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What the Dog Knows
Last week I was able to witness something special in our region’s cemeteries — the work of cadaver dogs and their handlers trying to discern the nature of a burial ground’s landscape. The primary advocate for Richmond’s Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground, Lenora McQueen, had seen a 2021 presentation by Cat Warren on how cadaver…
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State funding extended for African American graves
Last week, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin signed into law Senate Bill 477 and House Bill 140, together the work of Senator Jennifer McClellan and Delegate Delores McQuinn. The new rules expand the basis for eligibility under the Virginia Historical African American Cemeteries and Grave Fund. Previously, the state provided maintenance funding for the total number…
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A moment to celebrate for Shockoe Hill
Hooray! This morning, the state review board and the board of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources at their quarterly meeting both unanimously approved our nomination of the “Shockoe Hill Burying Ground Historic District,” for listing on the Virginia landmarks register. This step moves the nomination forward to the National Park Service for listing on…
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Discovering unmarked graves at East End Cemetery
East End Cemetery, like the adjoining Evergreen Cemetery, the city’s “Colored Paupers Cemetery,” and so many other historic African American cemeteries, features a very large number of unmarked graves. Starting in 2013, the volunteer Friends of East End Cemetery pushed back the overgrowth to uncover and identify over 3,300 grave markers at East End, all…
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Women Writers Buried in Virginia
There’s a new book on the area’s cemeteries to celebrate: Sharon Pajka’s Women Writers Buried in Virginia, published in November 2021. Sharon is a faculty member in the English Department at Gallaudet University and an exceptionally creative and kind colleague. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia and a graduate certificate from the…
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Vandalism at Hebrew Cemetery
In the first week of November, I walked through Richmond’s Hebrew Cemetery to take some photographs of the area for study. The site and those around it continue to fascinate, and one student in my undergraduate classes this semester is pursuing a research project related to the cemetery. But only a few steps inside the…
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“Gravediggers” at Oakwood Cemetery
The word on the street is that “Gravediggers” (alternatively titled “Raymond and Ray”) starring Ethan Hawke and Ewan McGregor is filming at Richmond’s Oakwood Cemetery this month. The casting call for extras can be seen here. Apparently, the story centers on two troubled half brothers. It is unclear which elements of Oakwood Cemetery appealed to…
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Approaching the National Register – Shockoe Hill
The Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground — what I had referred to as Richmond’s “second African Burial Ground” in my earlier publications — has been increasingly gaining publicity. This is largely due to the untiring efforts of descendant/researcher Lenora McQueen, who has enlisted valuable support from Preservation Virginia, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the…
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Shockoe Bottom Small Area Plan – and big ideas
The city of Richmond has recently released a draft Shockoe Bottom Small Area Plan. It was designed with input by the by the many public and private partners in the Shockoe Alliance, a group put together by Mayor Levar Stoney in 2019 and “charged with guiding the design and implementation of concepts and recommendations for…
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Bishop’s/St. Joseph’s Cemetery
Richmond’s earliest Roman Catholic residents — primarily Irish and French immigrants, with a small number of English — had buried in St. John’s churchyard and then in Shockoe Hill Cemetery. Only after 1834, with the opening of the city’s first Catholic parish, St. Peter’s Church on Grace Street, would the Diocese of Richmond’s leaders turn…