Building ‘run around’ in Virgin Island

Here’s an example of a ‘literal’ run around to get something done. Really I should say ‘try’ to get something done.

St Thomas Cemetery

Before we could get permission to start building road easement into our property we needed to show we would not disturb any grave sites. The reason this was a concern was that Tom Ford (person that sold me the land) signed an agreement with Cecil Beverhoudt (man who owns land our easement crosses). This agreement included these words: “not to disturb any gravesites in construction of the new right of way”.  

Here is what I had to do:

• Go to recorder of deeds office in St Thomas. Look up all the old documents I could find and try to make out any sign of a grave. This took many trips/days/weeks.
• Found one small mark where Clara Wallace is buried on their property.
• Was told that there were more grave sites by Cecil’s son, Franklin.  He does not know where.
• I ask anyone I thought might know, Bernie Kemp, Guy Benjamin. I was referred to Edith Borne whom I later found out is very senior and not quite on her game anymore.
• She said go to Cemetery in St Thomas for grave site locations.
• Spoke with head of Cemetery, he said go to PWD-Public Works Dept.
• Went PWD, spoke to Jennifer in Engineers, she said go back to Cadastral where Recorder of Deeds office is.
• Spoke with Mrs. Harringan in Cadastral and she could not find anything. She said to come back and maybe she could find more maps (smaller survey maps with more detail) and piece them together to see if anything is there.
• I went back another day and she said she found nothing.

 This is normal. Really. This is how majority of my attempts to get thing done occur. This went on from 1990 when we started building our first house, till the day we finished our third house in 2005.  This is why I took a break from it all. Four years later I am just dipping my toes in the water.