This map shows the original area of Richmond’s Grave Yard of Free People of Color and for Slaves in use from 1815 to 1879. (Image courtesy Lenora McQueen)
Lenora McQueen, a former elementary art instructor in San Antonio, Texas, embarked on a genealogical journey that culminated at an abandoned gas station on a desolate bend of Hospital Street on Shockoe Hill, as she sought the resting place of her fourth great-grandmother Kitty Cary, an enslaved woman who died at age 60 in 1857.
The gas station at 1305 N. Fifth St. sits on the former site of Richmond’s Grave Yard of Free People of Color and for Slaves, in use from 1815 to 1879.
McQueen’s research yielded a conservative estimate of 22,000 burials on 40 acres there. She found accounts that detailed skeletal remains used to fill in the grade during 1882 improvements on Fifth Street. An interstate highway disturbed large tracts of the grounds.
In cooperation with Historic Richmond, the cemetery has been submitted for recognition on the National Register of Historic Places through the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. On Oct. 12, City Council adopted an amendment to a May ordinance pertaining to the capital budget that included several items involving the proposed Shockoe Heritage Center and the Slave Trail — and approved the acquisition of 1305 N. Fifth St.
We asked McQueen about her discovery.
Richmond magazine: How did your journey begin?
Lenora McQueen: In 2010, I contacted the University of Virginia because I was aware that Morven Farm was gifted by John Kluge to the university, and I’d known for some years that my family was connected to Morven. I asked if, like’s been done at Monticello and [James Monroe’s plantation] Highland, they’d researched the African American community there. … [This] led to collaboration, by long distance, with a small class of professor [and digital historian] Scott French who were researching the history of Morven.
RM: And this led you to Kitty Cary?
McQueen: I went to look at a big collection of letters on microfilm. I found her on a slave inventory. After Morven’s owner [David Higginbotham] died, almost everyone was sold away, but the widow moved to Richmond and took with her my fourth great-grandmother, Kitty Cary.
In 2017, UVA held a symposium for the President’s Commission on Slavery [and the University], and I was invited to participate with Scott French. I took the opportunity to come a few days early and go to Richmond.
During the three days before the symposium, I spent my time between the Virginia Museum of History & Culture and the Library of Virginia. On the third day, at the [VMHC], I found a letter written in 1857 by [Higginbotham’s] daughter to her sister about Kitty Cary’s death. From the list of African American burial grounds and their establishment dates, I learned about these burial grounds at Fifth and Hospital streets.
Lenora McQueen learned about the burial ground while researching her family’s history. (Photo courtesy Lenora McQueen)
RM: What did you find there?
McQueen: My GPS sent me to this desolate place and an abandoned gas station, and I thought for sure this couldn’t be the cemetery site. But it was exactly the right place. And signs said that the property was up for auction by the city for back taxes. I emailed [Charlottesville archaeologist] Steve [Thompson], who put me in touch with [Councilmember] Ellen Robertson. She contacted Mayor Stoney and the city attorney. Within 24 hours, the auction was stopped. This was in 2018. Now I’m concerned about plans to run high-speed rail through there, which is how I connected with [Historic Richmond Executive Director Cyane Crump].
RM: What would you like to see at Fifth and Hospital streets?
McQueen: I’d like to see some kind of memorial space, a place of reflection. I want it to be obvious, not symbolic. [Landscape architect] Frederick Law Olmsted witnessed the funeral of a child there in 1853 and wrote an incredible description. … I’d love to see that depicted, … perhaps a mural.
