Rock Creek Cemetery

Rock Creek Church Yard and Cemetery
Location Webster Street and Rock Creek Church Road, NW, Washington, D.C.
Coordinates 38°56′52″N 77°0′47″W / 38.94778°N 77.01306°W / 38.94778; -77.01306Coordinates: 38°56′52″N 77°0′47″W / 38.94778°N 77.01306°W / 38.94778; -77.01306
Area 84.2 acres (34.1 ha)
Built 1719
Architectural style Gothic Revival
NRHP Reference # 77001498[1]
Added to NRHP August 12, 1977

Rock Creek Cemetery is an 86-acre (350,000 m2) cemetery with a natural rolling landscape located at Rock Creek Church Road, NW, and Webster Street, NW, off Hawaii Avenue, NE in Washington, D.C.'s Petworth neighborhood. It is across the street from the historic Soldiers' Home and the Soldiers' Home Cemetery. It also is home to the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington. On August 12, 1977, Rock Creek Cemetery and the adjacent church grounds were listed on the National Register of Historic Places as, Rock Creek Church Yard and Cemetery.

History

It was first established in 1719, under the British colony of the Province of Maryland, as a churchyard within the glebe of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Rock Creek Parish. The Vestry later, decided to expand the burial ground, as a public cemetery, to serve the city of D.C. Washington, which had acquired the cemetery, within its 1791 established, District boundaries, formerly, a part of the state of Maryland, and formally established through an Act of Congress in 1840.

The expanded Cemetery was landscaped in the rural garden style, to function as both a cemetery and a public park. It is a ministry of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Rock Creek Parish with sections for St. John's Russian Orthodox Church and St. Nicholas Orthodox Church.

Rock Creek Cemetery's park-like setting has many notable mausoleums, sculptures, and tombstones. The best known is Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Stanford White's Adams Memorial, a contemplative, androgynous bronze sculpture seated before a block of granite. It marks the graves of Marian Hooper “Clover" Adams and her husband, Henry Adams, and sometimes mistakenly, the sculpture is referred to as Grief.[2][3] Saint-Gaudens entitled it The Mystery of the Hereafter and The Peace of God that Passeth Understanding.

Other notable memorials include the Frederick Keep Monument, the Heurich Mausoleum, the Hitt Monument, the Hardon Monument, the Kauffman Monument, known as The Seven Ages of Memory, the Sherwood Mausoleum Door, and the Thompson-Harding Monument.[4]

Sculptors with works in the cemetery

Notable interments

Contents :

A

B

Gravesite of Emile Berliner and family members

C

D

E

F

G

Gravesite of Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor

H

J

K

Gravesite of Oliver Hudson Kelley

L

M

N

Gravesite of George Washington Riggs

P

R

S

Gravesite of Upton Sinclair

T

V

Gravesite of Charles Doolittle Walcott

W

Y

See also

References

  1. Staff (2009-03-13). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
  2. "Augustus Saint-Gaudens". Retrieved 2008-06-29.
  3. "1886 The Adams Memorial". Retrieved 2008-06-29.
  4. "Cultural Tourism DC". CulturalTourismDC.org. Archived from the original on 2007-10-09. Retrieved 2008-01-12.
  5. Goode, James M. The Outdoor Sculpture of Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. 1974 pp. 343-352
  6. http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=1264J12899JU4.893&source=~!siartinventories&profile=ariall&page=1&group=0&term=Rock+Creek+Cemetery,+Washington,+District+of+Columbia&index=&uindex=&aspect=Browse&menu=search&ri=5&ts=1264013183323&deduping=
  7. Kvaran, Einar E. Cemetery Sculpture in America, unpublished manuscript
  8. Marion, John Francis, Famous and Curious Cemeteries, Crown Publishers Inc., New York, 1977 pp. 78-80
  9. United States Congress. "Thetus W. Sims (id: S000441)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
  10. McGrath, Charles (1 August 2012). "Gore Vidal dies at age 86". Sarasota Herald-Tribune (Halifax Media Group). Retrieved 3 July 2014.
  11. https://www.gwu.edu/~ieresgwu/about/support_yakobson.cfm

External links

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