Oakwood Cemetery

Association: City of Charlottesville
No. of Markers: 0 (View)
No. of Individuals: 0 (View)
Location: Charlottesville, Albemarle Co.

Oakwood Cemetery is one of Charlottesville's two historic Public Cemeteries (along with Maplewood). The city obtained the land in the 1860s and the Oakwood Cemetery opened in 1883, after Maplewood ran out of space for new family plots. The 7-acre plot sold to the city was originally part of Alexander Garrett’s 117-acre estate, “Oak Hill," hence its name (and the subsequent naming of the adjacent street, Oak St.). Today the cemetery contains over 14 acres and is adjacent to the Hebrew Cemetery and the Daughter's of Zion Cemetery (both are located on opposite sides of the street from the cemetery). Oakwood contains thousands of burials, far more than we were able to survey. Instead, a corner of the cemetery was selected for sampling (similar to the process conducted at Maplewood Cemetery). We surveyed the south-eastern portion of the cemetery because it was labelled as the "Colored Section" during the Jim-Crow Era. We surveyed 349 stones in this area.

If you are looking for African American relatives buried in Oakwood, please do not take their absence in the database as proof that they are not buried here. The J.F. Bell Funeral database lists over 2,100 African-American burials in this cemetery, so our sample here is less than 20% of the total burials. With more volunteers we hope to add the additional 1,800 individuals to this database, complete with photographs and copied inscriptions.