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All Saints Sharon Chapel Cemetery

GPS Coordinates: 38.7912171, -77.0914841
Closest Address: 3421 Franconia Road, Alexandria, VA 22310

All Saints Sharon Chapel Cemetery

Here follows an excerpt from the Fairfax Genealogical Society website:

SHARON CHAPEL CEMETERY
Behind All Saints Episcopal Church at 3421 Franconia Road (Route 644)
South Alexandria, Virginia USA

Original Information from Volume 5 of the Gravestone Books

Sharon Chapel Cemetery stands behind All Saints Episcopal Church at 3421 Franconia Road (Route 644), just west of the intersection of Franconia with Telegraph Road (Route 611). Sharon Chapel was established in 1848, by the Virginia Theological Seminary, according to The Episcopal Churches in the Diocese of Virginia by Don W. Massey. All Saints became an “aided mission of the Diocese of Virginia” in 1959, and All Saints-Sharon Chapel became a parish of the Diocese in 1974. The modern A-frame sanctuary was built in 1963, the fourth chapel at this site.

In earlier days, the front of the church faced in the opposite direction, toward the south. Parishioners entered the church through the cemetery, from Sharon Chapel Road. Today, the cemetery is tranquil and pretty with many azaleas, cedars, dogwoods and oaks among the gravestones. The graveyard is enclosed on three sides by the fences, trees and shrubs of its neighbors.

The site was surveyed in 1990, 1991, 1997 and 1998. The survey begins in the northwest corner of the cemetery. The gravestones were read row by row. Gravestones in obvious family plots were read together. There are many people buried in the cemetery with the surname Pulman or Pullman. Utmost care has been taken to spell this surname as it appears on each grave marker. Compilers felt that the use of (sic) in these cases would be confusing to the reader.

No Updates from Volume 6 of the Gravestone Books


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Here follows an excerpt from Donald Hakenson's "This Forgotten Land" tour guide:

In 1864, Sharon Chapel was accidently burned to the ground by Union soldiers from Fort Lyon. Later it was rebuilt from lumber from the barracks at Fort Lyon. Behind the chapel, in the cemetery, is an obelisk monument that records the deaths of Samuel and Thomas Pulman, ages nine and thirteen, who were killed when a cannon ball they were playing with exploded on August 6, 1864. An article in the Alexandria Gazette gives a slightly different account "A shell fired from one of the forts... struck the house of Mr. Samuel Pulman across Hunting Creek and exploded, killing two of his children instantly and breaking the arm of the third. The mother and father were in town at the time and upon hearing of the catastrophe their agony was intense, and the shrieks of the mother heartrending." The Pulman children were the first burials in the cemetery. The inscription on their tombstone is as follows:

"They have gone to their home in the morning of life
From the world where the rough billow rolls
And though sudden the summons that called them away
In heaven with God rest their souls."

Elements of the Thirty-eighth and Fortieth New York Volunteer Infantry were base camped behind Sharon Chapel in the winter of 1861 and 1862.

ABOUT ME

Award-winning local historian and tour guide in Franconia and the greater Alexandria area of Virginia.

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ADDRESS

Nathaniel Lee

c/o Franconia Museum

6121 Franconia Road

Alexandria, VA 22310

franconiahistory@gmail.com

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