Blandford Church and Cemetery
Posted by: 
showbizkid
N 37° 13.569 W 077° 23.310
18S E 288095 N 4122633
Blandford Church was in use from 1735 to 1806 and then abandoned. It was restored in 1901 as a Confederate Memorial chapel. The cemetery is quite large and includes a separate Confederate section with some 30,000 dead buried there. This marker was placed in 1931
Waymark Code: WMKF7
Location: Virginia, United States
Date Posted: 08/08/2006
Views: 12
The marker reads:
BLANDFORD CHURCH AND CEMETERY THE BRICK CHURCH ON WELL'S HILL, NOW
KNOWN AS OLD BLANDFORD CHURCH,
WAS BUILT BETWEEN 1734 AND 1737. THE
BRITISH GENERAL PHILIPS WAS BURIED IN
THE CHURCHYARD IN 1781. IN THE CEMETERY
IS A MONUMENT TO CAPTAIN MCRAE AND THE
PETERSBURG VOLUNTEERS, WHO AT FORT
MEIGS IN 1813 WON FOR PETERSBURG
THE NAME OF THE "COCKADE CITY OF THE
UNION." SOLDIERS OF SIX WARS REST HERE,
AMONG THEM 30,000 CONFEDERATES.
Alright, I had to look "cockade" up since this term is not exactly in common usage. I’m not sure it was even in wide use in 1931, when this marker was placed. A cockade is “an ornament, such as a rosette or knot of ribbon, usually worn on the hat as a badge.” With revolutionaries in the 18th centuries, the color or your cockade denoted which faction you sided with. Cockades also appeared on military garb. President Madison called Petersburg "The Cockade City of the Union" after seeing the Petersburg Volunteers on their return from the War of 1812, wearing hats with leather cockades or emblems.
This is an interesting old church and a very large cemetery. The separate Confederate cemetery contains tens of thousands of grave, some marked, many in mass graves.
Blandford Church was built in 1735 as the seat of worship for members of Bristol Parish. The church building was abandoned in 1806 when membership in its congregation dwindled as a result of the consecration of a new church building in downtown Petersburg. In 1901, work began to restore the building for use as a Confederate Memorial chapel. The Ladies Memorial Association of Petersburg organized the restoration campaign. As part of the restoration project, the Ladies Memorial Association solicited funds from each former Confederate state for the creation and installation of a stained glass window in memory of the Confederate soldiers from that state.