Oak Hill Cemetery (Washington, D.C.)

Oak Hill began in 1848 as part of the rural cemetery movement, directly inspired by the success of Mount Auburn Cemetery near Boston, Massachusetts, when William Wilson Corcoran (also founder of the Corcoran Gallery of Art) purchased {{convert|15|acre|ha}} of land.{{Cite news|url=https://georgetownmetropolitan.com/2010/03/18/the-famous-tenants-of-oak-hill-cemetery/|title=The Famous Tenants of Oak Hill Cemetery|date=2010-03-18|work=The Georgetown Metropolitan|access-date=2017-10-20|language=en-US}} He then organized the Cemetery Company to oversee Oak Hill; it was incorporated by act of Congress on March 3, 1849.

Oak Hill's chapel was built in 1849 by noted architect James Renwick, who also designed the Smithsonian Institution's Castle on Washington Mall and St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York. His one-story rectangular chapel measures 23 by 41 feet (7×12 m) and sits on the cemetery's highest ridge. It is built of blue gneiss, in Gothic Revival style, with exterior trim in the same red Seneca sandstone used for the Castle.

By 1851, landscape designer Captain George F. de la Roche finished laying out the winding paths and terraces descending into Rock Creek valley. When initial construction was completed in 1853, Corcoran had spent over $55,000 on the cemetery's landscaping and architecture.

On October 4, 2022, historic preservationist Paul K. Williams became the cemetery's 14th Superintendent in residence and COO of the Oak Hill Cemetery Historic Cemetery Foundation.

{{Main|List of burials at Oak Hill Cemetery}}

• Dean Acheson
• Madeleine Albright
• Gamaliel Bailey
• Margaret Lucy Shands Bailey
• James G. Blaine (formerly interred)
• Ben Bradlee
• William P. Burch
• Adolf Cluss
• Lorenzo Dow
• Peggy Eaton
• Roberta Flack
• Katharine Graham
• Joseph Henry
• Herman Hollerith
• Willie Lincoln (formerly interred)
• Myrtilla Miner
• Francis G. Newlands
• Edwin P. Parker Jr.
• Paul J. Pelz
• Charles Anthony Schott
• Mark Shields
• E. D. E. N. Southworth
• Edwin M. Stanton
• Cornelius Stribling

• The cemetery is the setting of the 2017 George Saunders novel Lincoln in the Bardo.
• The cemetery was a part of the plot in the David Baldacci novel The Camel Club.{{Cite web|url=https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=1245371&page=1|title='The Camel Club,' by David Baldacci|date=2009-05-26|website=ABC News|access-date=2017-10-20}}
• A tomb in the cemetery is described as the site of a dead drop in the John Le Carre novel The Perfect Spy.{{Cite web|url=https://georgetownmetropolitan.com/2016/09/12/a-spys-cache|title=A Spy's Cache|website=The Georgetown Metropolitan|access-date=2020-12-31|date=2016-09-12}}
• The cemetery was a part of the plot in the Brad Meltzer novel The Inner Circle
• The cemetery released a history book, "Oak Hill Cemetery" by Laura Lavelle (nee Hackfeld) with Arcadia Publishing on January 22, 2024.

File:Edwin M Stanton grave - Reno Hill section - Oak Hill Cemetery - 2013-09-04.jpg|

File:George Hughes Revercomb grave - Corcoran section - Oak Hill Cemetery - 2013-09-04.jpg|

File:Grave of Dean Acheson - Oak Hill Cemetery - 2013-09-04.jpg|

File:Hollerith Herman grave.jpg|Memorial stone for Herman Hollerith, mathematician and inventor

File:Jesse Lee Reno grave - Reno Hill section - Oak Hill Cemetery - 2013-09-04.jpg|

File:Joseph Willard tomb - Amphitheater section - Oak Hill Cemetery - 2013-09-04.jpg|

File:Looking SE through rock bridge - Amphitheater section - Oak Hill Cemetery - 2013-09-04.jpg|

File:Maxwell VanZandt Woodhull - Rock Creek section - Oak Hill Cemetery - 2013-09-04.jpg|

File:Nathan Loughborough grave - Rock Creek section - Oak Hill Cemetery - 2013-09-04.jpg|

File:Oak Hill Cemetery (2896506880).jpg|

File:Oak Hill Cemetery (2896529580).jpg|

File:Oak Hill Cemetery (2896539950).jpg|

File:Gravestone of john howard payne oak hill cemetery.JPG|

File:Unknown Revolutionary War soldier marker - Oak Hill Cemetery - 2013-09-04.jpg|

File:William McKee Dunn grave - Joyce section - Oak Hill Cemetery - 2013-09-04.jpg|

File:William Pinkney - fifth Episcopal Bishop of MD - Oak Hill Cemetery - 2013-09-04.jpg|

File:Oak Hill Cemetery, Washington, D.C, from Robert N. Dennis collection of stereoscopic views.jpg|

• List of burial places of justices of the Supreme Court of the United States

{{Reflist|2}}

• {{cite book|last=Dodge|first=Andrew R.|title=Biographical Directory of the United States Congress: 1774–2005|location=Washington, D.C.|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|date=2005|isbn=9780160731761|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v9MBIctdjjkC&q=%22Gate+of+Heaven+Cemetery%22+%22Silver+Spring&pg=PA1671}}

{{Commons category|Oak Hill Cemetery}}

{{External media

|video1= [https://www.c-span.org/video/?416366-1/oak-hill-cemetery Oak Hill Cemetery, Dave Jackson], October 4, 2016

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• [http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/wash/dc9.htm National Register of Historic Places Travel Itinerary]
• {{Cite web|url=https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/wash/dc9.htm|title=Washington, DC – Oak Hill Cemetery|website=National Park Service}}

{{Georgetown, Washington, D.C.}}

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Category:1848 establishments in Washington, D.C.

Category:Botanical gardens in Washington, D.C.

Category:Cemeteries in Washington, D.C.

Category:Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)

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Category:Rural cemeteries

Category:Cemeteries established in the 1840s