Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Do not serve the original Record of Interments, 1843-1873, and the Ward Book due to extreme fragility. Do not serve these original volumes for any reason without prior consultation with Local Records Services. The boxes of papers are unprocessed.

Use Restrictions

For Records of Interments (1843-1943), index volumes, and Ward Book use microfilm copies, Petersburg (Va.) Reels 45-46, 126.

Preferred Citation

Petersburg (Va.) Blandford Cemetery Records, 1905-1977. Local government records collection, Petersburg (City) Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, VA 23219.

Acquisition Information

These items came to the Library of Virginia in a transfer of papers from the city of Petersburg under the accession number 43614. The microfilm was generated by the Library of Virginia's Imaging Services Branch.

Historical Information

Petersburg was formed from parts of Dinwiddie, Prince George, and Chesterfield Counties. It was established in 1748 and incorporated as a town in 1784. In the latter years the towns of Blandford, Pocahontas, and Ravenscroft were added to Petersburg. It was incorporated as a city in 1850.

On 8 March 1819, the Town of Petersburg purchased the land of the ruined 1737 era Blandford Church and the adjoining graveyard for use as a public burial ground. Both white and African American, slave and free, residents of Petersburg are buried in the cemetery. A large number of Civil War era soldiers are buried there and have been tended over the years by the Ladies Memorial Association of Petersburg, formed in 1866. Some basic restoration work was performed on Blandford Church in 1882. Later, it became another project of the Ladies Memorial Association. In 1900, the group petitioned Petersburg for the right to convert it into a "mortuary and memorial chapel." Over the course of 1904-1912, fifteen original Tiffany windows were installed, including eleven donated from the states of the former Confederacy, one each from Maryland and Missouri, one from the Ladies Memorial Association, and one from Lewis Comfort Tiffany called the "Cross of Jewels." Over the years, the Association also directed its energies to the building of an iron bandstand (dedicated in 1908) and of a granite arch marking the entrance to Memorial Hill (dedicated in 1914), among other things. The City of Petersburg continues to own and operate the Cemetery. Through multiple land acquisitions, it has grown the property from just over four acres (the size at the time of the 1819 purchase) to some 189 acres. The part of the cemetery dating from its 18th-century origins to a twenty-acre addition made in 1854 form the Cemetery's "Old Ground." The land added from the next addition, purchased in 1866, and beyond make up the "New Ground."

Scope and Content

Petersburg (Va.) Blandford Cemetery Records, 1843-1977, consist of four volumes of Records of Interment (1843-1924), one Ward Book (undated), and ten boxes of papers or booklets relating to Records of Interments, Records of Sales of Squares, Individual Transfers of Squares, and Removals and Disinterments (1905-1977).

Records of Interments (1843-1871; 1888-1905; 1905-1924; 1924-1943) are four volumes that give extensive death and genealogical information about persons buried in Blandford Cemetery. Information recorded includes date of interment, name, parents, sex, color, attending doctor, undertaker, date of death, disease (or cause of death), age, where born, and a remarks column that gives the location of burial in the cemetery. The 1843-1877 volume includes slave burials with owners' names and includes extensive listings of soldiers from the Civil War period. The volume for the year 1905-1924 has a separate index volume. The index volumes for the years 1843-1871, 1872-1887, and 1888-1905 that appear on microfilm along with the Records were not transferred from the city with the original Records. The volume for 1924-1943 has an internal index. Record of Interments for 1872-1887 is missing although the index volumes is available on microfilm.

The Ward Book (undated) consists of an index by individual numbered ward of all of the persons who are buried within that ward. No dates are given and it is unclear at what date the ward book ends. It appears that not all burials were recorded in the ward book. Maps of each ward are included for the majority of the wards though not all. An index volume to the Ward Book is available on microfilm that the Library does not hold in the original.

Small booklets or slips of paper called Records of Interment contain the same information as the volumes titled Records of Interment. They were intended to be submitted to the Petersburg clerk of court. Each page or slip is signed by the Superintendent of Blandford Cemetery. Records of Sales of Squares or Parts thereof are small booklets or slips of paper that record for submission to the Petersburg clerk of court the name of a purchaser of a plot, the location, the location (old or new ground), the price, and the date of purchase. Removals and disinterments are small pieces of papers that note names of persons moved, from where they were removed, and to where they were removed as well as a date. These papers are all unprocessed but are more or less in date order.

Index Terms

Corporate Names:

• Blandford Cemetery (Petersburg Va.)
• Petersburg (Va.) Circuit Court.

Subjects:

• African Americans -- Virginia -- Petersburg.
• Cemeteries -- Virginia -- Petersburg.
• Slaveholders -- Virginia -- Petersburg.

Geographical Names:

• Petersburg -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865.
• Petersburg -- History.

Genre and Form Terms:

• Burial registers -- Virginia -- Petersburg.
• Cemetery records -- Virginia -- Petersburg.
• Death registers -- Virginia -- Petersburg.
• Local government records -- Virginia -- Petersburg.
• Maps -- Virginia -- Petersburg.
• Sales records -- Virginia -- Petersburg.