Stones, but No Bones

Numerous graves are located within the Rippon Lodge cemetery, where slate tablets, carved stones, and slabs are neatly arranged, but some markers are placed on mounds that may not be graves or stand where burials do not exist. Two large stones on the left side of the path include one that once marked the grave of Martin Scarlit, who died in 1695, while the carving on the second stone is long eroded; in the early 1900s, both stones were pulled from the Occoquan River and placed in a grove of trees at the wildlife refuge at Occoquan Bay, then moved to Rippon Lodge in 2005. When Judge Wade Ellis owned Rippon Lodge, he preserved the cemetery and set blank slate markers where ground contours resembled graves, though burials likely exist in these areas, their presence has not been verified. Other Blackburns and Atkinsons are probably buried here, but the locations of their graves are not known, and while enslaved people may be buried here, their graves are more likely in a separate and unidentified cemetery. Aside from what is carved on her gravestones, nothing is known about Rose Peters, who died in 1649 or 1679 and was buried near Neabsco Creek; her stones were moved to Rippon Lodge in 1963 with dirt from her grave, but her remains are not in the cemetery.

Leesylvania, Virginia · United States