For generations, Barger Cemetery has stood quietly on the edge of campus, dotted with headstones bearing the names of people who helped shape the community. Dating to 1791, the cemetery holds a history older than the Town of Blacksburg, which eventually grew around it. Intricate carvings are being worn away or are being destroyed by vandals. Inscriptions that once told family stories are becoming increasingly difficult to read.
Determined to ensure those stories are not lost, local community members Jon Dudding and Nancy Moseley connected with Todd Ogle, executive director of Applied Research in Immersive Experiences and Simulations (ARIES) at University Libraries. Together, they are exploring ways to digitally document and preserve the cemetery's headstones before the details disappear forever.
Beyond preserving stone markers, the project is an opportunity to safeguard local history, honor those who came before, and leverage emerging technologies to make that history accessible to future generations.
One neighbor takes responsibility
The project began long before discussions of digital preservation. "I adopted care and maintenance of Barger Cemetery over a decade ago, when I walked by and observed it being an overgrown mess, littered with beer cans and headstones knocked over, just a really disrespectful sight," said Dudding.
For more than a decade, he has invested his own time and resources into maintaining and protecting the cemetery.
"I've done all of this work on my own dime, while working full time and taking care of my family," said Dudding. "I do all of the seasonal landscaping work, like mowing and leaf removal and mulching. I've had dead trees removed and have worked a lot on the fence, cutting out tree stumps that had grown through it. I just wanted it not to be such an eyesore in the middle of town and on the edge of campus."
As he spent more time caring for the cemetery, his interest in the people buried there grew.
"Spending so much time there, I became interested in the family and the history, and I paid particular attention to the condition of the headstones,” said Dudding. “They are so ornate and beautiful and meticulously capture a moment in time. I want to find a way to digitally preserve the artwork and the history of the family so future generations can enjoy the information. They hold so many stories.”
A history older than Blacksburg
Revolutionary War soldier Phillip Barger, who died in 1803, is buried there and remembered through a marker later placed by the Daughters of the American Revolution.
"They were the only family to return to Blacksburg after the Draper's Meadow Massacre in 1755, which took place where the present-day Duck Pond sits,” said Dudding. “Part of their original 450 acres was sold to Virginia Tech."
From restoring one stone to preserving them all
The idea of digitally preserving Barger Cemetery came from efforts to replace a vandalized and broken marker from the grave of Rebecca Virginia Barger, who died at just seven years old. Dudding and Moseley digitized the inscription and then had it recreated on a new headstone by a stone carver in Indiana.
That experience sparked new questions about how the cemetery's history could be preserved. “The whole process got us thinking about how best to archive the headstones and the history of the family, so generations past us can access the information easily,” said Moseley.
Ogle is using lidar technology to help capture and preserve the cemetery's details. The long-term vision includes digital archives, detailed scans of individual stones, and potentially interactive tools that allow visitors to engage with local history in new ways.
“When I first met Jon at the cemetery, I performed a few quick scans using my mobile phone and its lidar sensor to get visually accurate models,” said Ogle. “To meet Jon’s desire to have the option to reproduce a headstone if it were damaged, I returned with our specialized lidar scanner, which is capable of accuracy down to 1mm. Sharing our capabilities in University Libraries with the community is an important part of our land grant mission at Virginia Tech.”
A university and community connection
The connection with University Libraries could help preserve more than the physical details of the headstones, bringing together technology, archival resources, and the community knowledge surrounding the cemetery.
"There is an existing file in University Libraries’ Special Collections and University Archives on the Barger family and the cemetery," said Mosely. "Executing this project idea by preserving the headstones digitally, and potentially utilizing QR codes or augmented reality, would be an amazing example of university and local community collaboration."
The team envisions a future in which technology helps visitors connect directly with the people whose stories shaped the region.
"The cemetery could be a very interesting place for folks to visit and learn something new,” said Dudding. “Imagine what it would be like to stand in front of a centuries-old headstone and use your smartphone to activate a talking reenactor, portraying that person and talking right to you about his life. I feel strongly that these headstones are works of art, and I believe they should be able to be enjoyed for generations to come."
Before the inscriptions fade
After years spent bringing the cemetery back from neglect, Dudding is now focused on ensuring its history is not lost again.
"I am a firm believer that we should not bury history, pun intended," said Dudding. "I believe it is the duty of the current generation to take full advantage of the resources available to expand the horizons of forthcoming generations."
He has already seen how easily a historic place can slip from public memory.
“One generation let the Barger Cemetery basically disappear,” said Dudding. “And it's taken almost a second generation to bring it back to a respectable state.”
Now, the effort is about preserving what remains before more is lost to time. Each gravestone marks a life, a family, and a chapter in the history of Blacksburg. By documenting the stones while their inscriptions and other details can still be captured, the team hopes to preserve what time will eventually erase.
“The stones may continue to weather, and their inscriptions may continue to fade,” said Ogle. “But the history does not have to disappear with them.”
