Slave Memorial (Historical Marker)

Here follows the inscription written on this trailside historical marker:

Slave Memorial
In 1929, the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association placed a marker noting the location of the slave cemetery, believed to be the first commemoration of its kind at a historic site. Despite this recognition, the burial ground lay unattended for decades, until a group of citizens began a concerted effort to honor the enslaved people buried here. In 1983, Mount Vernon dedicated a new memorial, which was designed by architecture students at Howard University. It is a lasting tribute to the memory of those individuals who lived and toiled in bondage here.

Approaching Slave Memorial
Quiet please and remain on gravel path


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Colored Servants Memorial:
In Memory of the Many Faithful Colored Servants of the Washington Family Buried at Mount Vernon From 1760 to 1860 Their Unidentified Graves Surround This Spot 1929

Enslaved Afro American Memorial:
In Memory of The Afro Americans Who Served as Slaves at Mount Vernon This Monument marking their Burial Ground Dedicated September 21, 1983 Mount Vernon Ladies' Association


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Here follows an excerpt from the Atlas Obscura website:

Mount Vernon Slave Cemetery
Alexandria, Virginia
The graveyard holding the remains of George Washington's slaves was forgotten for nearly 200 years.

For nearly two centuries, the woods at George Washington’s famous estate contained a secret. A graveyard for the former president’s enslaved population lay buried beneath a thicket of vegetation. Removed from the property’s typical tourist spots, the burial ground was all but erased from existence.

A handful of 19th-century accounts briefly mention the overgrown plot of land, but it otherwise remained off-the-beaten-path and overlooked at the historic estate. An 1885 map of Mount Vernon portrays the burial ground, but by this time it was already becoming lost to the woodland’s leafy grasp.

A marble marker was placed on the site in the 1920s, but this too was soon forgotten as it disappeared beneath a tangle of vegetation. It wasn’t until the 1980s, when a group scouring the grounds for information about the slave graveyard stumbled upon the slab of stone, that the cemetery began garnering proper interest and interpretation.

Today, researchers are busy unearthing the cemetery’s past. In 2014, archaeologists began mapping the original cemetery to figure out how many enslaved people were buried beneath its surface. Using drones and other innovative technology, they’ve scanned the earth to reveal its historic secrets. Researchers have found dozens of unmarked burial spots so far and estimate the graveyard may hold the bodies of upwards of 150 enslaved people.

A stone memorial stands nearby to mark the graveyard, surrounded by places to sit. It was erected in 1983 and rises before an archway that leads to the cemetery entrance. Three steps inscribed with the words “faith,” “hope,” and “love” lead to the column.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Fairfax Genealogical Society website:

MOUNT VERNON SLAVE CEMETERY
About 50 yards southwest of the Washington Family Tomb at Mount Vernon
South Alexandria, Virginia USA

Original Information from Volume 5 of the Gravestone Books

“Mount Vernon,” home of George Washington, is located at the end of the George Washington Memorial Parkway, along the Potomac River, south of the City of Alexandria. The house and grounds are open to the public.

The Mount Vernon Slave Cemetery is located about 50 yards southwest of the Washington Family Tomb (q.v.). According to a Mount Vernon brochure about the slave cemetery, the spot is known to have been a burial place for the slaves and free black people who worked on the plantation. There are no records, however, to tell us who these people were or when they were born or died. In 1831, a visitor to Mount Vernon was told that “a hundred people of color” were buried in the slave cemetery. There were no markers at the site when the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association acquired the plantation in 1858.

Washington had perhaps fifty slaves when he began farming at Mount Vernon in 1759, according to the brochure. By 1786, the 2,100-acre estate had grown to 8,000 acres. At that time, Washington compiled a list of the slaves at the plantation. He listed 216 people, of which 105 belonged to him and 111 were part of the estate Martha Custis Washington had inherited from her first husband. Washington prepared another list of Mount Vernon slaves in July 1799, a few months before he died, “in preparation for giving his slaves their freedom under the terms of his will.” He listed 317 people in this census and included ages, occupations and family relationships.

The slaves at Mount Vernon provided almost all of the essential activities to maintain the almost completely self-sufficient estate. “Most of the slaves lived and worked on the outlying farms, where they were engaged in a variety of agricultural tasks.” Perhaps one-third of the slaves who were neither too young nor too old to work were skilled in trades and crafts, including blacksmiths, carpenters, gardeners, shoemakers, painters, brick makers, herdsmen and coachmen. Female slaves worked at the Mansion House Farm as spinners, weavers, seamstresses, cooks, dairy maids and house servants. Slaves working as millers, coopers and distillers operated Washington’s mill and another group of slaves operated his fishing business and river ferry.

In 1929, the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association placed a rectangular stone marker at the cemetery site with the following inscription:

In memory
of the
many faithful
colored servants
of the
Washington family
buried at
Mount Vernon
from
1760 to 1860
Their
unidentified graves
surround this spot


Over the years, however, the slave cemetery was forgotten and became overgrown and neglected. In 1982, the Mount Vernon staff “cleared the area, installed two park benches, laid a gravel path and opened the burial site to tourists,” according to a 23 February 1982 article in the Washington Post which reported that over 300 people were buried in the slave cemetery.

That same year, a contest to design a new memorial was conducted with teams from the Howard University School of Architecture and Planning. The winning design included a brick archway and a tree-lined path which leads to a circular memorial. Three rings of stone which stand for faith, hope and love surround a cut-off column, according to articles in the 28 October 1982 Fairfax Journal and 4 November 1982 Washington Post. The formal dedication ceremony on 21 September 1983, attended by Virginia Governor Charles S. Robb and other dignitaries, is described in the November 1983-January 1984 issue of Fairfax Chronicles. The cut-off column bears the following inscription:

In memory of
the Afro Americans
who served as slaves
at Mount Vernon
This monument marking their
burial ground
dedicated September 21, 1983
Mount Vernon Ladies Association


No Updates from Volume 6 of the Gravestone Books