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This past fall, I got to attend an open house event at the Valentine for educators. The museum’s staff and collections are always excellent. I’ve taken my students there for field trips, and I have used the collections extensively for my cemetery research. That evening’s open house event was lively and inspiring, and I got…

On April 21, 2025, the University of Richmond unveiled its new memorial on the site of a long troubled burial ground associated with African American burials. That burial ground, on the site of the former Westham plantation, predates the creation of the campus around Westhampton Lake, but the university has repeatedly and knowingly disturbed the…

Something really cool is happening at the Library of Virginia on Saturday, March 29. That day, the Library of Virginia will be hosting a symposium put together by the Richmond Cemetery Collaboratory. Titled “Cultivating Perpetual Care Communities:A Richmond Cemetery Collaboratory Symposium,” this free event will run from 9:00am to 4:00pm. The symposium will explore how…

One of the great “Treasures from the Collections of the Library of Virginia” is the set of 12 order books from the J. Henry Brown Monuments company dating from 1899 through 1920. Brown established his Richmond shop in 1885, where he specialized in creating gravestones. His order books contain thousands of detailed entries, documenting markers…

This Fall 2023 semester, the Richmond Cemetery Collaboratory (recently renamed from the East End Cemetery Collaboratory) has engaged with St. James Cemetery in Varina just east of Richmond. The governing organization of the cemetery is the Star of Benevolence Society, which is connected to a historic lodge and schoolhouse on the property at St. James…

I was saddened to hear of the death of Congressman A. Donald McEachin on November 28. In my own most recent experience with Rep. McEachin, he was talking with the local African American descendant community about his co-sponsored African American Burial Grounds Preservation Program bill. Around that same time, he had issued a letter to…

Today new signage was unveiled at the Battlefield Park Road Cemetery in eastern Henrico County. This is not the nearby Fort Harrison National Cemetery, but a private family cemetery, listed in the “Henrico County Cemeteries” study as the Harris-Lawrence-Jackson Cemetery. It is located at 7921 Battlefield Park Road in Varina for those looking to visit.…

On September 16, 2022, Virginia Commonwealth University’s board of visitors approved a resolution apologizing for the 1968 heart transplant episode in which Bruce Tucker’s live heart was taken without his and his family’s consent at the Medical College of Virginia’s hospital. The resolution also acknowledges and regrets the earlier practice of targeting Black graves to…

In 1922, the admirers of Edgar Allan Poe in the Poe Foundation adopted the “Old Stone House” on Richmond’s  Main Street to serve as a library and museum in tribute to the city’s famous son. The Poe Museum has since grown to be a beloved fixture and notable home to Poe memorabilia and events. This…

Just offering out here the idea to create a registry/index of stonecarvers who worked in central Virginia in the 19th and 20th centuries, as that idea was just offered to me by Joanna Wilson Green at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Hopefully we can follow up with another post with an announcement along those…