## Facts

- In the early 1800s, a landowner set apart and used a small portion of his land as a private family burial ground, and family members were buried there over time.
- The burial ground contained visible markers and was treated and maintained as a family cemetery.
- The larger tract was later conveyed outside the family to Walter Hines; the deed contained no express reservation for the burial ground.
- Descendants sought to reach the cemetery from the nearest public road to visit and care for the graves.
- Hines refused to allow ingress and egress across his land to the burial ground.
- The State prosecuted Hines under a statute criminalizing obstruction of access to burial grounds, and he was convicted of a misdemeanor.

## Issues

1. Whether long-used private family burial grounds create continuing burial and access rights that bind subsequent purchasers despite the absence of an express deed reservation.
2. Whether a fee owner may exclude descendants from accessing such a cemetery, or whether refusal of access violates the burial-access statute.

## Decision

- The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed Hines’s misdemeanor conviction.
- The court held that once land is definitely set apart and used as a family burial ground, the fee is held subject to a trust-like obligation for burial purposes.
- Descendants possess rights of burial and reasonable ingress and egress from the nearest public road to visit, maintain, and protect the graves.
- Subsequent purchasers take subject to these rights because the dedication creates an implied reservation and the visible cemetery puts buyers on notice.
- Hines’s denial of access unlawfully interfered with protected cemetery access and supported conviction under the statute.

## Legal Principles

- Land devoted and used as a burial ground is held by the owner and successors in title in trust for burial purposes and cannot be transferred in a manner that defeats that use.
- Dedication and use of a family cemetery imply easements for burial and for reasonable access (ingress and egress) to visit and care for graves.
- An express reservation in the deed is unnecessary; the reservation is implied, and visible graves or markers charge purchasers with notice.
- Burial lots are not treated as ordinary commercial property and are presumptively excluded from surrounding land sales.
- Cemetery rights are not extinguished by limitation or adverse possession while graves remain marked or tended so as to show the continuing burial purpose.

## Conclusion

The court upheld a conviction for blocking descendants’ access to a family cemetery, ruling that dedication and longstanding use of a burial ground impose implied, continuing burial and access rights that run against later purchasers who take the land with notice of the cemetery’s existence.


Hines v. State, 126 Tenn. 1, 149 S.W. 1058 (Tenn. 1911)