About 250 gravestones at Douglass Memorial Cemetery will be temporarily relocated as a new stormwater improvement project gets underway next month.
Anticipated to begin Jan. 20, the project aims to replace hundreds of feet of aging stormwater pipes and regrade the historic Black cemetery’s drainage systems at 1421 Wilkes Street. Construction will prompt the temporary removal of about 250 gravestones, and will affect traffic along Wilkes Street, City Archaeologist Eleanor Breen told ALXnow.
Alexandria will provide an update later this month on stormwater solutions for the historic, and flood-prone, Douglass Memorial Cemetery (1421 Wilkes Street).
The city says that the cemetery, named after abolitionist Frederick Douglass, faces flooding and drainage problems, and that grave markers have been damaged. After two years of developing a plan to mitigate flooding and repair grave markers, the city will present an update on the project on Oct. 29 (Wednesday) from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at Lloyd House (220 N. Washington Street).
Douglass Memorial Cemetery (1421 Wilkes Street) has long suffered flooding and neglect, but the City of Alexandria said plans to address issues at the cemetery will be presented at a meeting next week.
City employee Michael Johnson has been ringing alarm bells about the state of the cemetery for years. The cemetery has been a burial site for Black Alexandrians since 1827. Around 2,000 people were buried in the cemetery before burials stopped in 1974.
The base of the Appomattox statue has resurfaced atop Confederate graves in Alexandria.
More than two years ago, the Appomattox statue was removed from Old Town by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC). The base was moved into Bethel Cemetery last summer, while the statute itself reportedly remains in storage.
Alexandria was spared from significant flooding this week after remnants of Hurricane Ida swept through the East Coast. The only flooding found was on lower King Street in Old Town, where businesses laid sandbags at windows and doorways.
“We’re open inside, but if you want to eat you’re probably going to have to come barefoot,” a hostess at Mai Thai told ALXnow on Wednesday.
Michael Johnson’s grandfather, Albert, died two months before Michael was born and is buried somewhere in Douglass Memorial Cemetery. Where he is exactly buried is unclear, since Albert’s gravestone and several others have been lost as recent flooding threatens to wash away a historic Black cemetery.
The cemetery has been a burial site for Black Alexandrians since 1827 and was named after Frederick Douglass after the abolitionist leader died in 1895. Records who that around 2,000 people were buried in the cemetery until burials stopped in 1974.
(Updated at 3:20 p.m.) While Alexandria heads out on ghosts tours for Halloween, local archaeologists are busy scouting for secret burials under two historic cemeteries.
Archeologists with the city’s Office of Historic Alexandria are working to pinpoint where coffins and headstones may have been swallowed by the changing landscaping in the Penny Hill and Douglass cemeteries as they plan drainage maintenance for the sites.
