The Old Presbyterian Meeting House Burial Ground

The Old Presbyterian Meeting House Burial Ground

Hidden beside one of Alexandria’s most historic churches is an 18th-century burial ground that preserves the stories of the city’s founding generation. This 53-page digital guide explores the history, gravestones, mysteries, and remarkable people of the Old Presbyterian Meeting House Burial Ground in Old Town Alexandria.

Church records indicate that approximately 396 people were laid to rest here, beginning before the formal establishment of the congregation and continuing into the 19th century. Today, only about 40 gravestones remain visible, leaving a landscape where much of the history lies beneath the surface.

Discover the story of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the American Revolution, the burial ground’s changing boundaries and lost graves, and the efforts made to preserve the surviving stones. The book also examines how the churchyard developed, why Alexandria’s Presbyterians established a new cemetery on Hamilton Lane in 1809, and how occasional burials continued at the Meeting House for decades afterward.

At the heart of the book are profiles of twenty-nine notable interments, including Alexandria founder John Carlyle and his wife Sarah Fairfax Carlyle, George Washington’s physician Dr. James Craik, Rev. Dr. James Muir, Captain John Harper, Lewis Nicola, Boston Tea Party participant Thomas Porter, gunsmith John Yost, and many others whose lives illuminate colonial Alexandria, the American Revolution, and the early republic.

Surviving gravestone inscriptions are transcribed throughout, allowing readers to encounter not only the people buried here but also the words through which earlier generations chose to remember them.

Explore one of Alexandria’s most historically significant—and often overlooked—sacred spaces, where the history of a congregation, a city, and a young nation come together.

Digital PDF edition • 53 pages • Published by Gravestone Stories, 2026