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Old City Cemetery

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1806 and later. 4th St. at Taylor St.
  • (Photograph by Mark Mones)
  • (Photograph by Mark Mones)
  • Legacy Museum (Photograph by Mark Mones)
  • Legacy Museum (Photograph by Mark Mones)

Established in 1806 on a one-acre parcel and enlarged several times since, this is Lynchburg's oldest cemetery. It is not only a pleasant greensward in the heart of the city but a major historic attraction with several museums (including a rebuilt early-twentieth-century board-and-batten railroad station) and wonderful interpretive displays. Many of the oldest tombstones are all but illegible, but more recently placed markers identify graves of personages significant in the city's history, many of them black. More than 2,200 Confederate soldiers lie under simple marble markers near an obelisk that the Southern Memorial Association, which still supervises the cemetery, erected in 1868. An arched greenstone entrance to the Confederate section was designed by S. Preston Craighill and built in 1925–1927. Just outside the main cemetery entrance at 403 Monroe Street, the Legacy Museum (c. 1894, attributed to Edward G. Frye), in a restored Queen Anne frame house, tells the story of the city's considerable African American heritage.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Anne Carter Lee

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