One man’s search for a hiking partner became a 5,000-member group honoring history

RICHMOND, Va. (Aging Untold) — Dennis Bussey was looking for someone to go hiking with. Now he has thousands of people, and they also volunteer in the community.

How the group started

Bussey, who now lives in Lexington, Virginia, founded James River Hikers, which describes itself as “hiking with history.”

He had walked along the river by himself for a year and a half before starting the group.

“I thought, gosh, I wish I could find someone who would go hiking with me,” Bussey said.

After searching online, he found people to join him. The first meetup drew about seven people, and that was 14 years ago.

“Today we have 5,000 people,” Bussey said.

“We do hikes. We do history. We do social things. We do all kinds of things,” Bussey said.

Cleaning headstones

One of the hikers’ volunteer projects is cleaning gravestones at Shockoe Hill Cemetery.

The cemetery is the final resting place for some of Virginia’s historic figures:

• James Marshall, the nation’s fourth chief justice.
• Elizabeth Van Lew, a Civil War Union spy and abolitionist.
• Dr. William Foushee, the first mayor of Richmond.

When the group first started cleaning at the cemetery, headstones were not legible.

They started the work after they received permission from the city.

Bussey said Foushee was buried 201 years ago and that his headstone was “completely black.”

“Today is the 65th time we were out here cleaning these graves,” Bussey said. “We have cleaned probably 70% of all the stones in this cemetery.”

How the work is funded

Volunteers meet at the cemetery twice a month and scrub the stones.

The work is not cheap. Without donations and grants, the group would not be able to do it.

“Let’s go out and honor these folks and do this thing in a right way,” Bussey said. “And it’s a win-win for everybody.”