill Histori- cal Society which are on file in the Registrar of