Developer finds Human Remains Near Nashville Civil War Fort
In recent months, developer AJ Capital has found the remains of two unknown people at Chestnut Hill development site.
Archaeological monitors hired by AJ Capital identified human skeletal remains and fragments of wood on both May 16 and June 7.
The remains were located between 14 and 18 feet beneath ground level while digging for foundation of 10-story residential building in Chestnut Hill.
The company is asking a Nashville chancery judge for permission to move the remains to the adjacent, 200-year-old Nashville City Cemetery.
Who these potentially centuries-old people might have been is an open question, according to Learotha Williams, a Tennessee State University professor specialized in Civil War and Reconstruction studies.
the remains could be Native American, from early settlers, from Civil War soldiers or from Black workers on the fort — though that seems less likely.
He described Nashville’s “spotty record” of sorting out friction between growth and historic preservation.
Williams did say things are “changing a bit” but there’s still “a ways to go” when it comes to Nashville’s sensitivity toward histories of marginalized people.