Preservation Piedmont recognizes city for preserving unmarked graves at Pen Park

A group that honors preservation of historic resources in the region has honored the City of Charlottesville for work to investigate the identities of who is buried in unmarked graves at a cemetery in Pen Park. Research commissioned by the city confirmed they were the bodies of enslaved persons. (view the 2020 report)

Preservation Piedmont created an annual award this year for “Cemetery Preservation and Descendant Engagement. 

“We established this award this year because we wanted to illuminate and reveal that which has been hidden in plain sight for way too many years,” said Genevieve Keller, the president of Preservation Piedmont. 

Archaeologists were asked by the city to investigate depressions in the earth adjacent to a family cemetery. The consultant team of Rivanna Archaeological Services and NEAVA Geophysical used ground penetrating radar and found 43 unmarked burials. 

“This is the beginning of an effort where descendants can determine how their ancestors should be memorialized,” Keller said. “This is a group award that also names the descendants, the [Albemarle Charlottesville] Historical Society, and the city’s consultants.” 

Diane Brown Townes is descended from one of the people interred at the site. She thanked the city.

“For respecting and honoring the space that allows us to do the research, contextualize, and interpret our ancestors’ stories,” Brown Townes said. “Our families were torn asunder because of the commercializing and human trafficking and child slavery. This project allows us to find our families. We’re beginning to mend.”

Brown Townes said the work is sad but liberating. 

Jeff Werner is the city’s preservation planner in the Department of Neighborhood Development Services. He said there is more work to be done. 

“In the coming months, we’ll be coming back to you,” Werner said. “We have a landscape out there that we know contains unmarked graves. We don’t know the extent of them. We don’t know the location of all of them.” 

Werner said descendants would like to have the area fully mapped in order to allow them to fully memorialize their families. 

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