Historical highway markers

Sinking Spring Cemetery

Historical highway marker K-52 · Washington County

In 1773, the Rev. Charles Cummings became the first minister of the Sinking Spring Presbyterian congregation, among the earliest in Southwest Virginia, and the first meetinghouse was soon constructed here of logs. The earliest marked grave in the cemetery is dated 1776. Buried here are pioneers; veterans of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War; and two antebellum Virginia governors (David Campbell and John B. Floyd, who also served as President James Buchanan's secretary of war). Cummings's log manse, among the oldest east of the Mississippi River, was moved here in 1971 from its original site two miles north.

Department of Historic Resources, 1998