BOTETOURT COUNTY (WSLS 10) - A controversial move of two historic slave quarters in Botetourt County is complete.
The second structure at the Greenfield Industrial Park was moved Thursday morning to a new location, joining the first building that was relocated on Tuesday.
Despite dozens of citizens putting up months of arguments to the board and even offering their own money to keep the buildings where they've stood for centuries, the second of the two historic structures found a new home a quarter of a mile away.
Shirley Lewis joined members of the group Friends of the Greenfield Preston Plantation Thursday morning to watch her family's historic kitchen roll down the road.
"Shirley's people have nowhere else to go but this spot. They don't get to do genealogy like we do on Ancestry.com, this is it for them and it's just such a total disregard, the fact that they weren't even brought into the conversation," said FGPP Vice President Lisa Farmer.
Farmer said that "conversation" should have begun well before they were first told of the planned move last October.
"I don't think the county wants our opinion. I don't they have ever wanted our opinion. If they did, they would have asked for it far before now," said Farmer.
In an attempt to halt the move, the group raised $40,000 in one day and presented the board with a check to cancel the deal with the moving company.
It also worked out a plan to "co-locate" the historic structures with new planned development.
The board declined the proposal Thursday saying, "It would make improvements more difficult, harm the economic possibilities of the land, and create an odd aesthetic juxtaposition."
"Our board has basically stuck their fingers in their ears. They do not care what the people of this county want. It's thug politics," said Farmer.
Lewis said as the board moves forward with its plans, her family's history may be lost forever.
"They're doing things that they can't undo," said Lewis.
Members of the Friends of the Greenfield Plantation are now turning their attention to stopping the second part of the supervisors plan that involves destroying the hill where those two structures used to sit and building three new buildings on it.
Lewis believes the hill contains remains from her ancestors.