Meet Alexandria cemetery historian David Heiby, founder of Gravestone Stories, where the city’s buried history comes to life through original research, historical interpretation, and immersive walking tours.
David leads every Gravestone Stories tour, specializing in Alexandria’s historic cemetery landscape and American history from the colonial era through the 19th century. Historian Catherine Weinraub — an expert in Victorian cemeteries, Alexandria’s firefighting heritage, and historic preservation — collaborates with him on special programs and living-history events.
David brings a quarter-century of historical interpretation, more than a decade of original cemetery research, and hands-on preservation experience to his tours. His work connects the people buried in Alexandria’s historic cemeteries with the larger events they witnessed, shaped, and experienced.
David Heiby: Independent Historian and Founder of Gravestone Stories
David Heiby is an independent Alexandria cemetery historian and the founder of Gravestone Stories, a research-driven digital museum dedicated to preserving and sharing the stories buried within Alexandria’s historic cemeteries.
Since 2015, David has served as Superintendent of the Presbyterian Cemetery & Columbarium within the Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex, where his parents, aunt, and uncle rest and where he will one day join them. He combines hands-on preservation work with original historical research, digital interpretation, and highly rated walking tours. His work explores the lives of Revolutionary War patriots, Civil War soldiers, enslaved and free African Americans, political leaders, immigrants, and everyday Alexandrians whose stories shaped both local and American history.
David’s work as a historical interpreter began on the Civil War battlefields of Maryland and West Virginia. He led his first tours of Antietam in the fall of 2001 and has continued for 25 years — interpreting Antietam, South Mountain and Crampton’s Gap, Shepherdstown, and Harpers Ferry, both the September 1862 battle and John Brown’s 1859 raid. He has also led tours of the Fredericksburg battlefields and First and Second Manassas, as well as a nine-hour Lincoln assassination tour following John Wilkes Booth’s escape route from Ford’s Theatre through Southern Maryland to Pope’s Creek on the Potomac.
Many of these tours were organized as fundraisers for the Friends of Fort Ward, chamber of commerce groups, and other organizations, often drawing full buses. That quarter-century of reading historic landscapes for audiences led directly to David’s cemetery work. His first Presbyterian Cemetery tour, in 2012, traced Alexandrians from their graves to the South Mountain and Antietam battlefields where they fought. His Alexandria burial-ground tours have continued ever since, joined by the Lee-Fendall House tours in 2023.
Through Gravestone Stories, David has built an extensive digital public-history resource devoted to Alexandria’s burial grounds, featuring original research, interactive maps, biographies, timelines, archival discoveries, and educational programming. His research led to the identification of the presumptive resting place of Col. George Gilpin, one of George Washington’s honorary pallbearers, in Christ Church Cemetery within the Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex, and to the identification of Philip Richard Fendall I’s grave at Ivy Hill Cemetery.
David also writes a twice-monthly local-history column for the Alexandria Gazette Packet, bringing stories and discoveries from Alexandria’s past to a broader community audience, and has taught at the Lifetime Learning Institute of Northern Virginia.
Today David leads all four Gravestone Stories walking tours: the Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex, Rebellious Scoundrels at the Old Presbyterian Meeting House (where he has worshiped since he was a small boy), From Enslavement to Justice, and the Cemetery Stories of the Lee-Fendall House. He also gives expert talks and living-history portrayals, including Mayor E. E. Downham at the Lee-Fendall House.
David serves as Treasurer of the Virginia Trust for Historic Preservation, which owns and operates the Lee-Fendall House Museum & Garden, and is Treasurer of the Alexandria Historical Society. He is also a member of Alexandria’s America250 Committee and of the Alexandria Archaeology Commission’s Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex Committee.
Before launching Gravestone Stories in 2022, David spent much of his professional career in business and entrepreneurship, including serving as CEO and President of an international hand-tool company selling to major retailers in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. That experience now informs the independent, research-driven approach he brings to Gravestone Stories.
“Where history lives — and discoveries still happen.”
Catherine Weinraub: Historian, Preservationist, and Collaborating Guide
Catherine Weinraub brings Alexandria’s past to life through compelling narratives and extensive historical research. Her professional background includes work with the Office of Historic Alexandria, George Washington’s Mount Vernon, and Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial.
She currently serves as Historian for the Ivy Hill Cemetery Historical Preservation Society, where she successfully led the effort to have Ivy Hill Cemetery listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2024. Initiating the process in 2022, Catherine coordinated research with the National Park Service and academic partners to secure this prestigious designation, ensuring lasting recognition for one of Alexandria’s most historic landscapes. She also serves as Historian for the Friendship Veterans Fire Engine Association, and in 2023 she authored Friendship Fire Company 250th Anniversary 1774-2024 Alexandria, Virginia, a book commemorating the city’s firefighting heritage and its longest-serving volunteer fire company.
Catherine now leads her acclaimed Ivy Hill Cemetery tours — Victorian funeral customs, the historic receiving vault, and the notable lives who shaped Alexandria — directly through the Ivy Hill Cemetery Historical Preservation Society. Visit the Society’s website for their current tour schedule.
With Gravestone Stories, Catherine joins David as a collaborating guide for special tours and programs, and the two work together on living-history events at the Lee-Fendall House Museum, where her expertise in Victorian-era mourning customs meets his portrayals of nineteenth-century Alexandria.
Book Your Tour Today
Every Gravestone Stories tour is led by Alexandria cemetery historian David Heiby: book the Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex tour on Viator, watch for Rebellious Scoundrels dates on our Tours page, arrange From Enslavement to Justice or a private group tour through our request form, and find the Cemetery Stories of the Lee-Fendall House through the museum. For Catherine’s Ivy Hill Cemetery tours, book directly with the Ivy Hill Cemetery Historical Preservation Society.
