Fort Wards Lost Graves: The Park Nursery & Maintenance Yard. Fort Ward Observer.

Fort Wards Lost Graves: The Park Nursery & Maintenance Yard

Last week staff from the City’s Office of Historic Alexandria announced that they had found 19 more graves in the Jackson Family Cemetery in Fort Ward Park.   The “preliminary findings” confirmed the location of these graves in a cemetery which was delineated on the 1962 Master Plan for Fort Ward Park.  City efforts were greatly assisted by members of the Jackson family and other descendants of the Fort Ward community, as well as local historians and researchers.

Another portion of the park where many descendant family members, historians, adjacent homeowners, and city employees believe there are more “lost graves” is the park’s Nursery & Maintenance Yard.  Located next to the Oakland Baptist Church Cemetery, the Old Graveyard, and Marlboro Estates, this area was also delineated on the 1962 Master Plan as having a burial area.

In 1996 a consultant for the City of Alexandria’s Office of Historic Alexandria interviewed Sgt. Lee Thomas Young at the “Fort Ward Neighborhood” in Alexandria, VA.  Sgt. Young lived on land that is now Fort Ward Park.  He noted that he had a home and work shed close to Clara and Robert Adams graves in the Fort Ward Park Nursery and Maintenance Yard.  Near his home he noted that there was “a set of graves between this and the cemetery”.  He said that there were 5 or 6 grave stones and old headstones.

In 2009 Sgt. Young was  again interviewed, along with his family members,  by Dr. Pam Cressey, Archaeologist for the City’s Office of Historic Alexandria at Fort Ward Park.  He noted that he bought the land in what is the Nursery and Maintenance Yard in 1947.  It was used for a school, church and a residence.

He described how he had 5 cabins behind the kitchen portion of the house in the back yard.  “...I rented a couple of them to soldiers [returning from the war].... and the rest I used for tools”.

He told Dr. Cressey that “there was people buried around..”.  He noted that there were one or two in his yard and then the rest of them in the back of the yard. When asked about the graves behind his house he said, “Oh, there’s plenty of graves here 18 and 17....little short graves”. He added that the graves were in a wooded area that led to the Oakland Baptist Church Cemetery.  “The back, all this was trees, all this was woods, and then graves, the grave you’d stumble over was all in here”.  Sgt. Young’s daughter, Judy said, “I know for a fact, there’s probably ten [graves]”.

  

As the City’s Recreation Department began to develop this portion of the park for maintenance and solid waste disposal activities they placed soil and stone on top of the ground where the graves and buildings were located.  This fill which is 12 to 18 inches deep has made it difficult to city archaeologists to accurately run ground-penetrating-radar or dig test-sites to locate burial areas.  

With funding from City Council the Office of Historic Alexandria is continuing to search in this area for these sacred places.