Tensions flare between descendants, landowners over access to family cemetery

Ronald Lee Joyce rests here.

Joyce was shot and killed by white police officers in Nashville in 1973, and his death inspired hundreds of African-Americans to march city streets seeking racial justice. He was a college student, unarmed and 19 years old.

George Edward Joyce lies here, too. A private in the U.S. Army, he died in combat in Vietnam on Dec. 5, 1965. He was 21 years old, and a war hero in a family with a sister and six brothers.

The small plot of land in Cheatham County known as Bell Town Cemetery has more than 30 graves, including two World War I veterans, three World War II veterans and five generations of Joyce family members.

The cemetery has been used by African-Americans since the emancipation.

But, recently, the peace has been disturbed. The families of the deceased can no longer access the burial ground.

Conflict of civil rights and civility

Metal gates and barbed wires have been erected along the narrow dirt road leading to the gravesites. Intimidating signs warning of guard dogs and prosecution for trespassing are affixed to wooden fences. Surveillance cameras record activity on the property.

In a conflict of civil rights and civility, threats and arrests dominate a disagreement over property access between the landowners who control the area surrounding the cemetery and generations of the deceased's families.

Tension has escalated to the point where sheriffs have provided escort to older family members wanting to visit graves of parents, grandparents and siblings.

"I never thought I would have to have the police come to let me see my family," says Helen Joyce Vance, who on a recent August afternoon walked across the rugged terrain with her cane and a pair of deputies. "In 2017, who needs the police to let you go to your family where they're buried?

"I can’t even believe 'We the people' would allow it."

'Wasn't nothing but love'

Bell Town is an unincorporated, rural community in southern Cheatham County.

Though records are scarce, oral history suggests the town's early residents were descendants of slaves of Middle Tennessee ironmaster Montgomery Bell. 

Only a couple of hundred people live here. There is no post office, so the address is officially Kingston Springs.

Vance and Marian Joyce grew up here. Their grandmother had a log cabin with a concrete porch and columns. They ran through the woods to creeks off the Harpeth River. They went to class in a one-room schoolhouse and attended Belltown Church of Christ just up the road. 

"Bell Town was a complete black community, not a white person in sight," Marian Joyce says, her eyes shining under the brim of her big white hat. "... Wasn’t nothing but love."

In the last two decades, an influx of whites has spurred growth in the area and shifted racial attitudes.

A question of property rights

Joe Townsend, a broad man with a short, dark beard, owns multiple plots of land in Kingston Springs. He purchased two plots just under 14 acres on the east side of the cemetery in 2001. He bought another 8.2-acre plot on the west side in 2008. 

The cemetery is between them. 

It is accessed by a rocky dirt road easement about one-quarter mile off the paved part of Sneed Road, and on one side grows a patch of corn and sunflowers. On the other sits a collection of old cars.

The half-acre cemetery plot is weedy and overgrown, the uneven ground filled with prickly plants, scraggly trees and ticks.

Aged headstones — century-old markers with engravings worn away by years of weather — bear the family names Adkisson and Jones. Others are distinguished with now-rusted metal stakes, likely placed by families too poor to afford more significant markers. 

The land is "owned by the dead and its descendants," says lawyer Allen Brown. "You can't buy it, you can't sell it, you can't subtract from it, and you can only add to it if you're family." 

It is a resting place for soldiers.

"You've got federal men buried back here," Vance says. "Gold Star people."

There are other things that shouldn't be here, like mounds of horse poop and clusters of bottles. People, the Joyces say, are using the cemetery in ways that disgrace their relatives.

A portion of the cemetery believed yet unused appears recently bulldozed — done without the consent of the buried's descendants. A backhoe is parked just beyond the cemetery's southwest edge.

Townsend has "refused or frustrated" access to the cemetery since 2010, according to Brown, who has accompanied the Joyce family and other descendants during several attempted visits.

A 15-foot easement curves off the road toward the cemetery, but often-padlocked gates prevent access to the easement.

Townsend's lawyer, Rhonda Crabtree, said a gate has been there for 10 years. She said she has been provided no documents showing the easement or proof that the Joyces are descendants of those buried in the cemetery.

The Joyces believe the gates should not be used to keep them out. 

An appointment with the DA has been set for Wednesday.

Trespassing and arrest

On July 24, Kenneth Joyce went to clean up the plots where his twin brothers, Ronald and Donald, war veteran George and other dear ones are buried. He drove his gold car to the dirt road, only to find the gates locked. He removed the first from its hinges and forced through the second, according to an affidavit.

Townsend called the sheriff and Joyce was charged with criminal trespassing and vandalism. The affidavit notes there was a weed cutter in Joyce's vehicle and "the grass around the gravestones was freshly cut."

"I'm just down here to keep my loved ones clean, leave some flowers, like everyone do in the United States of America,"Joyce said. 

"I understand his (Townsend's) right to his own land. I am not trying to bother him or his land."

Brown, the attorney, says the gates are in place illegally. The deed for the east-side property references the road to the Bell Town Cemetery. It defines the property as ending on the "edge of new road."

"If your boundary ends at the edge of the new road, then you don't own the road," Brown says. "I don't know why the county stopped paving and abandoned it.

"Even if they did, it remains a road because the public continues to use it. This is especially true to cemetery access."

Anthony Townsend, Joe's father, has on multiple occasions approached cemetery visitors telling them to get off the land. A paunchy man with a puffed-up white goatee, he says: "This is private property. ... Nowhere on the deed does it say they have egress and ingress."

An 'emotional celebration,' followed by confrontation

The charges against Kenneth Joyce were dismissed. The district attorney authorized a sheriff's deputy escort to reopen the cemetery, and the Joyces thought the issue was resolved.

"I knew I was in the right," Kenneth Joyce says. "Any human being would want to see their loved ones, and any human who would keep someone from seeing their loved ones is not quite right, I think.

" ... I knew God was on my side."

On Aug. 9, the gates to the road were open and Joyce descendants walked the land and paid their respects.

"It was a beautiful, emotional celebration among a great (African-American) community," Brown said in a post on Facebook. "I was proud to be there with them."

By that afternoon, older members of the community heard of the success and wanted to visit their family graves. There was no deputy escort the second time, but Brown went along. 

They were met with resistance by the Townsends. Brown — fearful of violence against the cemetery visitors and himself — twice called 911 requesting that sheriffs be sent to the property for protection.

Brown, his voice shaking, tells police on the 911 call: "He (Townsend) charged me very violently," but broke away just before making contact. Joe Townsend told the responding deputy that "a swarm of yellow jackets began to chase him," and that's why he ran at Brown.

Brown later said: "I've never been that scared before."

'This is sacred ground'

With relatives visiting from New York and California, the Joyces attempted to access the graveyard again last week. Joined by a civil escort, two members of the Cheatham County sheriff's deputies, Sgt. Doug Fox and Michael Peeler, they drove to the edge of the Townsend land, hot in the midday sun.

One of the deputies approached with bolt cutters. The gates were closed but unlocked. They went in.

It's the first time Lawrence Joyce has seen his father's grave in 20 years. As he walks, he pauses to put right headstones that have toppled over.

With her arm looped through her nephew's, their fingers woven together, Vance carefully crossed the uneven terrain, passing the graves of her mama and daddy, her grandmama and granddaddy. All the people who nurtured her. She hadn't walked this ground since 2010.

Together, they smiled and reminisced. And then they grew quiet. In front of the headstone of a boy they called "Plum" — a family nickname for George Edward Joyce— they paused to remember his Vietnam valor and his honor.

"This is my family," Marian Joyce said, as emotion swelled in her voice. "... I'm going to be buried here. ... This is sacred ground."

The moment was bittersweet.

Several members of the Townsend family arrived minutes later. Voices were raised and tension escalated, but there was no violence.

As the visitors left and Brown returned to his car, he noticed nails resting against his front and back tire. A witness told the sheriff she saw an older man put them there.

As Anthony Townsend drove his car through the gates, the officers detained him for questioning. He denied placing the nails, forcefully reasserting the rights of private property.

"They’re colored folk," Anthony Townsend told the deputy. "I try to respect them as much as I can. I'm not prejudiced, bub. All these people think we’re prejudice; we’re not."

Reach Jessica Bliss at jbliss@tennessean.com or 615-259-8253 and on Twitter @jlbliss.