Welcome to the two-hundred-and-sixty-fourth edition of Mortician’s Monday Morning Mashup (Yes. I moved the apostrophe)! Our story satchel is cemetery heavy this week as we unpack losers and winners in the continuing fight between space for the living and the dead.
NC Airport Paves the Graves
In the middle of the active tarmac at the Dare County Regional Airport, surrounded by the hum of idling engines and planes awaiting clearance, sits a quiet 60-by-60-foot plot enclosed by a low, white picket fence.
To aviation authorities, it is a logistical liability and a safety hazard. But to Juanita Wescott and her extended family, it is the sacred soil of the Wescott Cemetery—a centuries-old ancestral resting place and the frontline of a painful, three-year battle to protect their family’s legacy.
For Wescott, the ongoing effort to clear the historic burial ground to make way for a paved aircraft parking apron is nothing short of a nightmare.
“I don’t care about their tires,” Wescott asserts, pushing back against safety justifications for the removal. “I care about my graveyard.”
A Collision of History and Progress
The roots of the cemetery stretch deep into the history of the Outer Banks. Family genealogical records and local history trace the earliest burials on the land back to the late 18th century, beginning with Thomas and Miriam Midyett. Through generations of inheritance and marriage, the property remained in the hands of the Wescott family and their direct ancestors well into the 20th century.
Among those believed to be resting within the fenced enclosure is John Wellington Wescott, a prominent figure who in 1870 donated an acre of land to establish the Dare County courthouse, cementing the foundation of local government.
However, the landscape of the property changed dramatically during World War II. Commissioned on March 3, 1943, the airfield was transformed into a vital military base for Navy and Coast Guard anti-submarine patrols and flight training. When the federal government constructed the base—later transferring ownership to Dare County in 1947—much of what stood in the path of the war effort was cleared away.
According to family accounts, original headstones from the cemetery were discarded at a local dump during the wartime construction. While family members later fought to have stones restored to the site, only eight headstones were identified by historical investigations, with just five remaining readable today.
A Modern Safety Hazard
Decades later, the cemetery finds itself marooned in an impossible location. Described by Dare County Regional Airport Director Stacy Ambrose as akin to a tiny island in the middle of a busy parking lot, the plot sits directly in the path of aircraft operations.
Ambrose noted that the relocation is fundamentally a matter of safety. A jet taxiing in the dark could easily breach the white picket fence and become stranded in the grass.
While public works projects frequently require the relocation of historical gravesites—with state transportation departments frequently handling similar exhumations for highway expansions—the human and emotional cost weighs heavily on descendants.
Moving On, But Not Forgetting
Faced with legal requirements that preclude simply paving over the site to create an in-place memorial, plans are underway to carefully exhume the remains. The bodies are scheduled to be moved to the Manteo Cemetery, where Wescott has secured plots to shelter her ancestors once more.
Archeological ground-penetrating scans of the airport site have identified multiple soil anomalies indicative of burials, though the exact number of individuals interred within the picket fence remains shrouded by the mists of time and the heavy footprint of 1940s military construction.
When the exhumations are complete, the physical markers of the Wescott family will have vanished from the airfield. Plans call for a memorial stone bearing 13 names to be placed at the original site, while a dedicated plaque will accompany the re-interred remains at the Manteo Cemetery.
For the Wescott family, the compromise is a bittersweet conclusion to a struggle that has laid bare the tension between modern infrastructure and deep-rooted local history—leaving behind a stark reminder of the generations that built the Outer Banks long before the first airplane ever touched down.
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Amazon Grants $10,000 for Cemetery Restoration
A vital piece of local history is getting a major restoration boost thanks to a new corporate partnership and an urgent call for community action. The Chloe African American Cemetery Preservation Association has secured a $10,000 sponsorship from Amazon to support the ongoing restoration of the historic Chloe Cemetery. Tucked along English Bayou, the nineteenth-century burial ground serves as the final resting place for generations of local African American, Creole, Native American, and formerly enslaved families.
In addition to the financial support, Amazon is currently exploring opportunities for its local workforce to join the volunteer effort on the ground. The news arrives just ahead of the association’s next major cleanup effort, scheduled for today and Sunday from 7 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at 181 Manchester Road.
Decades of severe overgrowth, storm damage, and general neglect have taken a heavy toll on the sacred grounds. While academic researchers are using advanced LiDAR drone mapping technology to locate unmarked graves and document family histories, physical reclamation of the land requires direct community involvement. To maximize progress this weekend, organizers are issuing an urgent call for local contractors, landscaping companies, and general volunteers.
The cleanup effort has immediate physical needs, including small excavators and backhoes, ideally accompanied by experienced operators, as well as heavy-duty chainsaws fitted with 24- to 30-inch bars. Community members are also needed to assist with clearing brush, removing debris, and handling other supervised tasks.
