Grave Identification Survey Fort Lee Adams Roundabout, Prince George County, Virginia

This investigation addressed the location of an unmarked cemetery on property currently owned by Prince George County, adjacent to U.S. Army Fort Lee Military Reservation in eastern Virginia. Historical research indicated that the burial ground was associated with the laboring Sisters of the Vine Burial Association who used it as a cemetery in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Open, wooded, paved and wet conditions in the roughly 1.3-acre project required the use of reconnoissance survey, ground penetrating radar, penetrometer, and cadaver dog survey methods. Relic fences and property boundary markers indicated where the probable cemetery property boundaries were locoted for two of the three original sites. Ground features could not verify the eastern side of the original parcel. Thirty-seven potential burial sites were identified in the project area. These were found both outside and within the suggested cemetery property boundaries, implying that graves may not have been segregated to the original cemetery area. Future management of the cemetery and related grounds should be prepared to address boundary uncertainties and grave placement outside of these margins.