Rock Creek Cemetery is an 86-acre (350,000 m2) cemetery with a natural and rolling landscape located at Rock Creek Church Road, NW, and Webster Street, NW, off Hawaii Avenue, NE, in the Petworth neighborhood of Washington, D.C., United States. It is across the street from the historic Soldiers' Home and the Soldiers' Home Cemetery. It also is home to the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington. On August 12, 1977, Rock Creek Cemetery and the adjacent church grounds were listed on the National Register of Historic Places as, Rock Creek Church Yard and Cemetery.
The cemetery was first established in 1719, under the British colony of the Province of Maryland, as a churchyard within the glebe of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Rock Creek Parish. Later, the Vestry decided to expand the burial ground as a public cemetery to serve the city of Washington, D.C., which had acquired the cemetery, within its district boundaries as established in 1791, formerly, being a part of the state of Maryland, and formally established through an Act of Congress in 1840.
An expanded cemetery was landscaped in the rural garden style, to function as both a cemetery and a public park. It is a ministry of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Rock Creek Parish, with sections for St. John's Russian Orthodox Church and St. Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral.
The park-like setting of Rock Creek Cemetery has many notable mausoleums, sculptures, and tombstones. The best known is the Adams Memorial, a contemplative, androgynous bronze sculpture seated before a block of granite that was created by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Stanford White. It marks the graves of Marian Hooper 'Clover' Adams and her husband, Henry Adams, and sometimes, mistakenly, the sculpture is referred to as Grief. Saint-Gaudens entitled it The Mystery of the Hereafter and The Peace of God that Passeth Understanding.
Other notable memorials include the Frederick Keep Monument, the Heurich Mausoleum, the Hitt Monument, the Hardon Monument, the Kauffman Monument that is known as The Seven Ages of Memory, the Sherwood Mausoleum Door, and the Thompson-Harding Monument.
Gutzon Borglum, Rabboni-Ffoulke Memorial, 1909James Earle Fraser, Frederick Keep Monument, 1920Laura Gardin Fraser, Hitt Memorial, 1931William Ordway Partridge, Kauffmann Memorial, also known as Seven Ages or Memory, 1897Brenda Putnam, Simon Memorial, 1917Vinnie Ream, Edwin B. Hay Monument, 1906Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Adams Memorial, 1890Mary Washburn, Waite Memorial, 1908Adolph Alexander Weinman, Spencer Memorial, after 1919Numerous fine works by unknown sculptors also exist in the cemetery.
Cleveland Abbe (1838–1916), prominent American meteorologist (section M)John James Abert (1788–1863), Chief of the Corps of Topographical EngineersHenry Adams (1838–1918), American writer, descendant of two U.S. presidents; grave is marked by the Adams Memorial (section E)Clover Hooper Adams (1843–1885), Washington hostess and accomplished amateur photographer, wife of Henry Adams; grave is marked by the Adams Memorial (section E)Alice Warfield Allen (1869–1929), mother of the Duchess of Windsor, Wallis Simpson (section G)Doug Allison (1846–1916), American baseball playerFrank Crawford Armstrong (1835–1909), Confederate generalTimothy P. Andrews (1794–1868), Union Army general and paymaster-general of the United States Army (1862-1864)James B. Aswell (1869–1931), American educator and member of the House of Representatives from 1913 to 1931Abraham Baldwin (1754–1807), Yale graduate, U.S. Senator, attorney, signer of the U.S. Constitution, first president of the University of Georgia (section E)Cecil A. Beasley, Alabama State Senator.Melville Bell (1819–1905), Scottish teacher and inventor, father of Alexander Graham Bell, Hubbard Bell Grossman Pillot Memorial (section A)Andrew H. Berding, journalist and former Assistant Secretary of State for Public AffairsEmile Berliner (1851–1929), German-born American inventor of the gramophone (section M)Montgomery Blair (1813–1883), Lincoln's Postmaster General (section A)Robert C. Buchanan (1811–1878), American military general during the American Civil War and the Mexican WarEdward Clark (1822–1902), Architect of the CapitolCatherine Cate Coblentz (1897–1951), writer, wife of William Coblentz (section O)William Coblentz (1873–1962), American physicist, notable for pioneer contributions to infrared radiometry and spectroscopy (section O)S. Wallace Dempsey (1862–1949), American Republican politicianHubert Dilger (1836–1911), American Civil War artillerist, captain in the Union Army, Medal of Honor recipientGerald A. Drew (1903–1970) United States Ambassador to Haiti and BoliviaMatthew Gault Emery (1818–1901), mayor of Washington, D.C., from 1870 to 1871Charles S. Fairfax (1829–1869), Virginia-born California politician who was entitled to the British title 10th Lord Fairfax of CameronStephen Johnson Field (1816–1899), American associate justice of Supreme Court (section A)Peter Force (1790–1868), American politician, American lieutenant in the War of 1812, newspaper editor, archivist, and historian, who served as the twelfth mayor of Washington, D.C., and whose library of historical documents became the first major Americana collection of the Library of Congress (section B)Israel Moore Foster (1873–1950), American Republican Representative in CongressWilliam H. French (1815–1881), American military major general during the American Civil War and the Mexican War (section B)Julius Garfinckel (1872–1936), American merchant, founder of Washington department store, Garfinckel'sGilbert Hovey Grosvenor (1875–1966), president of the National Geographic Society, Hubbard Bell Grossman Pillot Memorial (section A)John Marshall Harlan (1833–1911), American Supreme Court associate justice, known as the "Great Dissenter;" he wrote the lone dissenting opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson (section R-11)Patricia Roberts Harris (1924–1985), Ambassador, first African-American woman to serve in a presidential cabinet (section 20)George L. Harrison (1887–1958), American banker, insurance executive, and political advisor during The Second World WarFrank Hatton (1846–1894), U.S. Postmaster General and editor of the Washington Post (section B)Christian Heurich (1842–1945), German-born American founder of Heurich Brewery (1871–1954)Samuel Billingsley Hill (1875–1958), U.S. Representative from Washington and member of the United States Board of Tax Appeals (now the United States Tax Court)William Henry Holmes (1846–1933), known for scientific illustration of the American West, his role in controversy over the antiquity of humans in the Americas, and leadership at the Smithsonian Institution (section M)Charles Francis Jenkins (1867–1934), American television and motion picture pioneer (section 10)Nelson T. Johnson (1887–1954), American ambassadorJames Kimbrough Jones (1839–1908), American politicianJohn Johnson (1842–1907), Medal of Honor recipientSamuel H. Kauffmann (1829–1906) newspaper publisherOliver Hudson Kelley (1826–1913), a founder of the Order of the Patrons of Husbandry (The Grange) (section I)Sergei Kourdakov (1951–1973), a former KGB agent and defector from the Soviet Union to CanadaJane Lawton (1944–2007), Maryland Democratic politician, member of the Maryland House of DelegatesBlair Lee, III (1916–1985), American Democratic politicianGeorge E. Lemon (?–1896), Patent lawyer and founder the journal National TribuneWalter Lenox (1817–1874), mayor of Washington from 1850 to 1852John Lenthall (1807-1882), American naval architect and shipbuilder, Chief Constructor of the Navy from 1849 to 1853 and chief of the United States Navy's Bureau of Construction and Repair from 1853 to 1871Fulton Lewis (1903–1966), American radio and television broadcasterAlice Roosevelt Longworth (1884–1980), Republican Party icon, daughter of Theodore Roosevelt (section F)Anthony Francis Lucas (1855–1921), Croatian-born mechanical engineerAnna Broom McCeney (1850–1903), Mother of vaudeville performer La Belle Titcomb (Heloise McCeney)Hugh McCulloch (1808-1895), Secretary of the Treasury (section B)George McGovern (1922-2012), Democratic presidential nominee in 1972 and senator from South Dakota (section O)Dempster McIntosh (1896–1984), American ambassadorEvalyn Walsh McLean (1886–1947), wealthy heiress, one-time owner of the Hope Diamond and the Washington Post (section L)Washington McLean (1816–1890), businessman, owner of the Cincinnati Enquirer newspaperJohn Gordon Mein (1913-1968), American ambassadorMihran Mesrobian (1889-1975), Armenian-American architectThomas Nelson Page (1853-1922), Southern writer and ambassador to Italy (section L)William Paret (1826–1911), sixth Episcopalian Bishop of MarylandRosalie Mackenzie Poe (1810–1874), sister of Edgar Allan Poe (section D)Terence Powderly (1849–1924), longtime leader of the Knights of Labor (section I)Robert Prosky (1930–2008), Polish-American actor (section M)John B. Raymond (1844–1886), American politicianIsidor Rayner (1850–1912), American Democratic politician, member of the SenateGeorge Washington Riggs (1813–1881), American banker, founder of Riggs Bank (section D)William A. Rodenberg (1865–1937), American politicianFrederick Rodgers (1842–1917), United States Navy rear admiralTim Russert (1950–2008), American journalist, host of Meet the Press (section C)Alexander Robey Shepherd (1835–1902), American politician, governor of District of Columbia from 1873 to 1874Thetus W. Sims (1852–1939), American politician and a member of the United States House of Representatives for the eighth congressional district of Tennessee from 1897 to 1921 Upton Sinclair (1878–1968), American author, Pulitzer Prize winner (section 17)Ainsworth Rand Spofford (1825–1908), American journalist and publisher, sixth Librarian of the United States Congress from 1864 to 1897 (section E)Harlan Fiske Stone (1872–1946), Chief Justice of the United States (section A)Paulina Longworth Sturm (1925–1957), daughter of Alice Roosevelt and granddaughter of Theodore RooseveltAbner Taylor (1829–1903), American politicianGeorge Taylor (1820–1894), American attorney and Democratic politicianThomas Weston Tipton (1817–1899), U.S. Senator from NebraskaAriadna Tyrkova-Williams (1869–1962), Russian-American writer and journalistTran Van Chuong (1898–1986), South Vietnam's Ambassador to the U.S., appointed by Ngo Dinh DiemWillis Van Devanter (1859–1941), Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (section R-11)Gore Vidal (1925–2012), author and playwright, next to his best friend and companion of 50 years Howard Austen. (section E)Charles Doolittle Walcott (1850–1927), Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution (section L)Paul Warnke (1920–2001), American Diplomat, Assistant Secretary of State from 1966–1969; SALT Negotiator and Director of the Arms Control and disarmament Agency under President ClintonSumner Welles (1892–1961), American diplomat, Under Secretary of State from 1937 to 1943 (section 8)Burton K. Wheeler (1882–1975), American Democratic politician and U.S. Senator (section 30)James Alexander Williamson (1829–1902), Union Army general during the American Civil War, Medal of Honor recipientRichard L. Wilson (1905–1981), American journalistWilliam Windom (1827–1891), U.S. Congressman, Senator, Secretary of the Treasury (under Garfield & Harrison) (section B)Otis Wingo (1877–1930), U.S. representative from Arkansas's 4th congressional district, 1913-1930Helen Yakobson, (1913-2002) academic and professor at George Washington University
