LoCoHistory

Recently cemetery vandalism has been on the increase in our local cemeteries. The worst hit cemetery is the historic African American graveyard adjacent to Oakwood and known as the “Daughters of Zion” or “Society Cemetery.” More recently, vandalism has been increasing in Maplewood Cemetery (near Martha Jefferson Hospital). The perpetrators vary in age from teenagers to adults and from the homeless to school children. Gang-related graffiti has been found, etched on an obelisk.

The recent spike in vandalism has decimated parts of Maplewood Cemetery. In the photo (taken 14 April 08), the red dots indicate stones that have been broken, moved, or destroyed. In some cases the inscriptions are no longer legible and it will be very difficult (and expensive) to repair them. To read more about these recent incidents, please visit the NBC 29 website.

Part of the decline in cemetery landscapes is enabled because the average person never visits a cemetery. This disuse has led to abandoned acres of graves that are rarely visited by family members or the public. It’s unfortunate that our modern sensibilities discourage us from visiting and learning from these open-air museums. To the contrary, in the 19th Century families were encouraged to walk through the recently designed “rural cemeteries” (paradoxically located adjacent to cities). These burial grounds contained walking trails, sculpted shrubbery, and a Victorian style of funerary memorial that emphasized flowery inscriptions and moralistic epitaphs.

Today these monuments are part of a 200-year old landscape at Maplewood Cemetery. A stroll through this historic deathscape illustrates past ideas about death, the family, religion, and gender. Moreover, the epitaphs convey the history of Charlottesville, one individual at a time.

Charlottesville has several historic cemeteries, all of which teach us about the city’s multi-cultural past. The current behavior of a small number of people can by stopped if more people strolled through these graveyards and called the Police if they see something amiss.

A Charlottesville Police Officer has dedicated a portion of her time to working on this issue. If you see vandalism in progress in one of our city cemeteries, please call 911. To report a past incident, please call the non-emergency number, 977-9041 or Crime Stoppers at 977-4000. Other questions can be directed to me (via the contact form on the blog) or to Officer Weber at the Police Department (970-3280).

Please help monitor and protect these valuable resources.

In the 19th Century, American families strolled through public cemeteries in an effort to impart morals and religious ideals to their children. In the 20th century this practice became taboo, as the arena of death became professionalized (through the rise of Funeral Homes and morticians who took over tasks that had previously been performed by family members). But cemeteries still have a lot to teach us. Gravestone inscriptions reveal family values, kinship relations, religious beliefs, expected gender roles, and attitudes towards death. Mortuary motifs transform cultural ideologies into art and illustrate beliefs about life and death. And, taken as a whole, cemeteries preserve the memory of past communities. There are two public cemeteries in Charlottesville: Oakwood and Maplewood and many of the privately owned, large memorial parks allow pedestrian traffic. In all cases, respect is due to these sacred sites. For a weekly update on Albemarle County gravestone motifs, click on the “gravestone archive” at the left-corner of this page.

Before desegregation, the only Charlottesville high school open to African Americans was the Jefferson School. Built in 1926, the building is located on Fourth Street at the edge of the old Vinegar Hill neighborhood. The school opened several decades earlier, in 1894, as the nine-room, K-8 “Jefferson Colored Graded/Elementary School” (that building was demolished in 1959). An informal precursor to the school dates to the 1860s.

The first principal of the “Graded School” was Benjamin E. Tonsler (1854-1917). He received his degree at Hampton University and went on to serve as the principal of the Jefferson School for thirty years. In this post we highlight material culture that remains today to commemorate this man’s life and works. First, his gravestone was “Erected by the Alumni of the Jefferson Graded School and Friends” in his memory. His inscription reads “Gone But Not Forgotten.” This stone can be found within the Tonsler Family Plot in the Daughters of Zion Cemetery, located adjacent to the Oakwood Cemetery. Second, his house still stands on Sixth Street (behind the First Baptist Church on Main Street).

If we check the University of Virginia historic Holsinger Collection we locate a third memorial, a photograph of the funeral flowers brought to his house. And fourth, we remember his life in the name of the park located at the corner of Ridge and Cherry: Tonsler Park (the name was choosen in 1958). One man’s biography writ large around us, if we only take the time to notice.

To read more about the history of the Jefferson School, please visit a website that contains a link to a 46-page downloadable history that was compiled as part of efforts to nominate the school as a historic landmark. Preservation Piedmont conducted dozens of oral interviews with former teachers and students. Information on that project is available on their website.

Prior to the 20th Century, there were three public cemeteries in Charlottesville: Maplewood (founded c. 1827), Oakwood (founded c. 1860), and Riverview (founded in 1887). An earlier graveyard pre-dates these, but its location is lost to the shadows of history. A rare reference to it is found in Moore’s Albemarle: Jefferson’s County (1976) who mentioned a burial ground “in a garden” off Park Street, near the First Presbyterian Church. Today it is an empty lot along an otherwise densely packed street.

Today the Ivy Creek Natural Area contains hiking trails, copious amounts of birds, and a learning center. In 1880, on this same site, Hugh Carr’s 80-acre farm, River View, contained crops, a milk cow, 4 swine, 10 poultry, and many other agricultural features. Although born into slavery around 1840, Hugh Carr worked hard after emancipation to save his earnings and invest in land in the Hydraulic Mills neighborhood (along the Rivanna). The Ivy Creek Foundation has conducted extensive research into the Life & Legacy of the Carr family. Many 19th and 20th Century features are visible today: the original farmhouse, a clapboard barn, historic road beds, and springhouses. Make sure you visit the ICNF site before you go so that you can enjoy the rich history of this farm.
During your visit, take a few moments to visit the Carr Family Cemetery. It contains an interesting array of granite and carved fieldstone gravemarkers.

Hugh Carr’s son-in-law, Conly Greer, contracted with several area businesses to haul away their trash. Many of these items, referred to by archaeologists as “artifacts” (it’s true, archaeologists study trash), are visible above-ground in trash middens. Below is a sherd with the profile of a famous Charlottesvillian which was the logo for the Old Monticello Hotel (located across from the courthouse).