DATE:

About 1819.

OWNERS:

Owned by the United States Government.

DESCRIPTION:

This cemetery was started on a narrow strip of land next to the beach northwest
of the fort.

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE:

The first cemetery at Fort Monroe started about 1819 and was known as the “Pine
Forest”, a narrow strip of land next to the beach northwest of the fort and
joined the Buckroe Farm. This proved to be an objectionable site because here
was the Post Cemetery containing the bodies of all the soldiers and others who
had died at Fort Monroe during more than half a century, which has long since
been abandoned. The Post Cemetery remained at the northwest of the ridge of
sand hills north of the fort, above the Mortal Batteries. It had been used to
inter those who died at the Hygeia Hospital. In the years immediately following
the war, many of the bodies were removed and the cemetery abandoned, despite the
fact that it had an estimated capacity of ten to fifteen thousand graves. This
cemetery continued until early in 1860, when it was deemed necessary to have
this strip of land to build batteries upon as protection for the fort. These
bodies were moved to the Hampton National Cemetery just being started by the
United States Government. There are no records to show just when this movement
was begun.

The Anti-Air-Craft guns now stand there.

It is said that some of our foremost military men were buried here and no one
knows and probably never will know who these were.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION:

Major Robert Arthur’s History of Fort Monroe, pages 88, 131 and 139

Coast Artillery School Print Shop

Coast Artillery School Library

Visit by worker.

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Robert S Goodall