Blandford Cemetery

Petersburg, Virginia

National Register of Historic Places                                                                               Virginia Registry of Historic Places

To understand Blandford Cemetery is to understand the people of Petersburg. Virginia. From 1702 to the present it has remained the final resting place of choice for her sons and daughters. Here they may be found in all of their infinite variety: captains of industry and paupers, a British Revolutionary War general and a poet, three Civil War generals and over 30,000 of their men, two governors of Virginia and a pet dog or two, and in between, all of the ordinary citizens who have made up the fabric of life in this southern city.  It has been shelled by Union troops and been the site of a duel fought for love.  It has survived war, depression and urban renewal.

In 1819, 117 years after the earliest marked gravestone, the town of Petersburg purchased the old church on Well's Hill and four acres of land for a public burial ground.  Over the years tracts were added, bringing the current total to 189 acres.  Contained within is a treasure trove of funerary art and ironwork reflecting the changing view of death from the gloomy 18th century reality of skulls and crossbones to the more romantic Victorian flowers and cherubs to the 20th century utilitarian stones.

A soldier stands guard, women mourn, and angels abound.

One only has to look to discover a wealth of tangible history.

(An excerpt from Kay Hawkins Carwile's 'A Walking Tour')