Fallen tombstones at Congressional Cemetery

Good morning, DMV. It’s Tuesday, Oct. 27.

One evening earlier this month, I was walking the grounds at Congressional Cemetery during the Soul Strolls historical theater event when a fellow audience member pointed out to their friend the fallen gravestones across the grounds.

I glanced around as we continued our theatrical tour through the cemetery. Indeed, many tombstones had toppled. How and why? I reached out to Congressional Cemetery to ask.

Many headstones and monuments at the cemetery are in need of conservation, repair and cleaning as a result of the “natural ravages of time — the effects of outdoor conditions, the heaving of the ground from the burials beneath and other factors,” the cemetery’s executive director Mark Hudson responded in an email.

“In some cases, headstones have been lowered intentionally by cemetery staff to ensure they do not fall in a manner that could cause personal injury or damage to the stone. Instances of vandalism are fortunately rare.”

The 35-acre nonprofit cemetery was founded in 1807, and more than 67,000 people are interred or memorialized on the grounds. A 2022 assessment identified more than 10,000 headstones and monuments in need of care, including new foundations, uprighting, conservation or surface cleaning, Hudson said, adding that the estimated cost for this work exceeds $10 million.

“These conditions are due to the age of the cemetery and the fact that we have not operated as a perpetual care cemetery. A lack of institutional resources resulted in decades of deferred maintenance throughout the site,” he said.

The cemetery’s website explains that as it is a nonprofit organization, perpetual care is not collected from the families of the deceased or included in the price as it would be in a traditional for-profit setting.

“The good news is that we are moving forward swiftly with this work,” he said. “We have committed over $100,000 each year toward stone conservation and are vigorously fundraising to ensure we can sustain and accelerate this effort. At the same time, we have completed a master planning process that includes projects to address site underlying conditions that cause headstone foundations to fail and stones to topple.”

He encouraged anyone interested in learning more about the stone conservation program and master plan to contact him.

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