The Gravestone Stories
E-Book Library
The research on this site is free, and always will be. These Alexandria history e-books gather it into curated, book-length editions — designed pages, featured stories, and complete registries you can read offline, print, search, or give. Each arrives instantly as a PDF after checkout.
A Guide to Alexandria’s Historic Cemeteries & Burial Grounds
New to Alexandria’s burial grounds? Begin here. One illustrated visitor’s guide to the whole landscape — the thirteen cemeteries of the Wilkes Street Complex with the full walking map, a timeline of burial in Alexandria from 1749 to today, the Old Town churchyards, the African American burial grounds, six lives behind the stones from the Unknown Soldier of the Revolution to Gladys Quander Tancil, and a field guide to reading gravestone symbols. The front door to everything else in this library.
Gravestone Stories is an independently researched public-history project documenting Alexandria’s historic cemeteries, burial grounds, and the lives of those buried in them. The research and online resources on this site are freely available to everyone — purchasing this digital guide helps support continuing research, website costs, and the development of new historical resources. This guide is offered Pay What You Want (minimum $5.00) — if you would like to provide additional support, simply choose a higher amount at checkout. Thank you for helping keep Alexandria’s stories accessible.
The Presbyterian Cemetery: Lives Behind the Stones
The flagship volume of the series — nearly one hundred lives from Alexandria’s historic Wilkes Street burial ground. Revolutionary War veterans and the mayor who bore Washington’s casket; the reconnaissance officer blamed for Gettysburg; a Cold War Soviet spy; the McKnights, Cazenoves, and families whose names still mark the city’s streets — with gravestone inscriptions transcribed exactly as carved, plot locations throughout, and a complete history of the cemetery from the 1803 Yellow Fever epidemic to the 1903 Victorian gate.
Revolutionary War Patriots Buried in Alexandria
The most comprehensive accounting of Revolutionary War burials in Alexandria ever assembled: 162 documented patriots across 13 historic burial grounds, from Washington’s physician and pallbearers to his personal gunsmith and two Boston Tea Party participants — with featured stories, the 22 soldiers who died at Alexandria in 1777, and the complete cemetery-by-cemetery registry.
War of 1812 Veterans Buried in Alexandria
The most comprehensive accounting of War of 1812 burials in Alexandria ever assembled: 53 documented veterans across 8 historic cemeteries — from the two Alexandrians known to have been killed at the Battle of the White House and the last survivor, who lived until 1875, to the naval hero of the USS Hornet, General John Mason, who sent Francis Scott Key to Fort McHenry, and the civilian vindicated of treason after 210 years — with featured stories and the complete registry, the companion to Revolutionary War Patriots Buried in Alexandria.
The Old Presbyterian Meeting House Burial Ground
The complete story of Alexandria’s 18th-century Presbyterian churchyard — the founding generation’s resting place, from the oldest grave (1761) to the last interment (1876). The history of the ground, the lost northern strip, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the American Revolution, and profiles of twenty-nine notable interments including John Carlyle, Dr. James Craik, and gunsmith John Yost, with the surviving gravestone inscriptions transcribed throughout.
Christ Church Episcopal Cemetery: Lives Behind the Stones
Profiles from Alexandria’s historic 1808 churchyard on Wilkes Street — Caroline Branham, Martha Washington’s enslaved chambermaid, present at Washington’s deathbed; a Boston Tea Party participant and his son, the Confederacy’s highest-ranking general; the craftsman who built Washington’s coffin; and four generations of the Lee family, twenty-six Lees in all — with gravestone inscriptions transcribed exactly as carved and plot locations throughout.
St. Paul’s Episcopal Cemetery: Lives Behind the Stones
Notable burials in Alexandria’s historic 1809 cemetery — the Female Stranger, whose unmarked identity makes hers the most visited grave in the city; Wilmer McLean, who watched the Civil War begin at Bull Run and end in his Appomattox parlor; Confederate generals Corse and De Lagnel; the artillery captain behind the “Great Skedaddle”; and the Everleigh sisters of Chicago’s most notorious brothel — with gravestone inscriptions transcribed exactly as carved and plot locations throughout.
Alexandria National Cemetery: Civil War & USCT Heroes
Established in 1862 — two years before Arlington — and the resting place of more than 4,230 souls. The occupied city of thirty wartime hospitals that filled it; Corporal Marsh, mortally wounded in the burning Wilderness; the Union deserter whose death warrant Lincoln signed; the Fort Lyon powder magazine explosion; and the December 1864 petition in which 443 wounded United States Colored Troops demanded burial beside their white comrades — one of America’s earliest civil rights protests, and the act that made this the nation’s first integrated federal military burial ground. With section and site locations throughout.
Faith & Burial in Early Alexandria
Before Alexandria had cemeteries, it had convictions. How the Anglican establishment and the fight for religious freedom shaped where the early city buried its dead — with full treatments of three historic burial grounds: the Quaker Burial Ground, where Dr. Elisha Cullen Dick, the physician at Washington’s deathbed, lies beneath the library lawn; Trinity United Methodist Church Cemetery, the 1808 ground holding a ratifier of the U.S. Constitution, eight Revolutionary War veterans, and the man behind the famous Spite House; and Home of Peace, Virginia’s oldest Jewish cemetery — with gravestone inscriptions transcribed as carved and an annotated map of Old Town’s burial sites.
Symbols & Superstitions: Reading Alexandria’s Gravestones
The two languages of every historic burial ground in one field guide — the carved symbolism the dead left behind, and the traditions the living still carry through the gates. Part I opens with the Victorian beautification of death movement, then catalogs twenty-seven gravestone symbols and their meanings, from the acorn to the winged skull. Part II turns to the customs visitors ask about most: the coin code on military graves, the Gullah oyster shell tradition and its quiet presence in the Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex, the protective origins of mourning black, the Victorian language of funeral flowers, and the wrought iron fence the Presbyterian Cemetery raised after an actual 1903 grave robbing — with Alexandria examples throughout.
Tour Companion — The Official Book of the Walking Tour
The Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex: A Walking Companion
The official companion to our flagship walking tour — twenty-two stops in walking order across six historic burial grounds, from Washington’s rediscovered pallbearer to the first integrated national cemetery to the oldest federal monument in the United States. Each stop reads in under a minute, every story links to the full research, and the complete two-panel walking map is included — along with the history of why these cemeteries exist and companion guides to all four Gravestone Stories tours. Tour guests receive this book free — ask your guide.
Secure checkout is handled by Payhip — pay with PayPal or any major credit card, and your download link arrives by email the moment the purchase completes. New Alexandria history e-books are added as the research behind them is completed. You can also browse the full shop at payhip.com/GravestoneStories.
The Research Behind These Alexandria History E-Books — Free on This Site
- Presbyterian Cemetery Distinguished Stories (A–G · H–N · O–Z)The three-part research series behind the flagship volume
- Presbyterian Cemetery History & BibliographyThe cemetery’s full history and sources
- Alexandria Revolutionary War PatriotsThe living registry — updated as research continues
- Notable Interments in the Meeting House Burial GroundThe churchyard research, in full
- Christ Church Episcopal Cemetery: Lives InterredThe profiles behind the new volume
- St. Paul’s Cemetery Notable BurialsThe profiles behind the new volume
- Alexandria National Cemetery: Civil War & USCT HeroesThe research behind the new volume
- Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex Self-Guided Walking MapThe free map behind the tour companion
- Free Walking Tour Guides & BrochuresPrintable trifolds for every tour
Read the Stories.
Then Walk the Ground.
Every page in these books grew out of the research behind our expert-led walking tours. The books travel with you — the tours put you at the gravesides.