St. Helena residents fight to open gate outside of historic cemetery; Judge mulls over injunction

BEAUFORT COUNTY, S.C. (WTOC) - Several residents on St. Helena Island have been blocked from visiting their loved ones’ gravesites.

“‘When was the last time you visited the cemetery?’ I’d say about three years ago now. Can’t go back there, it’s locked up,” St. Helena Island resident, Julia Scott said.

Their loved ones are buried at the historic Gullah Geechee Cemetery, Big House Cemetery, near the water off Seaside Road on St. Helena.

“It’s so our spirit can travel back to where we originated,” St. Helena Island resident Shanoma Watson said.

The residents say they have used Everest Road to get to the cemetery for decades and say they can’t get there without going down Everest, but homeowners on Everest say it is faster to go down nearby Pope Estates Way.

“The reason they don’t want to come down Pope Estates Way is that they don’t want people going by their house all the time,” Attorney for the homeowners, Greg Alford, said. “I understand that, but my clients deserve the same respect.”

While residents who use the cemetery say that when trying to go down Pope Estates Way, there is no access, and there is even a “No Trespassing” sign, unlike Everest, where you can pull up to the gravesite.

“‘Was it possible for the funeral home to access the cemetery that way?’ Not unless we were going to carry the vault in our hands,” Watson said.

The gate was installed in 2023, and residents were originally given a code, but the code was changed after a funeral in 2024.

Court officials say the last person left the cemetery, and the code was changed because people along the road were unhappy with the road conditions that were left, and the constant traffic.

On Tuesday, residents asked a judge to issue a temporary injunction, which would open the gate up until their trial.

The Big House Cemetery Council is suing several homeowners for access to the cemetery and access to travel on nearby homeowners’ land.

The homeowners asked for the judge to dismiss the case as a whole, which the judge quickly denied.

Instead, she ordered a site visit on Tuesday so that she could see both roads before deciding on the temporary injunction

That decision is expected to be made in the coming days.

A trial for the case has not been set.