Jermantown Cemetery

Jermantown Cemetery

1868

The Jermantown Cemetery was established in 1868 for black residents who could not be buried in the Fairfax City Cemetery near the courthouse. For over one hundred years, African Americans have been buried there. There are over 40 headstones and an undetermined number of unmarked graves.
Vincent Sutphin’s recollections of Jermantown includes a list of “Black Families in the Area.” The surnames are: Jackson, Ashton, Runner, Horton, Payne, Scott, Colbert, Clarke, Waley, Chambers, and Lucas. Sutphin also includes a photo of an ‘old kitchen and slave quarter’ now demolished.

Jermantown was located at the northwestern edge of Fairfax City

Town of Fairfax

The Jermantown Cemetery is an African American cemetery located in Fairfax City on Route 50 and Bevan Drive.

A few of those buried in the cemetery are:

• George Lamb – [1835-1926] a free black who initially served in the Confederate army as a body servant to Captain William H. Dulaney of the Fairfax Rifles, until he was injured. George Lamb served for the rest of the Civil War with the Confederate Army. 

• Horace Gibson [1817–1912] was a freed slave who later owned his own blacksmith shop in Annandale.
• James Alfred Harris (1930-1973) was a Korean War veteran. VA, PVT, U.S. Marine Corps, Korea

On August 18, 1868, ALFRED WHALEY, THOMAS SINKFIELD, and MILTON BROOKS, Trustees for the Burial Sons and Daughters of Benevolence of Fairfax Court House, purchased one acre of land (Db I4:429). Thus, was established a community burial ground for the colored residents of Fairfax Court House.