LYNCHBURG (WSLS 10) - The founding family of Lynchburg will be going to court with Liberty University next year.
Moorman family descendants said the university may have desecrated the graves of their ancestors that date back hundreds of years.
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Liberty is in the middle of construction on its new center for music and worship.
Relatives of Lynchburg's founding family, the Moormans, are worried the remains of their loved ones may be lost in a pile of rubble.
"I've got their planned drawings," said family member Chad Burchett. "They were supposed to go, I think it was down as deep as 9 ft., but you can see a semi-truck was sitting under the level of how they had dug, so it was quite extensive."
The property is owned by the school, but a 1979 agreement states a memorial to the family members must be maintained without disturbing the remains buried underneath.
Liberty said the memorial is still in place and the remains haven't been disturbed. "The decision was made to re-landscape the memorial area and keep its grade consistent with the new grade of the surrounding property, never going down to the level of the graves or the tombstones or headstones above them," said Liberty General Counsel David Corry.
Moorman descendant Chad Burchett said information he's received says otherwise. "It came to light from his head of construction," Burchett said. "They had actually dug one of the headstones up during construction, and then we started to wonder, what actually has happened at this site?"
The family wants to remove those remains and take them to a location in Rustburg, but Liberty said that's not in keeping with the original contract.
When the family pushed the school, Liberty sued them. "Liberty didn't believe it had done anything wrong and said, we'll ask a judge," said Corry.
Attorney John Francisco is representing the family."We have no interest in getting in this fight, but we've got to figure out how to solve this problem because this is a 250 year old graveyard," said Francisco.
Burchett said 90 members of his family have requested the remains be moved, and they're prepared to fight for it in court.
"We deserve to know the truth about what's happened, regardless of whatever it is, we can accept that outcome, but we need to know the truth."