Old City Cemetery Museums & Arboretum

The Old City Cemetery, established in 1806, is one of the oldest public cemeteries in the United States still in use today. Mayors and other prominent civic leaders, along with the city’s indigent and “strangers,” are among the estimated 15,000 people buried here on the cemetery’s 27-acre campus. Two-thirds of those interred here are of African descent, both enslaved and free. The cemetery contains the graves of more than 2,200 Civil War soldiers from 14 states. Museums on the property interpret the diverse history of this rehabilitated graveyard and its inhabitants. Today, Old City Cemetery is the most visited historic site in the City of Lynchburg and is Central Virginia’s most unique public garden. It is a Virginia Historic Landmark on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Cemetery’s 27 acres of grounds include 644 Trees, 665 shrubs, 450 roses, and more than 1,000 historic daffodils.  Also, there are many more trees in the woodlands around the periphery of the grounds that are not labeled. With a mission to engage the Lynchburg community and its visitors with its rich horticultural and historical offerings, Old City Cemetery is a landscape that remembers, comforts, and inspires.