Grafton National Cemetery

GPS Coordinates: 39.336092, -80.030423
County: Taylor
Record count: 2,179

Ownership: National Cemetery Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Directions: Located south-west of downtown Grafton, on the west side of Tygart Valley River, along the north side of Walnut St, at the intersection with Cemetery Alley.

Background: In 1867, Maj. R. C. Bates was ordered by the War Department to locate a permanent burial site for the Union soldiers who had died in hospitals and battlefields throughout West Virginia. Bates chose the Grafton location because it was relatively level in a region noted for mountainous terrain and it was near Maple Avenue Cemetery where many war dead had already been buried. The federal government appropriated the three-acre site in 1867. The first interments were in the lower two terraces: 1,252 Union soldiers, 613 of them unknown. Six-inch square markers distinguish the unknown remains. Approximately half the original interments came from Clarksburg, WV. Other remains were brought to the national cemetery from Wheeling, Rich Mountain and Fayette County. In 1903, Thornesberry Baily Brown was reinterred at Grafton National Cemetery. Brown was rumored to be the first Union casualty of the Civil War, having been killed May 22, 1861.

Burial Records

• Veterans Affairs Database, compiled by Interment.net, April 17, 2025, (2,179 records)

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