The University will build a memorial to a community of free blacks who in the 1880s lived in the vicinity of what is now land set aside for the South Lawn Project, officials said.
The memorial also will be dedicated to Kitty Foster, a free black woman who in 1883 purchased the property where the memorial is to be constructed. The memorial is being erected as part of the South Lawn Project and will be completed by the fall of 2010, Facilities Management Project Director James Kelley said.
The Foster memorial will occupy about 10 percent of the physical space of the entire South Lawn Project, Kelley said, adding that the memorial was “one of the original concepts that was developed at the inception of the project.”
University Landscape Architect Mary Hughes said the home site is north of Venable Lane, which intersects Jefferson Park Avenue.
Part of the memorial will feature an open archaeological site — which will be included as a public park — and a metal shadow catcher, which will cast a shadow in the form of Foster’s house site so that passerby will be able to see where the 19th-century house was located, Hughes said. Additionally, new trees will be planted in the area and the Foster family cemetery will be commemorated with a plaque and a wall.
Though the memorial will not be completed until the end of next year, the archaeological site itself goes back many years.
After the graveyard was discovered in 1993, Ben Ford, then a University anthropology graduate student, helped direct an archeological excavation of the site in 1994 and 1995, he said. Ford and his team discovered a dug basement and part of a foundation of a domestic residence that he believes dates back to when Foster lived on the property, Ford said.
The University asked Ford, who is now Principal of Rivanna Archaeological Services, and fellow archaeologist Steve Thompson, to examine the Foster site between 2005 and 2007 in preparation for the South Lawn Project. By defining some of the site’s features, the team helped landscape architects plan the interpretation and memorialization of the area, Ford said.
In more recent years, archaeologists have “found a fairly intact landscape surrounding the house,” including paved walks with bricks and cobblestones, in addition to a well, Ford said.
He also noted that children’s artifacts like doll parts and marbles have been found along with work-related items including buttons and sewing needles, which confirmed that Foster and her descendants survived as washerwomen and seamstresses. Ford said he believes Foster and other free blacks of the time “purposefully located themselves near the University to provide services to students and faculty.”
An additional 20 graves have been identified in addition to the original 12 found in 1993, meaning that a total of 32 graves makes up the cemetery, Ford said.
The larger property, known as Canada, was a historically African American neighborhood from the 1860s up through the early 20th century, Ford said. He said he believes the name of the neighborhood is “likely symbolic of the fact that Canada was the final destination of runaway slaves,” and that it “perhaps reflects the significance of Kitty Foster and the free black community in the South Lawn area within the larger Charlottesville, Albemarle white community.”
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