Thomas Jefferson never had a cemetery in mind when planning the University, but three years after the first students arrived on Grounds, history intervened. In 1828, an epidemic swept across Charlottesville and many died, causing the need for a burial site.
The cemetery was created for the University community, faculty and alumni, said Alexander "Sandy" Gilliam, university protocol and history officer. It is currently located next to the McCormick Road dormitories, near the intersection with Alderman Road. Burials are now infrequent; the last one occurred in 1999, when Prof. Joseph L. Vaughan was laid to rest.
In its early years, the practice of grave-robbing was common at the cemetery. Although laws prohibited the possession or dissection of human bodies, robbers still dug up and removed the bodies - often servants - to send to medical schools. As this practice became more frequent, families attempted to fool the robbers by holding fake funeral ceremonies. Instead of the actual deceased, families buried a large log or another object in the approximate shape of a human body. Later, they would dig up that object and bury the actual body. The practice only ended when laws legalized the study of human bodies for medical purposes, according to a University of Virginia Magazine article published in 2008.
Later, the Civil War added 1,097 graves to the cemetery, most of which are unmarked. These graves constitute a separate area enclosed by walls, called the "Confederate Cemetery." Most of the soldiers buried there were unfortunate patients at the University hospital, which was set up in Lawn rooms, Gilliam said. In addition to these soldiers, Gen. Carnot Posey of a Mississippi regiment was buried in the cemetery after dying from a battle wound in the valley, Gilliam said.
In 1893, a group of Charlottesville women mounted a Confederate statue in the center of the Confederate cemetery and restored the entire cemetery, which was in shambles. The women had raised the money through holding concerts and selling treats to students, according to the article. In 1905, the University created the Society for the Continual Care of the Cemetery of the University of Virginia to prevent the cemetery from ever being in such a ruinous state again.
Soldiers and typhoid victims are not the only cemetery residents, however - there are also two non-humans buried within the walls. "Beta," a black-and-white dog of unknown breed, adopted by the Beta Theta Pi fraternity, was known as the "canine lord of U.Va." in the late 1930s In fact, Beta was the University's first official mascot. After being hit and killed by a car on Rugby Road, Beta's owner built him a coffin and held a funeral, in which 1,000 people walked from the Beta House in a funeral procession to the University Cemetery.
About a decade later, "Great Seal of Virginia," a black dog also of unknown breed, took Beta's place as the University's beloved pet. Seal was well known for his comical performance at a football game against the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, when he trotted to the opposing side and urinated on the megaphone of a cheerleader. After his death, about 1,500 people attended Seal's funeral. The second mascot currently rests in a grave next to Beta's.
Despite the history residing within the walls of the cemetery, Gilliam said he has not heard any rumors of ghosts, although fresh flowers appear on Posey's grave on the anniversary of his death every year. Gilliam does not know who places the flowers on the grave.
Katelyn Smith, a second-year Nursing student and resident adviser, said she had only been in the cemetery twice, including when she was challenged to take a picture of Residence Life staff mourning in a cemetery for a pre-semester scavenger hunt.
While the group snapped a photo, Smith dropped her cell phone and had to go back later at night in the rain to retrieve it. "Although I don't think living next to a cemetery is creepy, going in one on a rainy night sure was," Smith said. "I've never seen any ghosts or heard ghost stories but I'm sure they're out there."
Whether ghosts haunt the cemetery remains a mystery. But if one were to see a ghost in the area, it is likely to be a well-known member of the University community - including three University presidents, a renowned World War II physicist, a beloved basketball coach, a bestselling textbook writer and countless University professors whose last names can be seen across Grounds on first-year dormitories and libraries.
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