{news} Nancy Burton challenges disinterment of African prince

[David Bedell]

courant.com
http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-ctstopdig0726.artjul26,0,4109425.story?coll=hc-headlines-local


Project Challenged

Activist Asks Court To Halt Dig At Gravesite Of Slave-Turned-Merchant 
Venture Smith

By PENELOPE OVERTON
Courant Staff Writer

July 26 2006

EAST HADDAM -- A disbarred lawyer running for state attorney general is 
seeking a court order to stop the excavation of the gravesite of freed slave 
Venture Smith, claiming the dig is an illegal desecration of the skeletal 
remains of a state hero.

Nancy Burton of Redding, who has worked with Smith descendants in the past 
to defend the old Venture Smith homestead in Haddam Neck, filed a request 
for an injunction in Superior Court in Hartford on Tuesday to stop the DNA 
retrieval project.

Smith was a kidnapped African prince who bought his own freedom and became a 
prosperous Connecticut merchant.

"I believe it is disrespectful to the sacred memory of a state hero," Burton 
said. "We wouldn't treat George Washington's grave like this. ... It treats 
Venture like a sub-species, like a slave, not a first-class citizen. That 
deeply offends me, and it offends the public interest."

On Tuesday, Burton asked Judge Lois Tanzer to order an immediate suspension 
of the work, but Tanzer focused her attention on Burton's legal paperwork, 
saying Burton had failed to provide legal notification to all defendants of 
her injunction request.

Tanzer told Burton she could air her concerns at a court hearing Thursday 
morning. Burton complained that State Archaeologist Nicholas Bellantoni, who 
is overseeing the dig and was represented at the Tuesday hearing by members 
of the state Attorney General's Office, might reach Smith's skeletal remains 
by Thursday.

"In this case, justice delayed might be justice denied," Burton told Tanzer.

Burton claims the excavation is illegal because the project leaders didn't 
obtain required disinterment permits, nor the permission of many of Smith's 
living descendants. She said the dig could damage a cemetery listed on the 
National Register of Historic Places.

Upon the receipt of their subpoenas Tuesday afternoon, leaders of the 
Venture Smith Project said they have the disinterment permits, and the 
permission of Coralynne Jackson, the descendant who is recognized as the 
sole legal guardian of Smith's remains.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the team had dug two feet into the earth. Funeral 
tradition around the time of Smith's death in 1805 customarily laid bodies 
about six feet down, Bellantoni said. He said the dig is not proceeding as 
quickly as he had expected, partly due to Burton's legal action.

"As for George Washington, she's dead wrong about that," Bellantoni quipped. 
"Give me the chance, and a scientific reason, and I'd dig George Washington 
up in a second. I've excavated the grave of Samuel Huntington, and he was 
the president of the Continental Congress."

Burton said some Smith descendants don't want the dig to continue, but said 
they wouldn't come forward publicly because they didn't want to divide the 
family. Project leaders note, however, that it was a family member, Jackson, 
who initially requested a DNA retrieval project.

Project leaders say it would have been impossible to contact all of Smith's 
descendants, who number about 70, and they question whether Burton is merely 
seeking publicity. Burton, disbarred in Connecticut 2001, is running on the 
Green Party ticket for attorney general.

"We all want this dig to continue," said Frank Warmsley Sr. of East Hampton. 
"We know the whole thing might not lead to any bones, not enough to find out 
where Venture was from, but the whole family is willing to give it a try. At 
least it's spreading Venture's story."

Contact Penelope Overton at poverton@ courant.com.

Copyright 2006, Hartford Courant