Oakwood Cemetery is a large, city-owned burial ground in the East End of Richmond, Virginia. Richmond established its first municipal cemetery at Shockoe Hill in 1820. The ground was very popular, and by the early 1850s, space was scarce for new burials. The city responded by buying two tracts in what was then Henrico County in 1854, totalling about 66 acres. The first burials were in 1856, under the aegis of the city's new Committee on Burying Grounds.