When Diocese of Arlington officials reached out to Catholic University Anthropology Professor Laura Masur they were seeking to answer a question.

Was a large rectangular anomaly that appeared in a magnetometry and GPR (ground-penetrating radar) survey of a 17th-century family cemetery in Aquia, Va., the foundations of a building, maybe even a colonial Catholic chapel? The cemetery had been established by the George Brent family, influential Catholics in colonial Virginia.

Masur, an assistant professor at The Catholic University of America, is a national expert on the archaeology of Catholic churches, cemeteries, and plantations in the Mid-Atlantic region and on the contributions of enslaved persons to American society and the Catholic Church. She led a team of students on a site dig to the Brent Cemetery in March 2025.

Their work wasn’t the first undertaken at the site, which has been owned by the Diocese of Arlington since 1974. The diocese has facilitated research and restoration over several decades to conserve the sacred burial ground and better understand the history of those buried there. 

This included an investigation by the Archaeological Society of Virginia between 1995 and 2002 that identified the location of the 17th-century Brent residence and uncovered evidence of a strong Indigenous presence dating back thousands of years. The goal of the GPR survey, undertaken in October 2022, was to better establish the cemetery boundaries. 

The Catholic University team did not discover an historic building in the area of their dig, within a century-old brick wall that surrounds the family cemetery. Instead, they found fieldstone grave markers and depressions that had been buried by a flood deposit more than 70 years ago.

A fieldstone or simple wooden cross is a common marker for graves of people who did not have much money, including those who were enslaved. The 1694 will of George Brent identified 25 enslaved persons.

“This new information expanded our understanding of the burial history of the site,” Masur said.

Masur's research, undertaken in close collaboration with the Diocese of Arlington, is now focused on developing the history, which includes identifying the persons who lived and are buried at the site.

The 2022 GPR survey identified 60 burial sites and possibly as many as 88, many of them unmarked. Prior archaeological digs between 1995 and 2002 also identified unmarked graves both inside the brick wall and on a slope outside the wall that leads down toward a swampy area.

Next Step is Locating Descendants

Masur and the Diocese are now working to identify descendants of those buried on the Aquia, Va., land owned by George Brent in the 17th century, so they are part of the dialogue about how to move forward.

“Working with the Diocese of Arlington, we want to honor all those buried at the site, including members of the Brent family and the people that they held in bondage. That includes seeking their descendants and engaging in a dialogue about how to memorialize the burial ground,” Masur said.

Evidence indicates that most burials date to the period of ca. 1670-1775. The Brent family owned the land until 1841, but there is no evidence the cemetery was used after the 18th century.

Masur and the Diocese are seeking records, family trees, and oral histories that may help identify descendants of the Brents and those they enslaved.

The Brent family included many notable members, including Robert Brent, the first mayor of the District of Columbia. The family intermarried over the years with members of the Carroll, Young, Digges, Neale, Mason and Bayly families of Maryland and Virginia.

“As we have found at other sites in this region, it is likely that the descendants of people enslaved by the family could have those names, as well,” Masur said.

Anyone with information is encouraged to contact Laura Masur at [email protected] or Lindsay Alukonis, diocesan archivist, at [email protected].