GEORGETOWN, S.C. — The families of those buried in Huxfield Cemetery in rural Georgetown County have won the right to control the property and will no longer have to pay for burial plots because of a recent S.C. Supreme Court ruling.

The owners of the property that surrounds the three-acre graveyard in the Carvers Bay area had fought to maintain ownership.

The Aug. 16 decision by the state’s highest court ends a dispute that has lasted more than a decade.

The high court ruled the Huxfield Cemetery Association, headed by Baylis Elliott, has the right to maintain and control the property.

The cemetery has been a part of the county’s history since 1881 when William Rowe dedicated the three acre area to be used as a public burying ground.

It was used in that manner — with people being buried free of charge — until 1999, according to court documents.

Until 1999, Mount Zion Church in Carvers Bay managed and maintained the land and used it, without challenge, as a cemetery for its members.

In 1999, the church pastor decided he no longer wished to maintain separate accounts, so an association of relatives and descendants of those buried in the cemetery assumed responsibility for collecting and accounting for donations made towards the cemetery.

In  2006, according to the documents, Bobby Elliott sent a letter to local funeral homes stating that as the heirs of R.L. Elliott, they were the owners of the cemetery and would begin charging $500 per burial plot.

In response, the Association filed a lawsuit which was heard by a special referee, Georgetown County Master in Equity Joe Crosby.

At that trial, a real estate expert presented a series of documents showing how the title of the land has been handed down through the years.

Crosby ruled in favor of Bobbie Elliott and others who had claimed ownership.

The Huxfield Cemetery Association filed an appeal and the case was picked up by the S.C. Supreme Court, which ruled the location had been dedicated as a public burial ground and traditional property laws are not applicable.

Attorney Billy Jenkinson of Kingstree, who represented the Association, told S.C. Lawyers Weekly “if the lower court was correct, if I live next to a public dirt road and I decide that the road was originally part of my property and I'm just going to put a barricade up and charge anybody 50 cents to ride down it, I can do it."

 Robert Moran, a Murrells Inlet lawyer, represented the neighbors. He said he was a little flabbergasted by the high court’s decision.

"I'm a real estate lawyer and I had never heard of anything anywhere that said because something is a cemetery the traditional laws of real estate do not apply," he told the weekly publication.

Attorney Mandy Shuler, who has relatives in the cemetery, said she was confident the supreme court would rule in the favor of her clients but was not expecting a complete reversal of Crosby’s order.

By Scott Harper

sharper@gtowntimes.com