Blue Ridge Baptist Church Cemetery

Locality: Roanoke County                  Temporal Period:                  19th c.; 20th c.

Realty Map:          71.11-1-2                                Cultural Affiliation:              Euro-American

USGS Map:           Stewartsville                         Landform:                              Ridge top

Grid Locus:            C-13                                        Elevation:                              1160 feet

UTM Easting:       601210                                    Aspect:                                  Flat

UTM Northing:    4124620

Site Dimensions:  240 by 255 by 240 by 185 feet

Survey Description: Site consists of a large and active church cemetery with a minimum of 233 interments.  Interments include 163 marked with marble, granite, cement headstones, and inscribed fieldstone markers;  58 unmarked ground surface depressions; 3 marked with temporary metal alloy markers; 3 missing headstones but with intact stone bases; 1 wood headstone; and 5 uninscribed fieldstone markers.  All graves are oriented to the east.  The site is covered with grass and well maintained.  However, some markers have fallen and broken, while other markers are missing.  The few plantings in the cemetery include a magnolia tree, a couple of cedars and scattered yucca.  Site is bounded by post and wire fences to the south and west, a brick wall and the church to the east, and a parking lot to the north.  The site was field inspected, photographed, interments were counted, and headstone inscriptions were compared to previous site documentation.  Site size was estimated by pacing the horizontal extent of the surrounding boundaries as described above.

Survey Date:         2/98

Field Notes:           _x_Yes   ___No

Photographs:        _x_Yes   ___No

Reference(s):         Roanoke Valley Historical Society

                                1986        Roanoke County Graveyards Through 1920.  Privately printed, RVHS, Roanoke.

Works Progress Administration of Virginia, Historical Inventory, Roanoke County, Virginia, Document #30.

Additional Comments: Assigned temporal period based on deed references and death dates inscribed on headstones.  Earliest observed death date was 1833.  The deed reference and the presence of unmarked graves and graves marked with uninscribed fieldstone markers may be used as evidence for a pre-1833 use of the site.  Site is marked on the USGS Stewartsville map sheet.  While the cemetery is not specifically labeled on local realty maps, it is located on a 2.5-acre parcel labeled “Blue Ridge Baptist Church.”

This cemetery was initially surveyed in 1937 by the Works Progress Administration of Virginia and recorded as the “Blue Ridge Cemetery” in Document #30 of the Historical Inventory of Roanoke County, Virginia.  The WPA file provided biographical information for 11 graves.  The WPA file also listed deed references for the August 4, 1802 acquisition of 2+ acres “for church and burial grounds, to be known as the Blue Ridge Meeting House” (Botetourt County Deed Book  8, page 38 and Roanoke County Deed Book 24, page 354).

A later survey by the RVHS (1986: 14-18) resulted in a listing of biographical information transcribed from 76 graves that predated 1921.  During the 1998 survey no attempt was made to transcribe all of the headstone inscriptions in this large cemetery.  Instead, the inscriptions on existing headstones was compared to the information provided by the WPA and RVHS.  As one may expect, some attrition in the number of 19^th-century headstones was evident.

Blue Ridge Baptist Church Cemetery (continued)

Inscriptions documented by the WPA & RVHS but not observed during the 1998 survey:

James, Jonah 1783 - 1843

Vinyard, John H. / Born  Nov. 11, 1819/ Died Jan. 21, 1865

Inscriptions documented by the RVHS but not observed during the 1998 survey:

Howell, Martha Janie / B. June 21, 1820 / D. May 3, 1892

Blankenship, Jerry M. / Dec. 30, 1858 – June 14, 1918