Representatives of Interracial Conversations have been involved in a community-wide effort to restore historic Old St. John's Cemetery in Kilmarnock. On November 15, 2025, 87 persons representing 11 churches or organizations, pitched in to clear brush.

 Old St. John’s Cemetery is located on Calvary Drive, just off Harris Road, in Kilmarnock. Many on the Northern Neck have passed by the historic cemetery without knowing it exists. Though remembered by the older generations within Lancaster County’s African American community, the wider public has remained largely unaware that it exists. Now long-neglected, Old St. John’s Cemetery has fallen victim to vandals, trash, and vegetation, and headstones have toppled and graves have sunk into the ground.

Old St. John’s Baptist Church was established in 1868, when Black members of Morattico Baptist Church, located on the outskirts of Kilmarnock, sought dismissal to form a congregation of their own. Old St. John’s would become the first independent Black congregation in Lancaster County. Establishment of a cemetery soon followed the church’s organization.   Old St. John’s Church once stood a block or two east of the cemetery’s current location, though the precise site has been lost to time. By 1892, the congregation had dissolved.

At its height, Old St. John’s Church grew to nearly 1,000 members, serving as a spiritual and cultural anchor for free-born and newly-emancipated families throughout the Northern Neck.  Eventually, six “daughter” churches grew from it: Mt. Olive in Wicomico Church in Northumberland County (1873) and, in Lancaster County, Willie Chapel in Lancaster Courthouse (1884), Calvary in Kilmarnock (1892), Mt. Vernon in White Stone (1893), Sharon in Weems (1898), and New St. John’s in Kilmarnock (1910). When the original church closed, four of these congregations assumed stewardship of the 3.57-acre cemetery.

Although burials in the Old St. John’s Cemetery continued into the mid-20th century, they grew increasingly infrequent. Research conducted by genealogist Margaret Hill and Clyde Ratcliffe documented 70 known graves, including those of Black veterans of both World Wars, in their book, In Remembrance: Gravestone Inscriptions and Burials of Lancaster County, Virginia (2016). The book was the first modern action to draw attention to the site. 

Around the year 2000, Dr. James E.C. Norris, son of the Northern Neck’s first Black physician, visited the cemetery to pay respects to his family’s friend, Ophelia Nickens Pinn (1899-1978). He was shaken at the state the cemetery. Norris made attempts to draw attention to the cemetery but, living in New York City, he lacked the proximity to lead a sustained restoration.   

That changed in 2025, when new research by Kerry Petersen, president of the Kilmarnock Branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), expanded the list of confirmed burials from 70 to 377. Petersen believes the true number may approach 1,000, given that obituary records in Lancaster County do not begin until 1900 and death certificates that include cemetery names were not issued until 1912. If so, Old St. John’s may be the largest African American cemetery in the region and among its most historically significant. 

As part of the project, a newly-compiled history of Old St. John’s Church, along with a comprehensive list of nearly 1,400 members and burials was written. The volume documents the ancestors and families of nearly every longstanding Black family in the county. The digital history book may be found on the IRC website by clicking on “Resources” then scrolling down to the Old St. John’s area where you’ll find a black box link to download the book to your device.  Considerable work remains to be done at Old St. John’s cemetery, including installing signage and building a memorial entrance. However, the recent workday marked a turning point: the moment when the cemetery’s lost history began to emerge. When restoration is complete, organizers plan an ecumenical worship service to bless and rededicate the grounds.