The Bloxham Cemetery: Portal to the Past (Historical Marker)

Here follows the inscription written on this roadside historical marker:

The Bloxham Cemetery: Portal to the Past
Alexandria Heritage Trail
— City of Alexandria, est. 1749 —

The Bloxham Cemetery is the last visible sign of 3,000 years of human occupation in this area near Cameron Run. Flintknappers, farmers, and fruit growers all left their imprints beneath the surface of the ground here. Small groups of American Indians used this location near a stream with cobblestones for making tools as early as 3000 B.C. The archaeological evidence is sparse: a fire hearth, pottery fragments and flakes of stone. The Bloxhom family farmed here for more than a century after the American Revolution They buried their dead in this small 1/4-acre cemetery.

Although buried for a decade the Bloxham Cemetery has survived many episodes of land-altering development. During construction in the 1920s, graves were discovered. Eight graves, including those of five children, were moved to Bethel Cemetery. The remaining graves were buried under deep fill soil. Archaeological investigations in the 1990s rediscovered both the cemetery and an American Indian site. In 2004, archaeologists working with the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Improvement Project completed investigations to find all the remaining graves before the City of Alexandria planned the recreational complex.

Expansion of the Orange & Alexandria Railroad line after the Civil War heralded a transformation to large enterprises like the Fruit Growers Express (FGX) Company, which purchased the Bloxham farm in 1926. FGX, which manufactured refrigerated rail cars to transport fresh produce throughout the eastern United States, continued in business on this site until the 1980s.

This space honors the Bloxham family members still buried in the cemetery and all those who occupied this space for 3,000 years.

[Captions:]
Rail sidings and machine shops for making refrigerated rail cars covered most of this recreational area from the 1920s until the 1980s. At its peak, Fruit Growers Express Company covered 30 acres and employed about 500 men.

About 3000 years ago, American Indians camped by a stream which now runs underground near here, to make stone tools. This quartz spear point was left behind. It is the oldest datable artifact discovered in two archeological investigations.

American Indians made tools by striking flakes from a cobble core with a hammerstone, a process called "flintknapping." The stone flakes recovered from archaeological excavations here demonstrated that people made tools at this site.

Erected by City of Alexandria, Virginia.