Photo, Print, Drawing Evergreen Cemetery, 50 Evergreen Road, Richmond, Richmond (Independent City), VA

Title

• Evergreen Cemetery, 50 Evergreen Road, Richmond, Richmond (Independent City), VA

Names

• Historic American Landscapes Survey, creator
• Enrichmond Foundation
• UNESCO Slave Route Project
• Evergreen Cemetery Association
• John T. Redd & Sons
• Walker, Maggie Lena
• Mitchell, John, Jr.
• Bowler, Andrew J.
• Oakwood-Chimborazo National Historic District
• Jones, Sarah Garland Boyd
• Jones, Miles
• Farrar, Daniel J.
• Jones, Joseph Endon
• Newman, Jeremiah Milton
• Newman, Ora
• Tennant, Albert Alonzo
• Fountain, J. L.
• Bowler, J. Andrew
• Carter, Edmond
• Edward, Arthur Hiawatha
• Rucker, Herbert E.
• Bridgewater, Samuel
• Blakey, Reuben Smith
• Belvin, Charles Edward
• Monteiro, Aristides
• Reinhart, David W.
• Randolph, Henry Perry
• Kennon, William H.
• Beard, Roderick Randal
• Ward, Jackson
• Archer, Edinboro
• Smith, C. C.
• Hicks, H. E.
• Metropolitan Memorial Services, Inc.
• U.K. Corporation
• Entzminger, Isaiah
• Virginia Foundation for the Preservation of Historic Black Cemeteries
• Friends of Evergreen
• Bell, James
• Virginia Roots, Inc.
• Davis, Veronica A.
• Shuck, John
• Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia
• Elegba Folklore Society
• African American Historical and Genealogical Society
• Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site
• Pond & Company
• Virginia Department of Forestry
• National Trust for Historic Preservation
• National Trust for Historic Preservation, African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund
• Knott, Laura L., historian
• Stevens, Christopher M., transmitter
• McPartland, Mary, transmitter
• Stranieri, Marcella, transmitter

Created / Published

• Documentation compiled after 2000

Headings

• -  terraces
• -  rural cemeteries
• -  cemeteries
• -  African Americans
• -  slavery
• -  reconstruction
• -  canopy trees
• -  lawns
• -  mausoleums
• -  cobblestone streets
• -  tombstones
• -  oak trees
• -  iron fences
• -  Virginia--Richmond (Independent City)--Richmond

Latitude / Longitude

• 37.5337,-77.38635

Notes

• -  Honorable Mention - 2021 HALS Challenge: Historic Black Landscapes
• -  Significance: Evergreen Cemetery is a 59.2-acre historic burial ground opened in 1892 that is now owned and administered by The Enrichmond Foundation of Richmond, Virginia. As of 2021, 6,000 graves have been counted within the cemetery, but some estimates of the total number of people interred there reach as high as 30,000. Due to the passing of time and the overgrown conditions of Evergreen, many of these graves are unmarked and as-yet uncounted. In 2019, the cemetery was recognized as a “Site of Memory” associated with the UNESCO Slave Route project. The UNESCO project was launched in 1994 with the purpose of exploring of the causes, modalities, and consequences of slavery and the slave trade to enhance mutual understanding and intercultural dialogue. As the final resting place for thousands of African Americans born during or shortly after the end of slavery in the U.S., Evergreen Cemetery has great potential to encourage reflection on their contributions to state and national history. Evergreen is only one of many historically African American cemeteries in the U.S. from the same general period that are equally important but face similar challenges. These “Jim Crow” era cemeteries were formed after Blacks began to be excluded from White cemeteries during and after Reconstruction. Others in the U.S. of a similar size and history as Evergreen include the 34-acres Mount Auburn Cemetery in Baltimore and the 32-acre Greenwood Cemetery in St. Louis. Two smaller examples are the People’s Memorial Cemetery in Petersburg, Virginia, and the Randolph Cemetery in Columbia, South Carolina. All these cemeteries have in certain periods suffered from neglect for several reasons, including Jim-Crow-era out-migration, time and money, the effects of poor management, which points back to a lack of time and money. Today, a movement is underway to study and restore these cemeteries; for example, the Commonwealth of Virginia has recently established the Virginia Historical African American Cemetery and Graves Fund to support such projects. The Evergreen Cemetery Association was formed in 1891 to establish a black cemetery that would rival Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery. In 1892, the association purchased forty-six acres of a rugged hillside and crowning plateau above Stony Run in eastern Henrico County to establish the cemetery; thirteen more acres were added in the early 1900s. The founding group commissioned the Richmond-based survey and engineering firm of John T. Redd & Sons to design the cemetery. Redd & Sons “graced the cascading hills with concrete walking paths and paved the main road into Evergreen from East Richmond Road with cobblestones to create a memorial park fit for royalty.”2F2F The cemetery’s highest point was designed as a scenic overlook from which to view an old mill pond and Stony Run below. From Stony Run Road, passers-by could look up to see the marble statues, granite obelisks, and elegant monuments that marked the burial places of Richmond’s Black elite. True to its mission, Evergreen became the final resting place of many of Richmond’s leading African American citizens, including businesswoman Maggie Lena Walker, publisher and editor John Mitchell, Jr., and community leader Rev. Andrew J. Bowler. The Evergreen Cemetery Association made no provision for perpetual care of the cemetery. By the 1950s, Evergreen had become neglected and overgrown; by the late 1960s, families were beginning to disinter their loved ones to move them to perpetual care cemeteries. Despite its acquisition by one after the other of professional cemetery maintenance companies in the 1970s, no perpetual care was offered. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the only mausoleum in the cemetery was vandalized several times, while the overall cemetery became an illegal dumping site. In the 2000s, a movement began to establish a non-profit to manage the cemetery, and in 2017, Evergreen, along with the adjacent East End Cemetery, were acquired by the non-profit Enrichmond Foundation. A master planning process began immediately and resulted in an extensive document that will guide planning and activities to restore and preserve the cemetery as a community resource.
• -  Survey number: HALS VA-86
• -  Building/structure dates: 1892 Initial Construction
• -  Building/structure dates: 1950 Subsequent Work
• -  National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 04001372

Medium

• Data Page(s): 21

Call Number/Physical Location

• HALS VA-86

Source Collection

• Historic American Landscapes Survey (Library of Congress)

Repository

• Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

Control Number

• va2417

Rights Advisory

• No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. Government; images copied from other sources may be restricted. https://aj.sunback.homes/rr/print/res/114_habs.html

Online Format

• pdf