Follow
Our Nation's Capital's Historic German-American Cemetery. Established 1858. 2201 North Capitol Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002
Prospect Hill Cemetery, also known as the German Cemetery, is a historic German-American cemetery founded in 1858 and located at 2201 North Capitol Street in Washington, D.C. From 1886 to 1895, the Prospect Hill Cemetery board of directors battled a rival organization which illegally attempted to take title to the grounds and sell a portion of them as building lots. From 1886 to 1898, the cemetery also engaged in a struggle against the District of Columbia and the United States Congress, which wanted construct a main road (North Capitol Street) through the center of the cemetery. This led to the passage of an Act of Congress, the declaration of a federal law to be unconstitutional, the passage of a second Act of Congress, a second major court battle, and the declaration by the courts that the city's eminent domain procedures were unconstitutional. North Capitol Street was built, and the cemetery compensated fairly for its property.
In the 20th century, Prospect Hill Cemetery sold unneeded land, dismantled its chapel, and repositioned the cemetery's main entrance toward North Capitol Street and away from Lincoln Road NE. Established as a burying ground for members of the Lutheran faith, it gradually became a secular cemetery. Prospect Hill remains an active cemetery, and continues to accept burials.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospect_Hill_Cemetery_(Washington,_D.C.)
Find a Grave
Prospect Hill Cemetery was founded in 1858 by the German Evangelical Society, a men’s organization from Concordia Church.
This small cemetery associated with Concordia Church, located between 4th, 5th, G and H Streets, NE was filling fast upon its establishment in the mid-1800s. As with other cemeteries at the time, District law forbade the expansion of burying grounds within Washington City limits. However, plenty of available land existed in Washington County. The German Evangelical Society purchased seventeen acres along what is now Lincoln Road immediately south of Glenwood Cemetery, established only four years earlier.
Prospect Hill is notable for its distinctive design that embodies the Romantic landscape architecture of the Victorian era. It is a relatively early example of the garden cemeteries created and popularized in the United States beginning in the 1830s. The picturesqueness of its plan and the arrangement and character of its markers and mausoleums are similar to the adjacent Glenwood Cemetery (1854) and nearby Saint Mary’s Catholic Cemetery (1869). The collection of markers are notable as well: marble or limestone headstones became ubiquitous in this region during the mid nineteenth century. Later, the inclusion of larger and more elaborate monuments (including sculpture based headstones) began to appear in the cemetery.
Today, Prospect Hill remains an active cemetery and has moved away from exclusively Lutheran burials to accept secular ceremonies.
DC Inventory: March 24, 2005
Founded outside of city limits in 1858 by the German Evangelical Society,and incorporated in 1860 by an act of the U.S. Congress, this once rural cemetery was plotted on elevated ground with views of the U.S. Capitol. Located in the Edgewood neighborhood, the cemetery, originally comprising seventeen acres, has decreased in size over time, beginning with the loss of three acres when North Capitol Street was extended in 1897. The extension divided the cemetery in two, leaving an undeveloped five acres (which was sold in 1922) west of the road. Original structures, including a farmhouse that antedated the cemetery and a chapel, were demolished in the mid-twentieth century. A stone retaining wall was built around the burial ground in 1917, and a gatehouse dating from 1873 was replaced in 1927 as part of the cemetery’s realignment of the main gate from Lincoln Street to North Prospect Street. A stone superintendent’s house was added adjacent to the new entrance that same year. Following decades of decline and budgetary constraints, the cemetery began to be beautified in the early 2000s. Roads and fences were repaired, and a memorial garden was introduced along its northern edge to screen the adjacent Glenwood Cemetery’s maintenance yard.
The cemetery features rows of grave markers and curvilinear roadways weaving through gently rolling terrain interspersed with large deciduous canopy trees. Aligned on axis with Lincoln Road, a prominent ellipse-shaped plot with a densely planted interior is intersected by radial paths. Several nineteenth-century mausolea are situated near the cemetery’s entrance, a pair of stone gates that blend seamlessly with the surrounding retaining wall topped by iron fencing.