Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 15, 1993 TAG: 9306150321
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE LENGTH: Medium
"It historically has great importance," said Jeffrey Hantman, an associate professor of archaeology at UVa who investigated the site, which is adjacent to the school's main grounds.
"It's surprising to find it still so intact."
The cemetery was discovered May 12 when a bulldozer struck a buried footstone.
A site inspector noticed the outline of a grave and stopped the digging.
Anthropology graduate students Drake Patten and Amy Grey found three lines of coffins in a preliminary study of the 20-by-30-foot site.
The size of the graves indicated that the plot likely holds the remains of four adults and eight children.
Diggers also found coffin handles, nails, ceramics, animal bones, glass, metal and screws used to seal coffin lids.
Patten said documentary evidence suggests that the cemetery is almost certainly that of the Foster family.
The first two generations of the family were among some 80 free black families who lived in the Charlottesville area.
The site is believed to hold the remains of Catherine Foster, a free black woman who bought the property Dec. 13, 1833, for $450 from the city postmaster.
She passed the land on to her daughter, Ann Foster, who passed it on to her daughter, Susan Foster.
The property passed out of the Fosters' hands in 1906.
A house was built over the cemetery in 1939 and demolished this year to make way for the parking lot enlargement.
UVa was given the property by the alumni association in 1976.
Ervin L. Jordan Jr., a UVa library archivist who has extensively studied early black communities, said the find is important "because free blacks were relatively invisible in the history of slavery. We know they existed, but most of the historical attention has been focused on slaves."
Their daily life, especially during the Civil War and Reconstruction, would be of importance to history, he said.
He said the Foster households were headed by women, who passed the maternal name through the generations.
UVa is attempting to contact any descendants and gather any available information on the cemetery.
A community meeting will be held June 22 to encourage descendants and others to discuss what to do w8th the cemetery.
Hantman said excavation of the site would uncover information on the burial practices, diseases and diets of 19th century free blacks "if everyone assented."
In an article published in the Charlottesville-Albemarle Tribune - the city's black, weekly newspaper - Jordan asked that the black community "make certain the Catherine Foster family obtains its rightful place in our local history books and memories. . . . Let us not neglect our ancestors."
by CNB