Qualla: Shockoe Hill Burying Ground Historic District

Shockoe Hill Burying Ground Historic District: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 2nd ABG, CC BY-SA 4.0. When the city of Richmond bought a 28-acre parcel on its northern outskirts in 1799, the planners intended to put everything they did not want in the city center on it. Poor people who could not pay their rent. Sick people with contagious diseases. Bodies that needed burial. Gunpowder that might explode. The hanged. Over the next century the hilltop became Richmond's municipal back room - an almshouse, a hospital, a powder magazine, a gallows, and three burial grounds, segregated by race and economic class. The district was officially listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 16, 2022. What it records is not pleasant. What it preserves is the truth.

Image: 2nd ABG | CC BY-SA 4.0

Shockoe Hill Burying Ground Historic District: The City's Periphery

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 2nd ABG, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Shockoe Hill Burying Ground Historic District occupies land bounded by East Bates Street to the south, the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority right-of-way to the north, Second Street to the west, and the historic edge of Shockoe Creek to the east. The City of Richmond acquired...

Image: 2nd ABG | CC BY-SA 4.0

Shockoe Hill Burying Ground Historic District: Six Sites on One Hill

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 2nd ABG, CC BY-SA 4.0. Three properties in the district have long been recognized: The Almshouse, the Shockoe Hill Cemetery, and the Hebrew Cemetery, each individually listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register. Three more sites were newly identified during the historic distric...

Image: 2nd ABG | CC BY-SA 4.0

Shockoe Hill Burying Ground Historic District: The Largest in America

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 2nd ABG, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground - the largest of the three burial grounds and the most painfully erased - holds the conservatively estimated remains of more than twenty-two thousand free Black Richmonders and enslaved Africans, making it likely the largest such burial gro...

Image: 2nd ABG | CC BY-SA 4.0

Shockoe Hill Burying Ground Historic District: Almshouse and Hospital

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 2nd ABG, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Almshouse - Richmond's municipal poorhouse - is the most visible surviving building in the district. It was rebuilt in 1860-1861 after an earlier structure burned. Across its long life it housed indigent Richmonders, smallpox patients, Confederate wounded, and after Emancipat...

Image: 2nd ABG | CC BY-SA 4.0

Shockoe Hill Burying Ground Historic District: A District That Tells the Truth

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 2nd ABG, CC BY-SA 4.0. The listing in March 2022 on the Virginia Landmarks Register, followed by the National Register listing on June 16, 2022, did not change a single street, building, or fence on Shockoe Hill. What it changed was the official story. For the first time, a federal designation acknowle...

Image: 2nd ABG | CC BY-SA 4.0