A Guide to Alexandria's Historic Cemeteries & Burial Grounds

The essential introduction to Alexandria's burial landscape — and the front door to more than two and a half centuries of American history.

Alexandria doesn't keep its history in one place. It rests in thirty-seven documented burial grounds, from the founders' churchyard beneath the Old Presbyterian Meeting House to the fifty-two-acre Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex — thirteen adjoining cemeteries holding more than 35,000 burials, regarded as the most historic cluster of cemeteries in the United States. This illustrated visitor's guide brings the whole landscape into focus:

• The Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex — its origins in the yellow fever epidemic of 1803, the full walking map, and brief portraits of all thirteen cemeteries
• A timeline of burial in Alexandria, 1749 to today
• Dedicated chapters on the Presbyterian Cemetery, the Old Presbyterian Meeting House Burial Ground, and Alexandria National Cemetery
• The African American burial grounds — from the Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery to the 1864 petition of 443 United States Colored Troops, one of the earliest civil rights actions in American history
• The Old Town churchyards, the Quaker Burial Ground, and Virginia's oldest Catholic and Jewish cemeteries
• Six lives behind the stones — the Unknown Soldier of the Revolution, a militiaman killed defending the Potomac in 1814, Rev. Fields Cook, Pvt. Shadrack Murphy, Mayor Henry Strauss, and Gladys Quander Tancil
• A field guide to reading gravestone symbols, materials, and placement
• Visiting guidance, live links, and QR codes to interactive maps, current access information, free walking guides, and tours

I researched and wrote this guide from more than a decade of fieldwork as a public historian, Superintendent of the Presbyterian Cemetery & Columbarium, and founder of Gravestone Stories. Every page is grounded in the primary-source research I publish at gravestonestories.com.

The research and online resources at gravestonestories.com are freely available to everyone. Your purchase of this guide helps support continuing research, website costs, and the development of new historical resources.

This guide is offered Pay What You Want (minimum $5.00) — if you would like to provide additional support, simply choose a higher amount at checkout. Thank you for helping keep Alexandria's stories accessible.

Digital PDF guide • 29 pages •  By David Heiby • Published by Gravestone Stories, 2026