Graduate students in a Virginia Commonwealth University class have created online story maps of two historic Black burial grounds, the Cemeteries of Barton Heights in Richmond and Woodland Cemetery in Henrico County.

The result: A wealth of information about the historic sites drawn from archival research, mapping technology and interviews with descendants that can be accessed by the community.

The information has been placed at storymaps.arcgis.com. The information on Barton Heights can be accessed with a computer search for Cemeteries of Barton Heights storymaps; the information on Woodland can be found with a search for Woodland Cemetery story maps.

The story maps are the creation of students in Dr. Meghan Gough’s class in Sustainable Community Development at the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs. The class is part of the program for students seeking master’s degrees in urban and regional planning.

The students developed the story maps in partnership with the Descendants Council of Greater Richmond Virginia, the Woodland Restoration Foundation and Friends of East End Cemetery.

“We wanted to use the story maps as a tool to share the history and importance of these cemeteries. By working alongside descendants, we were able to learn about and honor people who lived, worked and contributed to this city,” said Dr. Gough, an associate VCU professor of urban and regional studies.

“We hope this project contributes to community dialogue about our collective past,” said Dr. Gough, who also co-leads the Cemetery Collaboratory with Dr. Ryan K. Smith, a VCU history professor who specializes in Richmond cemeteries, and two faculty members at the University of Richmond.

Peighton L. Young, co-chair of the Descendants Council of Greater Richmond Virginia said the story maps “engage the whole of Richmond’s community by making knowledge of these cemeteries ac- cessible. By doing so, they encourage the average person to get involved in preserving some of our city’s most sacred places.

“This project emphasizes the need for everyone to understand these sites as part of our shared past, our shared history and our public memory,” added Mr. Young, who has relatives buried at Woodland.

William Teeples, a student in the class, said he hopes the story maps will allow descendants of those buried to connect with other descendants and add more information about the people who are buried there.

The 12-acre Barton Heights Cemeteries is located along St. James Street in North Side and dates to 1815, according to city records. Up to eight separate Black organizations provided burials on what had been known as Academy Hill before it closed in 1904.

Historian Diane Lester revived interest in the cemeteries in the 1990s that have long been property of the city. The city fenced them and assigned them to its Cemetery Division to maintain them.

The private Woodland Cemetery began operations in 1916, after a failed attempt to launch it in 1891. The neglected and overgrown cemetery, long in private hands, was purchased by Marvin Harris and the Woodland Restoration Foundation in 2020 with help from Henrico County and the family of tennis great and humanitarian Arthur Ashe Jr., who is buried there.

The foundation has continued to maintain it with help from a large cadre of volunteers.

John Shuck, a board member and volunteer coordinator with the Woodland Restoration Foundation, said the story map on Woodland is a valuable resource.

“It kind of gives the overall history of what’s been going on at Woodland,” Mr. Shuck said. “I think it’s good to have everything wrapped up at one place in one package.”