Congressional Cemetery Books Yield Vast Historical Data

During the early years of Washington's history many of the famous persons who died here were buried in what is now known as Congressional Cemetery, at 1801 E street, S.E.

Up to the time Arlington was dedicated to this purpose it was the nearest approach that the Government had to a national burying ground.

Recent painstaking surveys of its records by the War Department and the Daughters of the American Revolution are yielding a vast amount of hitherto unavailable historical material.

With its earliest tombstones dating back to 1803, the cemetery is the last resting place of many of the patriots who helped guide the formative destiny of our Nation. Here lie, too, rows upon rows of those who defended it from the time of the Revolutionary War up to and shortly after the Civil War.

It became designated as Congressional Cemetery when Congress purchased 925 burial sites there and exercised jurisdiction as to whom might be buried in them.

From 1807 to 1877 16 Senators and 68 Representatives were laid to rest here. Many of them lie in neat, grim rows beneath identical sandstone monuments, bee-hived in shape, and referred to in the old records as "Congressional Cenotaphs."

Here were also buried many individuals at the discretion of and by executive order of Presidents of the United States Among them are envoys and the wives of diplomatic representatives from foreign lands, prominent Government officials and several famous Indian chieftains who died while representing their tribes on missions to "The Great White Father in Washington."

After more than half a century of neglect, Congress again has assumed responsibility for the care and custody of the graves of its own members who sleep beneath the cemetery's ancient trees.

The Quartermaster's Corps has been designated to restore the crumbling sandstone monuments. In connection with this service the War Department completed in February, 1929, a compilation entitled "The Plan and Location of Burial Sites in Congressional Cemetery formerly in the service of the Federal Government or the Confederate States of America." It covers the period from 1807 to 1939.

Heinline Is Superintendent

The present superintendent of Congressional Cemetery, William M. Heinline, a vestryman of Christ Church until his appointment to this post six years ago, is himself an antiquarian at heart. He has taken tremendous interest in the work.

With justifiable pride he tells you "Congressional Cemetery, thanks to the efforts of the War Department and the Daughters of the American Revolution in making its records easily available to the general public, is now one of the greatest treasure houses of genealogical record in the United States."

"Our records," he adds, "are continuous from as early as 1812 to 1813, many of them within their old jackets." It is his hope that Congress may shortly make available an appropriation for having them restored and photostated so that they too, may be viewed by all who have so that they too, may be viewed by all who have an interest in them.

The copies of the records in Congressional Cemetery which the D.A.R. have donated to it, are bound in four volumes which are the gift of the Army-Navy, Thomas Marshall E. Pluribus Unum and Susan Revere Chapters of the District of Columbia. Their range is from 1820 to 1839, 1839 to 1849, 1849 to 1856 and 1857 to 1862.

Indian Chief Buried There

Beside a giant copper beech in the cemetery lies Push-Ma-Ta-Ha, Choctaw chieftain, who fought on the side of Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812. He died while negotiating a treaty for his people in Washington. On his tomb are inscribed his last words, "When I am dead let the big guns be fired over me," a request which was complied with by the Government. "His resting place and that of John Philip Sousa, bandmaster, whose grave overlooks the Sousa Bridge rising in his honor, are the most frequently visited in the cemetery," Supt. Heinline said.

Two other Indian leaders are buried in this vicinity. One is Thomas Pegg, who served as associate justice of the Supreme Court of the Cherokee Nation. The other is Scarlet Crow, a Sioux, for whose tombstone Congress appropriated $100 in recognition of valuable services and friendship toward the Government.

In Congressional Cemetery also rests Commodore John Rogers, who rendered valuable assistance in the defense of Baltimore and refused appointment as Secretary of the Navy to head the Board of Navy Commissioners.

A recently erected tombstone is that to Ann Royall, one of this country's first woman publicists. Inscribed upon it is her own prayer that "the Union of the these States may be eternal."

Not far away is the grave of Judge Cranch, the famous jurist, author of Cranch's Supreme Court Opinions, who tried Ann Royal, for treason.

Mr. Heinline disclosed that David Herold, who drove John Wilkes Booth to his place of temporary refuge in Maryland and who was subsequently hanged for aiding in the escape of this conspirator lies in a nameless grave in Congressional Cemetery, a fact little known to this generation.

Source: The Evening Star, By Jessie Fant Evans

Publication date: May 26, 1940