Shockoe Hill Burying Ground Historic District Explained

The Shockoe Hill Burying Ground Historic District, located in the city of Richmond, Virginia, is a significant example of a municipal almshouse-public hospital-cemetery complex of the sort that arose in the period of the New Republic following disestablishment of the Anglican Church. The District illustrates changing social and racial relationships in Richmond through the New Republic, Antebellum, Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow/Lost Cause eras of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Shockoe Hill Burying Ground Historic District occupies of land bounded to the south by E. Bates Street, to the north by the northern limit of the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority (previously the CSX rail line) right-of-way (City of Richmond parcel #N0000233022) at the southern margin of the Bacon's Quarter Branch valley, to the west by 2nd Street, and to the east by the historic edge of the City property at the former location of Shockoe Creek. The District encompasses most of a tract acquired by the city of Richmond in 1799 to fulfill several municipal functions, along with later additions to this original tract.[1] [2]

The Shockoe Hill Burying Ground Historic District was listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register on March 17, 2022. The district features a suite of municipal functions and services concerned with matters of public welfare, health, and safety, which the City of Richmond relegated to its then-periphery on its northern boundary during the nineteenth century. It includes three properties which have long been recognized and celebrated, that are individually listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places: the Almshouse, Shockoe Hill Cemetery, and Hebrew Cemetery. It additionally includes three newly identified sites: the City Hospital and Colored Almshouse Site,[3] the City Powder Magazine Site, and the Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground.[4] [5] The district was also the site of the city gallows. On June 16, 2022 the Shockoe Hill Burying Ground Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

The Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground is likely the largest burial ground for free people of color and the enslaved in the United States. It is conservatively estimated that over 22,000 people of African descent were buried in its . It was opened in 1816, and closed in 1879 due to overcrowded conditions. It is one of "Virginia's most endangered historic places".[6] Current threats to the burial ground include the DC2RVA passenger rail project (high-speed rail), the east-west Commonwealth Corridor, and the proposed widening of I-64, along with various infrastructure projects.[7] [8] [9] [10]

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Notes and References

  1. Mouer, McQueen, Smith, Thompson, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Shockoe Hill Burying Ground Historic District DHR #127-7231
  2. Virginia Department of Historic Resources, Preliminary Information Form (PIF) for Historic Districts, "Shockoe Hill Burying Ground" (127-7231)
  3. Web site: Richmond, Virginia. Richmond City Hospital. Library of Congress.
  4. Suarez, Chris, "Department of Historic Resources adds Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground to state landmark registry", Richmond Times-Dispatch, March 17, 2022, Richmond.com
  5. McNeill, Brian,"Long-neglected Black cemetery in Richmond added to Virginia Landmarks Register", VCU News, March 18, 2022
  6. Web site: Virginia's Most Endangered Historic Places. 13 January 2022.
  7. Smith, Ryan K. "Disappearing The Enslaved: The Destruction and Recovery of Richmond's Second African Burial Ground", Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum Vol. 27, No. 1 (Spring 2020), pp. 17–45, University of Minnesota Press.
  8. Yeager, Jordy. "Passenger Rail Project Slated To Run Through Richmond African American Graveyard", (July 25, 2019) npr news.
  9. Lazarus, Jeremy M.,"Historic site review slows rail lines planned over historic Black cemetery"(April 22, 2021), Richmond Free Press
  10. Lazarus, Jeremy M., Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground to receive historic designation, Richmond Free Press

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