THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 4, 1996 TAG: 9604020138
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
The bodies were just where Randy Stokes thought they would be: six feet under a downtown parking lot.
Now they are just where they ought to be: six feet under at Elmwood Cemetery.
The bodies - a collection of bones, really - belong to Philemon Gatewood and his family. If the name doesn't ring a bell, it's not because you haven't kept up with current events: Gatewood died about 172 years ago.
In his time, Gatewood was a prominent man. He was the first federal customs agent for the port of Norfolk. Legend has it he was appointed by President George Washington.
Today, Gatewood is known for only one thing: His burial vault was in the way of the proposed MacArthur Center shopping mall.
That is why the remains of Gatewood and his family recently were moved - and why his descendants, including a well-known downtown attorney, may hold a public ceremony soon to dedicate the family's new headstone.
The story began last summer, in a most unusual way.
On Aug. 30, J. Randolph Stokes, a Norfolk lawyer, filed a request in Circuit Court on behalf of the city. He wanted permission to find Gatewood's grave, dig it up and move the family's remains.
Stokes was hired by the city after a routine title search of the mall property revealed that a long-forgotten burial vault might be underneath a parking lot, where a home once stood at 236 Bank St.
How the vault came to be paved over is still a mystery.
Evidence of the vault was discovered in an 1861 will of Thomas Gatewood. In the will, Gatewood asked that all his property be sold upon his death, except for ``the vault in the garden thereof, which is about ten feet square, in which my father &c are buried.''
Quickly, the city searched for heirs, seeking permission to move the vault if, indeed, it really were there.
When the city stopped searching, it had found 30 heirs. One was a few blocks away in the downtown NationsBank building: attorney Toy D. Savage Jr. of the law firm of Willcox & Savage. Another, who had kept detailed family records dating back to Philemon Gatewood, was in Virginia Beach: a 78-year-old woman named Virginia Morrison.
Both Savage and Morrison were stunned to learn that their ancestors' graves had been paved over. Both agreed it would be appropriate to move the bodies to a cemetery.
``I'm glad to have them moved,'' Savage said at the time.
After waiting six months and receiving no objections, the court approved the relocation in February.
Recently, workers dug up the spot where the graves were believed to be. It was no hoax. The graves were exactly where the will said they were. Workers found various human bones and the remains of a brick vault. They also found, among the bones, a wine goblet.
``Philemon Gatewood was renowned for his ability to distinguish wines,'' Stokes said. ``My theory is they buried him with his favorite wine-tasting glass.''
That same day, the Gatewood family's remains were reburied in Elmwood Cemetery, about a mile from their former resting place.
Sometime soon, Savage and Morrison hope to dedicate the new Gatewood headstone. It will be a copy of the original tombstone: ``Sacred to the memory of Philemon Gatewood who died May 16th, 1824 - aged 73 years - & of Dorythe, his wife, died July 6th, 1806 - aged 50 years - also their children Fielding, James, John, Philemon, Lucy Tyler and Ann.''
No date has been set, Morrison said, but the family is seeking help from local historical societies.
``I think there will be something'' to commemorate the new grave, Morrison said last week, but she did not know exactly what it will be.
``It's all in the works,'' Stokes said. by CNB