Self-Guided Walking Tour:
The Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex
Thirteen historic cemeteries. Fifty-two acres. More than 35,000 stories — all within one walkable landscape. This free Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex walking tour map lets you explore at your own pace.
Why These Cemeteries Are Here
In 1803, a yellow fever epidemic killed nearly 200 Alexandria residents. Fearing that crowded in-town burial grounds were spreading disease, city officials banned new burials on any land not designated before March 27, 1804. Churches and burial associations responded by establishing new cemeteries just outside the city limits, on a 52-acre tract known as Spring Garden Farm.
Over the next century those grounds grew side by side, and when Alexandria annexed the area in 1915, the city absorbed what is now the Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex — thirteen adjoining cemeteries, established between 1796 and 1933, preserving more than two centuries of American history in a single square mile.
What’s Inside the Map
All thirteen cemetery locations, eleven notable burials keyed A–K, visitor guidelines, and the story of how the complex came to be. Among the graves you can find on your walk:
…plus Revolutionary veterans, a Boston Tea Party participant, the author of the Fugitive Slave Act, and stories of enslavement, freedom, and justice. Eleven marked graves in all.
The Thirteen Cemeteries · Established 1796–1933
- Douglass Memorial Cemetery (1895)
- Christ Church Cemetery (1808)
- Trinity Cemetery (1809)
- Black Baptist Cemetery (1885)
- Alexandria National Cemetery (1862)
- Methodist Protestant Cemetery (1833)
- Presbyterian Cemetery (1809)
- Union Cemetery (1860)
- Agudas Achim Cemetery (1933)
- Penny Hill Cemetery (1796)
- Home of Peace Cemetery (1860)
- St. Paul’s Cemetery (1809)
- Bethel & Little Bethel (1885)
Plan Your Walk
Location
1475–1501 Wilkes Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
Open daily, dawn to dusk
Parking
Available along Wilkes Street & Hamilton Lane
Metro Access
~1 mile from King Street Metro or free King Street Trolley
The Map Shows You Where.
The Tour Tells You Why.
Many of the graves marked on this map are explored in far greater depth on a 90-minute Gravestone Stories walking tour — led by the historian who documented them.