Stanton Family Cemetery
Site Brief:
Founded: 1853
Location: Arvonia, VA
Additional name(s): African American Heritage Preservation Foundation
Affiliate group(s):
Preservation Virginia
History:
Started in 1853, the Stanton Family Cemetery is a very rare surviving burying ground established by free blacks prior to the Civil War. The Stantons were one of the few extended free black families living in rural Virginia at the height of the slavery period. The unfenced plot contains at least thirty-six marked burials, a large number for African American family cemeteries, and likely holds additional unmarked burials. Many of the graves have simple uninscribed headstones and footstones of the local slate. The cemetery was originally part of the a forty-six-acre farm purchased in 1853 by Nancy and Daniel Stanton. Although the family moved from the homestead in 1930, it retained ownership of the land and the cemetery and continued family burials there. The last occurred in 1941 when Harriet Stanton Scott, granddaughter of Nancy and Daniel Stanton, was interred. The Stanton Family Cemetery was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993. The cemetery became the first known privately held free African American family cemetery to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2020, we conducted a Ground Penetration Radar survey and discovered an additional 13 unmarked graves bringing the total of burials to 49.
