NOTE: The link to the 2013 map originally cited in this sidebar (see second paragraph) became inactive but I’ve found a 2011 map — Leslie, September 9, 2019.
Thornton Cemetery made the news several years ago when Hampton resident Chancer Hill, a photographer, “stumbled upon the grave site while trying to take pictures. He said his research shows it may have been a cemetery for African American Union soldiers.”
Brandi Cummins. “Hampton Resident Wants Thornton Cemetery Restored,” WAVY.com, 6 June 2008
https://www.wavy.com/news/local-news/hampton/hampton-resident-wants-thornton-cemetery-restored/1099994600
This burial ground is one of 74 cemeteries in Hampton, Virginia (Cemetery #39 on the chart published by the City’s Department of Public Works
CEMETERIES_CityWide.pdf – Adobe Acrobat Professional_201305030903120312 ) It was associated with Zion Baptist Church.
“One of the most usual sights in any rural community in the United States is a church edifice with a cemetery in the immediate neighborhood. This condition of affairs, where a church society antedates the municipal corporation within whose limits it exists, can even occasionally be found in populous cities. Such cases, however, are fast disappearing. The demands of commerce and the doctrines of modern sanitation are too strong to be resisted.”
Carl Zollman. “Church Cemeteries in the American Law,” Michigan Law Review, March 1916, p. 391
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1276678.pdf
Commonwealth of Virginia, Cemetery Board. Cemetery Regulations. Richmond: Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation, 2018.
http://www.dpor.virginia.gov/uploadedFiles/MainSite/Content/Boards/Cemetery/Cemetery_Regs.pdf
#africanamericancemeteries
#blackcemeteries
1st U.S. Colored Cavalry 