Congressional Cemetery's Slow Resurrection
Long-Neglected Graveyard Prepares for 200th Year as Resting Place for D.C. Luminaries

By Ryan Holeywell
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, December 22, 2006 2:00 PM

To call it a pet cemetery wouldn't exactly be a misnomer.

On any given day, the District's 199-year-old Congressional Cemetery -- the final resting place for the remains of nearly 55,000 people -- is likely to be teeming with Labradors, schnauzers and retrievers, all of whom are very much alive.

"People's first reaction is uncomfortable sometimes," said Patrick Crowley, vice chairman of the board that oversees the private non-profit graveyard. But he points out that in the early Victorian era a cemetery could be "a family picnic space. ... It was really intended to be a place where people gather and to be a part of families' lives."

Hundreds of families pay a yearly fee for the privilege of letting their dogs off the leash to roam amid the stone obelisks, crosses and religious sculptures that dot the 32-acre landscape just a few blocks from the D.C. jail and the old General Hospital. The fees are used to fund lawn-mowing expenses at the sometimes cash-strapped cemetery where many military leaders, senators, House members, cabinet officials and D.C. mayors lie.

Crowley -- who recalled first bringing his St. Bernard to the site 10 years ago -- said the dog walkers have played a key role in improving the cemetery through their volunteering and fundraising efforts.

"She was eating the muck in the gutters and it was making her sick," Crowley said of his pet. "I thought, 'Why don't they fix this and why don't they fix that? Why are they so incompetent?' And I realized there was no 'they.' If anything was going to happen, it was going to be us."

The National Trust for Historic Preservation listed Congressional as one of its 11 most-endangered historic sites in 1997. At that time, the cemetery -- which boasts longtime FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, U.S. Marine band conductor and march composer John Philip Sousa, and Declaration of Independence signer Elbridge Gerry among its denizens -- was "suffering from increasing neglect, vandalism and theft," according to the National Trust.

Since then volunteers have been activated, and Congress has created a $2 million endowment and allocated several million dollars for vault repairs, tree removal and road fixes, said Linda Harper, chairwoman of the cemetery's board. In the last 10 years, about a quarter of the vaults have been repaired, 300 new trees planted and more than 300 headstones restored, Harper said. While caretakers once had to worry about keeping visitors safe from "falling in a hole or having a monument falling on them," Harper said, now they can spend time studying how they can best tell its story.

Financial Concerns

But Congressional's condition is still far from perfect. In 2000, former cemetery supervisor John Hanley was charged with embezzling thousands of dollars. The roof of the 103-year-old chapel is damaged. Many tombstones jut from the ground at awkward angles, and others have been knocked flat. The roads are not fully paved yet, and the east edge of the grounds is cluttered with debris. The cemetery will likely have to curtail efforts in some areas just to afford mowing costs, which Crowley said will increase next year due to rising fuel prices.

This all occurs at a time when the cemetery is trying to channel resources toward events for its bicentennial next year.

"It's out of sight, out of mind and not a federal responsibility," said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), who has advocated for the cemetery. "Nobody has assumed responsibility for trying to be helpful." Because the cemetery is no local or federal agency's responsibility, funding continues to remain an issue of vital concern to those who run it.

"It's sad to have a cemetery called 'the Congressional Cemetery' that has looked the way it looks because of its lack of funding," said Dorgan, who first discovered it when visiting the grave of Scarlet Crow, a Sioux delegate who died while visiting Washington to protest the removal of his people from Minnesota to South Dakota. "That is not a way to memorialize [people], to let it fall into great disrepair."

Harper explained in an e-mail that the millions designated for the cemetery's use come with restrictions that still leave funding holes in restoration and upkeep efforts. The federal appropriations can only go toward specific kinds of repairs, she wrote, while the endowment serves merely as a source of potential interest income. And because that interest income can only be used for maintenance, conservation and contract work, it can't be used for new construction, such as replacing the cemetery's derelict garage.

Congressional is still operating in "catch-up mode" after suffering from years of deferred maintenance, Harper said. General donations "allow us the ability to keep the doors open" by paying for things like a small part-time staff, utility bills and brochures. The cemetery's total 2007 budget will be about $450,000, but less than $200,000 of that comes from general contributions, she said.

The Other National Cemetery

The cemetery hasn't always been out of sight and out of mind. Within just three months of its 1807 opening, Sen. Uriah Tracy of Connecticut became the first member of Congress to be buried there, said Sandy Schmidt, a board member and the cemetery's archivist. At that time it became the country's de facto national graveyard. A tradition emerged to memorialize dead legislators with the symmetrical sandstone blocks that line the central part of the cemetery. Designed by former Capitol architect Benjamin Latrobe, the blocks -- called cenotaphs -- will be subject to a $1.75 million conservation project funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs this spring, said Sara Leach, senior historian at the National Cemetery Administration.

Prominent local and national figures continued to be buried at the cemetery, but after the Civil War the federal government started burying dead soldiers on the grounds of Robert E. Lee's mansion in Arlington, Harper said. The government bought that land in 1883 and it became Arlington National Cemetery, essentially taking over the role Congressional once held. By the 1930s Congress had decided it wanted "out of the cemetery business," Schmidt said, and it wasn't until about 25 years ago that it started thinking about funding it again.

"I think as the 20th century progressed, the emphasis was on Arlington," said John Philip Sousa Pugh, great-grandnephew of the composer. "Generations just forgot about Congressional. It sort of became a stepchild. It was there, but people just didn't appreciate it."

Although in some ways Congressional Cemetery lies in the shadow of Arlington, those who oversee the burial ground don't necessarily view that as negative.

"We know we're never going to have the tourists that Arlington has, and I'm not sure if we could handle that," Harper said. "I don't know that we're striving to be that sort of site. I always laugh -- we are one of Washington's best-kept secrets, even to people who live on Capitol Hill."

Part of what makes Congressional unique is the diverse group buried there, which includes everyone from laborers who helped construct the Capitol to some of the first people who held office in it.

"That's part of the charm of the place. It doesn't just reflect one focus of our history. It reflects people of all economic standpoints, of all walks of life," Harper said. The cemetery continues to allow anyone to be buried there, with sites costing $2,000 to $4,000.

The cemetery is important to members of the Capitol Hill community as well. John Capozzi, who has lived in the Barney Circle neighborhood just west of the cemetery since 1988, said he jogs at the burial ground and brings his children there to play with dogs.

"It's very peaceful," Capozzi said. "It's a great place to regroup. It's kind of like you're not in the city anymore."