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Historic cemeteries and burial grounds are fragile, tangible heritage resources that connect residents and visitors to their Loudoun roots. As development projects have been approved in the county over the years, these resources have been impacted. In some cases they have been inadvertently destroyed. In other cases, graves have been moved to other burial locations to make way for construction projects. While the County has kept some records of known cemeteries and burial grounds, there has never been a systematic effort to consolidate locational information into a publicly accessible database.
In the Spring of 2018, the Board of Supervisors (BOS) directed County staff to create such a database that could provide residents, researchers, and developers with cemetery and burial ground locations as a means of ensuring that these resources are protected and preserved.
As a result, County staff have developed a GIS data layer of over 200 cemeteries. This data is available as a hard copy map from the Office or Mapping and Geographic Information or through this interactive map which will let the user search for a cemetery by name or by address.
Definitions
A “cemetery” is defined as a place used or intended to be used for the interment of human remains and dedicated or designed for that purpose and a “burial ground” is a physical location where human remains were buried in the earth. While the term “cemetery” is used in this item, the inventory includes burial grounds with single, unmarked graves to cemeteries with 10,000 graves or more.
The identification, mapping and treatment of graves and burial grounds related to Loudoun’s First Peoples (Native Americans) is governed by the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). Therefore, only cemeteries and burial grounds related to European and African settlement and occupation of the County are included in this database.
(Photo: Old Darnes Cemetery)
Cemeteries located on private property have restricted access to specific individuals (such as family members or descendants of those buried there) with advanced notice to the landowner, who may designate the frequency of access, hours and duration of access, and the access route. Please review § 57-27.1 of the Code of Virginia for more details.
Click on any cemetery or burial ground for a popup that includes a link to the Parcel Assessment Database for owner information.
Note that cemeteries are mapped as approximate point locations and the cemetery may extend beyond the parcel in which the point is located.
Definitions: The Active/Inactive classification was determined by using the Thomas Balch Library's Loudoun County Cemetery Database, online resources, and the input of local historians. In general, if the status of a cemetery is unknown, and there have not been any burials within the last 25 years, the cemetery is classified as "Inactive". While there is no official criteria for Active/Inactive, the best available information was used and updates will be made as better information becomes available.
The majority of cemeteries and burial grounds are located correctly on the map with a data point. Where exact locations could not be determined, data points have been positioned in the center of the appropriate parcel. The following resources were, and will continue to be used to identify cemetery and burial ground locations:
Previously conducted GPS
Approved subdivision plats where grave locations have been recorded in accordance with Virginia Code 15.2-2258
Historic deeds and documents
Historic maps, such as the United States Geological Survey (USGS) 1:25,000 quadrangles
Current and historic aerial photography
Survey reports from the Virginia Department of Historic Resources
Church and cemetery websites and custodians
Local historians and landowners
(Photo: Old Darnes Cemetery)
From the 17th century on, the socio-economic status of Loudoun residents varied widely, including enslaved Africans and African Americans, poor tenant farmers, “middling” farmers and craftspeople, and wealthy property owners. Burial traditions and available resources determine how and where people were buried and whether engraved monuments or headstones, cut fieldstones, wooden or metal markers, or simple decorative plantings were used to mark burial locations. The historic burial locations of Loudoun’s poorest, least powerful residents are often the most difficult to document and, accordingly, the most vulnerable to loss, because those graves were often marked with fieldstone or other degradable materials (such as wood) that do not stand the test of time.
(Photo: Jenkins Cemetery )
By 1800, Loudoun’s population totaled 20,523 residents including 333 free people of color and 4,990 who were enslaved. In 1860, Loudoun’s population hovered just under 22,000 including 1,200 free people of color and 5,501 enslaved. Thus, between 1800 and 1860, 25 to 30% of County residents were African or of African descent.
As these people represent the most disenfranchised of Loudoun’s residents, their burials are often difficult to find. Locations may include family properties, churchyards, community cemeteries, public burial grounds for the poor or indigent (aka “Potter’s or Pauper’s Fields), or former farms and plantations where people lived and died enslaved. In many cases, only vestiges of these sites remain, represented by depressions in the soil, periwinkle or bulb flowers and perhaps, small fieldstones.
By 1870, census records show 5,691 African American residents in the County. During this time, multiple individual African American communities were founded across the County. Some settlements remain intact today, but many have been destroyed by development or abandoned. These communities were anchored by schools, post offices and, most importantly, churches. The Historic African American Settlements Map created in partnership with the Friends of the Thomas Balch Library’s Black History Committee is an important resource in documenting African American cemeteries and burial sites, particularly after Emancipation.
