WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — It's not a street address you can find by typing into a GPS.
For decades, the only way to get to the end of the rural path off of Waller Mill Road in Williamsburg was to have already walked to what is at the end.
"You couldn’t see anything pretty much," Morris Piggott said. "You really had to push stuff out the way to get back here."
"It was in disarray," Collette Roots added.
At a newly-mulched clearing between a patch of tall trees near Waller Mill Park, sits the now-uncovered Oak Grove Church cemetery, a historic African American cemetery dating back as early as 1899.
For decades the cemetery fell into disrepair, caused by overgrowth and vegetation.
“The church is still here, but it was lost during land swapping and eminent domain. The babies buried out here are my family, the whole cemetery. We’re connected from 'The Reservation' to the Magruder area," Roots said.
Piggott, whose one-year-old brother Vincent "Tyrone" Piggott is buried at the cemetery, remembers when he would come as a child to clean the grave site with his parents. Piggott's father, who is believed to be the sole remaining parent of a person buried at Oak Church cemetery, was present for an opening dedication Tuesday afternoon.
“I remember him passing when I was small because I remember my mom crying," Piggott said. "For me that meant us coming out here to clean up the grave, that kept up a lot of the memory, coming out here.”
Roots, whose grandmother is buried at Oak Grove, estimates there are roughly 28 people buried at the site but they expect to discover even more as they continue researching the site.
The developers building the upcoming Waller Mill Heights neighborhood tell 13News Now there will be a memorial and walking trail built alongside the Oak Grove cemetery. Dominion Energy crews have gradually been working to clear the site of trees and overgrowth to uncover the once-buried cemetery.