Cedarview Dry Valley Eclipse Long's Seneca Virginia
According to the Seneca Cemetery Book, the first person to be buried in the Seneca Cemetery was Minerva McLaughlin in 1894. She was the third wife of J.J. Steen and he brought her from their home 20 miles northwest of town so she could be buried on the majestic hill that looks over the Seneca Valley. The cemetery is located south of Seneca, about half a mile up the hill. The land for the cemetery was donated by Sybil Garwood Gordon, who is also buried in the cemetery.
A cemetery board was never formed and so the cemetery had never had any real care. It was a sad sight because graves had sunk in and some headstones had toppled over. The good people of Seneca decided that some changes needed to be made so the town board, V.F.W, and volunteers worked to repair the cemetery. They mowed the area, put up fence, and repaired the graves.
In 1924, additional land for the cemetery was purchased from Mr. Porath to meet the needs of the population. A blueprint was drawn up and they have been going by its plan ever since. Dr. Lay (the local physician) began sending questionnaires to people about their history or that of the cemetery. This work was continued by Dallas Vining after Dr. Lay's death. Paul Haffner issued deeds in an effort to form excellent cemetery records. Sadly, these were destroyed in a 1972 home fire so the records had to be reconstructed from old deeds and questionnaires. Lavina Sevier is now in charge of the cemetery records.
The Seneca Cemetery is very well taken care of with immaculate lawns and beautiful white fence that was installed in 2003 by Jesse Sevier. All the maintenance is accomplished by volunteers and according to LaVina Sevier everyone “just pitches in."
Anyone who knows anything about Seneca knows that it has a unique and intriguing history: it is natural that its cemetery is also interesting, yet sad. There is an unknown African American buried in Seneca Cemetery who was found frozen to death in one of the boxcars that made its stop in Seneca. There are at least two people who were shot to death buried in the cemetery and a little girl who drowned in a lily pool.