THE STORY
Reported Haunting
Sunset Cemetery is tied to the enduring legend of Christiansburg's Black Sisters: Virginia Wardlaw, Mary Snead, and Caroline Martin. Virginia Wardlaw is buried somewhere in the cemetery in an unmarked grave. According to local folklore, a taxi driver once brought the sisters to the cemetery at night and claimed they gathered around a grave and performed a mysterious ritual. Later stories describe shadowy figures moving among the graves and apparitions of women dressed in black wandering the cemetery. One particularly persistent local legend claims that Virginia Wardlaw can sometimes be seen dancing through the cemetery around midnight. The alleged ritual and paranormal encounters remain folklore, but Virginia Wardlaw's burial at Sunset Cemetery is historically documented.
Sunset Cemetery is a historic municipal cemetery on South Franklin Street in Christiansburg, Virginia. Among those buried there is Virginia Wardlaw, one of the three women remembered locally as the Black Sisters. Her grave is unmarked, and its precise location within the cemetery is not publicly identified.