Archaeology Blogs, Blog

DHR Completes Survey Project at Hickory Hill Slave and African American Cemetery

Published

By Joanna Wilson Green and Brad McDonald

Survey work at Hickory Hill Slave and African American Cemetery
Timmons Group staff conducting survey work at Hickory Hill Slave and African American Cemetery. Photo: DHR.

DHR archaeologists Joanna Wilson Green and Brad McDonald recently assisted personnel from the Land Survey division of Timmons Group to map and record the boundaries and more than 260 individual graves located within the Hickory Hill Slave and African American Cemetery, located in Hanover County.

 

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2020, the cemetery is an extremely well-preserved example of a burial ground for both enslaved individuals prior to the Civil War as well as free blacks in the period following the war and into the 20th century. Known burials within the resource span from around 1820 until 1938. Research has also been aided by rare, surviving historical records from W.F. Wickham’s Plantation Diaries, which were written between 1828 and 1864. These documents contain extraordinary information pertaining to the names, death dates, familial relationships, and, in some cases, age of the individuals for members of the enslaved community associated with Wickham’s Hickory Hill Plantation.

 

The completion of this survey project represents the fulfillment of a long-term wish held by the local descendants and friends community, which have been involved with the care, documentation, and clean-up of the cemetery for well over a decade. This effort was only made possible by the extremely generous donation of time and effort by the dedicated professional land survey staff within the Timmons headquarters office in Richmond. DHR would especially like to thank Timmons staff members Robert Collins, Tucker Holloman, and Nathan Moser for their dedication and service to this important project. The resulting mapping from the survey project will be invaluable for future research and interpretive planning efforts for the cemetery.

Related Blogs

A drawing by Conan Paige of his family home, the Paige-Pollard House.

Heirloom Home: The Paige-Pollard House in King William County

A headstone at Union Street Cemeteries in Hampton, Virginia

Grave Matters: The African American Cemetery & Graves Fund

Pre-FooterBG

Update: 2024 General Assembly Session

Image slides

Meet the New Division of Resource Information & Registers

Longs Chapel as it appears today due to the stewardship of the Longs Chapel Preservation Society.

Virginia Landmarks: A Showcase of Successful Historic Preservation Projects

Shenvalee Golf Resort

Shenvalee Golf Resort Brings Golfers and Families to Shenandoah County for Almost a Century

Bottle seal from Eyreville

Brand Identity in Colonial Virginia

The medieval European seal matrix recovered from a local property in Smithfield, Virginia.

Translating the Inscription on a Medieval Catholic Seal Matrix

DHR and DEQ staff hosted an archaeological workshop at the Isle of Wight Museum in Smithfield in August 2023.

Sharing Artifacts and Stories in Isle of Wight County: Archaeological Workshop Highlights Regional History