In response to threats and damage to primitive African American and Native American cemeteries in Thoroughfare, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors took tentative action Tuesday to fund several efforts aimed at better protecting historic cemeteries and communities throughout the county.
In a non-binding straw poll, the board voted unanimously May 18 to signal its intent to spend about $740,000 annually, including this year, to hire additional staff to oversee a “cemetery preservation program” and to launch a “historic communities program.”
The board also asked staff to look into establishing a historic district around Thoroughfare to designate its value as a place where former slaves and Native Americans and their descendants created a largely self-sufficient community after the Civil War.
The cemetery preservation program would be aimed at ensuring that people with historic cemeteries on their properties know they exist – which is not always the case, as was demonstrated by the recent clearing of the “Scott family cemetery” in Thoroughfare.
A 1-acre lot containing the Scott family cemetery was purchased in 2020 by the Farm Brewery at Broad Run. The brewery cleared the land earlier this spring to plant sunflowers and corn. The brewery did not apply for the necessary permit to clear the land and has since been cited with a zoning violation. Now, the brewery is working with county officials identify and delineate the gravesites and cordon them off to protect them from future development, county Public Works director Tom Smith told the supervisors May 18.
The brewery’s owners have said they never knew the cemetery was on the land. The cemetery, which is estimated to contain 75 to 100 graves, was included on a 2001 survey of the county’s historic cemeteries but was never added to the property’s deed or county land records, Smith said.
As proposed, a new cemetery preservation program would address the problem by ensuring that the county’s more than 430 historic cemeteries are noted on property tax records and in the county’s inter-governmental computer system, Smith said.
The program, if adopted, would reach out to owners of properties that contain the cemeteries to help them identify and preserve them. Such work is voluntary under Virginia law unless property owners pull a permit to clear or develop a parcel that contains a cemetery. In such cases, landowners must identify and delineate grave sites, cordon them off and offer access to heirs and researchers, according to Virginia law.
The cemetery preservation program would cost about $200,000 a year to implement and could offer property owners mini-grants to help pay for work needed to preserve historic cemeteries on private land, Smith said.
Smith said old cemeteries on private properties can be a source of stress and confusion for landowners if they don’t know what to do about them. The program would help them understand what is required of them as property owners as well as the opportunities available to help them preserve such cemeteries.
“The intent here is to have a dedicated staff person to go through the list of those 433 cemeteries and contact the property owners and tell them we’re here to help,” Smith said.
Historic communities program
The proposed historic communities program, if funded, would allow the county to fully survey the Thoroughfare area for other historic gravesites; better document its history through oral interviews and develop an interpretive site or facility where that history might be shared. The county’s proposal envisions spending about $500,000 for the building of such a site, according to Seth Hendler-Voss, director of the county’s parks, recreation and tourism department.
The money is part of about $3.6 million in historic preservation capital improvement projects Hendler-Voss identified as worthy of funding. Other potential projects include delineating and restoring the Purcell Cemetery and completing the Bushy Park house renovation.
Other historic communities that could also benefit from the proposal include the Buckhall area, located in the mid-county area between Lake Ridge and Manassas, and the Dumfries-area site of the 18th century Neabsco Ironworks.
Prior to the meeting, Frank Washington, a native of Thoroughfare, and other members of a coalition that formed to raise awareness about the need to protect the historic cemeteries there, held a press conference at which they announced that an additional 30 to 40 graves of slaves and Native American residents were identified in the Thoroughfare area just last weekend.
The gravesites had not been previously identified but are located near a newer cemetery known as the “Fletcher Allen cemetery,” Washington said.
Washington said the discovery warrants a halt on all development in the area until all gravesites can be identified. Washington also called for the investigation into the clearing of the Scott Cemetery to be reopened.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Amy Ashworth said May 7 that her office had decided not to pursue criminal charges against the brewery as they could find no evidence that the graves were desecrated intentionally.
Washington also said he is encouraged by the supervisors’ response to the cemetery’s clearing and their stated intent to ensure such a thing doesn’t happen again. He said he would continue to push for the entire Thoroughfare area to be declared a historic district, which is something the county board is also considering.
“We have more and more … facts … concrete things that are showing that preservation and a thorough investigation needs to be done of Thoroughfare,” Washington said. “Ultimately, it should be designated as a historical area so that it has full protection, like so many monuments and lands that we have preserved that have a historical impact.”
The supervisors are slated to take their formal vote on the proposals in June.
Reach Jill Palermo at jpalermo@fauquier.com