Forest View Cemetery is registered with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and can be found on a map dated 1898, though it could date back much further. Bernard Markham, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, owned the land in 1768 and more research needs to be done to learn about the land’s prior uses. Neighborhood lore tells us that it may have been a slave cemetery. It has been told that a Native American man, who lived on the property and tended the well, is buried there. There is also the story of a woman who was said to be too large for a coffin, so she was buried sitting in a straight back chair. Residents who grew up in the neighborhood remember playing among the headstones in the 1950’s, but the lot has become so overgrown with brambles and ivy that the headstones are no longer visible. The cemetery had become more of a public nuisance than a place of remembrance. Friends of Forest View Cemetery are restoring the land to a place of remembrance for the people who lived and died here, and to create a neighborhood green space with native plantings.

Richmond City, VA GIS Property Detail: S0060444016
Owner: FOREST VIEW LAND CO CEMETERY
Acreage: 0.398

Forest View Cemetery is registered with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and can be found on a map dated 1898, though it could date back much further. Bernard Markham, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, owned the land in 1768 and more research needs to be done to learn about the land’s prior uses. Neighborhood lore tells us that it may have been a slave cemetery. It has been told that a Native American man, who lived on the property and tended the well, is buried there. There is also the story of a woman who was said to be too large for a coffin, so she was buried sitting in a straight back chair. Residents who grew up in the neighborhood remember playing among the headstones in the 1950’s, but the lot has become so overgrown with brambles and ivy that the headstones are no longer visible. The cemetery had become more of a public nuisance than a place of remembrance. Friends of Forest View Cemetery are restoring the land to a place of remembrance for the people who lived and died here, and to create a neighborhood green space with native plantings.

Richmond City, VA GIS Property Detail: S0060444016
Owner: FOREST VIEW LAND CO CEMETERY
Acreage: 0.398