19th Annual Candlelight Tours

Friday evening, my husband and I participated in the 19th Annual Candlelight Tours at Old City Cemetery in Lynchburg, Virginia. This year, the cemetery partnered with Endstation Theatre Company of Randolph College to tell “haunted histories as told by the ghosts themselves.” 

Old City Cemetery, affectionately known as the “Gravegarden,” is a 27-acre public garden, history park, and burial ground in the heart of Lynchburg. It is the oldest municipal cemetery in Virginia, having been founded in 1807. More than 20,000 people are buried on the grounds, including the “ghosts” or families of the ghosts taking part in the Candlelight Tours. 

A Cat's Meow Village-style wooden cutout of the chapel at Old City Cemetery that I purchased during the Annual Candlelight Tours

It’s also where my husband and I got married. The experience began in the little white-sided chapel where we said our vows seven years ago. 

Groups leave Stapleton Station and meet their “spirit guide” at the Comfort House next to the chapel. This is a small cottage next to the chapel where I prepared for my wedding—I got my hair and makeup done in this little building and put on my dress. We met our spirit guide on the terrace behind the Comfort House, and she led us up flagstone steps lined by luminaries into the chapel where we met the first of five spirits, Maria Wilson, a young woman who jumped to her death in Lynchburg’s infamous 1878 Court Street Panic. 

From there, our spirit guide led us across the street to the Kids Haven Memorial Swing where we encountered the spirit of a woman wearing a fur coat and typing purposefully on a typewriter. She introduced herself as Lucy Harrison Miller Barber, a key figure in the cemetery’s preservation and the organization of Lynchburg’s juvenile court system. 

After bidding Ms. Barber good evening, we continued to the family plots where Thomas Jefferson Anderson, one of the first Black men to serve on Lynchburg city council, encouraged us to “plant trees, even if we never lived to sit under their shade.”

The final two spirits were haunting the Confederate Section, and for good reason. Maggie Wilson, a widow and mother to four, bemoaned the injustice of her family plot being paved over for a Veteran’s Bench. The bodies of her husband and mother were moved to Spring Hill Cemetery, but, even after reaching an agreement, Maggie was unable to afford moving the bodies of her four children. They remain entombed beneath the memorial to this day. 

The Confederate Section of Old City Cemetery, where two stories were told during the 19th Annual Candlelight Tours | Attribution: “Old City Cemetery: Confederate Section” by Virginia Hill, CC BY-ND 2.0

Finally, we met Private John Ferguson, a Union soldier who was buried in Old City Cemetery after dying in a Lynchburg hospital. Union soldiers were removed from Old City Cemetery in 1866, but Ferguson was mistaken for a Confederate and was left to rest beneath the cemetery’s antique roses. Don’t worry, he said his Confederate companions aren’t too bad, though he does hope someone can tell his regiment that he didn’t desert—he just died.

This is the second or third time I’ve participated in the Candlelight Tours, but this year impacted me more than years past. 

While waiting for our spirit guide, a “gravedigger” stopped by to tell us about the cemetery and the spirits. Just his opening monologue brought tears to my eyes. Dressed in dirty jeans and a hard hat and pushing a wheelbarrow, he made a convincing grounds worker. I suspended my disbelief just long enough to wonder—could this be a real worker bearing witness to his experience with the cemetery’s long-time residents?

The magic continued as we wandered through the Gravegarden by lamplight, luminaries carving our path through the darkness. There were pockets of time without any noise—no engines or trains or cellphones—where I felt like a sojourner from a bygone era or a spirit myself, wading through the headstones.

This year’s stories were also impactful—people who had been wronged or victimized, people who stood up for what they believed in, even when they were in the minority. These powerful stories were inspiring and sobering. Heartwarming and heartbreaking. Each actor brought life to these long-dead spirits. 

The Annual Candlelight Tours are a wonderful way to connect with local history and arts. In an increasingly globalized and artificial world, preserving and investing in local history and arts is more important now than ever. I encourage you to seek opportunities like this—attend a theater production, a concert, a gallery opening, or even a sporting event. You’ll be investing in your community and yourself.