Press Release
The Fluvanna Historical Society was one of seven organizations awarded grant funding by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (DHR) and the Virginia Board of Historic Resources to conduct further archaeological investigations at historic Free Hill Cemetery in Columbia. The funding comes from the Virginia Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) Historic Preservation Grant Program, established in 2022 by the Virginia General Assembly. This work will be done in enthusiastic collaboration with the members of Columbia Baptist Church and other descendants of those buried at Free Hill.
The $110,490 grant will fund ground penetrating radar and other archaeological investigations which will recover information about the cemetery, established by David Ross in 1805 as a burial place for the members of the community of Free People of Color in Columbia. Described by an historian in the 1930s as “being so full they are burying people one atop the other,” the cemetery now contains few surface features to show where individual burials lie. In 1965, the Columbia Town Council had the cemetery logged to fund a road-building project. The space was also graded, removing stone markers and the visible patterns of grave-sized depressions in the soil typically used to locate burials. Ground penetrating radar will help determine the number and location of graves in the cemetery.
Columbia Baptist Church Pastor Bruce Boling said members of his congregation are excited about the project. “This work will help us all better understand our own history and honor the lives of the people buried at Free Hill in unmarked graves,” he said.
Fluvanna Historical Society President Kathleen Kilpatrick is eager for the work to begin. “This kind of project is exactly why the BIPOC fund was initiated by the General Assembly,” Kilpatrick said. “To better study, understand, and ultimately preserve important sites of history like Free Hill Cemetery.” Kilpatrick noted the historical importance of the extraordinary community of free Black people who had called Columbia home.
Because of that historical importance, the church and cemetery have already been determined by DHR to be eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Place; part of this grant award will also fund the drafting of an application to the National Register for formal determination and listing.
