Prospect Hill Cemetery

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This small cemetery associated with Concordia Church, located between 4th, 5th, G and H Streets, NE was filling fast upon its establishment in the mid-1800s. As with other cemeteries at the time, District law forbade the expansion of burying grounds within Washington City limits. However, plenty of available land existed in Washington County. The German Evangelical Society purchased seventeen acres along what is now Lincoln Road immediately south of Glenwood Cemetery, established only four years earlier.

Prospect Hill is notable for its distinctive design that embodies the Romantic landscape architecture of the Victorian era. It is a relatively early example of the garden cemeteries created and popularized in the United States beginning in the 1830s. The picturesqueness of its plan and the arrangement and character of its markers and mausoleums are similar to the adjacent Glenwood Cemetery (1854) and nearby Saint Mary's Catholic Cemetery (1869). The collection of markers are notable as well: marble or limestone headstones became ubiquitous in this region during the mid nineteenth century.  Later, the inclusion of larger and more elaborate monuments (including sculpture based headstones) began to appear in the cemetery. 

Today, Prospect Hill remains an active cemetery and has moved away from exclusively Lutheran burials to accept secular ceremonies. 

DC Inventory: March 24, 2005