 Williams Family Cemetery Virginia Beach (formerly Princess Anne Co) VA Virginia Beach City Public Schools is to be commended for saving the Williams family cemetery. It sits just outside an indention in the chain link fence that separates Plaza Middle School and its athletic fields from heavily traveled South Lynnhaven Road. The Williams family graves lie serenely under their shapely shade trees and reign over the busy daily activities of 21st century youth. Plaza Middle Schools's running track brings its athletes into close proximity with the Virginia Beach of days past. Could any of the youths passing be descended from the individuals lying nearby for time eternal? The graves saved from destruction represent a tightly knit African American family. The 1900 & 1910 Princess Anne County census reveals the fact that all the graves facing South Lynnhaven Road are a part of a single family. James W. Williams and his wife Rosa, both Virginia natives whose parents were also born in Virginia, head the family. They were married in 1894 - 1895 and were fortunate enough to lose no children to death by the time of the 1910 census enumeration. Rosa had born 7 children in 1910 and all were still living. Each of the individuals in the Plaza Middle School plot is either a child or their spouse. James W. Williams was a Blacksmith by trade and lived as a rental tenant on what was then called Lynn Haven Road. Cemetery Photographed May 10, 2004. |
