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The first burials here date from 1768, evidence of area settlement several decades before Beverly was established. A sign at the entrance that proclaims it to be the “oldest public cemetery west of the Allegheny Mountains” also announces that “soldiers of all American Wars are buried here.” The cemetery overlooks the Tygart Valley River and Rich Mountain to the west, where a major Confederate defeat occurred on July 12, 1861. After the battle, Union General George B. McClellan announced: “The part of Western Virginia in my Department is free of presence of the enemy.”