Maple Hill Cemetery
Brief Peace in the Midst of War
The brick church formerly on this site was named Mount Zion Presbyterian Church. The congregation stopped meeting here after Federal forces occupied Petersburg in May 1862, took over the church building, and began using it as a commissary. The commanding general ordered that “this fence around the church and the graveyard and everything within this inclosure remain undisturbed…It is to be hoped that no soldier or citizen will be so far lost to every principle of civilization and feeling of humanity to wantonly and needlessly wound the feeling of the living or dishonor the ashes of the dead.”
When the Federals learned of an impending Confederate attack, however, they burned the church to prevent the capture of its stores. Later, other Union troops used bricks from the burned church in the floors of their tents and winter cabins west of here at Fort Mulligan.
A frame church was later constructed here. In 1878, the congregation moved to North Main Street, erected a brick church, and named it Petersburg Presbyterian Church on October 16, 1880. The Federal government reimbursed the congregation $2,000 in 1916 for burning the original building during the Civil War.
Numerous Confederate soldiers who served in the 18th Virginia Cavalry are buried here, as well as Lt. Isaac S. Wilton, one of McNeill’s Rangers. He took part in the raid on Cumberland, Maryland, on February 21, 1865, when the unit captured Union Gens. George Crook and Benjamin F. Kelley at hotels there.
(Sidebar): Mount Zion Presbyterian Church was constructed about 1838 on a tract that Hanson Bryan donated. In this graveyard lies the remains of the Rev. William N. Scott, the pioneer Presbyterian minister in Grant County, who came here in May 1822 and organized the Presbyterian congregations at Old Fields, Moorefield, and Petersburg. He died on January 24, 1857. The graveyard is now known as Maple Hill Cemetery.
Marker is on North Main Street.
Courtesy hmdb.org
