The Old City Cemetery is a historic

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite, graveyard, or a green space called a memorial park or memorial garden, is a place where the remains of many death, dead people are burial, buried or otherwise entombed. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek ...

in Lynchburg,

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

. It is the oldest municipal (city-owned) cemetery still in use today in the state of Virginia, and one of the oldest such burial grounds in the United States. Since the 1990s it has been operated as a history park and arboretum, in addition to being an active cemetery. The exact number of interments in Old City Cemetery is unknown because of a lack of official records before 1914, but it is estimated that 18,000–20,000 people are at final rest there. They represent an unusually diverse cross-section of the local community, including founding fathers and mothers of the town, Confederate soldiers who died in military hospitals, African American tobacco factory laborers, European immigrants, paupers, and "strangers" who died passing through town. Two-thirds of the burials in the cemetery are African American. It has been estimated that over 90% of Lynchburg's enslaved and free

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

population are buried in the Old City Cemetery, the primary burial site for African Americans from 1806 to 1865. In fact, at that time it was the only burial ground, excluding private family graveyards, available to African Americans in the area. A notable burial is that of Ota Benga (c. 1883–1916), a Congolese

pygmy In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature (as opposed to disproportionate dwarfism occurring in isolated cases in a po ...

exhibited at human zoos, although his remains may have been later moved to Lynchburg's White Rock Hill Cemetery. The cemetery's

Confederate A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a political union of sovereign states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issu ...

section contains the graves of over 2,200 soldiers from 14 states. an
''Accompanying photo''
/ref> Also interred at the cemetery is poet

Bransford Vawter Bransford Vawter (1815-1838) was a poet from Lynchburg, Virginia. He has been described as Lynchburg's first poet. He is remembered for his poem "I'd Offer Thee This Hand Of Mine", which ended up becoming a popular song. He is also the subject of ...

. The cemetery was established on land donated to the City of Lynchburg by city founder John Lynch. The original deed for the property states it shall be used as a public burying ground or for a house of worship—and for no other purpose whatsoever. The site includes four small historic house museums located inside the cemetery, which is cared for by the Southern Memorial Association. * Pest House Medical Museum, Lynchburg's first hospital * Hearse House and Caretakers' Museum, museum about the cemetery and funerals * Station House Museum, a reconstructed C&O Railway depot furnished as in World War I * Mourning Museum, museum about mourning customs, located inside the Cemetery Center The cemetery also includes a non-denominational Chapel, built to commemorate the 200-year anniversary of the founding of Lynchburg's Old City Cemetery in 1806, and a Columbarium with niches and crypts for new burials below the Chapel.

Gallery

Image:Pest House Lynchburg Nov 08.JPG, Pest House Museum, Old City Cemetery, Lynchburg VA, November 2008 Image:Pest House Sign Lynchburg Nov 08.JPG, Pest House Museum (Sign), Old City Cemetery, Lynchburg VA, November 2008 Image:Station House Lynchburg Nov 08.JPG, Station House Museum, Old City Cemetery, Lynchburg VA, November 2008 Image:Station House Sign Lynchburg Nov 08.JPG, Station House Museum (Sign), Old City Cemetery, Lynchburg VA, November 2008 Image:Chapel and Columbarium Lynchburg Nov 08.JPG, Chapel and Columbarium, Old City Cemetery, Lynchburg VA, November 2008

References

External links

Old City Cemetery official site

Virginia African American Heritage Program, Old City Cemetery
* * {{Portal bar, History, United States African-American cemeteries in Virginia Cemeteries on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia National Register of Historic Places in Lynchburg, Virginia Tourist attractions in Lynchburg, Virginia Museums in Lynchburg, Virginia 1806 establishments in Virginia