With over 11,000 graves today, Woodlawn is known as the resting place of many great people who helped make Fairmont, Marion County, West Virginia and the nation.
Prominent interments include Francis and Julia Pierpont, Thomas and Annie Fleming, Matthew M. Neely, James O. Watson, Aretas B. Fleming, Boaz Fleming and Peter Miller.
Check out the video library of historic burials at Woodlawn Cemetery
Annual “Winter at Woodlawn” Open House
The annual “Winter at Woodlawn” open house and historic tour takes place in early December each year at Fairmont’s historic Woodlawn Cemetery on Maple Avenue.
The event is held in the Superintendent’s House and Chapel at the entry of Woodlawn. Guests can tour two floors of the restored building, enjoy tea and refreshments, and learn much from the past 150 years at this Fairmont landmark on the National Registry of Historic Places.
Julie Pierpont Day
On Decoration Day, today known as Memorial Day, mourners honored the Civil War dead by decorating their graves with flowers.
Julia Pierpont, wife of the Governor of Restored Virginia, Francis H. Pierpont of Fairmont, (West) Virginia, also recognized as “The Father of West Virginia”, felt that the graves of Union Soldiers buried in Hollywood Cemetery, overlooking Richmond, were looking shabby and neglected. She and a Miss Woolsey, a New Yorker teaching in the school for African American children, decided to decorate and beautify the graves.
Julia Pierpont is credited for inspiring the nation and is honored annually at the historic M.E. Church and then Woodlawn Cemetery. This event is often held on the Saturday before Memorial Day (or around late May).
