Diuguid Funeral Services & Crematory - Timberlake

Diuguid Funeral Service & Crematory is a funeral home with on-site crematory in Lynchburg, Virginia. Established in 1817, it is the oldest funeral home in Virginia and the second oldest in the United States. The Timberlake Road facility, open since 1982, has been the firm's sole location since the permanent closure of its Wiggington Road branch in 2021. Services include burial, cremation, funeral and memorial services, pre-need planning, reception and catered events, and veterans services including military honors.

Sampson Diuguid, a furniture maker who relocated from Appomattox to Lynchburg in 1817, established his original shop at 616 Main Street. He initially operated under the partnership name Winston and Diuguid, advertised in the Lynchburg Press as "Cabinetmakers, Upholsters, and Undertakers" — a designation that encompassed coffin construction and hearse services alongside cabinet work. The partnership dissolved in the late 1820s, and Diuguid continued independently, purchasing the Main Street property in 1827. The earliest surviving entry in the firm's burial records dates to January 14, 1820, documenting a coffin order for the child of John Victor, a local silversmith, paid with a set of silver spoons. By 1830, the firm had transitioned from coffin-making to structured burial services encompassing grave digging, hearse transportation, burial shrouds, and pallbearer arrangements. Sampson Diuguid died in 1856, transferring the business to his sons George A. Diuguid and David P. Diuguid.

During the Civil War, the firm was commissioned by the Confederate government to embalm and bury military dead. In 1864, Lynchburg citizens successfully petitioned to exempt George A. Diuguid from Confederate Army conscription, on the grounds that he was the city's sole remaining undertaker. In 1881, following wide national attention on the state funeral of President James A. Garfield, George A. Diuguid and his son William D. Diuguid developed the wheeled catafalque — known in the funeral industry as the church truck — a device designed to transport heavy caskets through the narrow aisles of church sanctuaries. George A. Diuguid died in 1893, and William D. Diuguid assumed full operational control as the third generation of the founding family. After 59 years of service with the firm, William D. Diuguid died in 1927, and the business passed to his daughter Mary Sampson Diuguid — the fourth and final generation of the founding family to lead the company.

The firm relocated from its original Main Street address to 1016 Rivermont Avenue in 1931. In 1946, Mary Sampson Diuguid sold the business to John C. McKee and W. Ford McKee, ending more than a century of direct family ownership. A second location — originally designated Waterlick Chapel, named for its proximity to Waterlick Road (State Route 622) — opened on Timberlake Road in 1982, and the main facility subsequently relocated to Wiggington Road in 1998. In 2017, the city of Lynchburg formally marked the firm's bicentennial: Mayor Joan Foster signed a proclamation designating October 29, 2017 as Diuguid Funeral Service Day.

The Timberlake Road facility includes a chapel, reception and event space, an on-site crematory, and accommodations for identification and private viewings.

Diuguid Funeral Service & Crematory does not operate an on-site cemetery and does not offer pet cremation services.

Families frequently name individual staff members in reviews, describing a patient, attentive approach and a service process consistently noted as well-organized and efficient.