LYNCHBURG, VA - CEMETERIES – Methodist Cemetery ----¤¤¤---- Source: Library of Virginia Digital Collection LVA Titled Files: Survey Report, The Methodist cemetery: 1937 Nov. 4 Research made by Susan R. Beardsworth Cemetery Location: Lynchburg, Virginia DATE: 1839; cemetery site given by John Lynch, March 6, 1806. OWNERS: City of Lynchburg. DESCRIPTION: (blank) HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: “Beneath this stone an infant lies To earth whose body lent, Hereafter shall more glorious rise, But not more innocent. When the Archangel trump shall blow, And souls to bodies join, What crowds shall wish their lives below, Had been as short as thine.” The old Methodist Cemetery is the resting place of the bodies of more than three thousand soldiers of the War Between the States; records of Diuguids, Inc. extending over a period of one hundred nineteen years, show that in 1862 along, a total of two thousand one hundred thirty seven were buried there. The first to be buried was Robert Feamster, who died from wounds in the Ladies Relief Hospital, which stood on what is now the corner of Seventh and Main Streets. After a service conducted at the hospital, he was laid to rest August 27, 1861, and that section was set aside for future soldier dead. Five year later the Southern Memorial Association was formed to take charge of the sector and to superintend each year on Memorial Day the services of commemoration. The association was headed by Mrs. Lucy Mina Otey, commissioned Captain by the Confederate army in recognition of her work at the hospital which she founded. The old Methodist cemetery contains the history of an epoch in Lynchburg’s development’ here lie the men who died from smallpox in an epidemic when the Kanawha Canal was being built; here lie the clergymen, the educators, the literary men and women, the city officials, the professional men and those who moved in every circle of Lynchburg society from the period between 1806 and 1824. Some of the early men and women of prominence whose graves are in this cemetery are Owen Owen and his wife, Jane, marker erected by their grandson; U. S. Senator, Robert Latham Owen; Dr. and Mrs. Landon Cabell; Samuel Harrison and his wife; Bransford Vawter, Maria Ball Tucker, and her daughter, Rosalie; William Wyatt Norvell, Judge William Daniel and his son, Judge William Daniel, Jr.. The cemetery was closed in 1915, except to families having lots there. It is now listed under the department of parks and forestry. SOURCES OF INFORMATION: Court Records, Campbell County, Virginia Lynchburg News, October 11, 1926, page 14D, Jones Library, Lynchburg, Va. Tombstone Inscriptions Visit by worker. ___________________________________________________________________ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Joan Renfrow NOTICE: I have no relationship or further information in regards to this family. ___________________________________________________________________