Good forHistory buffs
She purchased the land in 1833 — more than two acres just south of the university, in a free African American community called Canada. Catherine "Kitty" Foster was born enslaved, worked as a seamstress and laundress serving students and faculty, and is buried on the property she owned. Archaeologists found the cemetery in 1993. What remains on the nearly three-quarter-acre site: a domestic basement, a brick-lined well, likely a smokehouse foundation, and the graves. The university dedicated a memorial park in 2011. The site entered the National Register in 2016.
Quick facts
- ·Documents the service relationship between free African Americans and UVA in the pre- and post-Civil War eras.
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Editorial content compiled with AI assistance. Place details verified against public records.