BILLY SHIELDS: In Chesterfield County, about a mile south of the courthouse, construction crews are busy.

They're building an extension to Nash Road, across from where it intersects Beach.

And this spring, as crews were working, they came across something unique.

BILL AREL: Scraped across some bricks, started looking around and found they had uncovered a brick vault.

Looked in the vault and saw a coffin.

LAUREN GRYCTKO: The construction crew identified a brick entombment with a iron coffin inside of it.

BILLY SHIELDS: A special cast iron coffin lies beneath this tarp, likely made by the Fisk Company of Providence, Rhode Island.

LAUREN GRYCTKO: We identified this person as Nancy “Ann” Graves.

Nancy “Ann” Graves was born in 1803.

She died in June of 1858.

BILL AREL: She died in her fifties.

Looked to not be a very large woman and she's in a cast iron casket.

BILLY SHIELDS: And what led her to lie in this graveyard was deadly tuberculosis.

But archeologists say her casket is a clue to how she lived.

LAUREN GRYCTKO:These are expensive burials.

So, the one thing we can surmise about her life is that she had somebody in her life life who was willing to spend a lot of money on burying her.

BILLY SHIELDS: Ground penetrating radar reveals 17 other graves buried here.

LAUREN GRYCTKO: The majority of the additional burials are wooden coffins.

So, there are potential, a couple of potential enshrouded burials.

And we just will not know what these burials are until we've excavated them.

So we don't know yet.

BILLY SHIELDS: Chesterfield officials are looking for people who might be related to Graves.

They believe this could be part of what may have been a 700 acre farm.

LAUREN GRYCTKO: We have heard from a couple individuals who we do think are direct descendants.

BILLY SHIELDS: The county plans to excavate the site and relocate the graves once the research is done.

The discovery only paused work on the project, which is slated to be finished later this year.

Billy Shields, VPM News.