WILLIAMSBURG, W.Va. (WVDN) – The Clarence Knight Cemetery in Williamsburg has been renamed the Knight/Crawford Cemetery.
On May 20, a group of volunteers from several Williamsburg clubs gathered on the wooded hillside and cleared and fenced off a dozen or more historic graves. Two stones placed in the 1960s identify two ancestors of Robin Crawford of Hinton.
“My great-grandfather here, Andrew J.H. Crawford, was born into the slavery time of the 1830s,” he said. Andrew Crawford is buried in the cemetery next to his wife, born Clara Alice Chandler in Gauley Bridge in 1858.
Andrew and Clara Crawford’s graves are set among a dozen more, each marked with a solitary rock from the nearby creek. No names are known for these other graves, but it is quite likely they are descendants of, or enslaved people owned by, John Williams who built the nearby three-story brick house. The graves could also belong to the Radar family who owned the property at one time.
For 10 years Robin Crawford has tried to get the cemetery outlined and protected by a fence. Finally, with the cooperation of the current property owners, the job is done. Manpower for fence construction drew from several area clubs that participated in the hard work.
The Williamsburg Historic Foundation is thrilled to start their year off with this project completion. Other programs are planned, and the public is invited to attend and share the historic bounty that is housed within the museum itself:
On Saturday, June 17, from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. the museum will hold a West Virginia birthday party, on Friday, July 14, and Enchanted Evening dinner from 4-8 p.m. and on Saturday, Aug. 5, the annual fundraising auction 10 a.m.
