The deadest person buried at Hollywood Cemetery

Reader Sarah V. asks, "Who is the deadest person buried at Hollywood Cemetery?"

Answer: Maj. William Mayo, the Brit who laid out Richmond's streets, is likely the deadest person in Hollywood. He's the person buried there who’s been dead the longest.

• But he wasn't Hollywood's first burial.

Frederick William Emrich, who died in June 1849 when he was 18 months old, was the first burial in the cemetery established two years prior, per Hollywood Cemetery.

But back to Mayo. He died in 1744 and was originally interred at his Henrico County plantation, Powhatan Seat, named such because it was thought to be the pre-English settlers center of the Powhatan Confederacy.

In 1894, more than 100 years after his death, Mayo's descendant had "the dust of all the Mayos and others buried at Powhatan Seat" moved to Hollywood.