The Warner and Lewis Cemetery on the grounds of Warner Hall is among the most historic spots on the property. Want to know more about this hallowed ground? Here’s what we published in our book, Warner Hall: Story of a Great Plantation, by Dave Brown and Thane Harpole.
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In 1944, Mr. Warner Lewis, an Oklahoma oil man living in Washington, took an avid interest in the cemetery at Warner Hall.
J.C. Harrington, acting superintendent of the Yorktown National Monument, put him in touch with Mrs. N.C. Hopkins of Nuttall, the Directress of the Joseph Bryan branch of the APVA care taking the cemetery.
In a letter written later that year, Mr. Lewis wrote, “since my name appeared on three of the ten markers, I felt somewhat of an urge to do something about cleaning up this sadly neglected plot and to prepare a scale-plat of the various slabs, photograph each of the markers, and copy all the inscriptions from each of them.”
Mr. Lewis added, “some of the inscriptions are very illegible, and one marker is so badly broken and patched with cement, that all identity is lost.”
He refers to a trip in the next month or two to clean and photograph the tombs. Harrington believed that the cemetery wall was erected by the APVA shortly after acquiring the plot from Alfred Withers in 1903.
In 1960, the Pocahontas Chapter of the Virginia Society of the Daughters of the American Colonists places a bronze tablet in memory of Mildred Warner.
The text from the tablet, located on the face of the cemetery wall is as follows: MILDRED WARNER, DAUGHTER OF AUGUSTINE WARNER II AND MILDRED READE, MARRIED LAWRENCE WASHINGTON GRANDMOTHER OF GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON, DIED AT WHITEHAVEN, ENGLAND 1701, HER BODY REST IN ST. NICHOLAS CHURCHYARD, WHITEHAVEN, ENGLAND.
Want to read more excerpts from the book?
Mrs. Martha Page Vandegrift Remembers Warner Hall