Old family cemeteries are often subsumed by modern developments, roads, and construction projects. In this case, a northern-Albemarle cemetery was enveloped by a series of new town houses, just west of the Target/Kohl’s mall and Route 29.
The photo above, taken by Rob Eastman, shows the cemetery tightly packed in between houses. Fortunately, a metal fence was erected recently to protect the graves. The modest markers are paired head and footstones (as shown in the close-up below).
The family patriarch was Samuel B. Birckhead a white man born in 1815 or 1817. He married Adeline Jane Durrett in 1848 and died in 1905. For more information on Samuel, please visit a genealogical site hosted by a descendant. The cemetery was originally part of a family farm was owned by Thomas Mann Birckhead (born in 1852). For more information on Thomas, please visit an external site here. Thanks are due to Mr. Eastman for bringing this site to my attention.
Although I am not entirely certain ‘who,’ I would assume that it was the developers who cleaned up the site and put in the fence. The photo below, taken by the genealogist mentioned above, shows the overgrown condition of the cemetery as of 2006. The original photograph can be seen here.
