This Day in Henrico History: Oct. 18 – Glendale National Cemetery added to Virginia register in 1995

On October 18, 1995, Glendale National Cemetery in eastern Henrico County was listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register. The designation recognized the historic significance of a burial ground established after the Civil War for Union soldiers who died in the fighting around Richmond.

The Virginia Department of Historic Resources confirms the October 18 listing date and identifies the property as register number 043-0753. The cemetery was subsequently added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 26, 1996. Those are separate state and federal recognition dates.

The cemetery is located on Willis Church Road in Henrico. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs says it was established on May 7, 1866, on land purchased from Lucy C. Nelson. Its name came from the farm on the property, which had served as a Union headquarters during the war.

Original burials included soldiers whose remains were recovered from battlefields and other sites around Malvern Hill, Frayser’s Farm and Harrison’s Landing. A federal inspector reported 1,189 interments in 1871, most of them unidentified at that time, according to the Veterans Affairs history.

Glendale’s surviving landscape includes a superintendent’s lodge associated with the nineteenth-century national cemetery system. The Virginia historic resources agency attributes the lodge design to Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs and dates its construction to 1874.

The 1995 state listing preserved recognition of a place that connects Henrico’s Civil War battlefield history to the federal effort to locate, rebury and honor the war dead. Glendale remains administered by the National Cemetery Administration.

Sources: https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/historic-registers/043-0753/; https://www.cem.va.gov/cems/nchp/Glendale.asp