Friends of East End Cemetery

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Friends of East End Cemetery

East End (aka Greenwood) and Evergreen are historic African American cemeteries in Richmond, VA. Est. 1897 and 1891, respectively. Mark J.

East End is a historic African American cemetery. It was founded in 1897 by the East End Memorial Burial Association. At the turn of the 20th century, white cemeteries in Virginia were closed to African Americans. Those cemeteries did not desegregate until the late 1960s. East End was once also known as Greenwood, a name that appears on death certificates and in obituaries well into the 20th centu

ry. East End comprises 16 acres (approximately 11.5 of which are suitable for burial), located mostly in Henrico County; a sliver of the cemetery extends into the City of Richmond. East End is adjacent to Evergreen, another historic African American cemetery. Evergreen was founded in 1891 and occupies 60 acres, all in the City of Richmond. Burial records for East End have been lost. Given the density of graves in cleared sections of the cemetery, we estimate that upwards of 15,000 people are buried at East End. Volunteers led by John Shuck began working at East End in summer 2013. At that time, the cemetery was almost completely overgrown. Much of it, in fact, was invisible from the road, hidden beneath dense vegetation. In addition to English ivy, sumac, and other invasive species, East End had also attracted illegal dumping, including more than 1,500 tires, all of which have since been removed by volunteers. The Friends of East End Cemetery, a 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 2017 to expand and focus the work of the core group of volunteers that had coalesced around the cemetery restoration effort. We collaborate with the relatives of people interred at East End, houses of worship, schools and institutions of higher learning, local government, businesses, and others. Schmieder is our board president. Our other members are Maurice Fountain, Justin Curtis, Brian Palmer, Erin Hollaway Palmer, Melissa Kaldas, and Bruce Tarr. With the help of thousands of other volunteers, we have worked steadily for years to clear the vegetation, remove the trash, and recover more than 3,300 hidden grave markers. In tandem with this hands-on restoration, we’ve conducted extensive research to reclaim the history of the cemetery and the community it served. We also collaborate with other groups working to reclaim historic Black cemeteries in Richmond and beyond. In partnership with the city of Richmond, cemetery descendants, and the broader community, we seek to transform East End and neighboring Evergreen into public sites of memory, contemplation, and beauty that honor Richmond’s African American past and present. For more information about the history of the cemetery and the people buried here, please visit eastendcemeteryrva.com. Please email us with any questions: [email protected]. No affiliation with The Enrichmond Foundation or Parity, LLC.

06/03/2026

Saturday’s workday ended on a high note, with a visit from Mr. Thomas Taylor. We first met Mr. T on a Memorial Day weekend more than a decade ago, when he and his brother came to tend their family plot at East End, where their parents, eldest sister, and another brother are buried. At the time, Mr. T mentioned that their grandparents — John and Martha (Minson) Brown — were buried in another part of the still heavily overgrown cemetery, but he no longer knew where exactly.

It turned out that they were buried at Evergreen, not East End, but aside from that detail, Mr. Taylor’s memory was tack sharp. From childhood visits, he remembered that they were buried on the side of a hill, in a plot surrounded by a wrought iron fence.

Finding their plot became something of a mission for Erin. The trouble was, we had a plot number but no map. We also had a gigantic, nearly impenetrable tangle of wisteria to contend with, not to mention a hostile cemetery owner in 2021, when we first started hunting in earnest. Over several years, Erin informally mapped all of the markers she could find in that section, trying to pinpoint the location of the Brown plot (Evergreen’s records are incomplete, so this was not exactly scientific).

Finally, last September, on a muggy evening after work, Erin noticed the edge of a marker peeking through the matrix of wisteria covering the ground, in an area that we had only recently made somewhat accessible. To her amazement, the marker belonged to John S. Bell, who she knew was the husband of Mr. Taylor’s grandmother’s sister, Maggie (Minson) Bell. And the Bells were buried in the same plot as the Browns, according to the interment ledger.

In a stroke of luck, the top of Martha Brown’s marker was just barely visible through the vines, and in the failing light, we were able to unearth it.

Sixty-five years after she was buried, Mr. Taylor clearly remembered her funeral, which he attended as a 12-year-old boy in 1961. It was pouring rain that day, he said, and the pallbearers had to pick their way down the steep path to the Brown–Bell plot. Some funeral goers stayed in their cars to avoid the downpour.

There was no rain this past Saturday!

📸 Brian Palmer

04/27/2026

Late notice, but we’ve got a workday coming up this Saturday (May 2)! As the weather heats up, we’ll be starting an hour earlier, working from 9 a.m. till noon. Sign up and join us — the wisteria awaits (as do many headstones — swipe to see what we found just yesterday).

Signup link in bio (or just go to CFengage.org and search for “Evergreen”).

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04/19/2026

Nothing like a 90-degree workday in April! Volunteers were undeterred, however, tackling a dense thicket of wisteria between one cleared-ish area and another. We’ve been doubling back toward our fall worksite, continuing to cut the seemingly endless vines overhead and underfoot and to maintain what we’ve opened up so far.

Photos 1–11 are from yesterday; 12–20, from two weeks ago. All 📸 by

04/16/2026

Are you ready to wrangle wisteria? The blooms are lovely, and wonderfully fragrant, so it’s hard not to fee a little sad as we hack through the vines. But this is an invasive, aggressive species we’re dealing with, and it has overtaken a large swath of Evergreen. For months now, we’ve been working with other volunteers and our partners to tame the worst of it, but we have a long way to go, as you can see in Brian’s photos from the past couple of weeks.

We’ll be back at it this Saturday, April 18, at 10 a.m., and again on Wednesday, April 22, at 1:30, in honor of Earth Day. There are still volunteer slots available for both days, so please come if you can (and if you’re not afraid to give the wisteria what for!).

Sign up here:

April 18, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
https://www.cfengage.org/opportunity/a0CNw0000ESjq6kMQB/evergreen-cemetery-clean-up

April 22 (Earth Day) - 1:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m.
https://www.cfengage.org/opportunity/a0CNw0000Dojw4PMQQ/earth-day-stewardship-at-evergreen-cemetery

📸 Brian Palmer

04/07/2026

Even thousands of headstones later, we still get excited about every single marker uncovered at East End and Evergreen. Some, though, really stand out — in terms of both the monument itself and the person it memorializes. This one, for example (which had fallen facedown at some point and been completely buried until Bruce found it by probing a few months ago; fearing damage, we had hesitated to turn it over and reset it until very recently), was erected by the children of William H. Brisby, who represented New Kent County in the Virginia House of Delegates during Reconstruction. We’ve included a portrait and short bio here, both from Luther Porter Jackson’s pioneering “Negro Office-Holders in Virginia, 1865–1895,” published in 1945. A longer biography can be found in the Encyclopedia Virginia online.

Mr. Brisby was born in the 1830s and died at Central State Hospital in Petersburg in November 1916. According to his death certificate, he was buried on the hospital grounds. His marker was ordered a couple of months later, in January 1917, as shown on a page from the J. Henry Brown Monuments order books, housed at the Library of Virginia (see last photo). Unlike some entries, this one doesn't say who purchased it, but we do learn that “Parties will call and take stone in auto” — presumably to Evergreen, though we have found no record of Mr. Brisby’s reinterment. Evergreen’s records from that era are patchy, leaving tantalizing gaps in the narrative.

To our knowledge, Mr. Brisby is the only state-level officeholder buried at the cemeteries — though if we’re wrong, please let us know!

📸 by , 21 March 2026,

03/29/2026

We were back among the tangles of wisteria this morning at Evergreen, where volunteers Jude and Cameron carefully extracted the headstone of Grant Guerrant (actually Garrant, it seems), whose marker had been pinned not only by an errant plot post but by decades-old garbage. To get to his stone this morning, Brian and Erin had spent several evenings earlier in the week wrestling wisteria vines and digging out tires that had been tossed on graves. (This row of graves lines a now overgrown road that loops through Evergreen’s west side. As we’ve noted before, where there’s a road, there’s often an illegal dump.) Maxfield hauled all the tires and trash away *before* the workday officially began (thank you, Max!), then devised a way to unearth and drag the plot post back where it belongs across the road. Mr. Garrant’s marker — only a corner of which had been visible when we started this morning (and which had been completely buried until earlier this week), emerged not long after. It was practically sparkling by the time we left, washed clean by water, a brush, and caring hands.

When we searched Ancestry.com for “Grant Guerrant,” we turned up nothing. And again when we searched death certificates by first name and year of death. But when we searched by date (January 6, 1923), we came across “Ulysis Garraut” — a double whammy of misspelling and mistranscription. “Grant Guerrant” was in fact Ulysses Grant Garrant, a brickmason by trade, born in Goochland County circa 1870, younger son of Richard Garrant and Nellie Mickie. His brother, John M. Garrant, also a brickmason, died five years later and is also buried at Evergreen, as is John’s only child, Charles Richard Garrant, who died tragically, while swimming in the James River in 1911. We have not yet found their headstones. Nellie Garrant (b. ca. 1833, according to a Freedman’a Bank record) may also be buried at Evergreen — she was still alive in 1900 — but that’s only speculation for now.

We’ll be back at it next Saturday, April 4, and again on April 18. Come join us! (Sign up on CFengage.org.)

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03/08/2026

It may not be officially spring yet, but tell that to the daffodils! They’re in full glorious bloom at East End and Evergreen right now. Come see for yourself next weekend: Our workday starts at 10 a.m. (sign up on CFengage.org). 🌼

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03/03/2026

We were back at our “home” cemetery on Saturday with our Richmond VA Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities partners and fellow volunteers. The primary focus was English ivy removal (as part of — Richmond Invasive Species Awareness Week) in the far back corner of East End, which has never been fully cleared. Thanks to all who pulled, snipped, lopped, and hauled!

We’ll be at Evergreen next time: Saturday, March 14, at 10 a.m. Hope to see you then and there!

📸 by Brian Palmer

02/15/2026

After a seemingly endless deep freeze, we were finally able to get back out to Evergreen this morning. ☀️ Along with fellow volunteers and our Richmond VA Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities comrades, we went after a gigantic pile of long-ago cut logs (see second photo, though it’s hard to get a real sense of how much brush we were contending with), filling up the trailer three times. Maxfield, who hauled it all to the dump, told us we removed — get this — approximately 11,000 pounds of brush in less than three hours! 💪💪💪

Beneath the logs, English ivy, pokeweed stalks, and other overgrowth were at least three marked graves. Walter Brown, John Brooks, and Isabella Finney all passed away in 1915; Mr. Brooks and Ms. Finney were both born before the Civil War. Mr. Brown was a barber and a musician — his headstone was provided by the Sharon Baptist Church band.

Many thanks to everyone who lugged and lopped today. We have three workdays coming up: Feb. 28, March 14, and March 28, all starting at 10 a.m. Hope to see you then!

📸 by Brian Palmer

02/07/2026

Before there was Black History Month, established in 100 years ago as Negro History Week, there were Black history makers. Generations of them. Many lived, worked, and excelled right here in Richmond. And many were laid to rest at East End and Evergreen cemeteries, among them Maggie L. Walker (bottom right, Evergreen) and Rosa Dixon Bowser (top left, East End), whose actions and achievements prefigured the Civil Rights and feminist movements. Both were born to enslaved mothers. John R. Chiles (bottom left, Evergreen) was a businessman and banker—and an officer in the Knights of Pythias—and William Custalo (top right, East End) built one of Richmond’s most popular eateries right on Broad Street.

When the ice melts, come for a visit to honor these luminaries and the many other souls at these two sites!

(All images are in the public domain. Thank you to the New York Public Library, the National Gallery, and Wikimedia for making them available.)

Address

50 Evergreen Road
Richmond, VA
23223

Telephone

(804) 728-9475

Website

https://friendsofeastend.com/, https://dsl.richmond.edu/eastend, https://eastendcemeteryrva.com/, https://www.cfengage.o

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