Campfire stories at Shellharbour Beachside Tourist Park are creepy enough given the facility was established on an old graveyard.But now history researchers have provided extra chill factor with speculation of bodies that were supposed to have been relocated in the late 1800s may be still lying underneath the caravans and tents.Kiama Family History Centre researcher and director Roy Thorburn said that until recently only 24 bodies were identified as being buried at the Shellharbour Pioneer Cemetery before the site was resumed and converted into Crown land for public recreation in 1889.Access granted to courthouse records has enabled Mr Thorburn to determine the names of 143 people buried at the cemetery, laying to rest the mystery of where many of the area's early settlers were buried.But the research also shows that many of these bodies were not listed as having been reinterred at other burial grounds, suggesting many remains were left behind.Mick Fields, manager of environment and recreation at Shellharbour City Council, which has operated the tourist park on the site for many decades, said the cemetery was established on a fragile dune system that became eroded with time.He said coffins and skeletons were exposed during heavy seas in the late 1800s, a fact borne out by newspaper articles of the day.In March 1898 the South Coast Herald reported on the discovery of a human skeleton on the beach."These are not the only remains that have been found in the vicinity of the old cemetery at Shellharbour, which is being completely destroyed by water and sands," the paper said. The report said there was little respect for the dead, with a resident "ornamenting his backyard with a skull on the end of a pole". Mr Thorburn said the village butcher acquired several headstones to use as chopping blocks.Landowner George Fuller donated land south of Shellharbour on the road to Dunmore in 1894 for a new cemetery, which was dedicated the next year.The cemetery was closed in 1893 and the land included as part of the Shellharbour Village Reserve.Mr Fields said it was assumed some of the bodies were exhumed and the headstones transferred to other cemeteries in the district.But Mr Thorburn said he had found only two bodies that had been reinterred: Jane Brownlee in St Paul's Roman Catholic cemetery at Albion Park and Jane Barrs in Albion Park's Church of England cemetery.The research nevertheless brings closure for many families trying to determine where their forebears might have been buried."It was the big mystery of Shellharbour involving lots of old, prominent families," he said.Mr Thorburn said, ideally, he would like to see a memorial plaque erected, acknowledging the names of the 143 people once buried at the site.