Historic Congressional CemeteryHistoric Congressional Cemetery dates from the days when Washington, DC, was a burgeoning city on the edge of a malarial swamp. The stones--sandstone tablets with colonial calligraphy, ornate Victorian statues, 20th-century art nouveau carvings, and contemporary markers in shapes as strange as picnic tables and upended cubes--are a time line of the city. The most distinctive stones are 171 cenotaphs; large cubes designed by Capitol architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe from the same sandstone used in the Capitol. They are found nowhere else. The men and women buried under those stones led lives of beauty, courage, struggle, cunning, leadership, and humor--in short, the stories of American history. |
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Abraham Lincoln American APHCC assassination Benjamin Henry Latrobe building buried at Congressional Capitol Hill carved cemetery’s cenotaph Cherokee Christ Church Civil War–era Washington Clinton commanded Corps Croggon crypt Daughters DCPL death designed died in office Edgar Hoover epitaph family plot family vault father federal city Fielding Bradford Meek Forbes Ford’s Theatre funeral Gadsby’s George Washington’s granite gravesite gravestone grew Gunton Hansell Hickman Historic Congressional Cemetery honor House Indian interred John Quincy Adams John Wilkes Booth later Library of Congress Lockwood Macomb Madison’s marble Marine markers members of Congress monument mother National Navy Yard nearby Nicholas Begich obelisk Parish Burial Ground photograph Pleasonton Potomac River Pres president public vault Push-ma-ta-ha reinterred sandstone Scarlet Raven Senate Sousa Star statue Stephen Pleasonton stone Taza Tingey Tolson tombstones tradition of installing Uriah Tracy veterans Victorian visitors Washington Parish Burial Washingtonians Watterston William William Shorey Wirt’s