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Now hiring
This past summer, the City of Richmond quietly received title to Evergreen and East End Cemeteries, which had been in limbo since the collapse of their previous owner, the Enrichmond Foundation. Months prior to those transfers, the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation has been engaging with the Friends of East End Cemetery and other…
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New! From stonecarver J. Henry Brown
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…
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The burying ground and the billboard
On Monday, February 5, I received a distressing message from Lenora McQueen, descendant and key advocate for the Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground. Through a review of recent photographs of the site with archaeologist and ally Ellen Chapman, the two saw that VCU Health had recently placed an advertisement on one of the two billboard…
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St. James Cemetery event, 11/30
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…
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Pajka’s Souls Close to Edgar Allan Poe
Sharon Pajka, the prolific Richmond-region author and cemetery friend, releases a new book today. Titled The Souls Close to Edgar Allan Poe, it has an inviting cover photograph of the Allan grave markers in Shockoe Hill Cemetery. Sharon explains: “My book includes a collection of thirty-seven memorials, nineteen cemeteries and five states, plus Washington, D.C.…
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East End/Evergreen Cemeteries Community Conversation
The wheels of justice are still turning slowly for the Enrichmond Foundation’s accountability following its mismanagement of Evergreen Cemetery, East End Cemetery, and broader community relations. In the first half of 2023, various news outlets have reported that the fiscal agent is apparently under investigation by the FBI and the Virginia state attorney general’s office.…
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Liberty and Death and conservation in St. John’s Churchyard
On Thursday, May 25, at 7:00pm, I will be delivering a talk at St. John’s Church for the Historic St. John’s Church Foundation’s Walter W. Craigie Speaker Series. Titled, “Liberty and Death in St. John’s Churchyard,” the talk will offer an overview of the history of the churchyard, which is the oldest surviving burial ground…
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Woodland Cemetery open house
These are exciting days for Woodland Cemetery. Descendants and volunteers there have transformed the site under the leadership of the Woodland Restoration Foundation, with bigger plans to come. They invite the public to celebrate with them and learn more at a family-friendly open house to be held at the cemetery on Saturday, May 20, starting…
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Slavery, Shockoe Hill, and MCV
In December 2022, historian Peter J. Wosh completed his study of the historical ties between the Medical College of Virginia and slavery. Wosh’s report was commissioned by VCU administrators in accordance with Virginia House Bill 1980, and it is well worth a read. Wosh made use of a great deal of archival evidence, despite the…
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Where Evergreen/East End are heading
The pressure continues to build for the city to clean up the mess left behind by the Enrichmond Foundation at Evergreen Cemetery and East End Cemetery, which together make up 76 acres of African American graves along the city/county line. On February 13, 2023, city council members Cynthia Newbille and Anne-Frances Lambert introduced a resolution…