European Immigrants

European Immigrants. . , Buried throughout the cemetery are hundreds of European immigrants who came to Lynchburg and the surrounding counties, ca. 1820-1920. They sailed to America seeking economic opportunity and refuge from war and famine, from countries including Ireland, Germany, Scotland, England, and Italy. They made important and diverse contributions to Lynchburg during their lives, and are an integral part of the cemetery today., Three-quarters of the immigrants buried here are Irish. Most were laborers who found work building Lynchburg's impressive canal and rail systems. Like the Griffen family from County Kerry in southwest Ireland, they could not afford private plots elsewhere, and thus were buried here, in the city's Potter's Field. This section, used ca. 1840-1910, is located across this side of the cemetery towards the exit drive fence. 🢄 Other Irish immigrants became very successful artisans and businessmen, like the master stone mason James Scurry (1820-1869). His massive stone and ironwork family plot is along the left side of the entrance drive. 🢂, Francis A. Friedhoff (1796-1865) came with his family from Prussia (modern Germany) in 1838, and began working in Lynchburg as a sockmaker and locksmith. His grave marker has not survived time and weather, but the gravestone of his son, Herman, still stands farther down the hill. 🢅 Herman A. Friedhoff (1830-1887) was a sockmaker and gunsmith, and a veteran of the Confederate Army., The small Ambrozini ironwork enclosure near the Gatehouse 🢄 marks the grave of James Ambrozini (1806-1859), a grocer and one of Lynchburg's first Italian citizens. He came from the city of Trieste, then part of Austria, in the late 1840s.