Delays are common in the home-building industry, but graves are rarely the reason.
Construction has resumed on a home near Lakemoor after a nearly nine-month shutdown, but crews are working around the former cemetery while state officials search for relatives of the deceased.
The headstones disappeared long ago, but old-timers still call it Snyder Cemetery, where relatives of one of McHenry County’s earliest settlers were buried from 1874 to 1895.
In October, many neighbors were startled to see workers digging up the 100-by-110-foot lot in the 800 block of Wegner Road.
“It looks like your average vacant lot,” said Nunda Township Supervisor John Heisler.
Heisler said he was notified by neighbors, and work on the site was stopped within seven days after he called the McHenry County Planning and Development Department.
“They were digging up sacred soil,” he said.
The cemetery was not marked on county zoning maps, Heisler said, which was why Jerry Shaver was able to obtain a building permit for a three-bedroom split-level home. Shaver would not comment.
“The problem was that this was an old family cemetery not identified on our records,” said SuzAnne Ehardt, director and code enforcement officer for the Planning and Development Department.
Ehardt said that in her 26 years with the county, this is the first time a building permit has been issued unwittingly for a graveyard.
For some area residents, the cemetery is old news.
“When we moved here 17 years ago, we were told that nobody could build on that lot because there were bodies buried there,” said Gerald Younglove, who lives a few blocks away on Christine Drive. “When they started digging, I was surprised, but then I thought maybe there must be no bodies buried there after all.”
Historian Elaine Obenchain said the cemetery is named after Anthony Snyder, who bought 420 acres in the area and settled there in 1845.
She walked the property in the 1990s when doing research for her book “McHenry County Illinois Cemeteries” and said that even then the headstones were gone.
Skeletal remains are protected under state law, said Dave Blanchette, spokesman with the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.
Shaver was obligated to pay for the services of an archeologist who found the remains in Snyder Cemetery, Blanchette said. Shaver also must pay for the relocation of the remains.
Shaver was allowed to resume construction on the home as long as no graves are disturbed, Blanchette said.
The process of finding living descendants has begun, Blanchette said, adding that Shaver is using the University of Illinois’ Public Service Archeology Program to locate relatives, whose permission is needed before the remains can be moved.
In some cases, relatives are never found, and the remains are sent to the Illinois State Museum’s collection center–not for public display–where artifacts and human remains are studied and cataloged, officials said.
