A blog dedicated to the pursuit of all roads in the United States except Interstates

Friday, January 1, 2010

Mystery Cemetery in Pearisburg VA


This is a headstone at an obscure cemetery in Pearisburg, Virginia. (it is not the Pearis cemetery; I'll do a separate post on that). I read somewhere that it contained the remains of African Americans, possibly former slaves, who settled there after the Civil War. It was a tiring hike up two steep roads. The flat area at the top was so overgrown that I could only find this one grave.


Whoever built this cemetery went to a hell of a lot of trouble. The photo on the right is the entrance to it, and the road in the foreground is Virginia Route 100, also called North Main Street in Pearisburg. Look at how that rock face is carved out. The photo on the left is looking back down toward the highway. To reach the actual cemetery, one must continue up a second dirt road to the left of the photographer. I found it to be a very tiring climb.

This cemetery is on private property, but it is not posted in any way. I have no idea who owns it.

2 comments:

  1. Is this on the way to Dublin Va or on the way to narrows? It looks very familiar.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's on the way to Narrows.From downtown Pearisburg, follow North Main Street and turn left at the Dairy Queen. Take the four lane road downhill past Hardees. Keep an eye out on the hill to your right and you'll see the road in the third photograph. I tried to drive up there and got stuck. If you don't want to park on the shoulder of Route 100, you could park in the school board parking lot on the other side of the highway. If it's a weekend, I doubt anyone will care.

    I have moved my blog to Roadsideonline and no longer maintain this one on Blogger. Check it out at:

    http://roadsideonline.com/blue-highways-of-america

    ReplyDelete

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