From left, Daniel Castro, Wilson Zelaya and Jose Hernandez complete work last Friday on a new foundation for the John Jasper Monument at Woodland Cemetery on Magnolia Road in East Highland Park. Rev. Jasper, who was born into slavery in Fluvanna County, founded Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church in Jackson Ward after his own emancipation following the Civil War.

A renowned orator, Rev. Jasper died in March 1901 and was interred in Mechanics Cemetery in Richmond’s Barton Heights, according to church history. The church installed the obelisk at his gravesite in 1905.

According to church history, Mechanics Cemetery became overgrown and the city threatened to sell the land and have all of the bodies moved. The church then moved the graves of Rev. Jasper and his wife, Mary, and the monument to Woodland Cemetery in April 1918.

The foundation around the monument’s base “was showing signs of age,” said Benjamin Ross, a historian for Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church, who volunteers to help maintain about 20 gravesites in Woodland Cemetery, including that of Rev. Jasper and his wife.

The nonprofit Woodland Restoration Foundation, led by founder Marvin Harris, purchased the 30-acre privately owned cemetery last year with donations, including from Henrico County.

“They are moving past the cleanup and into restoration of gravesites,” Mr. Ross said. Restoration work has begun on the cemetery’s fountain, chapel and entry gates.

In addition to Rev. Jasper and others, the historic cemetery is the final resting place for tennis great and humanitarian Arthur Ashe Jr.