Candidate denies home was built on cemetery

BEAUFORT -- With less than a week until election day, Rep. Shannon Erickson, R-Beaufort, is trying to dispel a rumor that her house was built on an "African-American cemetery," a story stirred up by a mysterious mailer.

Erickson and her lawyer,Thomas Holloway,contacted the Beaufort Gazette on Tuesday, saying that some residents in her district had received a mailer saying her South Hermitage Road house was built five years agoon the graves of African-Americans.

"I dealt with it five years ago; it was dealt with to the letter of the law," Erickson said. "It's sad to me that someone thinks this is something to take up during the campaign."

Erickson provided the newspaper with a copy of an archeological study done on her property in 2003. The study, done by Brockington and Associates of Charleston,found no evidence of graves on Erickson's property, but said there may be graves located on the lot next to hers. Erickson said she does not own the adjacent lot.

Democrat Jim Brown, who is running against Erickson to represent District 124, said Wednesday he hasn't seen the mailer.

"I haven't seen it. It hadn't come out of my campaign," he said.

The origin of the mailer remains a mystery. Political literature is supposed to list the name and address of the person or group that sent it out, but the mailer only has "Citizens for Truth, Post Office Box, Columbia, South Carolina"printed on it. It is not known how many mailers were distributed, or to whom.

The mailer's author bases the claim that Erickson built her house on graves on a 1972 document from the Dowling, Dowling, Sanders & Dukeslaw firm, which is reprinted on the flyer. The document says that "a part of the above described two lots of land has been for many years and is now used as a Negro cemetery."Erickson said she will be turning the mailer over to the South Carolina State Ethics Comission, but said that because the mailer was sent out within 50 days of the election, it would not be taken up until after Tuesday.