Richmond Cemeteries

Exploring Richmond Virginia’s Historic Burial Grounds

Category: Barton Heights

  • Richmond city staff and partners

    The city of Richmond’s latest weekly newsletter, “Hey Richmond,” offers a key update in the saga of the city’s African American cemeteries. Briefly, in 2024, the city of Richmond formally acquired ownership of East End Cemetery, Evergreen Cemetery, and Forest View Cemetery, three African American cemeteries that had fallen into legal limbo with the dissolution…

  • Barton Heights walking tour

    On Saturday, 9/13/2025, the Richmond Cemetery Collaboratory and its community partners celebrated the release of a walking tour guide for Richmond’s historic Barton Heights Cemeteries. The cemeteries themselves, founded in 1815 by a society of free black Richmonders, do not have welcome signage or tour support. In an effort to provide a resource to area…

  • Philip Wythe’s headstone

    Check out my new piece on Philip N. J. Wythe’s headstone (1827) in the latest issue of the journal Southern Cultures. Interesting reads on material culture throughout the issue. For an expanded look at Wythe’s family, see The Judah Will project page.

  • Counting graves at Barton Heights

    Jim Laidler, Cemetery Manager for the City of Richmond, has let me know that he is applying for state funds recently made available from the General Assembly as a result of H.B. 1547. This legislation offers $5 per grave for those of African American ancestry who lived before 1900 and are buried in a historical…