THE WAUPACA COUNTY POST

June 24, 1993

 

WHEN THEN WAS NOW

By Wayne A. Guyant

 

            Since I am the present custodian of the scrapbook collection belonging to the Wisconsin State Old Cemetery Society, I periodically receive articles from members throughout the state concerning the different activities about old cemeteries somewhere here in Wisconsin.  Occasionally, there are interesting stories about cemeteries in other states.

            On June 15, I received a large package of clippings to add to the scrapbooks.  In this collection, I found an interesting article that had appeared in the Milwaukee Journal in 1991 written by Barbara S. Moffet, under the heading “the great and infamous lie at rest in the forgotten Congressional Cemetery.”  We will now leave the Waupaca area and look into some of our history in Washington D.C. as told by Barbara S. Moffet.

            It was in the early years of the 1800s, when members of Congress faced the question as to how they could best pay tribute to members who died while in office.  The legislators didn’t have far to look for an answer.  They decided that their late colleagues should be honored by being buried about a mile and a half southeast of the Capitol, in a picturesque site on the banks of the Anacostia River.  This site was known as the “Washington Parish Burial Ground.”  It had just recently been purchased by members of the nearby Church of Christ.

            So, beginning with Senator Uriah Tracy of Connecticut in 1807, nearly every early congressman who died while in office was buried there. Congress supported the cemetery with government funds, and even commissioned architect Benjamin Latrobe to design a uniform sandstone marker for each grave.  It was not long before the site became known as Congressional Cemetery.

            Great processions of carriages would wind their way to the cemetery for services, while the Capitol closed for the day, but the tradition died young.  In the mid-1830s, the nation’s railroads could whisk the bodies of the dignitaries to their home state for burial.

            Congressional Cemetery waned, although, until 1876 a cenotaph (empty tomb) was erected in memory of each congressman who died in office.  In 1877, the custom was halted, and from then on, our country’s national burial ground was to be Arlington National Cemetery, leaving Congressional Cemetery to be haunted by ghosts of promises past.

            Before Congressional Cemetery was abandoned, almost 100 senators and representatives had been interred there, along with two U.S. presidents, John Adams and Zachary Taylor were later transferred to their home states, as were the remains of Dolly Madison and statesmen John C. Calhoun and Henry Clay.

            Notables still at rest in the Congressional Cemetery include several Revolutionary War generals, the first architect of the Capitol building, newspaper editor Joseph Cales, and Indian leaders such as Push-Ma-Ta, a Choctaw chief who died in Washington D.C. in 1825 while there to negotiate a treaty with the U.S. government.

            Since its heyday, Congressional Cemetery has been the burial place for other notables, such as the Civil War photographer Matthew Brady, who died in poverty in 1896. The Marines file in every year for a ceremony at the grave of Marine Corps bandmaster John Philip Sousa, who died in 1932, and John Edgar Hoover, longtime FBI director, who died in 1972 and is buried alongside his parents and sister, Sadie.

            Most of the rest of the 80,000 graves contain the remains of the not-so-famous and a few of the infamous.  There is a three-foot high Victorian sculpture of a 10-year-old girl who was Washington D.C.’s first traffic accident victim in 1904.

            There is a monument that stands over a mass grave of 21 women killed in an explosion in 1864 at the Washington Arsenal.

            There are several people connected to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln buried in Congressional, including David Edgar Herold, hanged as a conspirator in the case.

            Today, Congressional Cemetery is a rather lonely place, tucked away in one of Washington’s working class neighborhoods suffering from the many years of neglect and defacement by vandals and stray dogs.  Federal appropriations for the upkeep dried up many years ago.  The most recent unsuccessful effort to get federal money was during the bi-centennial.

            Peter Larson, who was the caretaker in 1981 said in 1969, when he moved there, the weeds were up to his waist. The weeds are no longer up to his waist, but the lack of money keeps him from fixing many overturned stones and making other repairs.  Keeping the 30 acres of grass cut proves to be a problem.  Congressional Cemetery is now administered by a citizens group called The Congressional Cemetery Association, and relies on private donations.

            Throughout the years, there have been many members of Congress that have tried unsuccessfully to get Congressional federally funded.

            Another booster was Rep. Lindy Boggs (D-La.) who decided to erect a cenotaph in memory of her late husband, Rep. Hale Boggs, who disappeared in a plane crash in Alaska in 1972.