INDIANAPOLIS (WTHR) - Some work going on just south of the airport off Perimeter Road caught the attention of some viewers.
Some asked us what are the tents and bulldozer were doing there. What we learned may surprise you.
From the side of the road, it looks like a common construction project, but it’s actually the process of relocating a small cemetery.
Bethel Cemetery, situated adjacent to FedEx, dates back to 1838. Archeologists have begun the painstaking work of digging up the remains of every person buried here, about 400
The Department of Natural Resources has been overseeing the move to make sure it's done properly.
“We've had family members not happy with the move. They don't think it should have to happen, but they're okay with the way it's going to happen,” said Jeannie Regan-Dinius, who works for DNR
Students from four Indiana universities are under tents working with the archeologists.
Bethel Cemetery has been here almost 200 years… long before planes were taking off, long before an airport landed nearby.
The property was acquired by the airport for a stormwater project.
Regan-Dinius says it's a painstaking process when done properly.
“So these individuals will have the same grave orientation and be buried next to the same people. so family members are buried next to family,” she said.
Photos suggest several civil war veterans were buried her, even someone who fought in the Revolutionary War, and generations of Hoosier families.
Regan-Dinius says about half the graves are unmarked but genealogists are helping identify them.
“So we if we understand how someone passed away in the 1850s we can help identify them today if we have an unmarked grave,” she said.
The airport will be commissioning new gravestones for unmarked graves and those that need to be replaced.
While the airport is close to finalizing a new resting place for those buried here, given all that's involved, it won't happen until late next summer.
And the cost of the reburial? About $2.5 million.