Among the Founders: Revolutionary War Patriots Buried in Alexandria
When the Revolution ended, its survivors came home — and hundreds came home. Among the Founders is your free America 250 guide to the Revolutionary War patriots buried in Alexandria — the founding generation resting in the city’s historic burial grounds.
A City of Founders
George Washington’s hometown became the resting place for an extraordinary concentration of the men and women who helped build the American republic: Continental Army officers who fought at Valley Forge and Yorktown, merchant patriots who funded the cause, physicians who saved its soldiers, and tradesmen who served in local militias.
Our registry documents 162 Revolutionary War patriots across 13 historic burial grounds — 46 within the Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex alone. Many served directly with Washington: his physicians, pallbearers, business partners, and neighbors. To walk among their graves is to understand Washington not as a monument, but as a man.
Selected Figures from the Registry
The guide profiles patriots across every role in the founding — Washington’s inner circle, the founders of Alexandria, Boston Tea Party participants, women patriots, and the forgotten:
…plus John Carlyle, William Ramsay, Fairfax Resolves signer Robert Adam, Dr. Elisha Cullen Dick, Joseph Harris, and an Unknown Kentucky Soldier whose name, rank, and unit are lost to history.
Cemeteries on This Tour
- Presbyterian Cemetery
- Christ Church Cemetery (Wilkes St.)
- Trinity Methodist Cemetery
- Methodist Protestant Cemetery
- St. Paul’s Cemetery
- Penny Hill Cemetery
Special tours of the Old Presbyterian Meeting House sanctuary and 18th-century burial ground are also available — one mile east in Old Town. See the Rebellious Scoundrels guide.
The Tour at a Glance
Meet
Wilkes St & Hamilton Ave
Alexandria, VA 22314
Format
Expert-led narrative at each gravesite
Approximately 90 minutes
Groups
Public tours · Private groups by arrangement
Walk Among Washington’s Neighbors
His physicians, pallbearers, business partners — the men and women who built a nation, and never left. Join the researcher who documented them.