Shockoe Hill Cemetery - History

History

Established in 1820, with the initial burial in 1822, Shockoe Hill Cemetery was the first city-owned municipal burial ground in Richmond. The cemetery expanded in 1833, 1850, and 1870, but now is open only to burials of family members in existing family plots. Shockoe Hill Cemetery is on the Virginia Landmarks Register and National Register of Historic Places.

About five hundred Union Army POWs had been buried just outside the east cemetery wall from 1861 to 1863, but their remains were moved to Richmond National Cemetery, three miles to the east, in 1866-67. Two markers, one placed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1938, and the other by the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (a/k/a MOLLUS), in 2002, memorialize those soldier burials. See: The Soldiers of Shockoe Hill (Union soldier burials)

The City of Richmond owns and maintains the cemetery. The Friends of Shockoe Hill Cemetery, a volunteer group formed in 2007, is steward of the cemetery.

Shockoe Hill Cemetery is across the street from the Hebrew Cemetery of Richmond.

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