Christ Church Episcopal Cemetery: Lives Behind the Stones

Christ Church Episcopal Cemetery: Lives Behind the Stones

Profiles of Selected Individuals Interred in Alexandria's Historic Churchyard — from Washington's Household to the Lees of Virginia

Established in 1808 on Wilkes Street, Christ Church Episcopal Cemetery holds an extraordinary cross-section of early American life. This illustrated volume brings its residents back into the light: Caroline Branham, Martha Washington's enslaved chambermaid, present at George Washington's deathbed; Major Samuel Cooper, who threw tea into Boston Harbor at sixteen and fought from Bunker Hill to Monmouth; his son Samuel, the highest-ranking general of the Confederacy; the craftsman who built Washington's mahogany coffin; a merchant scarred in an 1827 pistol duel; a volunteer firefighter lost in the Dowell China Shop fire; and four generations of the Lee family — twenty-six Lees in all — including the cousin in whose parlor Robert E. Lee was offered command of Virginia's forces.

Drawn from twelve years of original research in cemetery records, newspaper archives, and family papers, each profile includes:

• Full biographical essays with period photographs and documents
• Gravestone inscriptions transcribed exactly as carved
• Plot locations for visitors who want to stand at the stones themselves

Whether you're tracing Alexandria ancestors, preparing to walk the Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex, or simply love the stories history leaves in stone, this is the churchyard's definitive companion.

Digital PDF edition • 51 pages • Published by Gravestone Stories, 2026